Page 67 of The Sugar and Spice Bookshop Bakery

‘Steady on,’ he says, laughing.

She shrugs. ‘You need to get out of those wet jeans. Don’t want you catching cold.’

He obligingly peels off the jeans, then he kisses just below her bottom lip, and then her chin. She tilts her head back, exposing her neck, and he plants a series of kisses going down, over her Adam’s apple. Louise shivers again, anticipating where his lips are heading. She feels her nipples growing hard under the lace of her bra, wonders if he’ll stop before he reaches them or…

What if Maddie walks in now?

‘Shall we… shall we move to the bedroom?’

‘There’s no rush. I like to take things slowly. Very slowly. Until you’re begging me…’

‘I am begging. I’m begging that we move to the bedroom in case Maddie comes home.’

‘I didn’t mean that kind of begging, but I hear you. Lead the way.’

Louise grabs her discarded jumper, takes his hand, and leads him towards her bedroom door. They’re almost inside when there’s a crash.

‘What on earth was that?’ Louise covers herself with the jumper and rushes back out, to the front window.

‘What’s happened?’

It’s dark outside now. She cups her hands around her eyes, and looks down at the pavement, but she can’t see clearly.

‘I dunno.’ She puts on the jumper. ‘I’d better go and look.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

Jack pulls on his clothes and they race down the stairs, and out into the night air. The lovely autumnal pots that Maddie had placed on the pavement outside the bakery have been knocked over. One of them has smashed and there’s soil all over the pavement.

‘Someone tripped over them, that’s all,’ Jack says. ‘I’ll clear it up in the morning.’

‘I don’t think this was an accident. Someone kicked over the A board the other day.’

‘Yeah, and that could have been an accident too.’

‘Or someone’s got it in for me?’

‘Nah.’ He shakes his head. ‘You read too many books.’

‘There’s no such thing as reading too many books.’ She smiles at him, wanting to shake off the ominous feeling she has that someone has done this deliberately. Perhaps she’s just being paranoid. Understandable really, given that Sheila is getting hate mail and that in the back of the book that has caused all this vitriol, she’s named as the editor.

‘If it was deliberate,’ she says as they head back upstairs to the flat, ‘whoever it is will have a field day if they find your glass dome in the garden.’

‘It was an accident,’ he says. ‘That’s all. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll stay over tonight. Keep you safe.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘No sex, mind.’

She smiles. ‘Yeah, I know. You wouldn’t want to take advantage.’

Twenty-Three

‘Shall I make some tea?’ Jack asks.

‘Tea?’

‘It’s good for shock, isn’t it?’