A Special Kind of Woman

by Caroline Anderson

  She looked down at the menu, then up at him again. ‘Um—if you’ve got time, I wouldn’t mind something light.’

  ‘Have whatever. I’m going for a truly wicked fry-up.’

  Her eyes widened, and then she laughed, a low, musical sound that played hell with his composure. ‘Comfort food?’ she said wryly, and he chuckled.

  ‘Something like that. Plus I don’t have Josh nagging me. He’s a health-food freak. How he’ll survive in halls I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Milly will be in clover. My cooking’s hit and miss at the best of times, and most of the time I’m too busy to worry. I can’t remember when I last cooked anything like a roast—well, apart from last night, but it was sort of the Last Supper and the Prodigal Son all rolled into one, if you get my drift.’

  He did. He’d done just the same thing, only they’d gone out to a restaurant and then on to a pub and caught a taxi home, both a little the worse for wear and a bit subdued this morning.

  The waiter brought their coffee, and Owen poured them both a cup and sat back, stirring his cream in absently and thinking about Josh and how odd it was going to be at home without him.

  ‘So, what do you do that keeps you so busy?’ he asked with deliberate cheer, changing the subject, and she laughed and rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’ve got a shop, for my sins—I hire and make ball gowns, and occasionally wedding dresses. It’s a bit seasonal, but there’s usually a steady flow of work. The balls are winter and the weddings are summer, in the main, so it pans out quite well. What about you?’

  ‘I’m a doctor—a surgeon,’ he told her. ‘I cut up people instead of fabric. It’s easier than your job. People heal.’

  It made Cait laugh. ‘True, but I can buy new fabric if I make a mess, and I can always make a mock-up,’ she pointed out, and he smiled.

  ‘I’ll have to concede that one. I can’t see me waking a patient up and saying, “OK, that was just a dummy run, now we’ll do the real thing.”’

  Her smile was gorgeous. Too wide, really, but her teeth were even and sparkling, and her nose wrinkled up when she laughed. She really used the whole of her face. Every muscle of it was involved in her spontaneous expressions.

  She’d be a lousy poker player, Owen thought slowly, but she’d be incredible to make love to. Every touch, every stroke would find an echo in that wonderfully mobile face and those incredible eyes.

  He shifted slightly in his seat, aware of the stirrings of a need he hadn’t felt in years. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, and his breath jammed in his lungs. He dragged his eyes from her face and down to the menu, scanning it blindly for a moment until his eyes focused. Then he chose the most wicked thing he could find and stuck the menu back in the holder.

  ‘I’m ready when you are,’ he told her, his voice sounding strangled, and the double meaning hit him like a tram. Oh, hell. He hoped she wasn’t looking at him, because for a brief, terrifying second he was sure his thoughts were clearly written on his face—and they were seriously, seriously X-rated!

  Cait was starving.

  Owen had chosen what he was having and had put his menu down, but she was torn between the toast and pâté she’d spotted at first and the wonderful illustration of golden crispy chicken and chips with a side salad. It was horribly expensive by comparison, but what the heck. She could afford to splash out every once in a while, and it was a rather unique occasion, if not exactly special in the accepted sense!

  ‘I can’t decide,’ she murmured, but her eyes strayed back to the chicken and chips. ‘I was going to have the pâté, but this looks so tempting…’

  ‘Go for it,’ he advised, taking the menu out of her hand. ‘Stop worrying. Instinct is a wonderful thing.’

  ‘So it is. OK, I’ll go for it.’

  She looked up into his face, but it was expressionless, apart from a polite smile that told her nothing. He hailed the waiter, ordered their meal and topped up her coffee.

  She stirred the cream into it, chasing a bubble round the top, and then looked up at him again, surprising an unguarded look that made her breath catch in her throat.

  No. She was imagining it. Of course he hadn’t looked at her like that.

  ‘So, where do you live?’ she asked to fill the silence, and then wondered if that was too intrusive a question to ask on such brief acquaintance. Apparently not, because Owen volunteered the information without a flicker.

  ‘Just south of Audley—about ten miles out, a little bit west of Wenham Market.’

  ‘That’s near me,’ she said, and wondered if she sounded hopelessly over-eager. That would be embarrassing. Just because he’d said there was no one waiting that didn’t mean there was no one in his life. Maybe she was away, perhaps on business. Oh, blast.

  ‘Near you?’ he said. ‘The shop or your house?’

  ‘Both. That’s where the shop is, in the square, between the antique shop and the butcher, and we live in the flat above it.’

  ‘It’s a nice little town—or is it a village?’

  Cait laughed softly. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure they can decide. We’ve got a village hall, but it’s quite big for a village and it’s got lots of shops. I’d say it was more of a town, in a way.’

  ‘It’s got lots of character. I envy you in a way. It’s a bit isolated where we are. It’s all part of its essential charm, but it’s also one of the greatest drawbacks.’

  ‘Is it an old house?’ she asked, slightly appalled at her curiosity, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘Yes and no,’ he said confusingly, and then elaborated with a smile. ‘It’s a converted barn—so the barn itself is old, but it’s only been a house for a short while. Six years or so, I think. I bought it three years ago, after my wife died.’

  Cait felt shock run over her like iced water. Not away on business, then, she thought numbly, and shook her head in denial. ‘Oh, Owen, I’m so sorry,’ she murmured.

  ‘Why should you be sorry?’ he said softly. ‘It’s just one of those things. It was quick, at least. She didn’t suffer. She had a burst blood vessel in the brain—she must have died almost instantly.’

  ‘Oh, Owen,’ she said again. ‘How awful for you. Was she at home?’

  ‘No. She was in the car. She’d pulled over but the engine was still running. A witness said she pulled up, slumped over and that was it. They discovered the haemorrhage at post-mortem.’

  How hideous for them. How horribly sudden and violent and unexpected. She felt tears prickle at the back of her eyes and blinked them away. ‘It must have been dreadful,’ she said, choked. ‘How did Josh take it?’

  Owen laughed, a short, humourless huff of sound. ‘Not well. He was fourteen at the time. He was furious with her.’

  ‘And the others—are there any others?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. No others. Just me and Josh.’

  ‘Chicken and chips?’

  They both looked up, slightly startled, to see the waiter hovering over them with two plates.

  ‘Um—yes, thank you,’ Cait said, moving her cup out of the way and letting his revelation sink in. The waiter left them, and without thinking she reached out her hand and covered his. ‘Owen—thanks for telling me about it.’

  His grin was crooked and a little off-key. ‘That’s OK. I don’t usually talk about it. I’m sorry to unravel on you like that. I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

  ‘Yes, you should. She was a part of your life for years. You can’t just not talk about her as if she didn’t exist.’

  He met her steady gaze, gratitude at her understanding showing in his amber eyes, and then he smiled a little sadly. ‘Thank you for that. You’re right, but most people don’t see it that way. It makes them uncomfortable.’

  ‘That’s silly.’

  ‘Maybe. Eat your chicken and chips.’

  She looked at his plate, heaped with what looked for all the world like a truly wicked Sunday breakfast, and had a sudden urge to dunk her chip in his egg yolk.
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  ‘Go on, then, if you must.’

  ‘What?’ She looked up, startled, to find him laughing softly at her.

  ‘Dunk your chips in my egg.’

  The smile wouldn’t be held in. ‘That’s so rude of me. How did you know?’

  ‘Something to do with the longing look you gave it?’

  Oh, lord. She’d better not direct any longing looks at him, then. He was altogether too good at picking them up!

  She reached over, the chip in her fingers, and pierced the golden yolk. ‘Oh, yum,’ she mumbled round the mouthful, and he laughed again.

  ‘One more, and that’s your lot,’ he said firmly, and she indulged herself one last time before turning her attention to the fragrant, steaming plateful of chicken in front of her.

  Within a few minutes she’d demolished it, and sat back with a huge sigh of contentment. ‘Oh, wow,’ she said with a grin. ‘Excellent.’

  He speared the last mushroom and chewed it thoughtfully, then smiled back. ‘How about a pud?’

  ‘That’s too wicked!’ She laughed. ‘Anyway, I’ll burst.’

  ‘How horribly messy. We’d better avoid that at all costs. Another coffee?’

  She shook her head, reality coming back to her. She had work to do before she opened the shop in the morning, and it was already after seven. Besides, the cat would be hungry and would take the hump and go off in a sulk if she didn’t get back soon.

  ‘I ought to go,’ she told him, and he nodded.

  ‘OK.’ He looked up and caught the waiter’s eye, and a bill appeared a moment later.

  ‘Could you please split it?’ she asked him, but Owen shook his head.

  ‘No. Leave it. Here.’ He counted out a pile of notes, told the man to keep the change and ushered her out.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she protested, but he just smiled.

  ‘Yes, I should. I talked you into it—and, anyway, it was a pleasure having your company.’ He walked her to her car, and as she reached it he looked down into her eyes and searched them in silence for a moment.

  ‘Thank you for rescuing me from the doldrums,’ she said, a touch breathlessly, and he smiled, just a slight shift of his lips in the harsh glare of the outside lights. His eyes were in shadow, but they seemed to burn with an inner fire that she didn’t dare interpret.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he murmured, and before she could move or speak or even blink, he bent his head and brushed her lips with his. ‘Goodnight, Cait. Take care.’

  He slipped a card into her hand. ‘Here. This is my number. Ring me if you need anything.’

  Then he was gone, his long legs striding round his car. He slid behind the wheel and waited for her to get into her car, then once she was settled and pulled forward a fraction, he raised a hand in farewell and followed her out of the car park.

  His lights trailed her all the way home, then as she pulled up they flashed a couple of times and he drove away.

  How chivalrous, she thought with a tiny smile, and then looked up at the dark window in her flat over the shop. Oh, lord. No Milly to nag and bully and hug. None of her various friends to trip over, no festering coffee-mugs on Milly’s bedroom window-sill, no frenzied searching for a bag, a phone, a piece of paper.

  Just silence.

  Cait braced herself, and got out of the car. It was time to start the rest of her life.

  She slid her hand into her pocket to pull out her house keys, and the sharp corner of Owen’s card scratched the palm of her hand. She pulled it out and looked at it in the dim light of the streetlamps, and a smile curved her lips.

  Maybe—just maybe—her new life had already started.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CAIT would have gone crazy in the next few days without the cat to keep her company. They were both a little lost without Milly, and to comfort herself poor old Bagpuss took up residence in Cait’s immediate vicinity.

  Wherever she was, the cat was too. She slept with her, she followed her round all day, and she cried piteously if Cait shut her out.

  It was getting on her nerves, but since she could understand it, it was hard to get cross with her.

  Well, most of the time. On the second Sunday Milly was gone, she put down a wedding dress for ten seconds and came back to find the cat making a nest inside the piles of tulle.

  ‘Out!’ she ordered firmly, not daring to pick the cat up for fear of plucking the fine netting, and Bagpuss stalked off with her tail in the air. It didn’t last long, though. Within moments she was back again, scratching at the door until Cait relented and let her back in.

  She jumped up and settled down on the sewing table next to the pins and bobbins, tucking her paws under her and purring gloatingly because she’d got her own way again. Every now and again she reached out an idle paw and batted at the threads trailing from the needles in the pin cushion, making Cait nervous. She moved the pin cushion out of reach.

  ‘I don’t need a vet bill,’ she said, but the cat just washed herself and settled down for a snooze. ‘Tired?’ Cait asked unfeelingly. ‘That’s because you were miaowing all night and keeping me awake. I told you, she’s gone. She won’t be back for ages. Maybe even Christmas.’

  Christmas? Good grief. It seemed such a long time away, but it wasn’t really. She was just finishing off this last of a run of wedding dresses, and then she’d have to overhaul her winter ball gowns, all the reds and blacks and deep greens that were so popular for the Christmas balls.

  Some would need revamping, others would go in the pre-season sale, and she would have to do a lot of restocking, so she wouldn’t have time to miss Milly.

  Not really. Only every time she got out two plates for supper, or cooked two jacket potatoes instead of one, or weighed out the wrong amount of spaghetti. Only whenever she went into the bathroom and it was tidy, with no soggy towels dropped on the floor or nightdress abandoned over the edge of the bath or the scales missing.

  Only whenever she heard something funny and wanted to share it with her daughter, and then remembered she wasn’t there.

  She was getting on fine, by all accounts—or at least she seemed to be. She’d rung a couple of times, between one party and another, and she seemed to be having a great time.

  Unlike Cait, who was submerged under a pile of tulle that had to be ready by tomorrow.

  And then, of course, there was the evening class she’d enrolled herself on.

  She sighed. Maybe she was trying to take too much on, but she couldn’t afford to get someone else to run the shop and she didn’t dare farm out the sewing. She’d tried that before, with disastrous consequences.

  So she’d struggle, and she’d probably have to stay up half the night every now and again, but she’d get there.

  She had an essay to finish for tomorrow night, come to that, but her bride was coming for a fitting at nine in the morning, and she had to get the dress to the right stage by then. Still, it was straightforward enough, a variation on a pattern she’d made several times before.

  She stayed up until eleven working on it, then started on the essay. Not a good move. Her brain felt like treacle, and the words seemed doubly impenetrable through the fog of exhaustion.

  She fell asleep with her head in the book at one, went to bed and tried to carry on, and finally at three she admitted defeat, turned out the light and disappeared into blissful oblivion until eight thirty-eight.

  Twenty-two minutes till her fitting.

  Great!

  She shot out of bed, had the fastest shower in the history of mankind and gave the cat a double portion of food by accident as she rushed out of the flat and downstairs to the shop, the dress carefully held aloft so she didn’t trip over it and shred the bottom.

  Her bride was late. Almost half an hour late—time for a cup of tea and some toast while she finished off her essay, had she but known, but she didn’t, so she spent the whole time waiting for the young woman to arrive.

  Still, she got the shop tidied after Saturday’s hectic ru
mmaging and started her winter stock check, so the time wasn’t exactly wasted, although it was a bit irritating because it was Monday and the shop was shut on Mondays except for fittings and for regular clients who couldn’t come on any other day. She could have been having a lie-in, she thought resentfully, or finishing the darned essay.

  Her bride arrived, and the dress, by a miracle, was wonderful on her, elegant and flattering to a figure that was less than perfect, and she was ecstatic. Good, Cait thought, I’ll get paid, and then just as she was seeing her off and locking the shop again, a car pulled up outside.

  She just caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of her eye, and her heart sank. Not another customer. Not today, when she had the essay to do!

  She turned back to the door and her heart zoomed back up out of her boots and started hammering away at the base of her throat.

  Owen—here, of all places, out of the blue and unheralded, when she’d just dragged a comb through her wet hair and pulled on the first clean clothes on hand. Why was he always destined to see her at her worst?

  She glanced down at her jeans and sweater and shrugged. Perhaps not her very worst. At least the sweater didn’t have holes in it and the jeans were the ones that fitted her bottom nicely. Pity about the make-up, but two out of three wasn’t bad and it was lovely to see him again.

  Very lovely. Wonderful, in fact, she realised, as her heart skittered about and did strange things to her insides.

  Trying not to grin too inanely, she opened the door again and leant against the doorframe, her arms folded across her chest, one leg resting slightly bent against the other. ‘Hi, there,’ she said, feeling the smile widen despite her best efforts. ‘Don’t tell me, you want a ball gown.’

  He grinned back. ‘Shucks, you guessed. Still, it can be our little secret. I thought something off the shoulder…?’

  She felt one eyebrow climb, and her lips twitched. ‘Come in, I’ll see what I can do for you.’

  ‘Too kind.’

  He walked past her into the shop, passing within millimetres of her, and all her senses screamed to full alert. Suddenly the shop seemed absurdly small and crowded.