by Fiona Harper
When the waitress pulled out the chair opposite him for her, he stood and offered his hand. ‘Noah…Smith.’ A necessary diversion from the truth if he was to gauge if his dates really liked him for his personality rather than his bank balance. Sometimes he wished he’d had enough sense to use a pen name, but the lure of seeing ‘Noah Frost’ stamped in square letters across the front of a book jacket had been too great after all the years of rejections.
‘Hello,’ she said, shaking his hand, then quickly pulling hers away again. ‘You’ve got really nice teeth.’
He opened his mouth to say, All the better to eat you with, but managed to stop himself. Instead, he just kept quiet and motioned for her to sit down. He did the same.
‘Nice teeth?’ he said, smiling again. ‘Do you want to check my hooves to see if I’m good stock too?’
She blushed ever so slightly and the mischievous little smile from the profile photograph made an appearance.
‘Grace Marlowe—blind-date virgin…’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. It looked as if she were trying to wipe a cheeky smile away as she dragged her hand over her lips and let it fall. It didn’t work. The grin popped back into place as if nothing had happened.
‘That came out all wrong. What I meant was…this will be my first time.’
She closed her eyes and bit her lip. Without opening her lids, she kept speaking. ‘I’m making it worse, aren’t I—digging myself an even deeper hole?’
Noah stared at her. This wasn’t how the other dates had started. Where was the murmured conversation, the polite questioning as to jobs and musical tastes?
‘It’s only because I’m more of a blind-date veteran that I’m not in there with a matching shovel.’
She opened one eye. ‘You’re nice, Mr Smith. And chivalrous to a lady in distress.’ The other eye popped open and she tipped her head to one side. ‘How come you’ve had so many first dates if you’re such a nice guy? What’s wrong with you?’
Now it was his turn to laugh. His male pride really ought to be dented. None of his other dates had been so blunt. But none of his other dates had been quite so interesting.
‘This is only the fourth date I’ve been on.’
‘In how long?’
He shrugged. ‘A month?’
‘That’s a lot of ladies who passed you by, Noah. Tell me why I shouldn’t follow the crowd.’
Despite the fact that he was known for his cool, unruffled demeanour, he found himself laughing again.
‘I’ve got nice teeth?’
‘There is that,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. And they really were that blue. She looked at the tablecloth and scratched at a catch in the linen. ‘Sorry about the teeth thing. I was a little nervous, and when I’m nervous I tend to say the first thing that pops into my head.’
Although it seemed to get her into trouble, he found it quite endearing. And refreshing. The more successful he’d become, the more people second-guessed their every word around him. Getting an honest reaction—rather than one that had been carefully edited before it left a person’s mouth—was a wonderful novelty.
‘Shall we order?’
She breathed out a sigh, making a little round shape with her mouth. ‘That would be lovely.’
He opened the large, unwieldy menu and scanned it, even though he was pretty sure he was going to start with the carpaccio of beef and follow it with the scallops.
‘We can discuss my many faults over the appetisers,’ he said, completely deadpan.
The bright eyes appeared above the menu, laughing at him. Noah smiled to himself and paid careful attention. You could tell a lot about a person from what food they ordered. She chose the beef too. Another good sign.
No. Not a sign—he didn’t believe in signs. Just an indicator of compatibility.
She let him choose the wine and, by the time he’d narrowed the choices down to match their courses, their appetisers had arrived.
‘So, what do you do, Grace?’
She looked up from her salad—not by raising her head, but by looking at him through her lashes. A flicker of emotion passed across her face and she popped a piece of avocado in her mouth. Didn’t she want to tell him what she did for a living? It couldn’t be as bad as last Saturday’s date. A pet psychologist, for goodness’ sake!
When Grace finished chewing, she mumbled, ‘I’m a barrister.’
Not quite what he’d expected. He wondered if she’d be too tied down to her job to think about travelling with him. That might be a deal-breaker.
‘How about you? What do you do for a living?’
He opened his mouth and closed it again. Time to learn from past mistakes. The moment he mentioned thrillers and novel-writing, the game was normally up. Noah wasn’t a particularly common name and people tended to guess the connection, even if he used his totally imaginative Noah Smith alias. And he didn’t want Grace to go all giggly and stupid like some women did.
‘You do have a job at the moment, don’t you?’ Grace said.
‘Of course I do. I’m a writer.’
To his relief, Grace looked pleasantly unimpressed. ‘What kind of writer?’
He shrugged. ‘I write about military stuff. Quite boring, actually.’ Another little detour.
Grace dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘Are you pulling my leg?’
Rats. She could tell he was fudging the issue. Just as well he hadn’t decided to be an actor instead of a novelist. At least his characters were convincing, even if he wasn’t.
‘No,’ he said with his best poker face.
Grace looked at him long and hard. Had she guessed his secret? If she had, she wasn’t smiling and going all gooey, which was unusual.
‘So, tell me about your other dates,’ she said, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘What went wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ He took a deep breath and let his face relax out of his smile. ‘But it’s a serious business, finding a wife. I’m not going to trot off down the aisle with just anyone.’
She put her knife and fork down and stared at her salad for a few seconds. ‘You’re really looking for a wife on an Internet dating site?’
Why did his dates seem to find that so hard to believe? After all, the site in question was Blinddatebrides.com. It kind of gave the game away.
‘Aren’t you looking for a husband?’
Grace shook her head hard to loosen her hairdo a little.
‘What are you looking for, then? Love? A soulmate?’
She dropped her chin and gave him an Are you serious? look from under her lashes.
Good. She didn’t believe in those things either.
‘I’m glad we’re on the same wavelength,’ he said before taking a sip of wine.
Grace pursed her lips. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe in those things. Just that I’m not expecting to find them at Blinddatebrides.com. Nor do I want to. I mean, the whole Romeo and Juliet, all-consuming passion thing really only works for teenagers, don’t you think?’
He raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a non-committal way. He wasn’t sure what this ‘in love’ thing was. Oh, he’d thought he’d found it once, but it had turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. What people sang about in love songs or wept over at the cinema wasn’t real. It was all an illusion—one he bought into about as much as he had the chick with the AK47.
His parents didn’t do all that hearts and flowers nonsense and they had been perfectly happy for almost fifty years. If it could work for them, it could work for him.
The evening passed quickly. Too quickly.
As Noah dug into his dessert, he decided he’d seen enough of Grace to know she wasn’t what Harry termed a ‘WAG wannabe’ in disguise—definitely not a gold-digger! There was a recital at one of the local arts centres next week that he’d planned on going to, and he was going to ask Grace if she’d like to go with him.
He cleared his throat. ‘Grace?’
She looked up at him, a chocolate-dipped spoon half in her
mouth. Slowly, and while Noah’s mouth began to water, she pulled it out, sucking the last of the rich brown mousse off.
‘Do you want some?’ she asked, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly smudged with chocolate. Noah meant to shake his head, but it didn’t seem to want to move.
‘Uh-huh,’ he heard himself say.
‘It is rather divine,’ she said, her eyes doing her trademark sparkle.
‘Uh-huh.’
Great. He’d won awards for his command of the English language and all he could do at present was grunt like a caveman. He watched as she carefully dipped the long spoon into her dessert and pulled out a bulging dollop of creamy chocolate mousse.
As she fed him the mousse, she unconsciously licked her lips. Noah felt a kick of desire so hard it almost rocked him out of his chair. His voice was horribly hoarse when he opened his mouth to speak. ‘Grace…?’
‘Yes.’
‘Um…’ Just like that, his brain emptied. Words circled round, but the ability to string them into coherent sentences had just vanished. He grabbed at a few of the nearest phrases in desperation. ‘Concerts!’ he blurted. ‘Do you like live music?’
Grace’s face lit up. ‘I love live music!’
It was only as his heart rate started to slow, pounding heavily in his temples, that he realised it had been racing for the last couple of minutes. He swallowed, which really wasn’t a good idea, because he tasted the chocolate mousse again and his pulse did a U-turn.
‘In fact, I was only at a concert a few days ago,’ Grace said, before turning her attention back to her dessert.
‘Really?’
She nodded and swallowed. ‘I saw this great band up in London recently—The Hover Cats—have you heard of them?’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t expect many of your colleagues share your passion, do they?’
She looked puzzled. ‘Why not? I know jazz and easy listening are popular in cafés, but that’s not all we listen to. Aren’t you being just a little bit narrow-minded?’
For the second time that evening, Noah felt as if he were under interrogation. ‘But I thought you said you were a—’
‘A barista,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I work in The Coffee Bean further up the High Street.’
If she’d jumped up on the table and started doing the cancan, Noah couldn’t have been more shocked. She had such potential. And all at once he was intrigued, as he often was when he met someone who defied his expectations. What had led her to make those choices? Grace had the personality and energy to do anything she wanted. His brain whirred off, analysing her as if she were a character in a book.
She’d been sitting in silence as he’d absorbed the information, but now she flicked a glance at the door and started talking very fast. ‘Talking of coffee, I don’t really feel like having one—busman’s holiday and all that. Do you mind if we call it a night?’
She reached for her handbag and started to push back her seat. For the first time all evening, the confidence, the pizzazz drained away. She glanced at him for a mere moment as she smoothed down her skirt and he saw a look of both hardness and vulnerability on her face.
‘Grace, I’m sorry. In no way do I—’ He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t go.’
She shook her head. ‘You know what, Noah. This really isn’t going to work out. I think I should just leave.’ And, with that, she nimbly eased herself out of her chair and headed for the coat rack.
Known for his command of the English language? Hah.
Well, if Grace was leaving, so was he. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, left more than enough twenty pound notes on the table to cover the bill and darted after her.
Grace didn’t even remember putting her coat on. It was only as the chilly night air hit her face that her brain whirred into action. Without making a conscious decision, she turned right and hurried down Vinehurst High Street as fast as the stupid high heels she’d stolen out the bottom of Daisy’s wardrobe would let her.
‘Grace!’
She bit the tip of her tongue between her teeth, shook her head and just kept walking. Every time she told people what she did for a living she got the same reaction, the same look. The one that said, why wasn’t she busy saving lives on the operating table or running a million-pound Internet business she’d started in her front room like other women of her generation?
Because she hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice time with Daisy to build a career, that was why. Daisy had already lost one parent and she didn’t need the other to become a dim and distant memory while childminders did all the hands-on stuff. So Grace had taken a job that let her fit her hours round the school day and didn’t require evening shifts.
The owner of the coffee shop was Aunt Caroline—or Caz, as she liked to be called. She was really Rob’s aunt, but had welcomed Grace into the family with open arms and had been a lifesaver when he’d died, taking Grace under her wing and letting her rent the upstairs flat. Grace’s parents had moved to the West Country when she’d got married and there had been no one close by to turn to. Her parents had begged her to move in with them, but she’d refused—too young, foolish and independent at the time to realise what a gift it might have been. But Rob was buried in the churchyard here and she hadn’t been able to wrench herself away, leave him behind.
She became aware of someone following her and picked up speed. She shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of her job. She made the best pastries in the area. And, even if she hadn’t, she didn’t want to apologise for her work.
She could hear heavy, pounding footsteps behind her now. Just for a while, she’d thought she’d been having a decent conversation with someone who didn’t assume she had an IQ of twenty because she baked and served coffee for a living. And he’d been nice to her…But only because he’d misheard her and thought she was something she wasn’t.
‘Grace!’
He was right behind her now. She stopped and turned round, hardening herself, putting on that sassy front she used with difficult customers at The Coffee Bean. ‘Mr Smith.’
‘Grace, you got me all wrong! I don’t care if you work in a coffee shop or a lawyer’s office. I don’t want the night to end this way, do you?’
No, she didn’t. Adult company, a little bit of sophistication, had been nice. And she’d thought Noah had been gorgeous too, right up until the end. But he’d come after her. That was quite nice. To be exact, he’d run after her. And they had been having fun.
She started walking again. ‘What if I worked as a litter picker? Would you still have come after me?’
His features shifted and changed. When they’d been sitting down in the restaurant, she hadn’t noticed how tall he was. Now, she had to tilt her head up to get a look in his eyes.
They were the most beautiful colour. Green. Not the emerald-green of story books, but a cool, glassy green that verged on grey. Even so, their paleness didn’t detract from their intensity. When he looked at her she felt as if she had one hundred per cent of his attention, as if she were the only thing in his field of focus. But now they didn’t seem focused, they seemed puzzled.
‘Of course, I’d have come after you. I came out for a nice dinner and ended up chewing my own size twelve shoes. I needed to apologise.’
He wasn’t taking the bait, playing her little game, but his honesty won her over. She didn’t have time for slimy men who oozed the right things. She’d settle for Noah Smith and his no-nonsense words—even if they were occasionally muffled by his shoe leather. Had he really said size twelves…?
He fell into step beside her. ‘So, are we okay? Do you want to go somewhere for coff—a drink?’
She smiled. ‘How about if I was a sewage worker? Would you want to have a drink with me then?’
There was a tiny break in the rhythm of his steps. ‘Only if I was allowed to wear a peg on my nose.’
Her tense jaw muscles relaxed and a smile she’d been anchoring down sprung up. Finally, he’d joined her game. She grab
bed his hand and speeded up. ‘Come on. I know the perfect place.’
Noah had no choice but to follow Grace as her shoes measured out rapid little steps. Even in heels, she only just reached past his shoulders and he didn’t have to do more than stroll to keep up.
The sky glowed a murky pink, reflecting the street lamps of a vast city. Typical for a spring night in England, an icy splosh of rain hit the top of his head, not even deflected by his hair. If he and Grace didn’t hurry up, they were about to get soaked. Just as he opened his mouth to ask where they were going, she dragged him into a doorway.
Out of the wind whistling down the High Street, the air was surprisingly close. Grace was only inches away, smiling up at him cheekily. He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter that the rain was now falling out of the sky and his right arm, out of the cover of the small doorway, was getting wet. All that mattered was the slight shine cast on her lips by the street lamp on the other side of the road. He couldn’t stop looking at them. The smile faded from her face and she regarded him with wide eyes.
The sound of the rain slapping against the pavement seemed to grow and intensify until it filled his ears. He knew he was about to lean forward and kiss her. Not that he’d made a decision; somehow he just knew. And there was nothing he could do to stop himself.
Just as his muscles prepared themselves for movement, he heard a jangle of keys and suddenly Grace was gone. He looked in confusion at the open door and listened to her heels track their way across the darkened shop. Attempting to follow was a bad idea, he discovered, sending a chair flying and leaving himself with a throbbing shin.
‘Hang on a moment,’ Grace said from somewhere in the darkness.
A few seconds later a light went on above a counter on the other side of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, a thunderclap rumbled a few miles away. Grace skirted round the tables and closed the door. She didn’t say anything as she moved past him; it was only as she was walking away back to the counter that she spoke.
‘This place serves the best coffee in the whole of South East London.’
