A Rich Man's Touch

by Mather, Anne

  And Hannah had, admitted Rachel reluctantly. The little girl had been in her element, feeding lumps of sugar to the horses and enjoying the unusual position of being the centre of attraction. Certainly the groom and stable hands had all made a fuss of her, and she had loved it. For the first time since the accident Rachel had seen her daughter as she’d used to be: relaxed and happy, and brimming with confidence.

  The hard part to swallow was that it was all due to Gabriel’s kindness. It was he who had arranged the visit, he who had instigated that nerve-racking moment when she’d stood alone, he who had given the child the male attention she had spurned for so long. Not for the first time Rachel was obliged to acknowledge his patience where her daughter was concerned.

  She had been a little anxious after that embarrassing scene in the stables that he might take his frustrations out on the little girl. But she should have known better. Whatever he thought of her, whatever misplaced impression she had given him regarding her experience with men, his attitude towards Hannah hadn’t changed. Indeed, if anything, he had been even more attentive to her, as if to prove to Rachel that, however she behaved, he was nothing like his son.

  As if she had ever imagined that he was.

  Hannah was talkative at breakfast. Rachel had thought the little girl had said everything there was to say the night before, but evidently she was wrong. Hannah had been tired last night and although she’d talked non-stop all through supper, about how she’d felt when Gabriel had let her stand to stroke the foal, and how she was still thinking about what Gabriel should call it, she had fallen asleep soon after. But today, with rather less discretion, she started telling her grandmother about the row Gabriel had had with his mother before they’d gone out to feed the horses, and Rachel wanted to groan at the sudden gleam in her mother’s eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t a row,’ she protested, giving the child a reproving stare. ‘Eat your cornflakes, Hannah. You’re going to be late.’

  ‘She’s got plenty of time,’ remarked Mrs Redfern smugly. ‘It’s you who’s going to be late, Rachel. If you don’t hurry up, you won’t have any coffee made before you open up.’

  ‘Anyway, it was a row,’ continued Hannah, undeterred. She looked at her grandmother with wide assertive eyes. ‘Gabe’s mother said he’d had a heart attack,’ she added proudly. ‘And he said he hadn’t.’

  ‘A heart attack,’ murmured Mrs Redfern consideringly. ‘Hmm, so that’s what’s brought him back to Copleys. I knew it must be something serious.’

  ‘It wasn’t a heart attack,’ stated Rachel irritably, getting up from the table.?So don’t go telling people it was. He—well, he’d been overworking and he’s been advised to rest.

  That’s all.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘So I know,’ snapped Rachel curtly. Then, she fixed her daughter with a cold look. ‘And I’d have thought that after all the attention Gabriel paid to you yesterday, you’d know better than to start gossiping about him.’

  Hannah’s lower lip trembled. ‘I wasn’t gossiping.’

  Of course you were.’But Rachel didn’t really have the time to cope with Hannah’s tears now. ‘Anyway, just remember what I’ve said. You weren’t even supposed to be listening to that conversation.’

  ‘And how’s the child supposed to close her ears to other people’s conversation?’ demanded Mrs Redfern shortly, and Rachel decided, somewhat uncharitably, that her mother was afraid she was going to lose out here. She’d switched off when Hannah was telling her about the horses last night, Rachel had noticed, but any titbits about the Webbs were infinitely more appealing.

  ‘Well, Hannah knows how I feel about it,’ Rachel added, collecting her jacket and bag from the hall. ‘I’ll see you two later, okay?’ She bent to kiss her daughter’s soft cheek. ‘Have a good day.’

  The bus she sometimes caught passed the end of the road before she got there. Which was par for the course, she thought wearily, realising she would have to walk to work. She had hoped to avoid having any more time for introspection, but the memory of what had happened yesterday just kept intruding.

  Not that anything more humiliating had happened after that heated exchange in the stables. For the rest of the time they were there Hannah had been with them, and her excited chatter had filled any awkward gaps there might have been.

  She’d wanted to know if she could come again and ride one of the horses. And, although Rachel had been firmly convinced that they would not be coming here again, for any reason, she had let Gabriel explain that Hannah would need a special saddle before she could sit on a horse herself.

  Of course, he’d gone onto offer to try and borrow one from the local riding stables, but Rachel had demurred. Riding was not something Hannah had been advised to try, and in any case, she’d added, looking at the child and not at him, children rode ponies, not full-sized horses. The subject had been dropped, much to Hannah’s disappointment, and Rachel had justified her position by reminding herself that riding lessons were out of their league anyway.

  Lunch had been a strained meal. For Rachel, at least. It should have been easier, with his mother absent and just the three of them at the informal table in the morning room, but it hadn’t been. Apart from her own antipathy towards Gabriel, there had been the added unfamiliarity of being served by strangers, all of whom must have wondered what their employer was doing with a woman whose only claim to fame was the fact that she ran the local coffee shop.

  Gabriel himself hadn’t seemed at all concerned, of course. However angry he’d been with her in the stables, he’d evidently succeeded in getting his feelings under control and had even conversed with her throughout the meal, albeit about inconsequential, impersonal things like the weather. Certainly he’d succeeded in convincing Hannah that there was nothing amiss, and for that Rachel supposed she should be grateful. After all, she could imagine how morbidly curious her mother would have been if Hannah had announced that she and Gabriel had stopped speaking to one another.

  They’d left immediately after lunch, much to Hannah’s disappointment. Rachel had guessed her daughter had hoped to pay a return visit to the stables before they left, but as far as she’d been concerned that was completely out of the question. However, she’d not been unaware of the cynically sceptical look Gabriel had given her when she’d professed to having a mountain of paperwork awaiting her back home. If she’d thought she could fool him, she’d been mistaken.

  But what of it? she chided herself now, quickening her step. It wasn’t as if she was likely to see him again. Or wanted to, she appended grimly. She wasn’t altogether sure he was that different from Andrew, after all. Not when it came to having respect for her, at least.

  The day went from bad to worse. As her mother had predicted, some of her early customers arrived before she’d had the coffee started. And, later on, when she’d tried to turn on the oven Joe had repaired for her the previous week, it refused to work.

  Stephanie arrived to find her employer struggling to cope with just one oven and, although it was of commercial size, it certainly couldn’t handle all the pasta dishes they usually sold at midday. Rachel’s lasagne was popular with the lunchtime crowd and having to disappoint her customers was not good business.

  ‘Have you tried to reach Joe?’ Stephanie asked, making her own inspection of the oven and finding it stone-cold. ‘Maybe he could do something on a temporary basis, at least.’

  The last time he repaired it he said I needed anew oven,’ replied Rachel, unwilling to admit that she had her own reasons for not wanting to contact Joe today. ‘It’s so old, he can’t get the spares any more.’

  ‘Even so...’

  Tm going to have to change the menu, that’s all,’ said Rachel flatly. ‘Well concentrate on soups and salads today and hope that no one asks for anything else. We can always use the microwave in an emergency.’

  Stephanie regarded her consideringly. ‘So are you going to ring Joe or not?’

  ‘Not right now, no,’
said Rachel, keeping her eyes averted. ‘Oh, here’s Patsy. I was beginning to think she wasn’t coming.’

  ‘It is only half-past nine,’ pointed out Stephanie drily, donning her apron. ‘Are you going to tell me the real reason why you’re not getting in touch with Joe? Let me guess: he came on to you at the craft fair on Saturday and you blew him out.’

  ‘How did you know he was at the craft fair on Saturday?’ demanded Rachel, before she could stop herself, and Stephanie smirked.

  ‘Wasn’t everyone? Even Gabriel Webb was there, as you know.’ She paused, her eyes narrowing a little speculatively. ‘Did he stay here long after I went home?’

  ‘Joe?’ Rachel chose to be obtuse. ‘He didn’t come in to the cafe on Saturday at all. He didn’t come on to me at the craft fair. And I didn’t blow him out, so there.’

  ‘We were talking about Gabriel Webb,’ said Stephanie doggedly. ‘Are you seeing him again?’ ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Rachel turned away to greet her younger employee, but Stephanie wasn’t finished. ‘So, why not? What happened? He seemed pretty interested to me.’

  ‘What is this? An inquisition?’ Rachel knew that sooner or later Stephanie was bound to find out about her visit to Copleys, but not yet. ‘We had tea together, right? Hannah likes him. Now, can we get back to what we’re going to serve for lunch?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Patsy wanted to know, and Rachel was glad to tell her about the oven. It gave her a breathing space, and she was distracted from her own worries when the girl offered to go to the bakers and get some French bread.

  ‘You could offer people a ploughman’s lunch as one alternative,’ she suggested, and Rachel gave her an approving smile.

  ‘So we could,’ she applauded. And then, to Stephanie, ‘You should be thinking up ideas like this instead of wasting time asking questions. And Joe Collins isn’t necessarily the answer. But I will ask his advice later. There’s nothing he can do while the cafe’s open, is there?’

  ‘I guess not.’ Stephanie shrugged. ‘Okay. What kind of soup are we going to offer?’

  Despite Rachel’s show of optimism, her lunchtime customers weren’t best pleased to find the menu had changed. And, although she assured them it was only temporary, she didn’t honestly see how she was going to afford anew oven, second-hand or otherwise. Besides, despite what she’d told Stephanie, she wasn’t at all convinced that Joe would forgive her for the way she’d treated him on Saturday. And without his help things looked very black indeed.

  Then, at half-past one, when most of the lunchtime crowd had left to go back to work, Gabriel walked into the cafe.

  Patsy saw him first, and she came hurrying across to where Rachel was stacking plates to say, That man’s here again,’ in a stage whisper.

  ‘What man?’ Stephanie swung round and saw their visitor and her eyes gleamed with mischief. ‘Hey, Rachel, let’s hope he hasn’t come to try your famous lasagne.’ Rachel stifled a groan. What was he doing here? After the way she’d left Copleys the previous afternoon, she’d felt sure she was never likely to see him again.

  Yet here he was, as dark and inscrutable as when she’d first seen him, his charcoal-grey trousers and black jacket deepening the sallow cast of his lean features. He didn’t look well, was her first thought, and the second was, why should she care?

  ‘Oh-oh, he’s coming over,’ added Stephanie, clearly seeing this as the high point of their day. ‘Do you want to serve him, or shall we let Patsy do the honours? I’d have thought he’d have realised this isn’t a self-service cafe by now.’

  Rachel pressed her lips together. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, not at all convinced that Gabriel had come into the cafe to be served. And if he hadn’t... A shiver ran down her spine. What else could he want? Surely he didn’t intend to embarrass her by saying what he hadn’t been able to say in Hannah’s presence here?

  He reached the counter, hands pushed into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched even though it was a warm early summer day outside. And, however Stephanie viewed his arrival, she had the sense to withdraw into the kitchen as Patsy busied herself by going to clear the rest of the tables.

  Rachel was intensely conscious of her appearance. The upheaval the defunct oven had caused had left high colour in her cheeks, and her hair, which she had skewered on top of her head with hairpins borrowed from Stephanie, was damp around the edges. Her apron, too, was splashed with the soup she had made earlier, and despite his drawn features she was very aware of the obvious gulf between them.

  Forcing aright smile—the kind of smile she reserved for awkward customers—she approached the counter. Tea?’ she asked, her voice cool and controlled, and he pulled a wry

  face.

  Thank you, but no,’ he responded, his eyes far too intent on her flushed face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Rachel squared her shoulders. ‘What could be wrong with asking if you wanted tea? That’s why you usually come in here, isn’t it?’ That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.’ Gabriel regarded her curiously. ‘Something’s happened. I can’t believe my coming in here is responsible for that look of anxiety on your face.’

  ‘You’re imagining things.’ Rachel refused to let him disconcert her. ‘Now, can we move on?’ Okay.’ Gabriel’s mouth compressed. ‘If that’s the way you want to play it.’

  ‘I’m not playing.’ Rachel knew she was being unnecessarily rude but she couldn’t help it. After the morning she had had she didn’t need this kind of aggravation, particularly as he was partly responsible for the way she was feeling. ‘Do you want serving or don’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t come in here to be served, ‘he replied flatly. ‘Well, not in any way you’re likely to agree to. ‘His lips twisted with deliberate mockery. ‘I need to talk to you.’ ‘No, you don’t.’ Rachel spoke in a low voice, glancing a little awkwardly behind her. ‘We said all there was to say yesterday.’ ‘Why do women always talk in clichés? ‘he demanded wearily. ‘We said nothing yesterday and you know it.’ ‘I don’t know any such thing.’

  Then you should. ‘He exhaled heavily. ‘I suppose you’re going to hold what I said about you and Andrew against me, aren’t you? Well, believe me, you can’t regret it any more than I do myself.’

  ‘Is that intended to reassure me?’

  ‘No. It’s a very poor attempt to explain that people sometimes say things in stressful situations that they don’t necessarily mean,’ he retorted grimly. ‘Dammit, Rachel, I’m out of practice when it comes to dealing with women—any women—let alone a much younger woman like you.’

  Oh, right.’ Rachel was scornful. ‘You’ll be telling me next that there haven’t been any women since your wife died, and that was—what? Ten years ago?’

  Twelve,’he corrected her shortly. Then, taking one hand out of his pocket, he raked his nails across his scalp. ‘And, of course, I’m not trying to tell you that. There have been women since Celeste died. I don’t deny it. I’m not a monk!’ There you are, then!’

  Rachel was triumphant and Gabriel scowled. The difference is that I didn’t care what they thought of me,’ he said harshly. Then, glancing impatiently around the almost empty cafe, he took a deep breath. ‘God!’ A cynical smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. ‘I must be crazy coming here, expecting you to listen to me now.’ He turned away.’ I’ll go. Maybe I’ll have better luck later.’

  And maybe he wouldn’t, thought Rachel unhappily, as he walked swiftly across the floor and out of the cafe. Maybe he wouldn’t even try. And who could blame him? She hadn’t exactly tried to understand what he was saying. ‘What was all that about?’

  As usual, Stephanie wanted to know what was going on, and Rachel sighed. ‘Nothing,’ she said, refusing to get into yet another discussion of Gabriel’s intentions. ‘I think I might phone Joe now. Perhaps he’ll be able to come and have a look at the oven this afternoon, after we close.’

  Stephanie’s arched brows were telling, but she ref
rained from saying anything else. It was enough that whatever Gabriel had said had apparently persuaded Rachel to speak to Joe Collins. After all, all their futures depended on the cafe continuing to function as normal.

  Joe turned up about five o’clock. He had exhibited no animosity when Rachel had rung him on his mobile to tell him what had happened, and she tried not to feel guilty that she depended on his manual skills so much.

  She had hoped Stephanie might hang around to find out whether the oven was able to be repaired for herself, but she’d said she had shopping to do and left with Patsy at a quarter to five. Consequently, Rachel was alone when Joe arrived, and she wondered if he was thinking of the way they had parted on Saturday afternoon as she was.

  Thanks for coming so promptly, ‘she said, deciding to try and keep their conversation on an impersonal level. ‘It looks like I’m going to have to get another oven, as you said.’ ‘We’ll see,’ said Joe non-committally, setting his toolbox down and regarding the faulty oven with considering eyes. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It just refused to work this morning,’ replied Rachel, propping her hip against the counter. ‘I had to change the lunchtime menu. I needed the other oven for scones and

  pastries.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Joe bent and rummaged in his toolbox for a screwdriver and began attacking the controls, and Rachel straightened and took a deep breath. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ ‘No, thanks.’ Joe shook his head. ‘But a cold drink wouldn’t come amiss. I bet it’s eighty degrees outside.’