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The book club had been Gemma’s main source of friendship when she’d first moved to Maldon, and now its members were her closest friends, although the name was becoming less and less fitting. A few years ago, every member had been single, and mostly with disastrous dating histories to boot, but that had changed, and now nearly half of them were utterly loved up. Although Gemma was not among them. Not that she begrudged her friends their happiness, of course, but gone were the dayswhen they could talk freely about how terrible dating was and how it was impossible to find a decent person living in Maldon. Not when so many of them had proved it could be done.

Everyone but Sophie had seen that Graham was in love with her for years, and for a long time, Gemma had worried her friend would never see what was right in front of her face. But she had. And after taking a bit of time to get her head straight and go travelling, Sophie had returned, ready to open her heart to her best friend. The pair had been inseparable ever since.

“So?” Sophie said, her arms still folded across her chest. “Has Oscar told you who’s taking over from George yet?”

“Nope,” Gemma said, feeling her jaw tightening with tension as she spoke.

“But George finishes on Friday?”

“I know,” Gemma said. “I’m well aware of that, in fact.”

“And we don’t have a chef to replace him.”

“According to Oscar, we do,” Gemma said. “It’s just none of us know who it is.”

Oscar was the reclusive owner of the Waterfront Cafe. Although it hadn’t always been that way. When Gemma had first taken the job, Oscar had popped in weekly, at least, just to check how things were going. Some weeks, he could come in nearly every day. And Gemma didn’t mind at all. It was nice having him on hand when she wanted to suggest changes or get another point of view. But around four years ago, his wife had passed away, and he’d withdrawn himself from the cafe, and from what Gemma could tell, most of life. She had tried to reach out to him to see if she could do anything to help, as she knew he didn’t have children, and he had assured her he was fine. He just asked her to take care of the coffee shop. To keep running it as she had been doing. And so she had.

A large part of Gemma was desperate to have her own cafe, but with that a near impossibility, this was the next best thing.The freedom Oscar gave her made it feel like she was running her own place, as he had left her to make every decision, from the menu and the furniture to the opening hours and the hiring. Everything had fallen on her for the last four years, and he had played no role in the business at all.

Until now.

“Do you have any idea why he wanted to be the person to hire George’s replacement?” Sophie asked, as if she’d never asked the question before.

Since Oscar announced by text that he had a replacement chef for George, Sophie had been full of who, why, what, where, and when questions. Gemma hadn’t been able to answer any of them.

“You know I don’t. He just said he sorted it, and the new person will be ready for work by the time George leaves on Friday.”

“But you still don’t know his name?”

“I don’t know anything.”

Sophie let out a sigh that stretched for a couple of seconds before a smile twisted on her lips.

“What if he’s single, and your age, and really handsome?” she said. “Perhaps Oscar hasn’t told you because he knows you’ll go online, look the guy up, and fall madly in love with him before you’ve even met. Perhaps he doesn’t want to tell you who it is because he’s secretly matchmaking.”

“Or perhaps Oscar hasn’t told us because the shop isn’t a priority to him and because he’s getting old, so it slipped from his mind. Or perhaps it’s because he hired someone completely underqualified and knows I’ll be mad about it. Perhaps he just has some young relative who needs a job and thinks anyone can work in a cafe. It doesn’t matter. We just have to wait until Saturday, when George has gone, and we hope that someone turns up.”

Sophie simultaneously pouted and frowned, which had the effect of making her look like a toddler wearing a lot of makeup.

“That doesn’t make me feel very confident,” she said.

“No, me neither, but there’s nothing we can do.”

Gemma knew Sophie needed to talk through the issue to feel better about it, but for Gemma, talking didn’t help. For her, voicing all her worries only made things worse. In truth, though, she had spent her evenings trying to work out contingency plans. She was a more than adequate baker. Every other Saturday when George didn’t work, she did the tray bakes and sponges, but she wasn’t so good at the savoury stuff. He prepped all of that before he went on Friday. Still, they could do a stripped-back menu for however long it took to find a replacement. There was a good network in the cafes and restaurants around Maldon that made her confident she could find someone within a couple of weeks. However, there was nothing she could do until George’s retirement day came and went, and she was left on her own.

“You know they’re turning two more cafes in Wickford into Coffee-Xs,” Sophie said as she picked up her apron and fixed it over her clothes.

“What, two more? How? I didn’t even think there were enough coffee shops in Wickford to sell up and do them.”

“Apparently, this guy who owns the chain is offering the owners almost double what the buildings are worth just to make sure he gets the property to corner the market. You don’t think Oscar would do that, do you?”

Gemma shook her head. “No, Oscar understands what the coffee shop means to the people around here. He’d never do that. I can’t imagine he’d ever sell it, and certainly not to someone he didn’t know.”

She was pondering whether she should call Oscar again that day, under the guise of it being the beginning of the week and George’s last one at work, when the door opened and a gaggleof women stepped through. Judging from the miniature scooters they propped up outside the building, they were all mums, having just come from the school run, and experience had taught Gemma there would be a lot more to come.

“We can talk about this later,” Gemma said, fixing her face with her professional smile. “It’s time to get making cappuccinos.”

CHAPTER 3