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“It’s fine. Can you bear with me for two minutes so I can get the machine running?”

“Of course. Thank you, Gemma. I really appreciate it.”

“Honestly, it’s nothing. You take a seat. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Her conversation with Kent was going to have to wait, Gemma thought, though as she reached the coffee machine, the door from the kitchen swung open.

The first smile of the day from Kent was usually enough to make Gemma’s heart perform some serious acrobatics, though she didn’t even turn to look at him as she hurried to switch the water filters on. She needed to get Margaret her coffee ASAP.

“Great, you’re here. I was wondering if I could talk to you about something,” Kent said.

Gemma threw a glance towards the corner of the room, where Margaret was currently sitting with her hands buried in her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “She’s just lost her mum. I said she could come in. I’m going to grab her a drink and have a chat about things. It’s nothing important, is it?”

Kent coughed a little, then smiled and shook his head.

“I’ll talk to you later. There’s a guy coming in, though. He’s going to measure a few things,” Kent said.

“Okay,” Gemma replied, only half listening as she grabbed a coffee cup, before turning back to look at him. “Oh, can you grab me a fresh scone too, please? I know we said no freebies, but it can be from my lunch. I think she needs it.”

Kent lingered for a moment longer as if he was going to say something, but instead a smile curled up the corners of his lips.

“Sure. I’ll get that for you now.”

CHAPTER 68

Gemma spent the entire fifteen minutes that she had gained by turning up at work early to talk to Kent, listening to Margaret—not that she begrudged it in any way. The customer needed someone to talk to.

“My sisters are here now, and I know it’s wrong, but I just needed to get out of the house,” Margaret told her. “They’ve been here all week, and I know they mean well, but they don’t seem to get it. They’ve left everything to me for years, and they don’t seem to understand that it’s taken a toll on me. On my marriage, my life. My finances, too. Now they’re making all these suggestions, or demands, really, like we’re all going through the same thing, and we’re not. I don’t want to have to deal with them on top of everything else, and I don’t see why I should have to. Is it being selfish that I just want to step back for a bit?”

“No, it’s not being selfish at all,” Gemma said. “You’ve looked after her for a long time, and if you spell it out to them like you’ve just spelled it out to me, I’m sure they’ll listen.”

Margaret nodded knowingly, though her eyes flickered out the window. A moment later, the door opened, and Sophie walked into the cafe.

“Sorry, Margaret,” Gemma said, confused by the sight of her colleague on what she was sure was her day off. “I just need to go speak to Sophie for a second. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Of course. I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”

“Don’t be silly,” Gemma said, before standing up and walking over to Sophie.

“What are you doing here? You’re not meant to be working today.”

Sophie rolled her eyes.

“No, but Dawn messaged me. Apparently, one of her kids was ill, so she asked if I could swap with her.”

“You know, whenever Dawn asks you to swap, you end up just doing extra shifts,” Gemma said.

Sophie shrugged. “It’s fine. Graham’s got work to do, so he wasn’t free to do anything, anyway. I don’t mind.”

“Well, I’m going to have to speak to her about it,” Gemma said, feeling a sudden flicker of gratitude that Kent was there, too. They could work out as a team the best way to approach the situation. Reprimands were never something Gemma felt comfortable doing, no matter how deserved they were.

“Okay, well, thank you,” she said. “I haven’t managed to get anything besides the coffee machine sorted yet. It’s been a bit of a tough morning.”

Tipping her head, Gemma gestured towards the back table, only to find that it was empty. Margaret had gone. The scone was half-eaten, the coffee drunk.

“I guess she just needed a little time by herself,” Gemma said. “Come on, it looks like it’s going to be a busy day.”