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‘Cheese will be fine. Charlie tells me you’re getting married.’ Elbows bent behind him, he leant back on the countertop.
Rachel bent down to retrieve the knife she’d dropped, the action hiding her flushed cheeks. Just how much had her daughter confided to this stranger? she wondered in alarm. Her alarm was given an extra edge because she realised that the skin she’d been visualising his hands touching was her own! Lack of food was obviously affecting her brain! She pushed a slice of cheese into her mouth and hoped this would give her flagging blood sugar a boost.
‘Children don’t miss much,’ he said with the comforting certainty of someone who knew about these things. Actually he didn’t know much about children; his sister would be insulted to be included in that category and his niece was a baby of seventeen months whom he’d not seen above twice in her young lifetime. ‘And I couldn’t help but overhear…’
‘Charlie doesn’t miss much.’ Rachel dropped the knife in the sink and pulled a clean one from the drawer. ‘She’s very bright—with an IQ that makes me feel inadequate sometimes. It’s easy to forget how young she is on occasion.’ She had begun to wonder whether it had been a good move coming to the city to be close to the school that specialised in ‘gifted children’ Charlie didn’t seem to be settling in at all.
‘And are you?’ Getting married, that is?’ he added.
‘I don’t know.’ Now why the hell did I tell him that? she wondered. Perhaps it was just a relief to speak to someone who didn’t have a vested interest.
‘It must be hard bringing up a child alone,’ he mused casually. ‘I suppose it would be a relief to find someone to share the responsibility with, especially if he’s loaded…’
‘I’m not looking for a father for Charlie. Or a meal ticket.’ She felt her defensive hackles rising. Was he trying to get a rise, she wondered suspiciously, or was he just plain rude?
‘Just as well—the father bit, I mean.’ She gasped audibly and he smiled apologetically into her face over which a definite chill was settling. ‘The cosy rapport was noticeable by its absence. She seems to hate his guts.’
Rachel found herself responding with a rueful smile even though she felt vaguely uneasy at the intimacy developing in this conversation with a total stranger.
‘Charlie has very definite views,’ she admitted. ‘But, as much as I love my daughter, I don’t let her vet the men I see.’ ‘Men’ made her social life sound a lot more interesting than it was. Over the past ten years how many had there been? No calculator required, she thought wryly. ‘Mayonnaise?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Help yourself,’ she said, sliding the plate in his direction.
‘Thanks.’ Benedict pulled out one of the two high stools that were pushed underneath the counter. ‘Aren’t you eating?’ Two stools, he noticed, not three; boyfriend didn’t stay over too often, then. He felt a surge of satisfaction.
Rachel thought of the meal she’d never got to eat. ‘I lost my appetite somewhere between losing my child and fighting with my fiancée.’
She glanced down at her finger and realised she’d never actually picked up the ring. She’d never actually said yes. She didn’t believe in fate, but it did seem as if someone was trying to tell her something. Perhaps there was enough of the romantic left in her to wish she could marry someone she genuinely didn’t want to live without. Someone whose touch she craved. A man with whom she could share her deepest dreams and fears—who would make her feel complete.
‘Do you do that much?’
For a horrified split second she thought she’d spoken out loud. It took her another couple of confusion-filled seconds to realise he wasn’t referring to her fantasising and then make the connection with her earlier comment.
‘I don’t make a habit of losing Charlie.’ What a night; it’s no wonder my concentration is shot to hell, she thought.
‘I meant fighting with your boyfriend—though he’s hardly a boy, is he?’ He took another healthy bite of the sandwich and watched the angry colour mount her smooth cheeks. He’d touched a nerve.
‘Nigel is forty-two,’ she snapped back, her fingers drumming against the work surface. ‘I’ve not the faintest idea why I’m justifying myself to you!’ she muttered half to herself.
‘Don’t worry…’
‘I wasn’t!’
‘You probably feel uncomfortable about the age gap.’
‘Age gap!’ she yelped. This man was stretching her maternal gratitude to its limit. ‘I’m thirty.’