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A while back it had maybe seemed like Luce was going a bit more crazy than usual on her Friday nights off. But now Izzy came to think of it, lately she’d barely been aware of Luce’s liaisons at all. Luce passing over the guy with the delivery was maybe a sign of a bigger trend Izzy had been a) blind and b) stupid, not to notice.
Luce carried on. ‘There’s only a couple of bedside cupboards to deliver to him, and that small rocking horse of yours.’
‘No…’ Izzy let out a groan. ‘I know I have to sell things, but I love that horse, it’ll be a real wrench to let it go.’ She knew she shouldn’t complain. Sales were sales, and getting attached or sentimental in this business was not an option, especially now.
‘A rocking horse is definitely a better bet that a falabella pony.’ Luce complained. ‘Honestly these falabellas are all we hear about at the moment, Ruby and Lolly are crazy about them. Daisy Benson from school’s got one, unfortunately for Dida and me. They’re the size of a dog, but they’re actually a horse, in perfect miniature detail - they even smell of horse apparently.’
‘Sorry, but I’m with Ruby and Lolly on this one, they sound adorable.’ Izzy gave a smile.
‘Exactly, that’s the whole trouble.’ Luce let out a wail. ‘Daisy’s pony is just big enough to pull a little cart with a can of lager in. Ruby isn’t so bad, because she knows there’s no chance of getting one in the flat, but Lolly’s making Dida’s life a misery, pleading for one.’
‘What a pain.’ Izzy had so much admiration for the way Luce handled having a child.
‘Anyway, at least some lucky child is getting your rocking horse.’ Luce switched back to business. ‘I got the impression that yummy guy is looking to buy a lot, which is another reason I offered him one of our new Vintage Cinema Club special deliveries. He left written directions by the till, but remember, you need to be nice to him.’ Luce paused, supposedly to emphasise that last point. ‘You can thank me for the date you get, later.’
Date? As if. ‘As of yesterday morning I’m on my best behaviour, but I should point out I was only ever rude when it was warranted.’ Izzy had to stand up for herself on this, and she was having to ignore that Luce wasn’t agreeing with her here. ‘Fine, I’ll be round soon to pick up the things. And try not to devour any more male customers in the meantime.’
Izzy could imagine Luce’s eye roll here.
‘This one’s worth the drive, I promise.’ Luce wasn’t giving up. ‘Stop resisting, go and enjoy the view. If I miss you, I’ll see you later in the bar, okay?’
12 (#ulink_6b0ebb05-f62d-51b6-83f8-51d88c3bb0da)
Friday Evening, 6th June
IZZY
Ashbourne
Special delivery, fully loaded
Batting along country lanes towards Ashbourne, Izzy was driving a vehicle that was a dead ringer for a dustbin and which was both noisy and bumpy. She suspected an actual dustbin may have been slightly more comfortable than Ollie’s battered old Citroen Tube van, affectionately known as Chou-fleur, but at least it had started without a problem. Ollie had spent months on a total rebuild of Chou, working outside in the back lane, with his welding gear. Izzy was very grateful to her brother for leaving her Chou, but at times Izzy found the mechanical idiosyncrasies hard to work with. What with flagging batteries and dying starter motors, leaving home at all was a game of chance. Perhaps the clunky engine had sprung into life without complaint because Chou-fleur appreciated an outing on this sunny evening, and the bursting hawthorn blossom on the hedges, much the same as Izzy did.
She yanked on the wheel, and attempted to coax Chou-fleur round a sharp bend. Steering wasn’t that easy in the van, but then braking wasn’t her strong point either. But the up side was that with Vintage at the Cinema, Everything Retro written in large letters across both the grey sides, Chou-fleur was very distinctive, not to say eye catching, and free mobile advertising was a fab way to spread the word. And if you were entirely without transport, as Izzy had been since her last car died a few months back, you were damned appreciative of anything with an engine and some wheels.
Izzy pulled the scrap of paper with directions on, out of her pocket. She was looking for a large pink house, at the end of Carrington, which was the chocolate-box village north of Ashbourne, which she was driving through now. So much for Luce’s promise of jaw-dropping talent here. She didn’t want to pre-judge, but surely there was a teensy chance that a man who lived in the only pink house in the place, wasn’t going to be interested.
Izzy’s eyes widened, and she let out a low whistle, as the pink house came into view. After a slight disagreement with Chou-fleur about the exact course they were going to take as they left the main street, Izzy swung the van through between high gateposts. She made herself ignore the profile of a large four-wheel drive vehicle which passed through her sight-line as she wrestled the van around the sweeping drive, and thought instead about the satisfying scrunch of the tyres on the gravel, as she pulled to a halt in front of an exquisitely pretty Georgian house.
For a minute, Izzy’s stomach tightened. Something about the proportions of the facade were so like the house she used to live in, a lifetime ago. She stamped on that thought. No point revisiting the past. Strange how today had raked up a lot of the old pain. She always tried not to think of how things used to be. It was way better to live in the here and now. Their family may have had an amazing home when they were small, but the anguish that the family went through when they left it all behind was something Izzy preferred to blot out entirely.
But her mum had made it okay. In the end. Her beautiful, amazing, lovely, talented mum, had picked up all the pieces, and, with the strength and determination of a superhuman, she had glued them back together again. Their new life was very different from the life they’d left, but, all credit to their mum, it was definitely not worse, and in some ways it was a whole lot truer, and maybe better than what had gone before. Izzy had learned so much, hanging on in there with her mum, as they started again from zero.
And a lot of what she’d learned was that you didn’t have to have a house like this pink one, or that other one she’d once lived in, to be happy. Being happy was about many things, and what her mum had taught her was that the last thing on earth being happy was about, was splashing money around. Her mum had made everything alright, and her mum had made everything good again, and now they were all okay. Different yes, but definitely okay.
Once she’d moved on from that thought, she took in the understated grandeur of the house in front of her. Something about the pink stucco made her smile. Without giving herself any time to think about what she was going to find inside, she thumped her shoulder into the van door, which was the only way to guarantee that it opened, and jumped to the ground. Damn. A stab of pain, shooting through the sole of her foot, reminded her she should have been more careful getting down.
The house door was already open a crack, so it looked as if someone was expecting her. She took a deep breath, and imagined the huge potential sales that Luce had been banging on about. Right. Definitely no swearing, regardless of the four by four she’d spotted parked outside. A big house like this would take a lot of filling, which could mean a shed load of sales. Izzy tweaked the corners of her mouth into what she hoped was an acceptably agreeable smile. She tucked in the bit of vest that had accidentally hitched up to reveal her midriff, smoothed down her oversized dungarees, and adjusted the belt that clinched them in at her waist. If she’d realised she was coming anywhere this upmarket, she might have changed into something less paint spattered. As it was, she hadn’t wanted to be seen to be making too much of an effort. Much as she appreciated Luce’s efforts on her behalf here, going phwoar over hot guys when she and Luce were bored at work was a whole different ball game from being set up. Izzy really wasn’t interested in joining in that game, no matter how much Luce had her best interests at heart. If her friend was trying to set her up against her will, she sure as hell wasn’t going to cooperate by trying to look pretty, hence the ‘take me as I am’ dungarees. As she walked, a little unevenly, towards the beautiful six panelled front door, with the worn stone surround, her heart did a teensy flutter, not for who she might meet inside, but simply because the doorway was so perfect. She took a moment to admire the deep midnight blue of the paint, the original detailing, and the white china door knob. But the door was already swinging open.
‘I’ve brought a delivery…’ Eyes lowered meekly, she heard her own voice, sounding sweet enough to be someone else entirely, and gave the imaginary Luce, who was lurking, barely three feet behind her, a mental thumbs up.
Beyond the doorstep Izzy caught a glimpse of luxurious polished boards. Then bare feet, tanned and male appeared, sticking out below frayed jeans. She assumed this must be HIM. Had she been at all interested in Luce’s hunk, she would have called that initial view promising.
‘A delivery from Vintage at the Cinema…’
She pressed on with her announcement, as she slowly lifted her gaze, and prepared herself to take in the full glory of what Luce had enthused about, confident that it would leave her completely unmoved.
Her eyes skimmed up impeccably-muscled denim clad thighs. So far so good, Luce, but still not interested. Past a perfect six pack beneath a tattered Superdry t-shirt, beyond a jaw with just a brush of stubble, to a chiselled cheekbone with a tiny scar. Then the words died in her throat, and her smile crashed to the floor, as she met a horribly familiar, dark brown gaze, coming through a flop of straggly brown hair.
‘Bloody he…’
Izzy zipped her lips, in a dual effort, to keep her mouth under control, and stop her wildly jolting heart from escaping, and landing somewhere, far along the hallway.
The guy from the skip. The guy who had been hammering round her head all afternoon. And now he had teleported, changed his city suit for something way more casual, and re-appeared, behind the front door of the pink house. And he was looking disgusting. Better than anything Luce could have expressed. Completely disgusting. Completely disgustingly, amazingly awesome. Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.
‘Did you know you’ve got paint on your face?’
He was laid back, cool, laconic even, and giving nothing away through that steady, narrow eyed gaze of his. And shit, shit, shit to the way his impossibly low dusky voice sent shivers scattering down her neck. Her hand had risen in slow motion, and now she was rubbing her cheek, trying desperately to locate the offending paint, but without a mirror there was no chance. And somehow this caveman didn’t look at all surprised that the girl who’d been rooting through his skip had rocked up at his very own front door.
‘And you’ve got paint on your vest…’
Another useless observation from him, and definitely no need to look that pleased with himself about it. Great. Whatever… She resisted the urge to say the words out loud. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, she shuffled her shoulders, fiddled with her vest strap, and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her dungarees.
If he was trying to pull off a snarky smile, he’d just failed. Epically.
‘So…Vintage at the Cinema?’ He sounded vaguely bad tempered. ‘Does this mean I’ve just bought back what you took from me yesterday?’
From somewhere she found the fire to reply to his taunt.
‘Well you’d only have yourself to blame if you had bought everything back – given that you threw it out in the first place.’ Shit, she was jutting her chin out, and that meant she was careering towards out-of-line, at a hundred miles an hour. Future business. Right. Keeping that thought firmly in her head, she sweetened her tone. ‘But, I’m equally happy to assure you, nothing here was pre-owned by you.’ She was cringing at the saccharine here, but the fact it was starting to sound like she was taking the piss, made it easier to carry on. ‘And incidentally, I also apologise profusely for any paint in the wrong places, but this is an out of hours delivery, and some of us have actually been working elsewhere before coming here.’
Izzy was wincing at the grammar of the thing, but she hoped this speech would lick the requisite number of boots. Given the teensy size of the items, and the fact that this glowering man had his Range Rover languishing in the drive, she was questioning why she’d had to make this delivery at all. She suppressed her exasperation, and reverted to detached, ultra-professional mode.
‘Okay.’ Time to bring on the no nonsense approach. ‘I’ll bring the items from the van, and you can tell me where you’d like me to put them.’ If he couldn’t have been bothered to stick these few things in the back of his car when he was at the cinema earlier, he was hardly likely to want to carry them in for himself, was he.
She marched across to the van, flung the back doors open, grasped a cupboard, and arrived back at the house. The door was open, but the guy had disappeared, so she dumped the cupboard on the doorstep, and returned to the van for the second one. She was on her way to the house with the rocking horse by the time he re-appeared.
‘Just went to get some shoes…’
‘Sure.’ Damn she shouldn’t have said that, even though that might have been the hint of a shamefaced grimace on his face. ‘Too late now, this is everything.’
Shit, his feet looked sexy in those flip flops he’d put on. She gave a shudder. Feet, sexy? He grabbed a cupboard, and headed off inside. ‘Come in, follow me.’ He’d already set off down the hall.
She stepped, tentatively, into a light echoing space, kicking off her converse as she hit the floorboards. Lugging the rocking horse past an elegant staircase, she wrinkled her nose at the sharp smell of paint and newness. If the house had looked impressive from the outside, now she was inside, she could see it was to die for. Not that she would have personally. But she knew high quality when it smacked her in the face. Even though she’d only seen the hall, she could already tell from the impeccable finish, from the plasterwork to the perfect wide oak floorboards to the brushed stainless electrical switches, that this was a stylish, luxurious, money no object renovation.
Izzy knew from working with her mum, that for a finish like this, you were talking serious dosh. As for the man of the house, if his jeans were slipping down over his bum as he made his way into the next hallway, she, for one, was not going to notice.
‘It’s all newly done.’ He offered an unexpected burst of conversation over his shoulder as he went. ‘All that’s left to do now is the furnishing.’
Stating the obvious here, obviously.
Izzy always found it strange plunging into the heart of people’s homes as she carried furniture in. One lucky family, moving into this place, although she suspected that houses like this had a lot less to do with luck, and more to do with hard work on someone’s part.
The guy thumped down his cupboard on the hallway floor, opposite a doorway.
‘Dobbin’s going to live here.’ He pushed open a wide panelled door, and stepped back, and gestured for Izzy to walk through first with the rocking horse.
She hesitated slightly, trying to take a line through the doorway, to ensure she made it into the room, without knocking into either the paintwork or the customer. Her heart lurched as she arrived in the huge space, and saw toys scattered across the floor.
‘A playroom…’ Of course, why wouldn’t it be a playroom? Her mouth went dry, and her gut dropped. Why the hell did she feel as if she’d been thumped hard in the stomach?
‘Are there children?’ It came out as a croak, but she had to say something to fill the space until she started breathing again.
She kicked herself for being ridiculous. Of course he’d have children. Why wouldn’t he? Hunky, virile, thirty-something men like him did. He was hardly going to live in this big family house on his own was he? She’d had no expectations at all in his direction, so why the hell should it matter to her if he had children or not.
‘Two, actually.’
His gravelly confirmation echoed around the room, stamping on the hopes she hadn’t even know she’d had. Not just one child then, but two. That was doubly resounding. She took a deep breath, and asked herself why she even cared that he was spoken for. Of course he’d have lovely children, and a beautiful wife. A life and a family to go with the perfect surroundings.
She needed to remind herself. She was making a delivery to a resoundingly unfriendly, arrogant customer, who was too idle to take his own purchases home, who she happened to have encountered the day before. Who was completely and utterly unavailable. It was nothing more, or less, than that.
‘I hope Dobbin will be very happy here with them.’ She lowered the rocking horse to the floor, gave the horse a pat on his dappled grey velvet rump, tugged his woolly mane for the last time, and turned to leave.
Izzy had to get the hell out of here and fast, before she made any more of a fool of herself. She arrived at the door, expecting the guy to have already melted away down the hall, but instead she came to an abrupt halt, faced with the faded grey of his t-shirt.
‘Excuse me.’ She looked up at him, close enough to see the stubble on his jaw, the creases on his lips. He smelled just the same as yesterday. She shuddered, then reminded herself to get a grip.
He hesitated, staring straight at her, with those eyes full of darkness, his head inclined, for what seemed like an age, as the blood rushed through her ears, and her heart clattered against her chest wall.
Then he cleared his throat loudly.
‘S-sorry. I was miles away’ He shook his head, stepped back, and turned to walk down the hall.
Izzy followed him, her hands scrunched into tight fists, her nails digging into her palms, her breath coming in shallow bursts. She had the strangest feeling that he had been about to kiss her back there. It was only half a feeling, the kind that makes you feel totally wrong, and stupid all at the same time. Perhaps she’d completely misread the moment, which she had every reason to have done, given how out of practice she was. The immediate thrill that had pulsed through her was replaced by a seeping revulsion. What a sleaze. A great looking guy who thought he could, literally, have it all. Well that went some way to compensating for the fact that he was taken. Not that she was in the slightest bit interested, because she wasn’t. Who would want a guy who behaved like that?
‘Thanks anyway.’ She hurtled towards the open front door, overtaking him half way down the hall. Remembering Luce’s firm instructions, she yanked herself to a halt at the door, and as she shoved her feet into her shoes, she forced out a sickly smile. ‘You know where we are if you need anything else.’
Vaguely aware of his slightly bemused expression as he squinted after her, rubbing his chin, she stumbled over the cabinet on the doorstep, and fled for the sanctuary of the van.
13 (#ulink_676d3771-2253-5031-abc3-ba0836306b93)
Text from Luce to Izzy:
And…?? Was the hot guy hot enough for u Izzy? Did you nail a date? Need deets!!!! :D xx
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Text from Izzy to Luce:
Already spoken for xx
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Text from Luce to Izzy:
OMG!!! Really???? :( xx
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Text from Izzy to Luce:
Married with two kids. Also loaded. You KNOW I’d never do loaded xx
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Text from Luce to Izzy:
Eeeek, sorry :/ XX
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Text from Izzy to Luce:
Give you deets l8r ok? xx
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Text from Luce to Izzy:
Might give Corks a miss 2nite…need to do Steffie’s dress :/ x
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Text from Izzy to Luce:
Me too. STACK of painting height of house. Catch u 2moz then, hugs xx
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Text from Luce to Izzy:
((((HUGS)))) for you 2 Izzyboots :) xx
14 (#ulink_5d8db017-1745-565e-8d9d-d44adbf78183)
7th June, Saturday Afternoon
LUCE
