Page 48 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

‘Here, wash your hair and I’ll put these in for you,’ Cassie had told Kate. ‘You can sleep in them, and you’ll have lovely waves tomorrow.’ She produced a can of expensive, salon-quality hairspray as well. ‘This’ll keep the waves in, if nothing else will. Use it lavishly.’

Kate looked at the can and pulled a face. ‘Don’t you care about the ozone layer?’

‘I do, darling, but I care about authenticity for my weekend more.’

Kate had to admit that Cassie had done a good job. She looked quite 1930-ish, even if she did say so herself. All she had to do was ensure Jenna turned up at the museum and then she could head over to the Hall. And hopefully, if she was right and those stars were aligning, then Theo might be there and she might see a little bit more of him. If Lori was out of the picture, it would be very nice. And if she wasn’t. Well. That was just utter crap. She had done her best to exist over the last weeks without any communication from Theo; and hideous though it had been, she knew it was for the best.

Kate had flirted with the idea of asking Cassie if it was all confirmed that Theo was coming, but then shied away from it — Cassie would assume she wanted him there for all the wrong reasons. Well, they were the right reasons, but there was no need for Cassie to properly guess how she felt. And then there was Lori. She sighed, going round in circles. And if only Jenna would hurry up. She was cutting it fine.

But speak of the devil, Kate heard the door go downstairs and hurried down. Jenna was glaring around the reception area as if it had done something wrong. She must have heard Kate clattering down and transferred her glare to her.

‘Thank you, Jenna, for coming in today. And on time too! Marvellous.’

‘Yeah, well,’ the dark sultry eyes darted around. ‘I think Theo’s heading this way this morning so I wanted to catch him.’

‘Theo?’ Kate almost choked on his name. So he was definitely here then.

Jenna squeezed in beside Kate. ‘Yes. The sexy blacksmith. He’s here for the duration. He is such fun.’

‘Sexy blacksmith?’ For a fleeting moment, Kate thought of Will, all shiny and glistening with sweat, half-naked over the furnace, then blushed. Then she thought again, properly, of Theo, and felt herself blush even more hotly.

‘Yes.’ Jenna looked annoyed. ‘Theo. Remember? He came to the wine bar, last night. He’s camping again.’ Jenna grinned, her eyes flicking to Kate. ‘And I’ve never done it in a tent, so—’

‘Stop!’ Kate did not want to hear about Jenna’s sex life and she certainly didn’t want to associate her sex life with Theo Kent. ‘He’s not a blacksmith. He’s a farrier. There’s a difference. He did say he was going to come down if he could.’

Jenna leaned against the chest of drawers behind her and looked bored. ‘Well he came. And I’m here now so you can go and do your shit up at the Hall.’

Kate ignored her and moved Jenna’s mug pointedly off the counter.

Had he been at the wine bar then? Had he been here, in Hartsford last night, and she hadn’t known?

But, she asked herself, why should she care? If he’d been to the wine bar with Jenna, and if he’d got back with Lori, if it was all resolved with his daughter, then he’d been cheating on Lori — and if that was the case, at least she, Kate, wasn’t the other woman this time. But dear God, it hurt like hell if that was the case.

‘Yes. I bumped into him last night.’ Jenna smirked and continued relentlessly, almost as if she was enjoying it. ‘He was in the wine bar, like I say.’ She inspected her fingernail. ‘He didn’t have much to drink. He said he had to be at work today, but we had a good time.’

‘Hmmm.’ Kate made a non-committal noise. She didn’t want to know if Jenna was still a tent virgin or not. She headed outside, but Jenna, damn her, followed her.

‘He said he would pop down here first thing, to see if you had everything you needed for that bicycle. I don’t know what he thinks you’d need.’

‘Tools, I guess,’ Kate replied. She couldn’t help flicking back her newly-wavy hair. ‘But he needn’t worry. I’m sorted and I don’t need to see him.’

‘No, but I do. I have to give him his watch back.’

‘His watch?’ It was the last thing Kate expected Jenna to possess. Had he left it on her dressing table? She felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment.

‘Yep. His watch.’ Jenna eventually sauntered off, back towards the first cottage and disappeared into the building, leaving Kate alone with the ducks.

Lucifer, the biggest, angriest, duck growled and Kate nodded. ‘I agree,’ she told him.

She decided not to hang around and watch Jenna drape herself all over Theo, but instead head straight to the barn and pull the bicycle out. She’d given it a final polish before she took her curlers out, her shadow medusa-like in the early-morning sun as the curlers stuck out at all angles. She had a freezer full of ice-cream which needed to go in her basket and then she’d cycle up to the Hall.

She was wheeling the bicycle out, inwardly congratulating herself on how quiet the newly-oiled chain was, when a new shadow fell across her.

‘Nice work,’ said Theo. ‘I suppose you don’t need these, then?’ Kate turned and looked up to see him wielding a bicycle pump and a small tool box. ‘Random stuff like that breeds in my van.’ He frowned, looking down at the items in his hands. ‘I’m not exactly sure where or when I acquired the pump, but hey. It’s yours if you need it. I wasn’t sure what you had or what you might want.’

‘If I had still been needing that sort of thing now, I would be quite worried and I wouldn’t be heading up to the Hall today on the bicycle, would I?’ Kate couldn’t help it, her heart slammed into her chest at the sight of him.

‘Fair point.’ Theo dropped his hands. ‘It was just an excuse anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘I wanted to see what you looked like all dressed up. The tools were incidental. You do look great, by the way. I’m definitely working at the Hall as well. I wasn’t sure, right up until the last minute if I could, because of Poppy, but Alex was great and—’