Page 62

‘Well, didn’t you say there was a café up on the main road?’ Kelly said.

Edward grinned. ‘Going to a café? That sounds rather like a date.’

Kelly scowled at him. ‘It’s just business,’ she said.

While inside, she was thinking exactly the same thing. Going to a café with Edward was rather like going on a date.

29

A Disastrous Confrontation

The café was a pretty little thing called the Cloverly Rabbit that served the perfect kind of sugary, creamy pumpkin spiced lattes that were just the ticket to cheer Kelly up.

Having Edward with her certainly helped, even though she didn’t really have any suggestions.

She tried to look up the Littleslades on her laptop, but it was difficult because she didn’t know Mr Littleslade’s first name and all she knew of his wife was that he’d called her Marge, which could be Marjorie, or Margaret, or even something else. However, it wasn’t such a common surname, so she figured that if she just spent half an hour on social media, eventually she might find a matching picture.

But Edward, who wanted to stay and help, got an abrupt phone call from the Carnival of Horrors.

He went outside to take the call and then came back in with a scowl on his face.

‘There’s trouble,’ he said. ‘The ghost train has broken down, and there are customers stuck on it. I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go back down and fix it.’

He stared at his phone.

‘Sometimes it’s nice not getting reception. You don’t get all the problems.’

He offered to pick her up later, but the old lady who ran the café offered to drop Kelly back down to the village when she closed up at three o’clock, which would give Kelly just enough time to do a thorough search for the Littleslades.

She wished Edward good luck, noting with something like delight how he reached out and gave her arm a little squeeze.

Then he headed off to Old Ned’s van, looking back as he pulled out, not just once but twice.

‘Handsome young man you’ve got there,’ the old lady from the café said. ‘Are you betrothed?’

Kelly’s cheeks flushed.

‘He’s not even my boyfriend,’ she said.

The old woman chuckled. ‘Well, he will be soon, dear, the way he’s looking at you.’

Kelly thanked the woman for her intrusiveness and returned to her table, where she picked up a laminated menu and turned it over to have a look at the desserts.

Since she was here, she figured it couldn’t hurt to order a stack of maple pancakes with crushed pecans and white chocolate biscuits on top, with a side order of ice cream. The sugar would kept keep her awake and alert enough to do a proper search.

Getting down to business, she began scrolling through dozens of generic social media pages.

At first, she came up with nothing.

Then, just on the off chance that they might be well known in some circles, she searched for ‘Littleslade famous family’.

To her surprise, up popped a picture of Mr Littleslade, or, as she now knew him, Pierce Littleslade, professional poker player.

Somewhat taken aback, Kelly could hardly believe what she was reading.

Not only was Pierce Littleslade a professional poker player, but he was quite a good one and had won a handful of tournaments on the professional circuit.

While unsure quite how successful he had been, it made sense that he had come back to the site where his family’s ancestors had lost their birthright doing the very thing he was now an expert at.