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‘Ruby’s on honeymoon. She doesn’t need to know. But, yes, I told Mum,’ he admitted. ‘She’s promised not to interfere. What about you—did you tell your mum and dad?’
‘They kind of noticed that we left Ruby’s wedding at the same time,’ she said. ‘So, yes, they asked me about you.’ And her mum was worried about it; she’d seen how long it had taken Abigail to pick herself back off the floor and dust herself down after the divorce.
‘They don’t approve, do they?’ Brad asked wryly.
‘They have some reservations,’ she said. ‘But they won’t interfere. This is between you and me. Our chance to work out if we like who each other is now and if we want to do something about it.’ She paused. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Plan?’
‘You were the one who talked about running a project. About critical path analysis.’
He smiled. ‘I’d hardly call you a project, Abby. But the plan, as you put it, is to spend time with you. If we were dating under normal circumstances, we’d see each other, what, once or twice a week?’
‘About that,’ she agreed.
‘Then think of this as a kind of speed-dating. If we see each other every day for the next ten days, it’s the equivalent of nearly two months of dating at once or twice a week. And then we’ll have a better grasp of the situation.’
‘We’ll know whether we want to take this thing further or not.’ And, if they did, then they’d have to decide which of them would be the one to uproot their life.
‘We could make a list,’ he said. ‘Things we want to do, places we want to go. Make it as off-the-wall or as touristy as you like.’
She looked at him with a smile. ‘Spoken like a true scientist.’
‘Isn’t that what you do in business?’ he asked. ‘Make lists and plan things?’
‘I have a list of new flavours I’m planning to try, and promotional activity, yes,’ she admitted.
‘So let’s start here. I don’t mind being scribe—I’ll copy the file and send it to you when we’re done, and then we can whittle it down.’ He took his phone out of his pocket and flicked into what was obviously a note-taking app.
‘Let’s do the obvious ones,’ she suggested. ‘A walk on the beach, a visit to the gardens of a stately home, a walk in the woods.’
He typed them in. ‘A trip on one of the steam trains—I’m fairly sure there was a nineteen-forties weekend listed in the local newspaper. That could be fun.’
‘OK. Visit a ruined castle, go somewhere quirky for afternoon tea.’
‘Agreed. And we need stuff for rainy days. I know it’s summer and this is the driest part of the country, but this is England and that means rain. Museums, art exhibition, ten-pin bowling.’ He typed them in swiftly.
‘The cinema,’ she said. ‘Maybe going to see a local band.’
‘And the lighthouse,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been there for years. We need to make that on a day when it’s open to the public and we can climb up to the lamp.’ He smiled. ‘There are so many things on that list I’ve never done before. I guess you always take where you live for granted.’
Not just where you live, she thought. It was too easy to take people for granted, too. Maybe that had been part of the problem between them, the first time round. She’d been so sure she knew how he’d react in any situation—and how very wrong she’d been.
‘Well. To us and our list,’ she said, lifting her glass. ‘And may it give us our answers.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said, lifting his own glass. ‘So when are your days off? Then we can plan to do the further away things on those days.’ He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘You’re smiling.’
‘You really are making this into a project, aren’t you?’
‘It just makes sense to do it this way and make the most of our time.’
‘Like you did when we went to Paris.’
‘You remember Paris?’ His voice was suddenly husky.
She nodded. ‘You had a list of all the places we wanted to visit, the opening days and times, whether they were covered by our museum card, and you even marked everything on a map.’
