Anything but Vanilla... (7 page)

It had been her sister who, without any business experience, had seen an opportunity and changed their lives. They’d all helped—she’d been the one who knew about regulations, accounting procedures, tax—but it was Elle who had seized the moment. Suddenly she was having a ‘big idea’ of her own. Maybe
the
‘big idea’.

She was shaking a little as she grinned back at Alexander. ‘I’m glad you approve. So, do we have a deal, Alexander West?’

‘If you can pay a month’s rent in advance, Sorrel Amery.’

‘A month?’

‘It’ll take that long to prepare the accounts, negotiate a new lease with the trust, contracts. Take it or leave it.’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t seem to have much choice. How much are you going to charge me?’ she asked. He wasn’t the only one who could ask a ‘catch’ question. She knew exactly how much rent Ria paid.

He didn’t ask for a penny more.

‘Will that be in cash?’ She was pushing her luck, but she didn’t want him to know that a month suited her very well. She needed time. ‘Without the telephone you won’t be able to use the card machine.’

‘A cheque would be tidier. Make it payable to The WPG Trust.’ Then, as if it had just occurred to him, he said, ‘Oh, no. You don’t carry a cheque book with you.’

He was
teasing
her?

She opened her bag. ‘Oh, look,’ she said, producing it. ‘This must be your lucky day.’

‘You think?’

The teasing glint remained, but realising how much trouble Ria was causing him, how much trouble
she
was causing him, she said, ‘No. I’m sorry.’ Then, because this was business, ‘My cheque for one month’s rent to be refunded off the price if I make an offer for the business?’ she pressed, firmly repressing the whisper of longing that shimmered through her as the suggestion of a smile, lifting one corner of his mouth, deepened a little.

‘To be refunded off the price if you buy the business,’ he agreed and offered her his hand. It was one of the traditional ways to close a deal. A kiss was another.

Kissing him would be fun.

Glorious fun...

For heaven’s sake! This was serious!

She grasped his hand firmly, like a proper business person. It was hard, callused, vibrating with power and this was him with jet lag...

‘I imagine you’ll want that in writing?’ he asked, losing the smile and releasing her so abruptly that she practically fell off her heels.

She took half a step back to regain her balance, physical if not mental. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you should put some cayenne pepper in that ice cream,’ he said, peeling himself away from the sink.

The air seemed to ripple around him as he moved, lapping against her in soft waves, goosing her flesh. Sorrel shivered a little and glanced after him. Did he have that effect on everyone or was it just her?

He didn’t look back, and, aware that she was standing there in a lustlorn trance, she was grateful. The click of the door as he closed it brought her back to reality, but even then it took a moment for her bones to remember what they were for. What she was here for.

Cayenne pepper? Really?

She crossed the kitchen and opened the cupboard containing the spice and flavourings and there it was. Right at the front.

Could he be right?

In the face of any other ideas it had to be worth a try, but how much was just a touch, exactly? She liked everything cut and dried. Laid out in straight lines. Business, life, gram weights. Give her a recipe and she was fine but this ‘touch’, or ‘pinch’ business—like the sizzle in the air whenever they came within touching distance—left her floundering.

She weighed some of the spice carefully onto the little ‘gram’ scale and then added it to a pint of the mixture in the tiniest amounts, tasting, adding, tasting, adding until suddenly the ice cream sprang to life. Not hot, but with just enough added zing to make it...perfect.

How had he
known
?

She’d seen Ria do the same thing, instinctively reach for a spice that brought an ice leaping to life on the palate. It was a kind of alchemy. And totally frustrating when you couldn’t do it yourself.

She needed Ria.

She needed Alexander.

No, Ria!

She checked the scales to see how much of the pepper she’d used to the last gram, updated the recipe on her laptop, rounded it up and added the full amount to the churn. Then she checked her phone. No messages.

She started making the Earl Grey granita.

It wasn’t one of their one-off recipes, but a standard they’d used before. Perfecting it was just a matter of timing to get the strength of the tea exactly right. No surprises, just concentration.

* * *

Alexander took a moment to gather his thoughts, concentrate on what he had to do in an attempt to shift the disturbing sense of losing himself.

It didn’t help.

He flexed his hands, still tingling with the electricity of the touch of Sorrel Amery’s fingers, palm against his. Cool, seductively soft, with contrastingly hot nails that exactly matched lips that were putting all kinds of thoughts into his head.

Dangerous thoughts.

It had been made very clear to him that his lifestyle and relationships were mutually exclusive. The era when women sat at home and waited while their men ventured into the unknown for months, years, had disappeared, along with the Victorians with whom Sorrel had compared him.

He’d made his choice and, while the passion for what he did burned bright, he’d live with it.

Alone.

He took a deep breath, then began to tackle the unpaid bills. When he’d placed the last of them in the out tray, he sat back and tried to piece together, from the fragments that had made it through the burble and static of a storm-disrupted uplink, exactly what Ria had said.

Sorrel wasn’t the only one to immediately think the worst.

Her words had been distorted, broken, but the urgency of her plea for him to ‘come now’, the certainty that she’d been crying had been enough for him to abandon his search and fly home.

Finding the insolvency notice, tossed on the hall table amongst a muddle of bills, had been something of a relief. Financial problems he could deal with, but now it seemed that his ‘Glad you’re not here?’ postcard, sent when he’d briefly touched civilisation a few weeks back, had triggered the downward spiral.

He felt for her, would clear up the mess, but he couldn’t allow her to carry on like this. It wasn’t fair on the people who relied on her. People like Sorrel Amery.

Unfortunately, in her case it was not just a simple matter of settling accounts and then shutting up shop. Despite her outrageously skimpy clothes, she appeared to have convinced sane men to hire her company. Sane men that he knew.

That took more than a short skirt and a ‘do me’ smile and in a burst of irritation he Googled Scoop!

There was more, he discovered. A lot more.

Scoop!’s website was uncluttered, elegant and professional. There were photographs of attractive girls and good-looking young men carrying trays that were a sleek update on the kind used by cinema usherettes and designed to carry a couple of dozen mini ice-cream cones or little glasses containing a mouthful of classic ice-cream desserts.

He clicked on one of the links—an ice-cream cone, what else?—and discovered Sorrel wearing a glamorous calf-length black lace cocktail dress with a neckline that displayed her figure to perfection. He’d seen something very similar in a photograph of his great-grandmother when she was a young woman.

Sorrel, unlike Great-grandma, was wearing the stop-me-and-buy-one smile that would have had him buying whatever she was selling.

Except that the smile wasn’t for him. What she was selling was her business and that was all she’d been thinking about today. While he’d been momentarily blown away by it, falling into the waiting kiss and sufficiently distracted by it to let her walk all over him, she hadn’t wavered in her focus for a moment. She’d only ever had one thing on her mind—ice cream.

Which was the good news.

He told himself that the bad news was that he was stuck with her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that. On the contrary, being stuck with her felt like a very good place to be.

He’d definitely been out of circulation for too long, he decided. What he needed...

He forgot what he needed as he clicked through the links to check out recent events and found himself looking at a photograph of a laughing bride about to take a mouthful of an ice that exactly matched the heavily embroidered bodice of her gown. He stared at it for a moment, a back-to-earth reality check, before he clicked through the rest of the photographs.

A school football team celebrating a cup win, their traditional ice-cream cones containing black-and-white striped ices to match their strip.

A company reception, the ices in the colours of the company logo.

He found the ice-cream van, too. Rosie, like the dress that Sorrel was wearing, was a lovingly restored vintage and had made appearances at any kind of event he could think of from hen parties, birthday parties, weddings, even a funeral in the last few months and she—someone—blogged about her very busy life, including appearances in a television drama series that was filmed locally.

He scrolled down until he found what he hadn’t known he was looking for. Sorrel Amery dressed as the Christmas ice-cream fairy. The smile was, it seemed, not reserved for gullible men. She had her arms around a small, desperately sick child, giving her a hug, making her laugh. And this time it brought a lump to his throat.

There was, apparently, a whole lot more to Sorrel Amery than long legs and lashes that fringed eyes the green and gold haze of a hazel hedge on an early spring morning.

But he’d already worked that out. She’d been concerned about her ice cream, her ‘event’ but, despite being badly let down, she’d shown concern for Ria, too. That displayed a depth of character that didn’t quite match the skirt, the shoes or a kiss for a man she’d only set eyes on a minute before. A kiss that had left him breathless.

Apparently he was the one who was shallow here, leaping to conclusions, judging on appearances.

Sorrel hadn’t fallen apart when her day had hit the skids. After a shaky start, she’d buckled down, dealt with the problems as they had been hurled at her and, in the process, convinced him to do something that went against every instinct.

That took a lot more than a straight-to-hell smile.

* * *

Sorrel was squeezing the juice from a pile of pink grapefruit when he returned to the kitchen. Not the most enjoyable job in the world, but she was putting her back into it.

‘How long are you going to be?’ he asked.

‘As long as it takes,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to make more than one batch of this so I’ll be a while yet. As soon as I’ve got the syrup started, I’ll pop down to the school to catch Nancy,’ she said, checking her watch, before turning to look at him. ‘You don’t have to stay.’ She favoured him with a wry smile. ‘As you appear to have worked out for yourself, Ria gave me a key so that I can pick up stock out of hours.’

‘That sounds about right.’ Ria had a genius for making ice cream and if she’d been focused, seized the opportunities that clearly existed for someone with entrepreneurial flair, she could have been making serious money. He’d given her every chance, but it was obvious that she didn’t have the temperament for it. As Sorrel Amery had discovered, she was like Scotch mist: impossible to pin down. ‘I’m sorry she let you down.’

‘It’s not your fault and she didn’t mean to. She’s just, well, Ria.’

‘Yes.’ Infuriating, irresponsible, impossible to refuse anything... He’d berated Sorrel for handing over cash but he’d done a lot more than that over the years. Wanting to make up for her loss. His loss... ‘I’ve got your lease.’

‘That was quick.’

‘It’s a month’s sub-let, hardly complicated.’

‘Don’t underestimate yourself.’ She rubbed her arm against her cheek where a juice had splashed. ‘You must be absolute dynamite when you’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

‘When I’ve had one, I’ll let you know. In the meantime are you going to sign this?’ he asked.

‘I’ll be right with you,’ she said, squeezing the last of the grapefruit before peeling off the thin protective gloves.

She checked the date and signature on the original lease signed by Ria, then read through the sub-lease and the letter he’d written.

‘You’re my
sponsor
? What does that mean?’

‘All our tenants are sponsored by a board member. You’ll have to provide audited accounts and references before you’ll be granted a full lease.’

‘And will you sponsor me for that?’

‘I won’t be here.’

She flinched, as if struck. It was over in a moment and if he hadn’t been looking at her quite so intently he’d have missed it. ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘Um...this seems to be in order. Have you got a pen?’

‘You’re not going to read the actual lease?’

‘Are you open to negotiation?’ She glanced up, questioningly.

‘No,’ he said, quickly, handing her his pen.

‘Thought not.’ She signed both copies of the sub-lease and gave him back one copy. ‘You’ll find my cheque pinned to the noticeboard.’

She’d been that confident?

‘One month, Sorrel,’ he repeated. ‘Not a day...not an hour longer.’

SEVEN

I’d give up ice cream, but I’m no quitter.

—from Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’

Nancy was waiting by the school gate for her little girl. Sorrel had expected her to be upset, to be looking worried, but, if the bright new streaks in her hair were anything to go by, her response to losing her job had been a trip to the hairdresser’s. Far from depressed, she looked ready to party.

‘Nancy...I’ve been leaving messages on your phone.’

She spun round. ‘Oh, Sorrel...’ She looked guilty rather than distraught. ‘I was going to call you, but I’ve been a bit busy. Is there any news of Ria?’

‘No, but I do have some good news for you. I’ve leased the ice-cream parlour for a month and if everything goes according to plan Knickerbocker Gloria is going to remain open.’

‘Really? But Mr West said...’

‘I know what Mr West said, but we’ve come to an agreement. I’ll be employing you for the moment and once Ria comes back we’ll sort everything out. In the meantime you can come in tomorrow and we’ll carry on as usual.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Far from being thrilled that she still had a job, Nancy appeared panic-stricken.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘No... Yes...’

‘Which is it?’

‘The thing is, I can’t, Sorrel. Not tomorrow.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve got another job already? Not that you don’t deserve one,’ she added, quickly. ‘Anyone would be lucky to have you.’ Nancy was cheerful, hard-working and punctual, and it would explain the celebration hairdo. But no one was queueing up to offer part-time jobs to women at the moment.

Nancy pulled a face. ‘Fat chance. Not that I’ve actually looked for one.’

‘Well...’ A day to get over the shock was understandable. And the hair thing might just have been a cheer-up treat.

‘I did buy the local paper, but there was nothing in there. Then I saw an ad for a caravan.’

‘A caravan?’

‘By the coast. On one of those parks with pools and cycling and all sorts of great stuff for kids to do. Mr West had given me some money...I know it was supposed to see me through until I could get another job but when would I ever have that much cash again?’

Cash?

‘You’ve booked a holiday?’

‘It’s just a week, but when I saw it, it came into my head, that thing that Ria is always saying. About seizing the fish?’

‘What? Oh,
carpe diem
...’ Seize the day. Or as Ria was fond of saying—when she’d taken off without warning to go to a rock concert or to dance around Stonehenge at the Solstice— ‘Grab the fish when you can because life is uncertain and who knows when another of the slippery things will come along...’

‘That’s it. I realised this is what she meant. This is my fish. So I grabbed it.’

‘But what about school? It’s not half term, is it?’

‘I checked with the head teacher,’ Nancy replied, turning from apologetic to defensive on a sixpence. ‘She said a week by the sea would do Kerry more good than sitting in a stuffy classroom breathing in other kids’ germs. She’s had a really rough winter with her chest. I’m taking my mum, too,’ she added. ‘I don’t know how I’d have managed without her.’

‘I know...’ Sorrel wanted to be happy for her. No, actually, she wanted to shake her for being so irresponsible about the money—
cash?
—but it wouldn’t change anything. ‘Well, I hope the sun shines non-stop and the three of you have a fabulous time.’

‘I can come in next Friday. If you still want me?’ she added, anxiously. Then, with a sudden attack of panic, ‘I won’t have to give Mr West his money back if I keep my job, will I?’

‘What did he say when he gave it to you?’

‘Just that it would keep me going for a while. He went to the bank to get it for me.’

‘Did he?’ She bit back a smile. It wasn’t funny. Not at all. ‘How kind of him.’

‘He was lovely. So concerned. Not at all what I expected.’

‘No.’

‘Only what with the holiday, my hair and some new clothes for Kerry...’

Sorrel had to swallow, hard, before she could speak. ‘Of course I want you, Nancy. And no, you won’t have to repay Mr West. That was...’ Since there was no money in the Knickerbocker Gloria account, that had to have been straight out of his pocket. And she’d yelled at him for not caring... ‘That was a gift.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m certain. And in future you’ll be working for me so we’ll be starting afresh.’ She opened her bag, took out her wallet and handed Nancy a banknote. ‘Give this to Kerry from me. Ice-cream money.’

‘That’s too much.’ Then, taking it, ‘You’re really kind.’

‘Not at all.’ Alexander West, on the other hand... ‘This is work. Research. Tell her I want the full skinny on the competition. Flavours, toppings, colours, the whole works. With pictures.’

Nancy laughed. ‘Right...’ Then, her smile fading, ‘Will you be all right? Who’s going to run the parlour while I’m away?’

‘That is not your problem,’ Sorrel said, giving her a hug. ‘I want you to spend the next week relaxing and having fun. I’ll see you on Friday.’

‘On the dot,’ she said, turning away as the children came streaming out of school.

Sorrel stood and watched for a moment, a sharp little stab of pain of memory, loss, scything through her as Nancy scooped up her long-limbed daughter and swung her round.

Life is uncertain. Seize the day...

* * *

Alexander was making an inventory of the freezer contents when she returned. Needless to say he hadn’t bothered with a white coat or hat, but he had fastened his hair back with an elastic band. It only served to emphasise his strong profile, good cheekbones, powerful neck.

‘Why don’t you go home and give your body a chance to catch up with the rest of you?’ she said irritably as he stooped to check the bottom shelf and his jeans tightened over his thighs. He was just so...
male
! ‘I’m not going to cheat you.’

He looked up, blue eyes fixing her with a sharp look. ‘What’s rattled your cage? Didn’t you find Nancy?’

‘Yes, I found her.’

Thanks to Alexander West and his unexpected generosity she now had an ice-cream parlour, but no one to run it. Nancy deserved a break, heaven alone knew, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.

She washed her hands, put on the white coat, geeky hat and, aware that he was watching her, pointedly stretched a new pair of micro-thin gloves over her hands. She checked the syrup she’d made using the grapefruit juice, to make sure the sugar had dissolved, then poured half of it into one of the ice-cream makers. That done, she ripped the foil off a champagne bottle and attacked the wire.

Alexander closed the freezer door, put down the clipboard he was holding and, joining her at the workbench, held out his hand. ‘Let me do that.’

‘I can manage,’ she said, continuing to twist the wire as if she were wringing his neck.

‘I don’t doubt it, but if you go at it like that you’re going to break a nail.’

‘Could you be any more patronising?’ she asked, not bothering to look up.

‘You’re already having a seriously bad day and the last thing you need is to turn it into a disaster.’

She looked up, about to give him a piece of her mind, and saw that he was grinning. He’d been teasing her...

For a moment she was so surprised that she forgot to breathe. Then, without warning, she was spluttering, desperately trying to hold back an explosion of giggles. This was so not funny. Except that it was. And exactly what she needed. A good laugh...

‘Bastard,’ she said. ‘A broken nail is not a disaster. But you’re right, I don’t have time to visit the nail bar.’

‘That’s better,’ he said, taking the bottle from her and, while she struggled to get her giggles under control—stress-released, exactly like the bubbles in champagne, obviously—he dealt efficiently with the wire and, holding the cork firmly in one of those capable hands, twisted the bottle with the other so that they parted with no more than a gentle pop. None of that flashy fizz bang whoosh for Alexander West. ‘I don’t know what’s upset you,’ he said, setting the bottle on the work surface, ‘but in that mood you’re going to curdle the sorbet.’

‘If I did it would be your fault.’

‘Isn’t everything?’ he said, reaching for another bottle.

‘Probably not,’ she admitted, ‘but I’m going to have to manage without Nancy and in this instance you are definitely to blame.’

That got his attention. ‘Are you telling me that she’s already found another job?’

‘Oh, please. She never got as far as the job agency. You shouldn’t have paid her off in, um, cash,’ she said, demonstrating that he wasn’t the only one who could lift one eyebrow at a time.

‘I didn’t have my cheque book with me.’

‘Oh, I understand. I mean, who carries a cheque book these days?’ she replied and he shifted his head an inch, acknowledging the hit. ‘Unfortunately cash is a lot easier to spend.’

‘She can’t possibly have spent it all,’ he protested.

‘No?’ Just how much had he given her? ‘Not all, but a new hairdo, a holiday and some clothes for her little girl must have put a pretty big dent in it.’

He let slip a word that she wasn’t meant to hear. ‘I’m sorry, but that was supposed to tide her over until she found another job,’ he said, exasperated. Not quite as laid back as he looked, then.

‘You know that. I know that. Nancy...’ She lifted her hand in a helpless gesture. ‘I was so mad at her when she told me what she’d done that I wanted to shake her, but she hasn’t had a break since her boyfriend decided that fatherhood was interfering with his lifestyle...’ Her voice snagged in her throat. Women were so much at the mercy of their emotions. Of the men who took advantage of them and then walked away from their responsibilities.

Not her.

Not her...

‘When I told her that I wanted her to come back to work, her first concern was whether she’d have to repay you.’

The same word and this time he didn’t apologise.

‘Of course she doesn’t have to give it back. It was a redundancy payment from Ria’s business.’

‘From the business? You deducted tax and national insurance?’ He began to peel the foil off a third bottle. ‘Not that one. Not yet,’ she said, reaching out to stop him, a jolt of warmth running through her hand as it closed over his.

His knuckles were hard beneath her palm, a little rough. Sun-bleached hair, gold against his sun-darkened skin, glittered on his wrist. She wanted to slide her fingers through it. Along his arm. Feel the hard muscle beneath the skin.

Alexander was staring at her fingers wrapped around his. They looked so pale against his, her nails painted to match her suit, so shockingly bright. Then he looked up and she saw what she was feeling reflected back at her, like a wave of heat. Undisguised, raw, shocking in its intensity.

Like her older sister, she had lived with the legacy of her mother’s reputation, and had found it easy to resist temptation. Like her sister, all it took was a man with hot blue eyes to short-circuit her defences.

Speak...

She had to say something, break the spell, before she did something really stupid...

‘I’m surprised...’ Her mouth made the words, but no sound emerged and she swallowed, desperately. ‘I’m surprised that if Ria had that much cash in her bank account she wasn’t paying her bills.’

‘Ria is owed money by a couple of restaurants.’ He continued to hold her with just the power of his look. This is how it begins, she thought. This is the irresistible force that my mother felt... A phone began to ring from the depths of her handbag, shattering the tension. She ignored it. ‘I’ll get it back,’ he said.

‘Will you?’ The spell broken, it was her turn to give him the disbelieving eye. ‘Are you sure they didn’t pay her cash on delivery?’ she asked, carefully removing her fingers from his, taking the champagne bottle and setting it back on the work bench. ‘For a discount?’ Her shrug gave new meaning to the word ‘minimalist’. ‘She wouldn’t last very long on the cash I gave her.’

‘You’re catching on.’

‘Sadly not fast enough. If I’d had half a clue what kind of mess she was in...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. She didn’t seem bothered about a thing. The last time I saw her she seemed buoyed up. Excited.’ She let it go. ‘Unfortunately I now have another problem. Tomorrow is Friday, the weather men have promised us sunshine and we have no one to open up and serve the wonderful people of Maybridge with their favourite ice cream.’

‘We?’

The ‘we’ she’d been referring to was Scoop!, but she was happy to include Alexander West since, for some reason that eluded her, he appeared to be taking the whole thing so personally.

‘I’d do it myself,’ she said, ‘but, as you’re aware, I have a major event tomorrow. I should be at Cranbrook right now putting everything into place.’

‘I hope you’re not suggesting that’s my fault.’

‘You’re the one who gave Nancy the money to take off for a week,’ she said, but with a smile, so that he’d know she wasn’t mad at him for that. On the contrary, if she wasn’t very careful, she could find herself liking him. Quite a lot. Despite the fact that he needed a haircut, didn’t wear a suit and would rather hack his way through a mosquito-infested jungle than settle down and compete for the corner office like a proper grown-up.

Like Graeme, she reminded herself.

The man she’d picked out as her ideal husband. Mature, settled, everything that Alexander was not.

But then Alexander’s smile crinkled up the corners of his eyes, tucked into a crease low in his cheek, emphasising the relaxed curve of his lower lip and for a moment she forgot to breathe.

‘You do know how to use an ice-cream scoop?’ she asked. ‘You just press the handles together and...’ He glanced warningly at her and she stopped. Whatever was the matter with her? ‘It’s got to be more fun than winding up a business.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score,’ he said.

‘So, leave it until after the weekend. It seems a shame to spoil a sunny Friday doing a job that’s custom made for a wet Monday morning.’

‘Are you seriously asking me to run Knickerbocker Gloria tomorrow?’

Without thinking, she put a hand on his forearm. It was the simplest of gestures. Quiet appreciation of everything he was doing, no matter how unwillingly. ‘I wish. Unfortunately you have to do the hygiene course before I can leave you in charge.’