Blind-Date Baby (4 page)

She reached for her handbag and started to push back her seat. For the first time all evening, the confidence, the pizzazz drained away. She glanced at him for a mere moment as she smoothed down her skirt and he saw a look of both hardness and vulnerability on her face.

‘Grace, I’m sorry. In no way do I—’ He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t go.’

She shook her head. ‘You know what, Noah. This really isn’t going to work out. I think I should just leave.’ And, with that, she nimbly eased herself out of her chair and headed for the coat rack.

Known for his command of the English language? Hah.

Well, if Grace was leaving, so was he. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, left more than enough twenty pound notes on the table to cover the bill and darted after her.

Grace didn’t even remember putting her coat on. It was only as the chilly night air hit her face that her brain whirred into action. Without making a conscious decision, she turned right and hurried down Vinehurst High Street as fast as the stupid high heels she’d stolen out the bottom of Daisy’s wardrobe would let her.

‘Grace!’

She bit the tip of her tongue between her teeth, shook her head and just kept walking. Every time she told people what she did for a living she got the same reaction, the same look. The one that said, why wasn’t she busy saving lives on the operating table or running a million-pound Internet business she’d started in her front room like other women of her generation?

Because she hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice time with Daisy to build a career, that was why. Daisy had already lost one parent and she didn’t need the other to become a dim and distant memory while childminders did all the hands-on stuff. So Grace had taken a job that let her fit her hours round the school day and didn’t require evening shifts.

The owner of the coffee shop was Aunt Caroline—or Caz, as she liked to be called. She was really Rob’s aunt, but had welcomed Grace into the family with open arms and had been a lifesaver when he’d died, taking Grace under her wing and letting her rent the upstairs flat. Grace’s parents had moved to the West Country when she’d got married and there had been no one close by to turn to. Her parents had begged her to move in with them, but she’d refused—too young, foolish and independent at the time to realise what a gift it might have been. But Rob was buried in the churchyard here and she hadn’t been able to wrench herself away, leave him behind.

She became aware of someone following her and picked up speed. She shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of her job. She made the best pastries in the area. And, even if she hadn’t, she didn’t want to apologise for her work.

She could hear heavy, pounding footsteps behind her now. Just for a while, she’d thought she’d been having a decent conversation with someone who didn’t assume she had an IQ of twenty because she baked and served coffee for a living. And he’d been nice to her…But only because he’d misheard her and thought she was something she wasn’t.

‘Grace!’

He was right behind her now. She stopped and turned round, hardening herself, putting on that sassy front she used with difficult customers at The Coffee Bean. ‘Mr Smith.’

‘Grace, you got me all wrong! I don’t care if you work in a coffee shop or a lawyer’s office. I don’t want the night to end this way, do you?’

No, she didn’t. Adult company, a little bit of sophistication, had been nice. And she’d thought Noah had been gorgeous too, right up until the end. But he’d come after her. That was quite nice. To be exact, he’d run after her. And they had been having fun.

She started walking again. ‘What if I worked as a litter picker? Would you still have come after me?’

His features shifted and changed. When they’d been sitting down in the restaurant, she hadn’t noticed how tall he was. Now, she had to tilt her head up to get a look in his eyes.

They were the most beautiful colour. Green. Not the emerald-green of story books, but a cool, glassy green that verged on grey. Even so, their paleness didn’t detract from their intensity. When he looked at her she felt as if she had one hundred per cent of his attention, as if she were the only thing in his field of focus. But now they didn’t seem focused, they seemed puzzled.

‘Of course, I’d have come after you. I came out for a nice dinner and ended up chewing my own size twelve shoes. I needed to apologise.’

He wasn’t taking the bait, playing her little game, but his honesty won her over. She didn’t have time for slimy men who oozed the right things. She’d settle for Noah Smith and his no-nonsense words—even if they were occasionally muffled by his shoe leather. Had he really said size
twelves
…?

He fell into step beside her. ‘So, are we okay? Do you want to go somewhere for coff—a drink?’

She smiled. ‘How about if I was a sewage worker? Would you want to have a drink with me then?’

There was a tiny break in the rhythm of his steps. ‘Only if I was allowed to wear a peg on my nose.’

Her tense jaw muscles relaxed and a smile she’d been anchoring down sprung up. Finally, he’d joined her game. She grabbed his hand and speeded up. ‘Come on. I know the perfect place.’

Noah had no choice but to follow Grace as her shoes measured out rapid little steps. Even in heels, she only just reached past his shoulders and he didn’t have to do more than stroll to keep up.

The sky glowed a murky pink, reflecting the street lamps of a vast city. Typical for a spring night in England, an icy splosh of rain hit the top of his head, not even deflected by his hair. If he and Grace didn’t hurry up, they were about to get soaked. Just as he opened his mouth to ask where they were going, she dragged him into a doorway.

Out of the wind whistling down the High Street, the air was surprisingly close. Grace was only inches away, smiling up at him cheekily. He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter that the rain was now falling out of the sky and his right arm, out of the cover of the small doorway, was getting wet. All that mattered was the slight shine cast on her lips by the street lamp on the other side of the road. He couldn’t stop looking at them. The smile faded from her face and she regarded him with wide eyes.

The sound of the rain slapping against the pavement seemed to grow and intensify until it filled his ears. He knew he was about to lean forward and kiss her. Not that he’d made a decision; somehow he just knew. And there was nothing he could do to stop himself.

Just as his muscles prepared themselves for movement, he
heard a jangle of keys and suddenly Grace was gone. He looked in confusion at the open door and listened to her heels track their way across the darkened shop. Attempting to follow was a bad idea, he discovered, sending a chair flying and leaving himself with a throbbing shin.

‘Hang on a moment,’ Grace said from somewhere in the darkness.

A few seconds later a light went on above a counter on the other side of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, a thunderclap rumbled a few miles away. Grace skirted round the tables and closed the door. She didn’t say anything as she moved past him; it was only as she was walking away back to the counter that she spoke.

‘This place serves the best coffee in the whole of South East London.’

Now he noticed his surroundings. The place almost resembled an auction room with its assorted wooden tables and chairs—no two matching. Large velvet-covered sofas occupied one corner and big canvases of abstract art and pictures of coffee beans hung on the walls.

‘The best?’

Now Grace was more than ten feet away and standing behind the safety of a counter she seemed to have regained her usual chatty manner. ‘Absolutely. And I know that because I make it. What will you have?’

‘Espresso,’ he said without thinking. ‘Double.’

‘Coming right up. Make yourself at home.’ He moved towards one of the low armchairs near the counter and sat down as Grace began banging things and turning knobs. A minute or so later she joined him with two cups of steaming espresso. The smell of freshly ground coffee filled the air like a fog. They sat and sipped their drinks in silence.

Grace hadn’t switched any extra lights on and they were sitting on the fringes of the yellow glow from the counter.
Even in this artificial twilight she seemed brighter and bolder and more alive than just about anyone he knew.

‘So, Noah…How does a guy like you end up listed on an Internet dating site? If you don’t mind me saying, I wouldn’t have thought it was…you know…your thing, or that you needed help in that department.’

Noah considered what she’d said for a moment, then smiled.

‘I decided that meeting people via the Internet was as good a way as any. It’s all down to chance, really. You meet someone in a bar, or at work, or wherever…Why not the Internet? Joining a site with a matching service should help take some of the guesswork out of it.’

Grace rolled her eyes. ‘You make it all sound so romantic!’

Romance. What was that, anyway? He, like most men, had thought it meant flowers and chocolates and candlelit dinners. That much he could manage. In the five years he’d been with Sara, the one woman he’d thought of marrying without the help of a dating site, she’d tried to explain that romance was more about connecting with someone on a deeper level, about seeing into someone’s soul. He’d nodded and looked thoughtful and, although he’d tried hard to understand, he’d had the funny feeling he’d missed the point. Even though he’d
connected
to the best of his abilities she’d still walked away, telling him it wasn’t enough. The truly tragic thing was that he honestly didn’t know what he could have done differently.

Noah stared out of the plate glass window at the front of the shop. It was raining hard now, fat drops bouncing off the road and swirling down the gutters. That kind of romance was the last place to start if you wanted a successful relationship.

When he looked back at Grace that cheeky eyebrow rose again. How could she say so much with one small twitch of a muscle?

‘Don’t you believe in fate, in destiny?’ she asked.

Noah didn’t even have to stop and think about that one. ‘No.’

‘So it’s all just down to random events and chemical reactions, then?’

‘Well, partly…at least, I think that’s what sexual attraction boils down to, but we’re not just talking about that. Choosing someone to spend your life with is about more than chemistry, surely? Why? Do you believe in fate?’

Grace put her cup down and looked at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know…It’s comforting to think that love isn’t just some random genetic thing. Where’s the magic in that?’

Uh-oh. If she was looking for magic, she was barking up the wrong tree. He didn’t do magic any more than he did romance. Loyalty, honesty, sheer bloody-mindedness—he had those things in spades, but there wasn’t any fairy dust involved. It was just the way he was made. Time to get things back on firmer ground. Time to return to facts and figures and things a man could quantify.

‘Why did you join Blinddatebrides.com?’

Grace looked at the ceiling and shook her head. ‘Actually, I’d never heard of the site before this morning. Someone else joined on my behalf and I’m going to kill her when I get my hands…’ She bit her lip and grimaced. ‘Sorry. That didn’t sound the way I meant it to. I didn’t want to imply that I regret meeting you.’

‘Of course you didn’t.’

He liked the way she didn’t filter her words.

‘Maybe I’ll let her off with dunking her in the old horse trough on the common…Now that I’ve discovered having a blind date isn’t quite as horrendous as I anticipated.’

The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘I’m flattered. Me having such fine teeth, and all. You will tell your friend about the teeth, won’t you?’

Grace put down her coffee cup. ‘Oh, it wasn’t a friend who set me up. It was my daughter.’

His stomach plummeted just that little bit further. He hadn’t even considered that Grace might have children. She just looked too…And he was useless with kids. His friends’ kids only tolerated him when he visited because, on occasion, he could be coaxed into letting them ride on his shoulders. Any attempts at communication just fell flat. They would stare at him with their mouths open as if he were an alien life form. No, Noah and kids just didn’t mix.

‘You have a daughter?’ he asked, consciously trying to keep his tone light.

She nodded. ‘Daisy. Nineteen—the age when she thinks Mama doesn’t know best any more and is doing her best to organise my life to her liking.’

See? Nineteen was better. He might be able to manage children—well, young adults—at that age.

‘So, you’re divorced?’

She shook her head. ‘Widowed.’ Her hand flew up. ‘Don’t give me the look!’

He blinked. What look?

‘It was a long time ago. I was barely more than a teenager when I got married and not much older when I found myself on my own again.’ She gave him a fierce look, one that dared him to feel sorry for her.

‘How did he die?’

Grace went very quiet. Was he tasting his own shoe polish again?

‘Thank you for asking. Most people just…you know…change the subject.’ She tipped her chin up and looked straight at him. ‘Rob was a soldier. He was killed in the first Gulf War.’

Noah nodded. ‘I served in Iraq myself.’

She pressed her lips together and gave him a watery smile. He didn’t have the words to describe what happened next; he just felt a bolt of recognition joining them together in silent
understanding. So many friends hadn’t made it home. And he’d seen so many wives fall apart. But here was Grace, not letting the world defeat her. She’d worked hard to bring her daughter up on her own. It couldn’t have been easy. And he’d bet she was a really good mother, one who had strived to be both mother and father to her daughter. If only every child were so lucky. He almost felt jealous of the absent Daisy.

This was getting far too emotional for him, pulling on loose threads of things he’d firmly locked away in his subconscious. Grace wasn’t looking for the same kind of relationship he was. She didn’t want to get married and, if she did, she wanted magic. His instincts told him it was time to retreat and let them both breathe out.