‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said Joe, bypassing the fork and taking a massive bite straight from the slice. ‘Oh, my god,’ he groaned, after chewing for a few seconds. ‘Oh. My. God.’
‘Oh my god, stop,’ I sniggered, before taking a bite myself, ‘if anyone walks by, they’ll be wondering what the hell’s happening in here.’
‘You have tasted this, right?’ he asked, clearly offended that I thought his reaction was over the top.
‘Oh. My. God,’ I mimicked as I swallowed the sweet, moist mouthful down.
‘Exactly,’ he grinned. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s so good,’ I laughed.
‘So good,’ he agreed.
We sat in silence for a few seconds, chewing, smiling and swallowing until all that were left were a few tiny crumbs that even Bruce would have been hard pushed to sniff out.
‘You know,’ said Joe, picking up his tea, ‘over the years, I’ve been trying to convince myself that Sophie’s cooking and baking wasn’t really as good as I remembered it, but . . .’
‘It is?’
‘It’s better,’ he sighed. ‘If anything, even better than I remembered!’
‘I’m guessing you used to eat at Hope’s place a lot when you were together?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘all the time and Hope used to come to the farm too, whenever she could get a lift out of the village.’
It was really sad to think that him, Hope and Sam, who had once shared so much, couldn’t now be a part of each other’s lives because of what had happened the night of the crash and because Hope was now in love with Sam. Don’t get me wrong, I did understand how difficult it all was and that it wasn’t a situation you could tie up with a neat bow and hand back fixed, but it was still sad, especially now they were all living in such close proximity again.
‘You know,’ Joe ruefully smiled, ‘the taste of that cake makes me want to go back to the café.’
‘You should go,’ I told him. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’
‘No way,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘it’s not worth the hassle. I wouldn’t want Sam to think I was talking to Hope or even trying to see her behind his back.’
‘She’s not in the café half the time,’ I said, ‘because she’s in the pub and, even if she was, I’m sure Sam wouldn’t think that.’
That said, given that I had seen Joe and Hope talking pretty furtively in the lane, he might be justified in jumping to that very conclusion if he also saw them with their heads together like that.
‘No,’ Joe shrugged. ‘I couldn’t do it. I know how it feels to have a mate muscle in on your other half and I wouldn’t want him thinking I was doing anything like that. Even if he has already done it to me.’
I didn’t point out that, if what I knew of the situation and the timings were correct, then Sam had still been in a coma when he and Hope split up and consequently capable of doing very little.
‘That’s something you might want to think about, Tess,’ he then floored me by adding.
‘What?’
‘It’s not nice when a so-called pal makes a play for your other half.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘You and Sam after hours in the pub Saturday night . . .’
‘What about me and Sam in the pub after hours Saturday night?’
‘You kissed, didn’t you?’
‘No,’ I snapped, ‘we didn’t, of course we didn’t.’
‘You’ve gone a bit pink,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
‘Well, so would you, if I’d just accused you of doing something you hadn’t done. I’m angry, that’s why I’ve gone red!’
I couldn’t believe the turn the conversation had taken. Here we were eating cake, drinking tea, bathed in the scent from the beautiful and fragrant roses and he was accusing me of pinching someone else’s man!
‘I haven’t brought this up to make you angry, Tess.’
‘Then why have you brought it up and, more to the point, who told you about this non-event in the first place?’
‘I heard it in the pub,’ he further shocked me by saying. ‘I called here after I’d done in the village, but as you weren’t in, I risked a coffee in the Smuggler’s and that’s when I heard about it.’
‘I see,’ I said.
I was surprised that he had gone in unaccompanied.
‘And I’m mentioning it because as much as I hate to see Sam and Hope together, I don’t want her to get hurt. If you’ve started anything up with Sam, then please put a stop to it, Tess.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘I haven’t started anything up,’ I said, louder now, ‘with anyone. I have no idea who was gossiping but it’s all bullshit.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, sounding unconvinced. ‘I suppose this is my cue to go.’
‘Yes,’ I said, jumping to my feet and thinking that we were parting on less than ideal terms again, ‘I suppose it is.’
I slammed the door behind him and paced about the cottage wondering why the hell Sam had been talking about, and embellishing, what had happened when there was every chance that Hope might find out. It really didn’t make sense, but as the only person who knew about it, Joe couldn’t possibly have got his ‘first-hand’ information from anyone else, could he?
I grabbed my keys, slid my feet into my sandals and made a beeline for the pub, determined to get to the bottom of it all.
‘What can I get you?’ asked the lad behind the bar who was helping out on a regular basis now business had picked up.
‘Nothing,’ I said, pointing along the bar to where Sam was tipping ice into a glass, ‘I don’t want a drink, thanks. I just want him.’
‘Oh landlord,’ laughed the two guys next to me, ‘there’s a woman here who wants you.’
‘He’s still as in demand as ever,’ teased another, sitting at a table. ‘I reckon I need to get me one of those bionic legs. That must be the thing that attracts the ladies, coz it can’t be his rugged good looks!’
Sam smiled and shook his head.
‘And there was me thinking it was my lived-in, careworn features and my unrivalled wit,’ he laughed.
I hadn’t realized that my voice had been raised enough to draw that much attention but I was too annoyed to care. Perhaps, I thought, it wouldn’t hurt to call Sam out in front of a few people. Maybe that would make him think about keeping his silly words to himself in the future.
He finished serving and then came to me.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, finally spotting my scowl and lighting the blue touchpaper by pointing it out, ‘You don’t look very happy.’
‘No,’ I said, banging my keys down on the bar, ‘everything is not all bloody right and I look like this because I’m not happy.’
There was a cheer from somewhere behind me and then everyone fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop.
‘Why did you tell Joe Upton that we kissed on Saturday night?’ I demanded, all thoughts of keeping it from Hope shoved aside as the red mist descended.