Jude Crawley was here too, having brought homemade iced gingerbread biscuits in the shape of open books. She was languidly turning the pages of a dog-eared copy ofPersuasionwith a look on her face that suggested this wasn’t her first time reading it; she wasn’t gripped so much as she was comforted and happy. Elliot, her long-haired, outrageously handsome and muscly husband, had his arm around the back of her chair, his EarPods in, reading an audiobook. Every now and then he’d absently stroke his hand down her hair and she’d squeeze his thick thigh. Such a power couple. This evening wasn’t doing anything for Harri’s nagging feeling of seriously missing out on life and love.
Closest to the door, Izaak and Leonid were lost in their books too. Izaak was nearing the end of a paperback titledSwimming in the Darkwith a serious expression, and his husband was taking notes on his phone as he read an illustrated guide to rhododendron growing. They’d brought a huge poppyseed loaf cake sent from Izaak’s mother in Poland. Harri still had some of the seeds stuck in his teeth from the first slice and was considering a second, it was so delicious.
So what if he was trying to eat his feelings, as his mum would say? Anything felt better than being cheerfully, wilfully ignored by Annie and being forced to sit here in public feeling utterly skinless in complete silence.
Why wouldn’t she talk with him this morning? Ten minutes and they could have cleared the air, surely? Though, when he tried to rehearse what he wanted to say, he couldn’t quite find the words.
He tried to picture himself telling her how he’d not wanted to stop last night. He’d loved it, and he thought she’d been loving it too – if the way she’d scraped her nails through the short hair at the nape of his neck was a good indication of enjoyment. She’d whispered his name too, many times. He could hear it now,dammit!, breathy and frantic. His whole body answered the memory.
He fixed his eyes on the same paragraph. His face burned hot. Somebody was going to notice. That’s when Annie, stopping at a chapter’s end, turned her page and lifted her eyes to survey the room.
She’d seemed so proud of what she’d achieved tonight. She’d certainly motivated the whole community to turn out. Harri hadn’t met half the locals occupying every corner of the bookshop and there were a couple of holidaymakers in from the Siren too.
Harri could feel her eyes land upon him, but he couldn’t look back. He scratched his chin in a pretence of reading something fascinating. He narrowed his eyes and nodded as if to show his thoughts.Hmm, interesting, he tried to convey. He was overdoing it for sure.
That’s when Annie’s laugh burst into the silence. Harri couldn’t resist looking up. She’d thrown her hand to her lips.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered.
She didn’t drag her eyes away, but kept them fixed on Harri. She’d laughed at him and his ridiculous behaviour, and now Harri was grinning too.
The pair of them stayed like that, fixed on each other across the bowed heads in the bookshop, and sure some of the nosier locals were smirking in a knowing way at one another, but Harri didn’t care. He was telling Annie with his eyes that he liked her, and she was exploring his face in her familiar, frank way.
Waves of affection passed between them, and then the other feelings kicked in. He saw it in her lips parting. She was glazing over. She was remembering him touching her. And she still wasn’t looking away.
The bookshop disappeared around them and Harri knew she was thinking the same thing. Tonight, when everyone had left and William was safely conveyed back to his room at the Siren, upstairs in Annie’s big white bed they’d pick up where they left off and this time there’d be no stopping them.
Were her cheeks pinking up? Were her pupils dilating to pinpricks? His own had to be. The way she was staring and smiling told him so.
His heart was thumping, turning over hard and rhythmic like an engine. He was going to mouth the word at her. Tonight. He knew it would land how he wanted it to.
He hadn’t imagined any of it. They’d been incredible together. But as he wet his lips to silently convey the word, glancing surreptitiously round the room to be sure everyone else was reading, the phone in his pocket rang.
All eyes flew to him. Annie laughed again. She was enjoying his discomfort, no, she was sharing it, and it was kind of funny.
‘Oops, sorry you guys,’ he said, smiling goofily until he saw the name on the screen. Paisley.
He hadn’t meant to, but the look he threw Annie communicated everything. Her face fell as he pulled the phone to his ear.
‘Just a sec,’ he whispered down the line, and as quick as he could, he carried his conversation out into the dark courtyard leaving Annie watching him, crestfallen in her spot under the stairs, her eyes slowly dropping, falling back to her book, looking very much like a woman who knew she’d almost made a second huge mistake.
Chapter Twenty
Things Back Home
The struggle was easy enough to ignore. She’d settled it while the rest of Clove Lore slept.
Last night, at the silent book club, she’d let the serotonin take over, watching Harri when he was pretending to have forgotten all about the thing in the library.
The call from Paisley was the reminder she’d needed to listen to her amygdala. That was the part of her brain that knew best. It carried the memories of all the times she’d been hurt, burned, scared and scarred. It was the part that learned from mistakes, that created inhibitions. It was the part that was going to stop her destroying her friendship with Harri. It was currently telling her to stop being horny and start being hardworking.
She’d not hung around at the end of her event, disappearing upstairs and into bed behind her bolted door before the last of them had left. She’d witnessed Harri sloping back inside the bookshop after what had felt like ages pacing in the courtyard, his phone clamped to his ear.
He’d returned looking ashen and guilt wracked. She knew him well enough to read his expressions. He’d tried to catch her eye but she avoided him.
Had he confessed everything to Paisley, about their library madness? Had she scolded him? Threatened that this really was the last straw? Whatever they’d said to one another, Harri’s guilty look was enough to confirm things were far from over back home.
This morning she’d excused herself from the bookshop and Harri, who had dark circles under his eyes like he had barely slept, had watched her, more than a little bewildered, as she poured the breakfast coffee he’d made her into a takeaway cup, piled on warm layers, and looked out the door into the Monday morning winter glare.
