‘Great news!’
And what’s more, he was going to accept. Funny, just a few days ago, if he’d overheard Jade and felt that disappointment in the pit of his stomach from finding out she might not be quite the girl he thought she was, he’d most probably have moved on to the next thing, left before there was a chance he’d get emotionally attached and possibly hurt all over again. But being here in the Cove had given him enough of a snapshot into permanency that he realised if he kept on running, he might never stop. And that wouldn’t be the path that would make him happy forever. Already he’d begun to wonder whether he may well have jumped to conclusions about Jade and the conversation he’d heard. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking. Whatever it was, he knew that the only way to know for sure would be to talk to her.
‘I might use your bathroom before I head off,’ he told Daniel, who nodded before turning his attentions to the customer who came through the door. The place had cleared out after the mid-afternoon rush but Linc doubted it would be long before it filled up again.
When Linc came out of the bathroom Daniel was laughing as Brianna told him, ‘You should’ve grabbed him as your customer first, we’ve got so many delicious flavours.’
‘What did I miss?’ Linc asked Daniel when Brianna disappeared back into the kitchen.
‘My last customer was someone wanting to know where Jade’s bakery was.’
‘Jade’s bakery?’
‘He probably picked one of the two names on the posters that are still around the village following the opening. Didn’t have the heart to tell him the freebies finished yesterday,’ he grinned.
Linc took a bottle of Coke from the fridge and pulled some change from his pocket. ‘Poor guy is going to be very disappointed.’ He waved his goodbyes and left on a high. The interview had gone well and all he wanted to do now was talk to Jade, clear things up.
Swigging from the bottle of fizzy drink, he set off down across the grass area and back to The Street. He waved a hello at Lucy, who was heading into her workshop, at Zara, who was wearing an apron and writing ice-cream flavours onto a blackboard outside the ice-creamery, and then he crossed the road to head to the bakery. It wasn’t like he could ask Jade about her conversation at the pub just like that but he found his legs taking him that way anyhow, as though his mood had shifted a gear now he had a job offer, now he was staying in the village.
As he drew closer and saw Jade outside giving the glass on the windows a bit of a spray and a wipe, he stopped when a tall, dark stranger who’d got to her first tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around.
Since she had her back to Linc now, he couldn’t hear what she was saying – or what the man was saying, for that matter – but he didn’t need to. What he did see was the man scoop Jade up into his arms and twirl her round, their bodies pressed close enough together to suggest this person was a hell of a lot more than a friend.
And then it dawned on him. He had seen this man before. In a photo. The photo that had fallen from Jade’s bag. This was the Italian, the love of her life, The One, or whatever you wanted to call him. And here he was, in the village, holding Jade’s hand as they made their way inside the bakery, neither of them noticing the other guy standing in disbelief, looking on.
Linc turned and walked in the opposite direction, around the bend, past the Heritage Inn and on down the road. He didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t care. He just wanted to walk because now, no matter what he’d hoped might happen, everything had changed.
Chapter Twelve
Jade still couldn’t believe he was here. Dario. In England. In Heritage Cove. But she couldn’t shut up shop and talk to him the way she needed to. Not only had they just relaunched the business after the refurbishment, but it was summer, school holidays, and there were only two members of staff at the bakery, her and Celeste.
She’d come inside with him in tow and Celeste had almost dropped the baguette she’d filled with cheese and pastrami and was trying to wiggle into a bag for the girl waiting. Celeste had come around to the customer side of the display cabinets and wrapped Dario in a hug to welcome him, her jaw practically dragging on the floor and eyes darting from him to Jade and back again as though trying to work out whether Jade had any idea this was coming. Jade was pretty sure her sister could tell from her demeanour that she’d had no idea.
And now, Celeste was busy serving, zipping from the front of the bakery to the kitchen and back again, while Jade took charge of the freshly made doughnuts that sat in rows waiting for her to push in the piping nozzle and give them their squirt of raspberry jam before they got their final roll in sugar. Dario was patiently leaning against the central benchtop watching her and every time he spoke, the velvety, thick Italian accent reminding her of what they’d once had, what she’d missed, it made her realise how much she’d dreamed of this moment until finally she’d tried to stop doing that and move on.
When Dario had turned up an hour ago, dark shades nestled in thick ebony hair that still held the colour of youth, Jade had been cleaning the windows out front. A bird had left its mark on one of the tiny criss-crossed window panes and it hardly looked appealing for a food outlet. She’d cleaned it off with warm soapy water and then gone back outside with spray and a cloth to give all the panels a bit of a once-over and a sheen. When someone tapped her on the shoulder she’d expected it to be a local, hoped perhaps it was Linc come to see her, but she’d turned around to see the man she’d once fallen head over heels in love with. It had taken her a while after he greeted her in Italian to get that rush of emotion, she was so shocked. Her mind had spun across the miles, back to Italy, back to the narrow backstreets and alleyways of Venice and the hot, dry summer days, the times they’d spent eating lunch alfresco immersed in culture and Venetian architecture, the nights they’d spent together and woken with neither of them ever wanting it to end, the long days Dario had worked at the family restaurant and she’d hung around even if all she got in those twenty-four hours were snatched moments of time to exchange a smile, a kiss or a brief “ti amo”,I love you.
Jade turned her attention from the doughnuts to the latest bread order for six wholemeal loaves sliced thick, drowning out any possibility of conversation with Dario as she got busy and the machine chugged its way through the task. She put each loaf in turn just behind the main body of the slicer, closed the lid and watched it closely even though she didn’t need to. She didn’t want Dario to distract her, to try to talk properly, not yet. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t prepared.
The blades juddered each time a loaf was gradually pushed from behind and emerged onto the crumb tray. Jade would bag each one up, seal it with a tie and move on to the next, her mind zoning in on the task rather than anything else.
Jade thought back again to those heady nights in Venice, the night she’d met Dario. One evening she and Celeste had been from restaurant to restaurant trying to find a menu that tempted them, none of them quite being what the other was looking for. The truth was it hadn’t been all that long since they’d found the best cannoli they’d tasted so far and it was too soon after these treats, with their crisp shells encasing the creamy filling, for either of them to be truly hungry. They’d stopped at a restaurant at the side of a small courtyard and although they were about to move on, the elderly woman on the door either didn’t understand them saying no or she was playing dumb to get them to go and sit down at one of the tables at the side of the eatery with its arched window shapes, open to the outside. They’d found themselves jostled into their seats with menus thrust upon them before they could do much about it. It wasn’t long before they’d both realised it was Nonna’sjob to get the customers in and everyone else’s job to keep them there. A waitress had hurried over with a bottle of water for the table and wine glasses when they nodded their assent.
‘I suppose it’s easier than spending all evening walking around looking at menus,’ Celeste had laughed.
Jade was about to reply when a waiter came to their side, the tones of Italian washing over her and casting their spell – which, along with his smile, was powerful enough for her to look so dumbstruck her sister began to laugh.
After he’d brought them their food, he wanted to know all about their travels – where they’d been, where they were going. They explained this was their last stop and he did his best to stay with them until Nonna picked up on the extra attention he’d been giving and clearly instructed him to get back to work. He’d mimed the slitting of his throat with a nod in Nonna’s direction and made them both laugh.
But it wasn’t the handsome waiter who’d got Jade’s attention with his easy conversation, classic dark looks and ready smile, it was the man sitting on the table diagonally across from theirs, a glass of red wine between his fingers, deep-set eyes looking her way as he used a free hand to brush hair that was a bit too long at the front away from his face. It didn’t stay put but he didn’t seem to mind.
Celeste, meanwhile, had got the waiter’s number and arranged a date on his day off later in the week and she’d been so busy flirting, she hadn’t noticed her sister’s attentions diverted elsewhere. The handsome stranger was eating alone and reading a book at the same time but every time Jade looked up and over at him, he seemed to sense it, lowered the book a little and surreptitiously looked her way.
When the girls paid the bill and stood to go, Celeste flirted some more with her waiter and the stranger chose that moment to pass by their table as Jade looped her small bag over a bare shoulder, her skin still tingling from the sun’s rays that day. He let his hand brush hers lightly, not so much she looked straight down but enough that she knew.
‘Did you enjoy our restaurant?’ He leaned in close to her, his dulcet tone rendering her speechless for the first time that night. His English was good but the way he was looking at her was as though he only spoke to her this way, that he’d saved a part of himself just for her.
‘Your restaurant?’ She smoothed the front of her strappy linen dress she’d found at a street market in Greece.
