As Loretta served a customer, Daisy’s mind wandered to Sally’s business card that was burninga hole in her purse. She thought about Joshua and how he’d told her she was good at photography, how he didn’t seem to harbour any doubt that the job offer was there because of her talent.
She thought too about the way he’d looked at her today, but still not made a move. She’d resisted so long, perhaps he was giving up, but that kiss in the pub must’ve told him exactly how she felt. Hadn’t it?
When Fern and Ginny returned from Butterbury Lodge, Ginny wasted no time settling down on the stool beside the Christmas tree after taking out the block she was working on for Grandad’s quilt. Fern leaned against the counter while Loretta rewound a reel of ribbon she’d shown a customer who couldn’t decide between the forest green, the lime green and the bottle green. Sometimes the indecisive customersdrove Daisy nuts, but she’d learned patience and she certainly hadn’t had a problem with tolerance at the book shop today when anyone else might have been tearing their hair out with those kids. Joshua was good with them too, he was a natural.
When Daisy’s phone rang she snatched it up seeing it was Maggie from the lodge. They were two nights away from executing their plan for the secret projectand she didn’t want to blow their cover now.
She took the phone away from the counter and out to the back. Maggie had called to confirm they had all the necessary permissions for the planned activity and that they were all set. She was so excited, she couldn’t wait to be a part of it, and she’d arranged the staff rota so they’d be able to bring a minibus of residents into Butterbury at the allottedtime and ensure nobody was cold, none of them were unattended, and that they were all safe.
‘This is going to be amazing.’ Daisy kept her voice low as she talked with Maggie, excitement bubbling away. ‘You wait until people see the effects of the bombing.’
And when she heard a shuffling noise behind her she hung up the call and got back to work, avoiding her mum’s suspicious gaze or apparentdesire to quiz her on what she was up to.
