Blind-Date Baby

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.

‘Well, Grace…’ He swallowed the last of his espresso and stood up. ‘I think I’d better be going.’ He shrugged. ‘Can I call you a cab or give you a lift somewhere?’

She shook her head. ‘No need. I am home. I live in the flat upstairs.’

Well, he hadn’t been expecting that. It kind of left him with nowhere to go.

‘It’s been nice…’

A small smile curved her lips. ‘Yes it has.’

The words See you again some time? were ready on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed them. But once they were gone he had nothing else to say, so he walked to the door, aware of her following close behind him. When they reached it, she flicked a couple of catches and turned the handle, oddly silent.

Before he crossed the threshold into the damp night he turned to look at her. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Grace.’

‘So you already said.’

He took a step backwards beyond the shelter of the doorway and the rain hit him in multiple wet stabs. He shuddered. For an instant, rational thought hadn’t come into it—he was only aware of his body’s physical response to the drop in temperature, the cold water running down his skin.

Grace stood in the doorway, in front of one of the angled panes of glass, her eyes large and round. All the laughter had left them now, but they were focused intently on him.

‘Bye, Noah,’ she said, and looked down at the floor.

Suddenly, he was moving. He took two long steps until he was standing in front of her and, without stopping to explain or analyse, he placed a hand either side of her head on the window and leaned in close. Her lips parted and she sank back against the pane and jerkily took in some air.

And then he kissed Grace the way he’d wanted to all evening.

CHAPTER THREE

GRACE clung to Noah for support. She had to. If she released the lapels of his jacket, she’d be in serious danger of sliding down the glass and landing in a heap at his feet.

It had been quite a long time since she’d been kissed. Perhaps the memories were a little fuzzy, but she didn’t think she remembered it being this good. Every part of her seemed to be going gooey. And he wasn’t even using his hands. They were still pressed against the glass as he towered over her and it was merely the brushing, teasing, coaxing of his lips that was making her feel this way.

She’d never been kissed like this before. Never.

And with that thought an icy chill ran through her.

Surely Rob’s kisses had excited her like this? He had to come top of her list. He was Daisy’s father, her soulmate, her grand passion. Anyone else would only ever be second place. But when she thought of him, she could remember youthful exuberance, raw need, but never this devastating skill that was threatening to…

Her fingers unclenched and she laid her palms flat against Noah’s chest, intending to apply gentle pressure as a signal that she wanted him to stop. But she didn’t stop him. Noah chose that moment to run his tongue along her lip and she moaned gently, reached behind his neck with both hands and pulled him closer.

When Noah’s hands finally moved off the window and started stroking the tingling skin of her neck, her cheeks, that little hollow at the base of her throat, she stopped thinking altogether. And she had no idea how long they’d been necking in the doorway like teenagers when he finally pulled away.

She was shaking—literally quivering—as he stood there looking down at her with his pale eyes. His thumb was still tracing the line of her cheekbone. Just that alone made the skin behind her ears sizzle.

This was so not what she’d been expecting on her first date. The chat rooms on Blinddatebrides.com that afternoon had been full of stories of nerdy guys and boring evenings, lots of jokes about kissing frogs. After getting her head around Daisy’s whole madcap plan, that was what she’d been anticipating. She’d been expecting to feel a sense of relief that the ordeal was over, to chalk it up to experience and carry on with her life. She certainly hadn’t been expecting to feel this.

‘Grace?’

Even his whisper was sexy. Low and growly. She tried not to shiver more than she already was doing.

‘I’d really like to see you again.’

Her body was telling her to yell yes, drag him back into the coffee shop and make use of one of those squashy sofas. And just that thought alone was enough to throw a bucket of cold water all over her. She didn’t do one-night stands, or necking in doorways. She did soulmates and love at first sight—with marriage and baby rapidly following. This wasn’t for her. Blinddatebrides.com wasn’t for her.

She wriggled out of Noah’s arms and retreated behind the door, using it as a shield as she held it half-closed. ‘I’m sorry, Noah. I just don’t think that’s a good idea.’ And before she could talk herself out of it, she shut the door, flipped the catches and walked through the shop without looking back.

Noah stared at Grace as she disappeared into the barely lit café. In the gloom, she became a dark grey blob, then, suddenly, the interior of The Coffee Bean was plunged into darkness.

He just kept on staring, even though he was now staring at his own reflection in the glass. The one woman he’d found who’d really caught his interest had just given him the brush-off. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened in the previous five years. The irony of it hit him so hard he started to chuckle.

Aware that the pubs were emptying and people were starting to fill the High Street, he pulled himself together. Men who stood and laughed at their reflections in shop windows were likely to be carted down to the local police station to sleep it off.

He looked himself in the eyes.

Well done, Mr Best-selling Author. You’ve finally found the secret to repelling women: be interested.

The narrow flight of stairs that led up to her flat seemed especially steep this evening. Grace opened the door at the top and, once she’d taken her coat off, she looked down at herself. Who was she kidding? In Daisy’s prom dress and Daisy’s shoes, she looked like someone playing dressing-up.

Sophisticated? I don’t think so!

She stripped the clothes and the stockings off right where she stood and marched into the bedroom to find her pyjamas. Once dressed in her striped three-quarter length trousers and vest top, she stood, hands on her hips, and glared round her room. It was cluttered with lotions and potions, clothes borrowed from Daisy and clothes Daisy had returned.

There was no point trying to go to sleep. Not going to happen.

She fetched Daisy’s laptop and took it into the sitting room, where she collapsed onto the sofa with it. Once it had booted up, she logged into Blinddatebrides.com.

Blinddatebrides.com is running 12 chat rooms, 36 private Instant Messaging conferences, and 4233 members are online. Chat with your dating prospects now!

Grace clicked on the ‘New to the site’ chatroom where she’d found Kangagirl and Sanfrandani earlier on, but none of the names listed in the conversation were theirs. She shook her head. It had to be midday in Australia and she had absolutely no idea what time it would be on the west coast of America. Sanfrandani was probably fast asleep.

She was about to turn the blasted machine off when it beeped at her and a little window popped up.

Kangagirl is inviting you to a private IM conference. Click OK to accept the invitation.

Grace didn’t hesitate. Another window popped up.

Kangagirl: You’re back! Tell us how it went!

Englishcrumpet: Us?

Sanfrandani: I’m here too! Englishcrumpet: Shouldn’t you be in bed? Sanfrandani: LOL! Only if I want to get fired. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon! Englishcrumpet: Oh. Kangagirl: So… Sanfrandani: Yes! Juicy details please!

Juicy details indeed. There were no juicy details. It had just been a kiss.

Yeah, right. And caramel moccachino was just plain coffee.

Englishcrumpet: We had dinner and coffee and then he left. Sanfrandani: The question is: are you going to see him again? Englishcrumpet: I don’t think so.

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