Falling for you

‘That’s the one. Makes me want to chuck a brick through the TV.’

‘Probably because he has more hair than you.’

‘I’m just saying, we’re not alike. Joky and jovial is not who I am. If I think someone’s an idiot, I’ll let them know. But that’s life, isn’t it? We all have our own characters. We’re drawn to different people. I was drawn to you that first night you came into this pub with your mother,’ said Dexter. ‘There you were, scowling, snarling and glowering like the wicked witch in a pantomime, refusing to so much as look at anyone. The next thing I knew, you’d had a showdown with Maddy in the ladies’ loo, hurled a couple of insults at Nuala and stormed out. Everyone else in the pub was stunned,’ he reminisced with a crooked smile. ‘I just thought wow, that’s the girl for me.’

This was too much for Kate. Sliding jerkily off her stool, she made her way to the other side of the bar, where Dexter was standing. Reaching past him, she grabbed the cognac bottle by the neck, headed back to her stool and sat down again.

‘So you’ve really been thinking that?’ Carefully she double-checked. ‘All this time?’

‘I have.’ Dexter nodded.

Talk about a surreal situation. Kate’s hand went up to the damaged side of her face.

Defensively she said, ‘What about this?’

‘I love your scars. They’re my favourite part of you. I’m a pretty selfish person,’ said Dexter.

‘From my point of view, I’m glad you’ve got them. Let’s be brutally honest here,’ he went on. ‘If you didn’t have them, you wouldn’t look at me twice. I wouldn’t stand a chance.’

Kate felt as if she’d been slapped. Outraged, she retorted, ‘What makes you think you stand a chance now?’

‘Oh, come on, I’m not completely stupid. I’ve seen the way you look at me.’ Dexter was on the brink of smiling now. ‘You can’t tell me there isn’t a spark of interest.’

Kate’s eyes widened. Indignantly she said, ‘A spark?’

‘ OK, not a spark. Maybe spark’s too strong a word. We’ll call it a flicker,’ said Dexter. ‘There’s definitely been a flicker.’

The cheek of it. Well, maybe he did have sexy eyes, but she’d never shared this thought with another living soul.

‘You’re mad.’ Kate hadn’t realised her foot was jiggling again, but seeing as her shoe had just flown over the bar, it seemed likely that it had been. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’ve wondered what it would be like to kiss me,’ said Dexter.

‘I have not!’

‘Yes you have, you know you have. I’ve been completely honest with you,’ he chided. ‘The least you can do is be honest with me.’

‘You’ve been a bit too honest.’ Touching the left side of her face again, Kate said, ‘You’re glad I’ve got these scars because now that I look like this, nobody else would want me? That’s sick.’

‘It isn’t. I’m not looking at it that way. Before your accident, what kind of men did you go out with? Good- looking ones, am I right? You wouldn’t have considered anything less,’ Dexter said seriously. ‘But less attractive men can have just as good personalities as film-star-handsome ones. Better personalities, in fact, because they have to make more of an effort. That’s all I’m saying,’ he concluded. ‘Thanks to your accident, you have the opportunity to find that out for yourself. And you never know, in the long run you may be glad you did.’

Kate wondered if he was deluded.

‘But you don’t make more of an effort. You make no effort at all! And you certainly don’t have a great personality!’

There was a hint of a glint in Dexter’s eyes. ‘No? You still want to know what it’d be like to kiss me though. Actually, that’s another part of me that’s not too bad. If I say so myself, I have quite a nice mouth.’

Kate looked at him. For several seconds she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Then she climbed down from her stool, made her way to Dexter’s side of the bar and retrieved her flung-off shoe. Finally, having gathered together her blue jacket and handbag, she said stiffly, ‘I’m going home.’

Dexter hung his head. ‘OK.’

Wrenching open the front door, Kate stepped outside the pub and shuddered as the full force of the storm almost knocked her off her feet. The wind was so strong she had to lean into it, cartoon-style, in order not to be sent cartwheeling backwards like tumbleweed.

She crossed Main Street, headed past the workshops and made her way up Gypsy Lane, grimly ignoring the rain pelting every inch of her body, soaking through her clothes all the way to her knickers and undoubtedly power-blasting the carefully applied make-up from her face.

Oh well, what did that matter now?

Reaching the entrance to Dauncey House, Kate paused and took the front door key from her waterlogged bag. She looked at it, sighed, then dropped the key back into the bag and turned round.

‘Oh bloody hell, not you again,’ said Dexter.

But not in a bad way.

‘You don’t scare me.’ Kate moved across the flagstoned floor, trailing a small river in her wake.

Blinking rain from her eyelashes, she came to stand directly in front of him.

‘Don’t I? You scare the bejesus out of me,’ said Dexter.