But Janey was unfolding her legs, searching around for her shoes and stuffing Mimi’s book into her bag. ‘And tomorrow morning I’d go to work with a raging hangover.’ She pulled a face.
‘Thanks for the offer, but I have to be at the market by six.’
She had ignored the dig, resolutely refusing to rise to the bait.
‘Let me just go and check on the kids,’ said Guy, good-naturedly accepting defeat. ‘Then I’ll see you out.’
Janey was waiting in the hall when he returned downstairs. She wound a red cashmere scarf around her neck. ‘Are they all right?’
‘Well away.’ Guy nodded and grinned. ‘How about you, after all that interrogation? Are you OK?’
‘I’ll live.’ With a smile, she flipped the tasselled ends of the scarf over her shoulders. ‘At least you didn’t pull my fingernails out.’
‘I do have something else to say,’ he warned. ‘Before you go.’
Janey braced herself. She might have guessed he would. ‘Oh. What is it?’
‘Happy birthday.’ The red scarf was covering the lower half of her face. Before she realized what was happening Guy was gently pushing it down, out of the way. There was her mouth, wonderfully soft and inviting. When you wished someone a happy birthday, he reasoned, it was perfectly in order to give them a kiss to go with it.
But he didn’t want to alarm her. Instead, exercising almost superhuman control, he cast one last regretful glance at those slightly parted lips and aimed, instead, an inch to the left.
‘Except it hasn’t been too happy,’ he murmured.
Ridiculously, his heart was pounding like a schoolboy’s. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
Janey, startled by her own reaction to what was, after all, only a polite gesture, was deeply ashamed of herself. Just for a fraction of a second she had thought Guy was going to kiss her properly. What was even more awful was the fact that she had wanted him to.
‘It isn’t over yet.’ Flustered, she resorted to feeble humour. ‘I’ve still got Maxine’s present to look forward to, haven’t I? If Josh’s brain says 'Ouch', she’ll probably find one for me that yells 'Dimwit'.’
Guy, who was still wearing his dinner jacket, reached into the inner pocket and withdrew a small, green leather box.
‘Well, I can’t compete with a bouncing brain.’ As he took Janey’s hand and placed the box in her palm, his eyes silently dared her to object. ‘But at least this won’t hurl insults at you.’
Inside lay a slender rose-gold bangle engraved around the outer edge with delicately entwined leaves and flowers. It was old, simple and breathtakingly beautiful. Janey, who had never been more embarrassed in her entire life, said, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, you don’t want to give me something like this.’
‘Don’t be silly. Call it making amends for giving you such a hard time tonight.’ Since she evidently had no intention of taking the bracelet out of the box, Guy did it himself and pushed it over her trembling hand.
‘But where ... who ... ?’
‘I spotted it in an antique shop in St Austell a few months ago,’ he lied. ‘I was going to give it to Serena, then I decided it wasn’t her style. You may as well have it,’ he added casually. ‘It’s no use to me.’
Janey flushed with pleasure. It was still embarrassing to be on the receiving end of such generosity but Guy clearly wouldn’t take it back. The engraved flowers were forget-me-nots, she realized, studying the bangle in more detail and loving the way it gleamed rather than glittered in the light, showing its age and quality.
‘Definitely not Serena’s style.’ She gave him a mischievous smile. ‘I’m glad you didn’t give it to her. I love it, Guy. Thank you.’
This time she reached up and kissed him, her warm lips brushing his cheek a decorous inch from his mouth just as he had done earlier. The same tingle of longing zipped through her. Janey, fantasizing wildly, wondered what Guy would do if she moved towards him ... moved her mouth to his.
The image flashed into her brain. ready-made, as if in answer. Pushy, eager Charlotte, throwing herself at Guy. Guy, good-humoured but resigned, wondering how the hell to fend her off without hurting her feelings. And Janey herself, hearing all about it, wondering how Charlotte could bear to make such an idiot of herself when he was so plainly uninterested.
No upturned bucket of ice-cold water could have shocked her to her senses more abruptly.
So much for wild fantasies, Janey decided, and prayed that Guy hadn’t been able to read her mind.
‘Thanks again for the bracelet.’ She took a hasty step backwards, pulling the scarf up over her chin once more and making a clumsy grab for the front door. ‘Gosh, it’s freezing outside!
Look at all those stars ... there’s even ice on your bird table ... poor old birds ...’
One stupid kiss on the cheek, Guy realized, shaking his head in disbelief, and she’d managed to give him a severe erection. Never mind the poor birds, he thought, watching Janey as she jumped into the van, anxious to get home to her undeserving pig of a husband. To hell with the wildlife. What about me?
Chapter 52
‘Janey, it’s me. Can you come over here right away?’
At the sound of her mother’s voice, Janey felt the muscles of her jaw automatically tighten.
Confiding her marital problems to Guy had been one thing, but she still considered Thea’s outburst in front of Alan to have been totally out of order. Even if she had been right, it was an unforgivable action.
They hadn’t spoken to each other since. And now here was Thea on the other end of the phone, expecting her to drop everything and rush over to see her. To add insult to injury, it was pouring with rain.
Squish, went the mister spray in Janey’s hand as she aimed it at a three-foot yucca plant.
‘I’m busy,’ she said, stretching past the yucca and giving the azaleas a shower. Squish, squish.
