had been showing off for long enough. She deserved it.
‘He comes in here quite often,’ said Bruno, aware of the undercurrents and of Janey’s irritation with her sister. It didn’t take a genius, he deduced, to figure out the reason for it.
‘Brings some spectacular women with him, too.’
‘His harem.’ Maxine gave a dismissive shrug and spooned brown sugar into her coffee.
‘So are you going to stick it out?’ Bruno grinned. ‘Or leave?’
Maxine hesitated. Rattling on about Guy’s pigheadedness was one thing, but she had no intention of jacking in her job.
‘He’s a pain,’ she said with a brave smile, ‘but the kids are OK. It wouldn’t be fair to leave them.’
Janey pulled a face. ‘My sister, the patron saint of children.’ Turning to address Bruno once more, she said evenly, ‘Take it from me, nothing interests Maxine more than a man who isn’t interested in her. As long as Guy puts up with her, she’ll stay. She doesn’t give up on anyone without a fight.’
‘So how long have you had this raging crush on Bruno?’ said Maxine, on the way home.
Janey concentrated on driving. The lane leading up to Trezale House was narrow and unlit.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she replied, her manner offhand. ‘He’s a friend, that’s all.’
‘And I’m your sister,’ declared Maxine, not fooled for a moment by her apparent lack of interest. ‘Come on, Janey! First you don’t even mention him, then you have a go at me, deliberately putting me down in front of him. Why else would you do it?’
‘You were showing off.’
Maxine shot her a triumphant grin. ‘I’m always showing off. What’s so interesting is the fact that this time you minded like hell. Darling, it’s nothing to be ashamed of ... there’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t fancy him! He’s an attractive man. I thought he was lovely.’
‘I know you thought he was lovely,’ said Janey in cutting tones. In her less-than-serene state, she crunched the van’s gears. ‘The entire restaurant knows you thought he was lovely. I just don’t understand why you have to be so obvious.’
‘Because that’s the way I am.’ Maxine shrugged. ‘But we’re getting away from the point.
The reason I asked you about your own little crush was because I wanted to know how serious it was. If you’re madly in love with him, I’ll do the decent thing and steer clear. After all,’ she added infuriatingly, ‘I wouldn’t want to waltz in and snatch away the first man you’ve been interested in since Alan.’
Janey gritted her teeth, sensing that they were on the verge of their first real quarrel for years. Even more annoying was the fact that, deep down, she knew she was the one at fault. She was also in serious danger of cutting off her nose to spite her face.
As they approached Trezale House, she took a deep steadying breath. ‘OK, I do like him.
He is the first man I’ve been interested in since Alan, and the reason I didn’t tell you about Bruno was because I didn’t want you to say anything embarrassing when you met him.’ She drew the van to a halt, switched off the engine and gazed out into the darkness ahead. ‘There, so now you know.’
‘Well, hallelujah!’ Maxine retorted. ‘I don’t know why you couldn’t have said all that in the first place. Darling, it’s no big deal. Sometimes you’re just too proud by half!’
Unlike Maxine, thought Janey, who had no pride at all. She still wasn’t entirely happy, either. The last thing she needed was to be patronized by a younger sister who thought the entire situation too amusing for words.
‘You needn’t worry,’ Maxine assured her now. ‘From this moment on, he’s all yours. I shall treat Bruno like a brother. We shall he friends.’ She grinned. ‘And I shan’t even try to imagine what he looks like naked.’
Janey was tired. She sensed, too, that Maxine was still poking gentle fun at her. ‘It’s past midnight,’ she announced pointedly. ‘You’re allowed back into the house now. And I have to be up at five.’
But Maxine was still prattling on about Bruno. ‘He is fun, though. I still can’t believe he practically booted those customers out into the street just so we could sit at the best table. You have to admit, darling, that takes style!’
‘Oh, please,’ sighed Janey. ‘Don’t tell me you fell for that old routine. Nick and Tony run the antique shop next door to the restaurant. Bruno does that to them every night.’
Chapter 16
In for a penny, in for a pound. Having given the matter a great deal of thought, Janey replied to the advertisement in the paper, posted it at once so she couldn’t change her mind, then began drafting out an ad of her own. The chances of Mr Presentable turning out to be Mr Ideal might be slim, but if she received a dozen replies she would at least have a selection to choose from. And if eleven of them were duds it wouldn’t even matter, because number twelve could be perfect and one perfect male was all she needed.
It really was extraordinarily difficult, though, describing oneself in just a few brief sentences. If she exaggerated the facts she risked ridicule when she eventually came to face it out. The prospect of being greeted with a look of horror and a derisory ‘I thought you said you were attractive’, was positively bone-chilling. The bald facts, however, – ‘plumpish, blondish deserted wife’ – might be so off-putting that no man would even be tempted to reply.
It took longer than filling out a tax return and was about as harrowing. Every time a customer came into the shop she jumped a mile and shoved her writing pad under the counter.
When Paula returned from making the morning deliveries, Janey was so engrossed she hardly heard her words.
‘I’ve had a brilliant idea.’
The pad was hidden but the pen was still in Janey’s hand. Twiddling it frantically between her fingers and pretending she’d been writing down an order, she managed, ‘What?’
‘If you placed one of those ads yourself, you could arrange to meet each man somewhere busy and ask them to wear a white carnation in their buttonhole.’
‘So?’
