‘Maybe not, but if you’re afraid of being recognised, I’d advise getting yourself a pair that fits properly instead of sliding down your nose.’ He waited, hoping that she might tell him the truth this time. ‘Maybe go for tinted lenses.’
Something to tone down the distracting blue.
‘I bought them on the Internet. I had no idea they came in different sizes.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe I should get some little sexy ones with lenses that react to the light.’
‘Maybe. I have to tell you, though, that if anyone has put together a photofit of you, you can forget the glasses. It’s the hairdo that’s the dead giveaway.’
‘Oh…’ she lifted a hand to her hair in a self-conscious gesture ‘…no. No danger there.’ She pulled a face. ‘I cut it myself this morning with a pair of nail scissors.’
Well, yes. Obviously. No woman would walk around with hair like that for a minute longer than she had to.
‘I’d have bet on the garden shears,’ he said, accepting that she wasn’t going to trust him with her secret. Or was, perhaps, protecting him from something he was almost certainly better off not knowing?
Just as he’d be wiser not to imagine how her hair might have looked before she’d hacked it off.
Adding long, creamy-coloured silky hair to the image that was building up inside his head was not helping him drop his hands, take the necessary step back.
‘I’d better get back,’ he said, forcing himself to do just that. ‘Before Xandra, in her enthusiasm, strips your car down to the frame.’
He picked up the glass of water he’d abandoned but at the door he stopped, looked back. Despite a natural poise, a look-him-in-the-eye assurance that was so at odds with her innocent blushes, there was a lack of knowingness in the way she’d responded to his kiss that didn’t quite fit with the jealous-partner scenario.
But then, presumably, if she was any kind of con woman, she’d have that down pat.
When the silence, the look, had gone on for too long, he said, ‘You might find the answer to the vexed question of how to boil a potato in one of my mother’s cook books. They’re over there, behind the television.’ He didn’t bother to check that they were still there. Nothing had been changed in this room in his lifetime. ‘And, in case you’re interested, I’m partial to a touch of garlic in my mash.’
‘Garlic?’ She pushed the glasses, already sliding down her nose again, back into place. ‘Good choice,’ she said. ‘Very good for the heart, garlic.’
‘Are you suggesting that mine needs help?’
‘Actually, I was thinking about your father. Isn’t heart disease supposed to be hereditary? Although, now you come to mention it, maybe yours could do with some work in other departments.’
‘What makes you think that?’ He wasn’t arguing with her conclusion, merely interested in her reasoning.
‘Well, let me see. Could it be because you’re the one with your daughter up to her elbows in axle-grease while you stand back telling her what to do?’
The smile that went with this, reassurance that she was teasing, was no mere token but shone out of her, lighting up her face in a way that could make a man forget that she was too thin. Forget the hair. Forget anything…
‘I’m not telling her anything. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said she knew what she was doing.’
Her smile became a look of sympathy. ‘That must be a worry.’
‘My father never forgave me for not wanting to follow him into the business. Given a second chance with Xandra, it’s clear that he hasn’t made the same mistakes with her that he did with me.’
Or maybe, being a girl, she’d had to beg to be allowed to ‘play’ cars with her granddad.
He wondered if his old man had seen the irony in that. Probably not. He’d doted on Xandra since the moment she’d been born. Indulged her, as he’d never been indulged. Maybe that was the difference between being a father and a grandfather. There was not the same responsibility to be perfect, do everything right. And getting it wrong.
‘She might just love it,’ Annie pointed out.
‘I’m sure she does, but there’s a world of difference between doing something for fun in the school holidays and it being your only option.’
‘So if she stayed at school, took her exams, went to university and at the end of it all she still wanted to be a garage mechanic?’ she asked.
‘If only. She wants to drive rally cars too.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I don’t suppose you have a handy Health and Safety regulation you’re prepared to quote on the subject of sixteen-year-olds doing dangerous jobs?’
‘I don’t have one on the tip of my tongue,’ she said, ‘but, even if I did, I don’t think I’d use it.’
‘Not even if I promised to fix your car myself?’
‘Not even then. This is something she wants, George. Something she can do. That she believed no one would take away from her.’
‘That sounded heartfelt.’
‘Yes, well, at her age I had a dream of my own, but I allowed myself to be persuaded against it for what at the time seemed sound reasons. Not that I believe Xandra is going to be the walkover I was. She’s nowhere near as eager to please.’
‘A daddy’s girl, were you?’
She paled, shook her head, but before he could take a step back towards her, say sorry even though he didn’t know why, she said, ‘You do realise that if you close the garage it will make her all the more determined?’
‘It’s not an option. No matter how much he fights it, the truth is that my father won’t be able to carry on.’
‘What about you? This is your chance to prove to your daughter that you’re more than just a signature on a cheque. That you really care about what she wants. Or is there a Californian beach with a Californian beach girl stretched out in the sun who you can’t wait to get back to?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but, having planted that little bombshell, said, ‘I’ll give you a call when dinner’s ready, shall I?’
‘Do that,’ he snapped, turning abruptly and leaving her to it.
Annie didn’t move until she heard the outside door close. Only then did she raise her hands to her face, run her fingertips over the warm spots where George Saxon had touched her.
He’d been so close as he’d slipped the glasses on her nose, held them in place, his thumbs against her cheek, fingertips supporting her head. There had been an intimacy about the way he’d looked at her that had warmed her, made her pulse leap, stirred something deep inside her so that when his lips had touched hers it had felt like two pieces of a puzzle finding the perfect fit.
And if he could do that with a look, a touch, a tender kiss, what could he do if…?
She whirled around, refusing to go there.
Instead, she crossed to the corner to root through the small collection of old cookery books before pulling out a heavy black bound book that was reassuringly familiar.
She’d kept all her mother’s books-medical textbooks, mostly-and a copy of this basic cookery book had been among them, the inscription on the flyleaf from the foster mother who’d taught her to cook and passed on her own cookery book when she’d left for university.
How much strength of will must it have taken her mother to get to medical school? More than she’d had, she thought, swallowing hard as she opened the book to check the index.
Potatoes…
Potatoes, it seemed, took around twenty minutes to boil, depending on whether they were old or new and, once cooked, should be creamed with a little pepper and margarine. Clearly post-war austerity had still been part of life when this book had been published. And a sprinkle of parsley was as exotic as it got back in the days when garlic was considered dangerously foreign.
But, despite the fact that Mrs Saxon’s cookery book and fridge appeared to be from the same generation, the large bulb of garlic tucked away in the salad crisper suggested that she, at least, had moved with the times. Or had that been bought specially for the prodigal’s homecoming too?
She laid the table, put plates to warm and was energetically mashing butter, milk and finely chopped garlic into the potatoes when she heard the kitchen door open.
‘Perfect timing,’ she said, concentrating on the job in hand. ‘Just enough time to scrub up.’ Then, when there was no answer, she turned round. ‘Oh!’ Not George or Xandra, but a slender middle-aged woman who bore a clear resemblance to both of them. ‘Mrs Saxon,’ she said, wiping her hands on the apron she’d found hanging behind the door and offering her hand. ‘I’m Annie Rowland. I hope you don’t mind me making free with your kitchen, but
