Appointment at the Altar

quick glance, she found that he was watching her with an unfathomable expression.

‘Thanks.’ She took a piece, more for something to do with her hands than because she really wanted it. ‘It was kind of you to buy me dinner,’ she added stiltedly. ‘I was hungry.’

‘Well, you know what they say, Cinderella. There’s no such thing as a free lunch-or dinner, in this case. I’ve got an ulterior motive.’

‘Oh?’ Lucy stilled, the bread halfway to her mouth, as all sorts of scenarios chased themselves through her brain, each one more unlikely than the next.

‘I’ve got a favour to ask you.’

‘Oh?’ she said again weakly.

‘I was wondering if you’d come and see my mother one day.’

Lucy sat up straighter. ‘Your mother?’ It was the last thing she had been expecting.

‘The thing is, I think she could do with some distraction,’ Guy explained. ‘I know she’d like to talk to you about Wirrindago. She grew up there, and though she may have married an Englishman and made her home here, she’s still an outback girl at heart, I think. She can be a bit…abrupt,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘but she’s been through some bad times, and her bark really is worse than her bite. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she would like you.’ He glanced at Lucy. ‘Would you mind?’

‘Of course not,’ she said. Given that Guy had paid for her flight, offered her a bed for the night and was buying her this dinner, it seemed the least she could do. And it was such a relief to feel that awful tension dissipate again that she would have agreed to anything. ‘I’d like to meet her.’

‘Really? That’s great.’ Guy seemed genuinely relieved. ‘Perhaps we could arrange something when she’s home after the operation?’

‘I’m sure that would be fine. I’ll give you my mobile number and you can call me or text me.’

‘Ma will be delighted,’ he said, pouring Lucy some more wine. ‘I think part of her problem at the moment is that she’s bored. She’s always been so active, but her arthritis has meant that she hasn’t been able to get out much recently. All she’s had to do is sit at home and complain about me. There’s lots of scope there, of course, but even she gets tired of going over the same old ground after a while.’

‘Gosh, what does she criticise you about?’

Guy leant back in his chair and grinned. ‘Well, that depends on her mood. My wasted youth is a favourite, or it can be something I’m wearing that she doesn’t approve of. If I turn up in a pink shirt, that’s it for the evening! At the moment it’s my failure to get married, settle down and provide her with grandchildren that is her biggest gripe.’ He made a face, but Lucy didn’t think that he seemed particularly crushed. ‘I split up with my girlfriend before I left for Australia, so it’s a sore subject.’

Ah. Lucy had been wondering why there was no sign of a girlfriend and, since he had raised the subject, she didn’t see why she shouldn’t be nosy and ask about it.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing dramatic,’ said Guy. ‘There was just no chemistry for either of us…and I do think a relationship needs some flash and dazzle, don’t you?’ he said, eyes gleaming, and Lucy had the nasty feeling that he was thinking of her relationship with Kevin.

There hadn’t been a chance for any flash and dazzle with Kevin, she thought, but she didn’t see why she should tell Guy that. Let him think that she and Kevin had barely had to touch each other for the sparks to be flying-as they would have done if they had ever managed to snatch more than a few moments alone, Lucy reassured herself.

‘Yes, I do,’ she said and met his eyes squarely. No way was she going to let Guy suspect she was at all flustered by talking about sex with him. ‘I think physical attraction is a hugely important part of a relationship.’

‘Well, that’s what was lacking with Anna and me. It’s not that she isn’t attractive-she is-but we didn’t make each other’s heart beat faster.’

Uncomfortably aware that her own heart was beating rather faster than normal, Lucy reached for more bread and wished Joe would hurry up with her linguine.

‘So it was a mutual decision?’

‘Yes, but you’d never hear my mother accepting that,’ said Guy. ‘She didn’t like my previous girlfriend-she said she was too thin-and when Cassie went back to her old boyfriend, she was heartily relieved. Then I met Anna, and Ma thought she was great. She’s convinced Anna left me because I didn’t ask her to marry me quickly enough, and now she’s blaming everything that goes wrong-including her hip operation-on what she calls my “morbid fear of commitment”!’

His tone was light, but Lucy wondered if he cared more than he was prepared to admit.

‘Are you afraid of commitment?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Guy. ‘I’m thirty-three and I’ve got to the stage where I wouldn’t mind finding the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with, but I’m not going to let my mother push me into marriage just because she wants grandchildren. I’ve told her that I’ll get married when I’ve found the right girl.’

‘And you haven’t found her yet?’

Blue eyes looked into blue. ‘No,’ he said slowly, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure. ‘Not yet.’

CHAPTER FOUR

THERE was another of those silences when all the air seemed to leak out of Lucy’s lungs and she could feel herself prick-ling with awareness. She was intensely glad when Joe reappeared beside them, bearing two steaming plates.

‘Buon appetito!’ he said at his most Italian, and waved over a waiter. By the time they’d finished with the pepper and the Parmesan and the topping up of the glasses, the awkward moment had passed.

The linguine was as delicious as Joe had promised, but it was hard to eat gracefully. ‘It’s lucky we’re not on a date,’ Lucy said indistinctly as she sucked in a loose strand of pasta.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Guy, amused. ‘If I were your boyfriend-or hoping to be-I would like the way you eat. You do it the way you do everything else, with gusto.’

‘Meredith says I’ve got too much enthusiasm.’ Inexpertly, Lucy twirled another mouthful of pasta around her fork. ‘She says I should learn to think before I act.’

He looked interested. ‘Do you think that’s true?’

‘Well…sometimes I get into situations and find that they’re not quite what I imagined,’ she admitted, ‘but things usually work out-and it’s not always because Meredith rescues me,’ she added before he could suggest it.

‘What sort of situations?’ he asked, intrigued.

Meredith would say that she fell in and out of love too easily, Lucy knew, and maybe in the past there had been one or two occasions when her infatuation had burned itself out pretty quickly…but of course all that had changed now that she had met Kevin.

‘Romantic situations occasionally,’ she admitted cagily, ‘but also with jobs. I don’t have the most impressive CV in the world.’

‘Is that a way of saying that you’ve started a lot of jobs and never stuck with any of them?’

She eyed him with a touch of resentment. ‘Sometimes you sound annoyingly like Meredith,’ she informed him. ‘I prefer to think of it as having wide experience,’ she went on. I’ve been a waitress, a secretary, a cook…What else? Oh, yes, I’ve done a stint in PR for a charity, I worked in a call centre-that was awful-and a shop, which was quite fun. I was a tourist guide once and I even sold houses for a bit before I went to Australia, although I wasn’t very good at that.’

‘You’re obviously not lacking in ability,’ said Guy. ‘Have you ever thought about a real job?’

‘The depends on what you mean by a real job,’ said Lucy, slightly on the defensive as always when it came to her career, or lack of one.

‘A job that really stretches and stimulates you,’ he said. ‘A job that allows you to reach your full potential.