She’d been anxious all weekend about this dinner party, and in the last few hours she’d even thought about texting Jace and telling him she had to cry off. She was sick. She was tired. She was painting her nails. Anything to get out of several hours of socialising with people who all knew each other better than they knew her, although the residents of Willoughby Close seemed to like to think they knew her.
Yet no matter how nice everyone tried to be, it would be hours of being asked awkward questions, and then coming across as stiff and formal because she didn’t know how to be anything else, and had never wanted to try…until now.
The last few days had been both weird and rather wretched, because Emily couldn’t shake the guilt she’d felt snapping at Olivia, or even closing down Alice’s questions. If she wanted to put people off, she was doing a good job of it, but the truth was she didn’t know any longer if she really did want to put people off.
Until she’d been told she was lonely, she hadn’t thought she was. But now…?
At least she had the kitten. She’d made a little bed for him in a cardboard box lined with a fleece, and then gone to the Waggy Tails pet shop in town on Saturday morning to stock up on rather overpriced kit.
“Oh, you have a cat?” The woman at the till, the same one Emily had asked about the fundraiser, was all delighted enthusiasm. “Cats are lovely. Cool creatures who can take or leave you, to be sure, and they certainly know their own minds, but they can be wonderful companions.”
A bit like her then. Partners in crime. Emily had bought feeding bowls and food, a litter tray and a scratching post, and a book about caring for cats. Then she’d trundled home with her purchases, only to have Jace pull over in his truck and ask if she wanted a lift, which she realised she did.
“Still on for dinner tomorrow night?” he’d asked, giving her a lazy smile that made her suspect he knew how difficult she would find the socialising.
“Yes, absolutely,” she assured him. It was only later she realised he’d given her an opportunity to cry off, and for some contrary reason she hadn’t taken it.
So here she was, battling her way through the forest, unaccountably nervous for the evening ahead, and yet still sort of…excited by the possibility of making friends.
When, Emily wondered, had she stopped making friends? Probably when she was seven, when her parents had divorced and her mother had gained full custody. In Year One, Emily recalled, she’d had a best friend, Ivy. They’d walked around school holding hands, and they’d curl up in the reading nook in their classroom and sound out stories to one another. That was all Emily remembered, that and being happy.
The next year she’d been taken out of school, and her mother had home-schooled her for nine months—a form of unschooling that had been more about Emily entertaining herself, with her mother’s occasional manic interest—a trip to the zoo, an elaborate chemistry experiment that seven-year-old Emily hadn’t understood, the mess all over the kitchen for days…
By spring of Year Two, her mother had been bored of the whole thing and stuck her back in school, a different one, since they’d moved by then. Emily had been lamentably behind and she’d struggled to make any friends. The halcyon days of Year One with Ivy had felt far behind her.
But why on earth was she thinking about Ivy now? Emily ducked under another branch, her stomach clenching as she caught sight of the lights of the cottage, twinkling in the distance. She’d arrived.
Jace and Ava’s cottage did look like it belonged to Hansel and Gretel, or was it the witch? It was tiny and impossibly quaint, with gingerbread trim and a funny little turret. It was not the type of house she’d expect a man like Jace to live in, and he smiled in wry acknowledgement as he opened the door.
“You found it all right, then? Followed the breadcrumbs?”
“I was just thinking that,” Emily admitted with a laugh. She stepped into the cosy entranceway and Jace took her coat.
“Come through. Everyone’s in the kitchen. It’s the only room in the house that isn’t tetchy.”
The kitchen, Emily saw, had been expanded into a large conservatory, to create a lovely, light, open space with a big granite island and a table to seat eight.
“Emily!” Ava smiled, looking delighted to see her. “Now you know Olivia, of course, and this is lovely Simon, the music teacher at the primary…and have you met Owen?” This was said far too innocently, and Emily froze where she stood. How had she not seen him, standing by the stove, a faint smile on his face as he met her astonished gaze?
Why on earth was Owen here? Jace certainly hadn’t mentioned him when he’d extended the invitation. Then Emily remembered how it had been Ava who had said he was single and lovely, and who had looked at Emily so knowingly when he’d sent the champagne, and a blush washed over her face like a tide. This was a set-up. A blind date. Ava and Jace, Simon and Olivia, and her and Owen. It was so excruciatingly obvious she couldn’t keep from physically cringing.
“Emily and I have met,” Owen said easily. “She came to ask if The Drowned Sailor would take part in the fundraiser up at the manor, and of course I said yes. No one says no to Lord Stokeley.” If there was a very slight edge to Owen’s voice, Emily thought she was the only one who noticed it. Ava seemed oblivious.
“Henry has been going on about that, hasn’t he?” she
