Owen regaled her with stories from the pub, and she told him about her ideas for the fundraiser, and the conversation flowed along with the apple-pear fizz.
“So how is that a teetotaller decided to run a pub?” she asked when they’d finished the meal and were washing up, cosily side by side, in the kitchen.
Owen shrugged. “Pubs are what I know. My dad spent all his free time in one, and I fetched him home when I could. Then I started on the same track, until I wised up.”
Emily slowly ran a tea towel along a crystal glass to dry it. “What made you wise up?”
Owen sighed. “It’s not very pretty.” He pointed to his rather rumpled left ear. “I got in a fight like my dad did, except I was the one throwing the punches. Ended up before the magistrate on an assault charge.”
“Oh, no…”
“That sobered me up. I was only nineteen. My dad had been dead for two years, and I knew I was going to follow him into the grave one way or another unless I cleaned up my act. So I did. Haven’t touched another drop of alcohol since then.”
“That’s amazing.”
He grimaced. “More like necessary. I thought of my dad and I saw into my future. I didn’t like the look of it.”
“And running a pub?”
“I suppose,” Owen said slowly, “you and I are similar in that way. Running a pub is my way of keeping things in control. If I run the rowdiest pub in this village, well then, I know how bad it gets, and I can make sure it doesn’t get any worse.” He shrugged, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck as he offered a self-conscious smile. “How’s that for a bit of psychoanalysis?”
Emily smiled back. “Very clever.”
“Not really. I didn’t even get my GCSEs, you know.” The dishes done, they moved over to the sofa, Emily curling up one end while Owen threw another log into the wood burner before taking the other end. The lights were dim, and Owen had put on some mellow jazz on in the background. Emily couldn’t remember ever feeling more relaxed.
“GCSEs aren’t everything,” she said.
“You got yours, I presume, despite your difficulties at home?”
She let out a laugh of acknowledgement. “Well…”
“Let me guess. Nine A stars?”
“Ten,” she admitted, and he let out one of his booming laughs.
“Of course. That’s something else I know—and like—about you. You work hard.”
Emily ducked her head, overwhelmed by the unabashed admiration in his voice. “I can’t remember when I’ve had so many compliments.”
“Then I’ll keep them coming.”
She met his warm gaze, unable to keep from shaking her head. “It doesn’t feel right somehow.”
“What doesn’t?”
“This. It’s too easy.”
“Why can’t something be easy?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Maybe because everything has always been so complicated. And maybe because I’m wondering if…if you’re too good to be true.”
*
Owen felt the expression freeze on his face, the easy smile he’d been giving morphing into something of a rictus. Too good to be true.
Well, he was, wasn’t he?
And someone as clever as Emily was bound to suss it out. He took a sip of his drink, trying to school his face into something relaxed.
“Well, you know what they say. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
She frowned, her forehead crinkling. “Is that what I would be doing?”
Owen shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not perfect, certainly.”
“I’m not expecting you to be perfect, Owen. I’m not, either. Not by a long shot. But you know that already.”
Could he leave it at that? Did she deserve a warning? I’ve let down the people I love in the past. Time and time again, badly. My mother. My father. Even my sisters, stuck in Cwmparc living half-lives while I got out. I never even looked back. I wanted to save them but I didn’t. Maybe I care about you because I think I can save you.
Was he actually screwed up enough to think that way? That Emily could somehow be his salvation, never mind him saving her? At least he wasn’t screwed up enough to say any of it out loud. “Then we sound like a perfect match.”
She smiled at that, and looked down, and she was so beautiful and seemed so pure that Owen felt as if he had to kiss her. Unfortunately, there was a good three feet between them, and he didn’t think a lunge across the sofa was a good idea at this point.
This was Emily’s first real date, unbelievable and even criminal as that seemed. He knew he needed to take it slow, even as he’d been itching to pull her into his arms all evening.
“So…” He stretched his arm out along the back of the sofa in a cringingly classic move. “Are you settling into Wychwood?”
“I think I’ve been forced to settle in, whether I wanted to or not.” She gave a soft huff of laughter. “But I’m starting not to mind so much. It actually feels good.”
“Good.” He let his gaze linger. He was really pulling all the basic moves, but he didn’t know what else to do. This was new for him, too. He’d had dates before—dinners, movies, a few lamentable flings that made him cringe with regret now. He’d settled for so little, and now he was finding he wanted so much more, and that scared him about as much as he suspected it scared Emily. Yet here they were, trying.
“What about your mum?” he asked after a moment, when they’d both seemed content to be lost in their own thoughts, the glow of the wood burner casting the dim room in warm shades.
Emily sighed. “She’s stable. Still doesn’t want to see me.”
“Has that happened before?”
A quick shrug, more like a twitch. “She is very up and down. And when she went into hospital in the past, it was not by her own volition. When I don’t spring
