‘Good idea.’ Erin smiled brightly, gazing at the rest of the geriatric bunch crowded round the Merry Cobbler’s largest table, all dressed in cowboy boots and Stetsons and looking like an elderly faction of the Village People’s appreciation society.
Dora patted Jay’s shoulder. ‘And it must be nice for you to have some of your own type here in the village, dear. We all love seeing that new stunning Indian girl in the village, especially when she wears all those lovely bright saris. A regular little blaze of colour, she is. And now –’ she motioned coquettishly towards Kam ‘– you’ve got another handsome young man of your ilk to keep you company. There’s some as don’t think it’s in keeping with the village, but not me. I’ve never been narrow-minded in that way. Well, I better get on and get the last round in before Gina calls time. I’m so looking forward to the wedding, dears.’
Erin and Jay stared after her.
Erin giggled. ‘Was that, um, politically correct or not?’
‘God knows.’ Jay shook his head. ‘Probably not, but who cares. Love her.’
Kam, laughing at something Dora had said to him, elbowed his way back through the Yee-Hawers and pulled up a chair.
‘This is great. Fabulous pub, really nice room, and a very sexy landlady.’
‘Glad you like it, but please leave
Gina alone,’ Erin said quickly. ‘Don’t mess about with her. She’s lovely and my friend and she’s been hurt enough.’
‘Erin’s Uncle Doug has just finished their relationship,’ Jay said. ‘It’s left her a bit bruised and battered.’
Kam raised his eyebrows. ‘Is your Uncle Doug
mad
? She’s gorgeous and funny and friendly – and she owns this place.’
‘Completely barking.’ Erin nodded. ‘As I’ve told him many times. But honestly, Kam, he hurt Gina badly, so please leave her alone.’
‘OK.’ Kam leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ll stay well away. Pity, though, because she’s stunning. Oh, and talking of stunning women, am I allowed to mention Nalisha now?’
‘If you really have to,’ Erin said, smiling sleepily at Jay. The wine was starting to kick in rather nicely. ‘But I had hoped tonight would be a Nalisha-free zone.’
Jay grinned. ‘Go on then. How did you know she was here? Did Mum tell you?’
‘No, she texted me as soon as she knew I was thinking of working here.’
‘Really?’ Jay raised his eyebrows. ‘The speed of the family grapevine never ceases to amaze me. Why did she text you, though? Oh – you’re not, are you?’
‘No way,’ Kam laughed. ‘For some unknown reason, Nalisha never gave me a second glance. I always thought that maybe you and she would … well, you know. You were always together at all the family weddings and parties and …’
Erin was suddenly wide awake.
‘As best friends,’ Jay said quickly. ‘As I keep explaining to Erin. So, go on, why did she text you?’
Erin fiddled with the stem of her wine glass.
Kam grinned. ‘Just being friendly,
she said. Long time no see and all that. And getting in touch again now we’re all going to be Nook Green. Although I do think it’s a bit weird that she’s staying in your cottage and Erin isn’t.’
So do I, Erin thought, but didn’t bother saying.
‘None of your business.’ Jay grinned. ‘And Erin’s fine with it, aren’t you?’
‘Oh yeah. Fine.’
Kam laughed. ‘Oh, well, I’ll see her when she’s back tomorrow, no doubt. I might have to take her out to dinner – just to catch up, of course.’
‘Oh, of course.’
Oooh – ker-ching! Erin suddenly grinned to herself. The perfect solution. Kam and Nalisha … Nalisha and Kam …
Yay!
Kam stretched lazily. ‘Right, I’m getting another drink. What would you like?’
‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ Erin shook her head.
‘Or me,’ Jay said. ‘And Gina will be calling time soon so you’d better hurry.’
‘OK. I’ll just go and chat up the gorgeous Gina and – no – Erin, don’t look at me like that – I’m joking. I know when to steer clear.’
‘Really?’ Erin smiled, still mulling over the delightful possibilities of a Kam-and-Nalisha scenario. ‘Remember, I’m watching you.’
‘So’s every other woman in the pub.’ Jay grinned as Kam sauntered back to the bar. ‘Damn – I’m clearly not number one on their lust list any more.’
‘Only because they all know you’re strictly off-limits.’ Erin grinned.
‘Sod it – I knew there was
going to be a drawback to getting married.’
Erin laughed, then swirled the remainder of her wine round the glass. ‘When did you and Kam last see Nalisha, then? It must be ages ago if she’s been working in America.’
‘Don’t know about Kam, but I last saw her a couple of years ago, just before I came here and she went to California. We were both leaving our present jobs and moving elsewhere, with much better prospects, so we had a weekend away to celebrate.’
‘
What?
’
Jay frowned. ‘A weekend away. Her family and mine. Not just the two of us – it wasn’t like that. It was never like that.’
Erin studied the tabletop. Years of beer stains and cigarette burns had been lovingly polished into a glowing golden sheen.
So, the gloriously stunning, highly qualified, two-faced Nalisha, who knew Jay inside out and upside down, and who was clearly an eagerly accepted part of the whole huge extended family, had spent a weekend with him, had she?
OK, with the rest of the family, and before he’d moved to Nook Green and before she’d even met him. But even so …
Nalisha, it seemed, had been automatically considered as Jay’s plus one for
years
. And not just when they were children.
Hmmm … Erin sighed heavily. But Nalisha wasn’t marrying Jay, was she? Jay had chosen her, not Nalisha, hadn’t he? And no one could change that, could they? Could they?
‘Are you still awake?’ Jay said softly.
‘What? Oh, yes. Sorry.’ Erin smiled at him. ‘Miles away. Just thinking.’
He leaned across the table and took her hands in his. ‘As long as it’s about me, that’s cool.’
‘Of course it’s about you. It’s always
about you. Ego satisfied now?’
‘Totally,’ Jay laughed. ‘Oh, I just wish we could go back to the cottage tonight. Together.’
Erin stifled a yawn. ‘We could, actually, as Nalisha is staying over with her friends. Although I might just be asleep before we made the stairs.’
‘Damn.’ Jay grinned. ‘I bet I could wake you up though.’ Erin was suddenly swamped with lust. Again. ‘Mmmm, I think you probably could …’
‘So, shall we go?’ Jay asked softly. ‘Kam’s still chatting to Gina at the bar and she hasn’t called time yet. I’ll tell him we’re off now.’
‘OK.’ Erin pushed her glass away and stood up. ‘Oh shit.’ Her heart plummeted into her flip-flops.
Bella and Sophie had just appeared in the doorway, followed by Nalisha.
Nalisha hadn’t seen them, but she’d definitely spotted Kam. Her eyes widening, she gave a little scream of delight, and hurtled through the throng and threw her arms round him.
‘Oh, bugger! What the hell is she doing here?’ Erin frowned, watching as Kam hugged Nalisha and was clearly ordering her a drink. She secretly hoped he’d get her rolling drunk and drag her upstairs to his room, but was pretty sure, given Sod’s Law, that he wouldn’t.
‘No idea.’ Jay shook his head. ‘She must have changed her plans. But we could still go. She’ll be ages yet.’
Erin looked across at Nalisha, with so much of her superb body displayed in her linen shorts and her sliding-off-the-shoulder T-shirt, and shook her head sadly as all the earlier lovely lustful feelings simply fizzled away.
‘Sorry, but it just wouldn’t seem
right, knowing she was in the cottage. In the next room. It’d be like being a kid again, all furtive and tense and not making a noise, waiting for your parents to suss you.’
Jay sighed. ‘I must have had such innocent teenage years compared to yours.’
Erin shrugged. Bloody Nalisha had ruined things – again.
On purpose?
‘Wow!’ Bella sidled up to them and jerked her head towards the bar. ‘The red-hot man with Nalisha. Who’s
he
?’
‘He’s Jay’s cousin,’ Erin said, still feeling extremely grouchy. ‘He’s called Kam.’
‘Wow! And are they – you know? Together?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Goody.’ Bella grinned. ‘Fat and ginger still stands a chance then?’
‘If you’re quick. And you and Sophie haven’t been out with Nalisha tonight, have you?’
‘What? No. Me and Soph’ve been to the cinema in Newbury. Crap film. Nalisha pulled up in her car as we got here. But doesn’t she look
amazing
? I wish my legs looked half that good in shorts.’ Bella continued to stare at Nalisha and Kam. ‘She said her night out was pretty boring so she’d come home. Why?’
‘Because she was supposed to be staying in Oxford.’
‘Well, she didn’t, obviously. Oh, look, excuse me – I must go and get a drink before it’s too late.’
‘There’s just a teeny tiny space beside Kam if you hurry.’ Jay smiled. ‘Although it looks as if Sophie might be getting in there first.’
‘Nooo!’ Bella shrieked, and thrust her way between several of the Nook Green Yee-Hawers.
‘You just failed to mention to
Bella that you’d offered Kam a partnership and that he’d be working with you, didn’t you?’ Erin said. ‘Which means of course that he’ll also be working with her and Sophie. Was that deliberate?’
‘Absolutely. I didn’t know he was going to take me up on the offer or arrive so quickly, but now he has I’ll leave it to him to make the introductions. And leave them to squabble over him. Maybe then he’ll have something else to concentrate on and he’ll back off from flirting with Gina, and messing with our wedding arrangements.’
‘Good thinking.’ Erin, still cursing Nalisha with warty-toad-type curses, picked up her bag and followed Jay towards the bar. ‘Oh, look, Bella and Sophie are both trying to buy him a drink now. Let’s make a break for it before they revert to the playground and start pinching and doing Chinese burns and pulling each other’s hair out.’
Kam, his arm round Nalisha’s shoulders, and happily squashed between Bella and Sophie, winked at them as they said their goodnights. Bella and Sophie flapped their hands in farewell but didn’t take their eyes from Kam.
‘Goodnight, Nalisha,’ Erin said quietly as they passed. ‘So sorry your plans didn’t work out.’
‘Actually, they’ve worked out perfectly.’ Nalisha smiled. ‘I never had any intention of staying away tonight …’
Only three weeks to go. Only three weeks
until she became Mrs Jay Keskar.
Erin, in her shorts and vest pyjamas and the insanely high – and even more insanely expensive – cream-satin-and-silver-netdelicately-studded-with-tiny-organza-rosebuds wedding shoes, teetered across the kitchen’s quarry tiles and crossed off another day on the
Antiques Roadshow
calendar.
She picked up Florence and did a little careful, if slightly unsteady, happy dance round Uncle Doug’s kitchen. Florence looked at her in horror, struggled from her arms and wriggled free, marching away out through the open door.
Erin watched her go, smiling fondly, then stalked up and down, doing catwalk turns between the fridge and the oven. Perfect. The shoes were perfect. She’d been breaking them in every morning for the last week. On 7 September, she’d glide – positively glide – down the aisle of the Swan’s marriage room with not a wobble in sight. She’d show Deena Keskar and bloody Nalisha that she had poise and elegance. In spades.
Another gloriously hot day beckoned. August
was still following on nicely from the rest of the summer. And the long-range forecast promised there were no storm clouds on the horizon. No threat of a breakdown of the heatwave in the foreseeable future. No rain expected for weeks. Which, Erin admitted, was probably bad news for farmers and gardeners, but absolutely great for someone who wanted a blissfully hot and sunny wedding day.
Still wearing the heavenly shoes, Erin put fresh food and water into Florence’s bowls and set them down outside in the shade. Florence, now sprawled in the herbaceous border, stopped her intensive grooming, stared at her and the bowls, and then carried on washing.
‘Suit yourself, lady. You know where it is when you want it.’
Erin swayed back into the kitchen, made coffee and toast as she sang along to the radio, and stacked the remainder of the previous night’s plates into the dishwasher. There was no sign of Uncle Doug. He was an early riser, so she assumed he’d already left for the Old Curiosity Shop.
Or not come home last night.
It was too much to hope, she knew, that he’d be cuddled up with Gina in the Merry Cobbler. That was definitely all over. Stupid man. And poor Gina. Her heartbreak had been obvious to everyone, even though she’d put on a brave face and tried very hard to hide the puffy eyes behind huge sunglasses.
Erin sipped her coffee. Damn Doug.
Still, everything else seemed to be going OK, she thought. Kam had settled happily into both the Merry Cobbler’s guest room and his role in the vet’s practice, and had quickly become a firm favourite with every female farmer and pony club mum for miles. Jay was delighted with the rise in income, not to mention the sharing of the workload.
And the agency nurse, Renata, that Jay had
employed to work with Kam, was perfect and had agreed to become a permanent fixture. A statuesque and sweet-natured redhead, she lived happily in Maizey St Michael with her partner Julia, and was totally immune to Kam’s charms.
‘I swear I didn’t know she was gay,’ Jay had chuckled. ‘We never touched on that side of things at the interview, obviously. I know Kam thinks I did it on purpose, but I simply went for the best candidate for the job. And of course, Bella and Sophie are delighted with her. No competition.’
Erin laughed again at the memory, and stretched luxuriously.
Of course there was still one fly in the ointment. One sneaky, slinky, two-faced fly …
Nalisha had somehow managed to collect quite a fan club. No one else seemed to realise just what a bitch she was. Uncle Doug was positively slavering; Gina thought she was ‘a nice woman’; she’d shown Sophie how to make several shortcuts in her admin, and miraculously had overcome her aversion to animals and been, as Bella kept saying, ‘a total star’ in helping out behind the scenes in the surgery.