Page 52 of Joker in the Pack

“He invited me, and since he’s been nothing but a gentleman, I accepted.”

“Tate deserves better than you.”

Oh, the green-eyed monster was out in full force now.

“Like you, you mean?”

“At least I’d be interested in more than the size of his wallet.”

“Well, unlike you, I know about the size of other things as well, so I’m one step ahead, aren’t I?”

I shouldn’t have stooped so low, but the words just popped out. And I wasn’t totally lying, either. I’d felt it digging into my hip last night.

“I think you should leave.”

Fine. I shoved my chair back from the table. “I’ve lost my appetite, anyway.”

I felt sick as I half ran back home, and it wasn’t just from Daisy’s cooking. Did everyone else share her views? Did they all think I saw Tate as an ATM?

If so, how could I convince them I wasn’t that girl? Yes, I could stop seeing Tate, but I liked him, and I didn’t want to throw away a possible future with what might be the perfect man.

I’d come to Upper Foxford hoping for a happy, peaceful life, and instead, I’d been cast as a vampire after Tate’s blood.

How could I fix this?

CHAPTER 17

THE NEXT DAY, the alarm on my phone rang at seven, and I shut it off and burrowed under the duvet. I didn’t want to face the outside world that day. Or, in fact, ever.

A message from Tate at eight woke me up again. Apparently, he’d arranged a glazier, and Tate must have had some clout because the guy hammered on the door twenty minutes later. I threw on a dressing gown and ran downstairs, where I thanked him profusely as I made us both cups of tea.

“Made a bit of a mess, didn’t they, love? Bloody kids.”

Another who was quick to write my problem off. “Have you seen this a lot around here?”

“A couple of villages over, they chucked a rubbish bin through the window of the chippy.”

Could I be overreacting?

An hour later, I had a shiny new window, and the man waved to me as he climbed into his van.

“Wait—how much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. All been taken care of.”

“By Tate?”

“You want to hold on to that one, love.”

Wonderful. Although I appreciated Tate’s generosity, his gesture would hardly do much to quash my new reputation as a gold-digger. I wished he’d asked me first so I could have declined his offer.

Rather than risk the wrath of the village, I stayed home for the rest of the morning and listed as many new items as I could on eBay. And while rummaging at the back of the dining room, I found treasure under a pile of zebra-print onesies. A shiny red mountain bike had been hidden from view while the burglar did his worst, still with pristine tyres and plastic sleeves over the paintwork.

Why had Aunt Ellie bought a bicycle she’d never ridden?

Good grief, why was I even asking myself that question? The woman had also bought a set of musical garden gnomes, each dressed in a different coloured bikini, for crying out loud. That line-up made the bicycle look relatively normal.

My discovery meant I now had wheels. Slightly labour-intensive ones, granted, but I didn’t have to rely on the bus anymore. A bubble of laughter escaped at my unexpected freedom.

---