Page 98 of The World Outside My Window

‘What’s wrong?’ Is he regretting it already? Oh God, he is, isn’t he? But then he reaches for her hands and threads his fingers through hers. He doesn’t look Laura in the eye and she feels sick. What is he about to say? She can’t bear it.

Then he finally looks at her and his eyes are filled with warmth, with desire. ‘When Helen died I didn’t think I’d ever be able to love anyone again,’ he says, his voice cracking. ‘She was everything to me, and when I lost her I couldn’t ever imagine being happy again, let alone finding someone who made me laugh the way she did. And for the last three years, I haven’t. But then—’ He coughs, suddenly unsure of himself. ‘Then there you were. On my doorstep looking so sad and so lost and so, so… beautiful.’ He reaches up and runs his fingers across Laura’s cheek and she shivers. ‘I think that day changed everything for me and, even though I knew I couldn’t be with you because you were married to Jim, I knew that I needed to have you in my life, no matter what. As a friend, if that was all you could ever be. But I knew I’d found someone special.’

Laura looks at him, her heart pounding.

‘Me too,’ she says, and as the words spill from her mouth she realises they’re true. Although she wasn’t in the right place to fall for anyone when she met Ben she realises now, as she studies the curve of Ben’s lip, the stubble on his chin, the long lashes that frame his sparkling eyes, that something changed in her that day too. She’s been lost for so long, so scared of everything, so reliant on Jim. But now she feels like a new flower emerging in the spring.

She is falling in love with Ben.

‘I know you need time, that you’re still getting over Jim, and I’d never push you but…’ Ben looks down at their hands, entwined on the kitchen table. ‘I hope that this can become something, eventually. Me and you. However long it takes.’

She smiles, leans forward and kisses his lips, gently.

‘I hope so too.’

EPILOGUE

NOW – 17 JULY 1993

Laura waits until the last few people have left, then she closes the door firmly behind her, and lets out an enormous sigh. Today has been the first day running her own catering business, and after finishing an order for a hot and cold buffet for a local party, she feels absolutely exhausted.

‘Can I go now, Laura?’

‘Yes, thanks, Abbie. I’m not sure I could have got through today without you.’ She hands Jane’s daughter, Abbie, a couple of twenty pound notes and the girl grins and races off, the door banging shut behind her.

Laura stands for a moment, surveying the mess around her. Pots and pans litter the worktop, baking trays, knifes and measuring jugs, a whisk, eggshells, potato peelings.

She would never have put up with this mess in her old restaurant kitchen but somehow she can’t bring herself to care too much today. Because this is her dream come true. Her own little kitchen, above a row of shops a few streets away from home, and her first order has been a roaring success. She feels so lucky.

She heads to the sink and starts filling it with hot water, steam billowing up around her. She switches on the radio, and begins to load the dishwasher, placing the dirtiest items in the sink of scalding water to scrub later. She’s so preoccupied with her work she doesn’t hear the door opening behind her, or the footsteps creeping across the floor.

‘Well, that couldn’t have gone any better.’ Laura almost jumps out of her skin as a pair of arms snake round her waist and a gentle kiss is planted on her neck. She spins round, her heart still thudding from the shock.

‘You made me jump!’

‘Sorry. You just looked so cute, singing along to the radio, lost in your own little world.’

‘Yes, well, I’m afraid I’m still workingveryhard, which means that this—’ she indicates the arms round her waist, the face pressed close to hers ‘—is entirely inappropriate.’

She tries to keep a straight face but she can’t do it, and when Ben moves in for another kiss she gives in.

‘Hey, hey, that’s quite enough of that, you two.’ They spring apart sheepishly as Debbie enters the room and she laughs at them. ‘God, you two are like a pair of naughty schoolchildren,’ she says. ‘I was only teasing. Go ahead, snog all you like, don’t mind me.’

Ben and Laura grin at each other, and he reaches for her hand.

‘So, it went pretty well, by the looks of things,’ Debbie says.

‘It really did.’

‘Don’t sound so amazed.’ Ben brings her hand to his lips and presses a kiss onto her knuckles. ‘We were never in any doubt you could do it, were we, Debs?’

Debbie looks round. ‘Absolutely none.’ She studies her best friend for a moment, struck by how different she seems. So relaxed, so happy. So herself. She turns and plunges her hands into the sink of hot water. ‘Right, let’s get started.’

‘You don’t need to help,’ Laura says. ‘I’m fine here.’

Debbie peers over her shoulder. ‘Don’t be daft, the quicker we get away from here, the quicker we can get… er…’ She shoots Ben a panicky look.

‘Home,’ Ben finishes, lamely.

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