Page 2 of Daydreams & Doughnut Cake

‘Yes. You’re on safe ground there. Or butter chicken, maybe? The spices are very mild in that one. It’s more aromatic than out-and-out fierce.’

She nodded. ‘Sold! And for myself, I think I’ll try your Thai red curry this week. I’m Maureen, by the way.’

‘Nice to know you, Maureen. One Thai red curry and one butter chicken coming up.’

After Maureen, the steady flow of customers seemed to dry up a little, and after a while I started to get worried. Glancing in the ice boxes, I could see that about a third of the meals I’d prepared for today remained unsold. I glanced at my watch. Only four hours to go until a lot of my fellow stall-holders started packing up and going home. At that point, custom dwindled to nothing.

It was a risky business to be in, the market trade, because you never knew from one week to the next how well you weregoing to do. But a sunny day like this was bringing out people in droves, so hopefully business would pick up.

I reminded myself to keep smiling because a cheerful stall-holder would surely draw the customers far more readily than someone with a worried face!

And to my relief, I suddenly spotted someone I recognised making a beeline for my stall. She’d bought a lot the previous week, including a stack of my homemade naan breads, which she said would be perfect for the freezer.

I even knew her name because she’d introduced herself, saying she was sure to become a regular customer. Penny and her husband had started having date nights in – and she’d confessed with a giggle that sharing my delicious prawn bhuna by candlelight had put both of them in the mood for love. We’d laughed about that as she’d bought the same again, saying she was keen to repeat the experience.

And now here she was, walking towards my stall with a beaming smile. The spicy magic must still be working...

‘Rosie, hi! How are you today?’

‘I’m good.’ I gave her a twinkly, mischievous smile. ‘And what about you? Still full of the joys?’

‘Absolutely. Thank goodness for date nights. And for your lovely food, of course. If we had to cook dinner ourselves, we’d probably start bickering over the best way to cut a pepper, which would ruin our special night before it even started!’

‘Well, I have to say I’m delighted to be an essential part of your fabulously revived love life,’ I joked.

She grinned cheekily. ‘It’s a threesome that’s definitely working for us!’

I laughed. ‘You’d better not spread that about, Penny. I’m not sure I could cope with customers requesting “threesomes” to spice up their love lives. Now, what do you fancy this week?’

‘Ooh, I’m not sure. Let me look at the menu.’ She stepped to the side to study the chalk board on which I wrote all the dishes available that week. It was a good system because once I’d sold out of a particular curry, I could simply wipe it off the menu with a cloth.

I was turning to ask about her children – Penny and her husband had six-year-old twin boys – when my eye suddenly caught sight of a face in the throng of people that made my heart give a gigantic lurch of shock.

What?

No! It couldn’t be!

Dread clutched at my heart.

I glanced at Penny, imagining in my shock that she must surely be able to hear the panicky thudding of my heart.

I had to get away.

‘Penny, I’m really sorry.’ I touched her arm and she turned in surprise at the serious look on my face. ‘I need to go. Just... take what you need from the ice boxes over there and you can pay me next week, okay?’

I squeezed her arm, indicating she should go round the back of the stall.

She started to ask me if something was wrong. But I didn’t have time to explain.

I just turned and fled . . .

CHAPTER TWO

I realised I was instinctively hurrying towards Katja’s van, hoping I could take shelter there.

Luckily, she wasn’t dealing with a customer, so I was able to quickly ask her if I could hide behind the van.

Looking bemused, she stared at me, probably thinking I was joking. But she quickly realised from my panicked expression that I was deadly serious.

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