Page 31 of One Snowy Day
‘Here you go…’
A flinch of confusion crossed his face when he saw what she’d brought him. ‘I don’t think the muffin is for me. I only ordered a coffee.’
Alyssa knew immediately what was going on. Bloody Ginny. She’d just manufactured a reason for them to converse. And whywas he looking at her like that? Intense. Quizzical. As if he was trying to place her.
She didn’t want to admit the truth, so she went with, ‘Oh, no worries. Monday is toffee muffin day. You get a free one with every coffee. Sorry, my hopeless waitress should have told you that.’
She raised her voice on the ‘hopeless’, hoping that Ginny had returned from the loo and could hear her.
‘Anyway, enjoy,’ she said, before turning to leave.
‘Excuse me…’ he said, halting her retreat. ‘Sorry if this sounds like a line, and I promise it isn’t… but have we met?’
16
LACHLAN
The pretty waitress was now eyeing him like he was a pick-up merchant with a terrible line in chat. Which, granted, was definitely the impression he was giving.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ She took another step away, leaving him staring at a toffee muffin, trying to summon up a sliver of inspiration as to why she seemed so familiar.
If he had to guess, he’d say she was maybe mid to late twenties, a few years younger than him, so they couldn’t have been at school together. He’d never done any work out this way. And he hadn’t been in Weirbridge since he was a teenager, so it couldn’t be that either.
He shook it off, deciding that the emotion and nostalgia of today must be playing with his mind. That was the only explanation as to why he was sitting in this café right now.
After the accident had blocked the motorway exit to the airport and he’d kept driving until he’d seen the Burnbank and Weirbridge sign, it had felt like… well, like a different kind of sign. One that was coming from somewhere else, telling him to go say goodbye to the last connection to the family he once had.
He’d driven down decent-sized roads, then onto the windy lanes that he’d vaguely recognised, seeing brief glimpses of flashbacks as he went towards Burnbank. His mum’s face, laughing as she drove them in her little green sports car past fields that stretched for miles. Jason kicking a football into a stream, then complaining because he didn’t want to go in and get it back out. His dad, always serious, restless as Mum tried to get him to relax and enjoy their picnic. And removal vans, packing all their stuff up for their move to the Glasgow house, his mum wiping away tears as she told them how wonderful it was going to be. In hindsight, he guessed that she probably didn’t want to leave, but back then, his dad called the shots, and Mum went along with whatever he wanted. In fact, that never changed, and his mum didn’t seem to mind. The one thing that hadn’t altered now that he was looking in the rear-view mirror of his childhood, was that he truly believed his parents had loved each other and had been happy with their roles within the family and the lives they built together. Jason had been so pissed off when their father had married again – primarily, Lachlan suspected, because he was watching most of their inheritance waltz up the aisle and out of their reach, but Lachlan had understood why it happened. Dad had Mum by his side since he was a teenager. That was a huge loss to live with and a big void to fill. Lachlan was just happy that their dad had found someone to do that, because after losing Tanya, he knew what living with emptiness felt like.
The entrance to Morden Manor, his early childhood home, had been completely covered in snow, so he’d almost missed it, skidding as he’d turned at the last minute. He remembered Jeremy Sprite saying that the tenants had already moved out, so he’d taken a chance that there would be no one there to accuse him of trespassing, and driven up the long driveway to the darkened house. He’d stopped the car for just a few seconds, lockingthe memory in, wishing his dad was still here so he could ask him why he’d kept it. Sentimentality, he assumed. The same reason he was sitting there on a freezing cold afternoon in the middle of winter, when he could be in a nice warm lounge at the airport, drinking a beer.
Driving back out onto the country road, he’d decided he was far too invested to turn back, so instead, he’d veered right on the road that brought him to Weirbridge – the village much more recognisable to him than the last one. They’d continued to come here on day trips during the school summer holidays every year, and they’d have ice cream and wander around the shops, then head to the café, the one that he’d somehow found himself in now. It looked completely different, though. The sign above the door had said, The Once Upon A Time Café, and now that he was inside, he could see why. Shelves of books lined the two main walls and there were little reading nooks for children in a couple of the corners. As well as the normal dining tables for eating, there were sofas and big armchairs with side tables for solo diners too. Everything about it was gorgeous. Warm. Welcoming. He knew his mum would have loved it.
Coming here had been good for the soul, he decided. Another memory to lock in place. Back in those long-ago summers, he remembered it being packed out, but today, with six inches of snow on the ground outside and a biting wind that made the eyes sting, it was just him, a steaming coffee and a toffee muffin that he didn’t ask for, but suddenly couldn’t resist.
He picked it up, broke a piece off and popped it in his mouth, immediately deciding it was possibly the best thing he’d tasted in a long time.
‘They’re great, aren’t they? My sister bakes them fresh every morning.’ He hadn’t even heard the first waitress come back, but now she was beside him again.
‘They’re amazing,’ he admitted, torn between not being rude and hoping that she wouldn’t want to strike up a conversation. Depressing as it sounded, he just wanted to sit here with his memories as company. And no, he still couldn’t work out why the other waitress had seemed so familiar to him.
Unfortunately, this lady didn’t get the whole ‘want to be alone’ memo, because she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down, with all the confidence of someone who felt perfectly at ease invading a stranger’s space. On any other day, he’d probably enjoy the interaction, but not today. However, he had manners, so he would never object.
‘I’m Ginny. And I’d really appreciate it if you let me sit here for a while, otherwise my sister – that’s the grumpy but cute one who brought your muffin – will find ten jobs for me to do, all of them equally mind-numbing.’
On another person, this might be obnoxious, but she said it with such amusement that he decided to roll with it.
‘I’m Lachlan. And I don’t have a sister who tasks me with mind-numbing jobs, so I now feel very lucky. Thank you for that.’
‘You’re welcome. All part of the service. That, and the free muffins.’
‘Does every customer really get those?’
‘No, but I got a new job today, so I’m spreading the joy.’
Her laugh was cute, but not in a coy way. His intuition told him that she wasn’t flirting with him. This was giving off the same vibes as his dynamic with Margaux – strictly friendly energy. Maybe even a bit of mischievous skiving. And he had to remind himself again that he wasn’t in the bustle of London any more. People chatted here. Passed the time of day. That thought made him relax enough to ask the natural next question.
‘A new job?’
