‘Nonetheless, I still want to thank you.’
She realised Josh was holding out his hand to her. As a lifeline? As forgiveness? She placed her hand in his and he shook it once then let go, turning to rifle through the neat piles of paper trail she’d organised across the counter.
Oh. A business handshake. The little wad of hope she’d had hidden in her heart shrivelled up and died.
She’d done the right thing.
Trouble was, she’d learned what the right thing to do was way too late.
CHAPTER
37
By late November the weather had warmed, and Graeme convinced her to place some little tables outside the café on the footpath overlooking the lake. Tourists had flocked to them like seagulls after a hot chip, and gathered in the late afternoon sunlight for glasses of wine, cheese boards, and little dishes of antipasti. Business was up, her lawyer was texting her optimistic messages likeloving our defence strategy, Vera!and her trial date had been set for the second week of December.
She was ignoring the trial, for the most part, and when she was having trouble ignoring it, she went to yoga and Marigold helped her whizz her worries off over the lake.
Sure it was a bit hippy and nuts … but whatever. She was trying to learn not to be so rigid and loosen up a little.
She inspected the strawberry she’d just sliced. Hmm. Not so loose thatthatmangled cut of fruit would be acceptable in her display cabinet. She popped it in her mouth, then plated up three dozen of the tarts she’d spent the afternoon baking. Poppy had whimsically named them La Di Dah Tarts on her last visit up from Sydney.
The swing door crashed open and Graeme shouldered his way into the kitchen bearing a tray of empty cups. ‘Marigold’s asking for you, my lamb.’
Vera ran her eye over the bowl containing five kilos of choux pastry dough that wasn’t going to pipe itself. ‘How chatty is she looking?’
He grinned. ‘She’s ordered a hot chocolate to go, so maybe not too chatty. One hour, tops.’
‘You mind asking her if she’s happy to come back here?’
‘I’m on it.’
Just as Vera was fitting a nozzle onto a piping bag, Marigold sailed through the swing doors.
‘The inner sanctum!’ she announced. ‘I’m feeling a little dizzy with the honour, Vera.’
Vera tested the consistency of the mix with a spoon. ‘That’ll be the powdered sugar fumes, Marigold.’ She spooned a batch of choux pastry into the piping bag and began filling her trays with short lengths of dough.
‘Éclairs? Oh, poop, now I’m wishing I hadn’t already had a slice of that devilish chocolate cake.’
‘Relax, I’m prepping these for tomorrow.’
‘My bathroom scales are scared of you, Vera, you know that? They see me coming home with shortbread crumbs scattered across my magnificent bosom, and they quake.’
Vera allowed herself a smug little snicker and pulled out a stool for her friend.
‘But seriously,’ said Marigold, taking a sip of her hot chocolate then resting it on the workbench. ‘How are you doing, Vera?’
She looked up. ‘Excuse me?’
Marigold reached over and patted her arm. ‘Burying a loved one with me as celebrant gets you certain privileges. Like me coming over to check on you from time to time. And Kev, bless him. He’d have been here, but he spied an aphid on a rose bush down at the hall and went all First Testament on me. I haven’t seen you at yoga this week, so I assumed you were burying yourself in hard work and dark thoughts, and I was right, wasn’t I?’
She tried for flippancy. ‘Someone’s got to keep this town supplied with sweet treats.’
‘Uh-huh. And someone else has got to keep this town feeling better by wearing epic earrings and making taciturn people like you talk about their feelings. And that person is me, Vera. Spill the beans.’
A splodge of dough erupted from the piping bag to form a fist-sized lump in her tray. It looked as pale and inanimate as she imagined her heart must look.
‘I’m never been very good at sharing, Marigold.’