Page 9 of The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop
‘Is it heck,’ Lizzy replied. ‘If it’s not charm, then it’s flat-out bewitching. You can see that about him, can’t you?’ She turned back to Ollie, and Ollie jolted, still unable to find her footing in Max’s presence, and especially when asked such a pertinent question.
‘Don’t drag Ollie into this.’ Max moved to the smart black coffee machine, which took up a significant space behind the counter.
Ollie blinked, replaying his words. ‘You know my name.’
Lizzy chuckled. ‘He makes it his business to know everyone’s name. Ollie, is it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Meredith told me,’ Max admitted. He was still facing the coffee machine, and Ollie was desperate for him to turn around, so she could see his expression. ‘She mentioned that you’d moved here from London, and I—’ He cleared his throat. ‘I commented on your dog. The chocolate Lab.’
‘He’s called Henry Tilney.’ She wondered if he was terrorising Liam right this moment.
‘Sorry?’ Max said on a laugh.
Lizzy was watching them, her arms folded.
‘He’s named after the hero in a Jane Austen book,’ Ollie explained. ‘Northanger Abbey. I got him with my friend, and we didn’t want to call him something obvious: Fido or Rex or Trigger.’
‘Do people call their dogs Trigger?’ Lizzy asked.
‘No idea,’ Ollie said. ‘But when I saw him, I knew. He was Henry Tilney. Now my friend’s moved to Portugal, and I’ve moved here, and he’s all mine.’
‘Henry’s a great name for a Lab,’ Max said. ‘He’s boisterous, I bet.’
‘Very,’ Ollie confirmed. ‘I need someone to drag me out of the house and pull me through the countryside: help me get to know my surroundings better.’
‘Max likes hiking in the countryside, don’t you, Max?’ Lizzy said.
‘Sometimes,’ Max replied. ‘What drink did you want with your sausage roll? Chai latte, as usual?’
‘You know my order as well?’ Ollie laughed.
‘I pay attention,’ Max said, shrugging. ‘You’d like one?’
‘Love one.’ Ollie finally unglued her feet and joined Lizzy at the counter.
‘So you’re from London,’ the older woman said. ‘Second home in idyllic Cornwall? Escaping the big smoke for a bit?’
She sounded friendly enough, but Ollie was immediately wary. ‘First home,’ she said. ‘Only home. I moved here a fortnight ago, and I’m not going back to London.’ She was only renting Liam’s barn, so she felt as if she had an escape route, but she already loved being here, and after her first day in A New Chapter, she was excited about having a new business to make her mark on. And, only two weeks in, the frantic speed of London, the city stretching all around her, seemed so distant, as if she had only seen it in a film, and never really lived there herself.
‘Cornwall can seem slow.’ Lizzy’s tone had softened, and Ollie realised she and Max were looking at her with concern, as if she didn’t understand what she’d let herself in for.
‘It’s deliciously slow,’ she said. ‘I have no complaints so far.’
‘Are you in town?’ Max asked, turning to check on the pastries.
‘At Foxglove Barn, so not too far.’
‘Oh, Liam Byrne’s outbuilding,’ Lizzy said. ‘Finally made it liveable, has he?’
Ollie laughed. ‘It’s like something out ofCountry Livingmagazine. It’s a dream.’
Max smiled at her, and their eyes locked. His were dark green: moss rather than grass, and she thought that he could absolutely have got Beryan to make cakes for him withoutpaying her. But he was too nice for that: too wholesome, despite the dark curls and unusual eye colour that somehow gave him an air of danger.Dangerously hot. She wondered if he ever asked Beryan to make cinnamon rolls.
‘What is it?’ she asked, because he hadn’t dropped his gaze and he hadn’t said anything, and having all his attention on her was making her feel like she might dissolve into a puddle at any minute.
‘Nothing,’ he said, and looked away. ‘What do you do, for work?’ He took the sausage rolls out of the oven, put them on a cooling rack.
