Between You and Me by Carol Mason

Author:Carol Mason [Mason, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2021-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

Joe is thankfully out when I get back, so I nap, to make sure I’m fit for my late shift, then shower, change and head into work. When I come home early the next morning, he has left me breakfast and a note. Had to rush out. Dinner tonight at Alfonso’s? 8pm? Meet me there. I reserved.

I go into our bedroom after I’ve eaten and I lie there for ages staring out of the window instead of sleeping.

Alfonso’s. My mind can’t help going back to the first time he took me there, a couple of months after we’d begun dating. It was June. My twenty-ninth birthday.

Joe showed up with a bulky package under his arm. ‘Yours, I believe.’ He placed it in front of me.

‘What is it?’ I asked. It wasn’t a wrapped gift. In fact, it was still in its shipping packaging, and had his name and address on the label.

He just smiled.

Its origin was France.

I peeled my gaze away from his, tore into the parcel. There was a moment where I didn’t believe my eyes. ‘Oh my God! My bag!’

He was watching me like he was fixing every beat of this in his mind. ‘Of course. What else?’

Just a few weeks earlier I’d been mugged walking from work. Aside from the fact that I could have been hurt, and my credit card was stolen, what I was most upset about was losing the beautiful bag I’d bought in the south of France, from one of those charming little establishments that sells fabric and leather and jewellery.

‘How did you ever pull this off?’ I asked him. I couldn’t have even told him the name of the tiny little shop where I’d bought it, because I didn’t remember it.

I could see he was trying not to look too pleased with himself. ‘There aren’t that many artisan gift shops in Èze. It wasn’t that hard.’

Turned out he’d done some research into the town, then rung the shop and described it to the owner. As soon as he’d said jade green they knew exactly which one it was, and had an identical one custom-made and shipped over.

‘I truly can’t believe it!’ Tears filled my eyes. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me! So damned thoughtful!’

‘I’m a damned thoughtful kind of guy,’ he said, and it was cute how he seemed to bask in the compliment. ‘At least . . . I hope I am!’

‘Seriously. This makes me very happy!’

He smiled a big smile. ‘That’s good. Because the truth is . . . your happiness is all that matters to me.’

His words, the promise in them, just kept writing themselves in my mind.

‘That’s a powerful statement,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Just a true one.’

After our meal was finished I asked him, ‘What are we doing, Joe?’ There had been lengthy spells between eating where we had just sat there and stared at each other.

‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘I’m falling in love.’ He looked rather affected by his admission. ‘I think I felt it from the first words you ever spoke to me.

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