‘Oh wow. So. Much. Food.’ Jenna’s eyes almost popped out of her head seeing Nick standing in the doorway with more brown paper takeaway bags than she could count. Plus, the aromas of garlic, cinnamon, cumin…. What more could she ever want? ‘Oooh, it smells wonderful.’

He walked through into the kitchen and put the bags down on the counter she’d hurriedly tidied a few minutes before—right after she’d put on a nice-but-not-too-forward maxi dress and let her hair loose in curls over her shoulders, whipped a bit of blusher on and some mascara and lip gloss.

His eyes raked across her body and he smiled. She took that to mean he was thinking hooray, she’s normal! Not in a fancy dress or covered in cupcake or too-tight shorts. He had a normal-looking friend. Without a moustache. ‘I wasn’t sure which you’d prefer, so I got a selection. Plus’—he dug into one of the bags and pulled out a bottle—‘bubbles to celebrate your shop. I didn’t get a chance to share any with you the other day, so I thought we could make up for it.’

‘Yum. Thank you, you really have gone all out.’ She was going to have to watch how much she drank. These days, more than a glass made her giddy and she wanted to be in complete control so she could manage her reactions. ‘Lovely. Proper stuff too.’ She scooped steamed Chinese greens in soy sauce onto her plate. ‘Thanks so much. This is heaven.’

But he pushed another box towards her. ‘Here, have some crispy duck.’

So tempting. So very tempting, all that anise and tender juicy meat. ‘Oh, no thanks. So good, but so many calories.’

‘Forget about calories. Eat, woman.’ His smile showed perfect teeth and a little dimple in his left cheek she hadn’t noticed before. Her tummy tightened in delight at the discovery. More temptation coming her way, but not necessarily of the food kind. There was something indescribably gorgeous about a man, with a dimple, forcing her to eat yummy delicacies that he’d chosen and hand delivered—however deluded he was about forgetting calories.

‘Are you insane? They’re indelibly tattooed on my brain. I’ve been counting calories since I was twelve. I know exactly how many are in that duck, in a serving of that fried rice, in lavender cupcakes and in Evie’s baby yoghurts. In Tic-Tacs and Polo Mints and this glass of bubbles.’ He’d poured her a glass and it was sitting there on the counter fizzing away like her gut and her head. She chinked the glass against his and took a sip. Then another because it was so delicious and, of all white wines she liked, the least damaging to her waistline. ‘In fact, I’m a walking calorie calculator.’

Little lines appeared on his forehead. ‘That must mess with your enjoyment at meal times.’

‘Actually, it makes it easier. I know exactly what I’m eating and exactly what I need to do to counterbalance it.’ She sat down at the kitchen table and gestured for him to sit opposite her. Thankfully, trying to keep a man out of her head meant she was jittery and couldn’t settle, so she’d busied herself the last few nights sorting the detritus that was usually here into their rightful places. Mum’s latest sewing project was back in the sewing room, Evie’s latest drawings were stuck to the fridge with assorted lewd and not-suitable-for-anywhere magnets they’d been given from Mrs Singh at the Book Group Christmas party. And today’s toddler dinner things had been washed up and put away. All that was left on there was the flyer for the running group, mocking her. ‘Unfortunately, the counterbalance thing doesn’t get as much look in. Hence the shuffle-walk-running.’

‘Maybe if you didn’t focus so much on it all, you might relax a little more. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.’

‘I know, I know. That works in theory. It all works in theory; Atkins, Cabbage, Weight Watchers, Low carb, high carb, any amount of protein depending on the season, fasting…’ The greens were good. She scooped more bok choy on to her plate and eyed the duck enviously. Four hundred and three calories, which meant thirty minutes of super-fast running. No thank you. She knew how hard just walking fast for thirty minutes was. ‘It’s been my life for a very long time. Ollie said I was too obsessed with it all, and I tried hard not to talk too much about it when he was around. But then, he was one of those naturally slim bloody irritating body types who didn’t have to think twice about what he put in his mouth.’

Ollie. She clamped her mouth shut. Why the hell had she brought him up? Now the guilt started to tug at her. Nick’s a friend, Ol. He helped me when I lost you.

When she’d needed someone to listen, Nick had been there. Not there geographically, but there whenever she wanted someone to vent to. An email in the middle of the night. Another when she couldn’t breastfeed properly and Evie wouldn’t stop crying, and neither could she. When she’d been unable to function without her husband.

Nick’s gaze caught hers and he put his fork down. ‘You miss him.’

It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. He knew her. Nick could read her so well, her heart swelled. ‘Yes, I do—did. Not as much anymore.’

‘I can see it in your eyes.’

‘Just the eyes these days? Well, that’s a lot better than the full-on body grief I used to have; the shakes, shortness of breath, panic attacks, my head whirling as I felt overwhelmed by sadness and fear. Or I’d be the complete opposite; some days I was completely, utterly and scarily numb. What a mess.’ She shuddered, remembering the days she’d been unable to move or think and her sister had to come over and haul her out of bed, dress her and help her nurse little newborn Evie. Now she could talk about him without falling apart, without wishing she could rewind the clock and stay forever in that first post-marriage year just to be with him again. Now, she was moving forward. ‘I’m a whole lot better these days. Of course he was very lovely and we had a special bond—that first love, true love thing. But we grew into more than that when others in our situation might have grown apart as they grew up. We grew tighter.’

Nick nodded, but didn’t say anything, so she continued. ‘And, of course worst of all, he missed out on Evie.’

If he was irritated by her talking about her husband like this, Nick didn’t show it. ‘He’d have been very proud of her, and you.’

‘Of Evie, definitely.’

‘Of you both, for sure.’

‘Thank you.’ Her body bristled with pride and… something else, something she didn’t want to put a name to, that was nothing to do with remembering her husband and all to do with the real live man sitting opposite her. And the dimple. And the concerned smile. Yes, she’d done okay and she had a right to be proud, but she was discomfited by Nick’s words and how they comforted her so much, and the way her body’s reaction was so definitely nothing to do with grief, and a lot more to do with desire. She tried to focus on the least contentious thing. ‘There’s a special bond between a man and his daughter, I think. It’s a shame he never got that. Bloody stupid drivers. He wasn’t supposed to get run over and die.’

‘You were both very happy while he was alive. Some people don’t even get that.’ Another observation. But then she’d blathered on and on in her emails; he couldn’t fail to have noticed her excitement at being with Ollie. And she’d read the same excitement from Nick when he’d asked for suggestions on proposal gestures and then the baby news. In their own separate worlds, they’d been living their dreams and then both had walked through their own nightmares too.

‘Yes, we were happy, but I don’t think we were extraordinary. Plenty of people have the same kind of ordinary, everyday kind of love, sometimes for their whole lives. Fifty, sixty years. Imagine that.’ She found him a smile, because she wanted him to have had a better experience than someone lying and cheating on him. ‘You’ll have it one day too.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not looking.’

‘Sometimes it just happens without looking.’

‘Not for me. I won’t let it happen.’ He shifted in his chair and focused on his plate of food. Obviously it was easier for him to talk about her experiences rather than his own. ‘All this you can’t help who you fall in love with is bollocks. Of course you can help it. You make a decision to walk away and get on with your life, uphold your promises.’

He didn’t sound angry, just determined. He’d been hurt, badly, and that was why he was guarded with his feelings.

‘Is that what she said? Helen? That she couldn’t help falling for the other guy?’

He winced at her name, then wiped some naan bread across his plate. Very slowly, very deliberately. ‘We were talking about you and Oliver.’

Okay. Not going there, then. She sat back in her chair and changed the subject away from both of their pasts. ‘So, how’s life on the beat? Had any more dodgy flower-bearing murderers recently?’

He seemed to relax a little now the subject was moving on, and even smiled. ‘Nothing anywhere near as exciting as that. There have been a few more break-ins in the area than usual, so we’ve been doing some enquiries into that. Looks like it might be the same crew targeting businesses after dark, so make sure your shop’s got decent locks.’

‘It has. I made sure of it.’

‘And there was a four-car crash down at the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout—’

‘Oh, I heard about that on the radio. Poor things. Poor you. Was it horrible?’

‘Messy, but they all got out alive.’

‘Horrible to have to see it though.’

‘Yes, but it’s nothing like the things I saw in Iraq.’ A dark shadow slid across his eyes, and he blinked it away.

She knew he’d seen terrible things he hadn’t told her about. There was so much underneath Nick’s gentle, kind demeanour, so much he’d suffered through, but he seemed to want to suppress it all. That might work in the short term, but somehow, sometime, it would come out. You couldn’t squash down all that pain for it not to leak out. She wanted to stop that pain for him altogether, to put her hand on his and soothe the memories away. ‘It must have been hard being there, losing people, losing friends and seeing so much destruction.’

‘It’s part of the job. You have to live with it.’ Again, the shadows across his eyes. ‘What about you? Done any more exciting flower deliveries?’

She could hardly blame him for not wanting a re-run of his worse experiences; it wasn’t how she liked to live either, so she searched for her shiny happy. ‘No. I’m staying put at the shop these days. Much safer. I’ve been quite busy, actually. More than I hoped for—a wedding coming up on Saturday, some thank you bunches, two funerals—I’m not happy about the funerals, obviously.’

‘But everything helps. You would have made them feel better with some nice flowers.’

‘I hope so. And I had a baby shower display to do, with all blue flowers, which was cute. I get to celebrate all parts of life. And I was glad to get Chloe out for a while on a job, but then I got a knock back from a celebrant, so I have to start looking all over again.’

He scratched his head. ‘Sorry, what exactly does that mean?’

‘Ah. I’m planning Chloe’s wedding, and the celebrant said she couldn’t do the ceremony.’ Wouldn’t do it, actually—too weird without the bride and groom’s consent. And now she was running perilously out of time with little organised. She shouldn’t have sent out the invitations with nothing planned or confirmed, but she’d been so excited after visiting the registry office and getting away with it, she’d wanted to just do it.

‘But isn’t Chloe the wedding planner and you the florist? Or do you swap things up a bit to get variety?’

This time it was Jenna’s turn to put down her fork. ‘Well, she doesn’t actually know I’m planning it. It’s a surprise.’

‘Whoa. Isn’t that a bit dangerous? I don’t know what I’d think if someone…. Well, to be honest, if someone tried to interfere with my life like that, I’d be really bloody furious.’

Note to self, do not arrange a surprise wedding for Nick. ‘Everyone seems to think I’m crazy, but I’m not. She just needs a push in the right direction. Sometimes you have to make people do things they don’t want to, for their own good. They just need a gentle push. Or, in Chloe’s case, a bloody big one.’

‘Still sounds dangerous to me. What about Vaughn? Does he know he’s getting married?’

That pricked a memory, a thought, something Tammy had mentioned. ‘No, neither of them. Hey, I’ve just had a great idea. I need you to do me a favour, if you can?’

‘Sure. Anything, as long as I don’t have to plan a wedding without their consent.’ He walked to the counter and helped himself to a second helping of chicken tikka masala. The man sure could eat. A lot. Of a weird mix of cuisines. Indian, Thai and Chinese all on one plate.

‘Can you find out whether Vaughn was ever married? Whether he still is?’

‘Me?’ Nick stopped short halfway back to the table and frowned. ‘When will I see him?’

‘Didn’t someone mention you might be playing football on Sunday?’

‘I haven’t decided yet. Can’t you ask him? Or Chloe? Surely Chloe must know?’

‘I can’t ask her, can I? It’s supposed to be a surprise, but I don’t want her marrying a bigamist. I certainly don’t want to be the person to make him one. Couldn’t you just casually mention it at football? If you decide to go. Please?’

He laughed and sat down again. ‘Oh, Jenna, you have no idea what men talk about when we get together.’

True that. She’d been brought up in a fatherless household with one sister. She had a lovely all-female book group, girl friends and a daughter. The only male she’d really spent time with was Ollie, and even then she hadn’t needed to ask him what he spoke to his mates about; it just hadn’t ever come up in conversation. ‘Life, the universe and everything? Waterproof mascara versus eyelash extensions? No? Global warming and its effect on our children’s future? No? Whether you’ve been married before?’

‘Football, beer and football. In that order. Sometimes cricket, in summer or when there’s an international test. Rugby union. Cars.’

‘Just goes to show what I always knew, then.’ She twirled her glass round by its stem, then drank some more of the delicious wine.

‘Which is what?’ He leaned forward and gifted her a smile. There was something about the way his mouth twitched upwards that made her want to run her fingers over his lips. Or… not, because that would be treading on thin ice. She sat on her fork-free hand just to stop it from giving in to the already too-high temptation.

‘Men can’t get deeper than a paper cut.’

His eyes widened as he leaned back and folded his arms. ‘Hey, football is deep. There’s an art and a science to it. There’s the tricky and time-sensitive transfer window to negotiate, the surprise of meritocracy that is the FA Cup and, of course, the off-side rule to discuss, in-depth.’

‘That’s not deep. Try something more personal?’

‘I just did.’

She twisted her head around, looking behind her as if searching for something. ‘What? When?’

‘Before.’

‘Before, when you refused to elaborate and changed the subject instead?’ She laughed, pointing her fork at him. ‘I went deep and you totally dodged it.’

‘I don’t dodge. I thought about it and decided it wasn’t the right time, or place. You don’t want me bringing the mood down.’ Scraping his chair back on the wooden floorboards, he stood up and picked up his plate, the mood descending anyway. ‘We should clear up.’

There was a difference between not wanting a re-run of bad experiences, and being able to have a conversation that touched on them. When was the time and the place to really talk if not here and now? She followed him to the sink and handed him the plate, the fun steaming out of her. Somehow their friendship was just a hop from one strange emotion to another with little to string them together. She wanted the even bits in between, not just the fun and the fighting. ‘Hey, Nick, I was only trying to make a joke out of it.’

‘Not very funny, Jen. But for the record, I don’t see the point of talking about mistakes I made in my dim and distant past, okay? And I don’t do all that bearing-your-soul stuff.’ Flicking on the tap, he started to run hot water into the sink and rinse the plates.

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe she’d finally reached confusion overload, but words tumbled out of her unchecked. ‘So you just avoid talking about anything where you might have some kind of emotional reaction? When is the right time and place, exactly?’

‘Never, actually.’

‘But it’s good to talk sometimes. Remember when you’d write things to me that weren’t about football or beer or cars but about what was really happening in your heart? Yeah? Good times.’

He swivelled to face her, tension rolling off him. ‘Face to face is hard, Jenna.’

‘Too right it is. What exactly was the point of our letters? What was I for you over all those years? Just a faceless sounding board? I thought we were more than that. I thought we were friends. I looked forward to your emails. I thought long and hard about my replies. I was invested. I worried about you out there in the desert, facing death, dealing with the loss of your friends, war. Betrayal.’

She took the plate from his outstretched hand, not ready for the tumult of emotions running through her. Had she thought more about it than he had? Had she read something into it that hadn’t been there at all? Was she feeling all these things about him, aching to kiss him, thinking he wanted to kiss her back, and it was all in her imagination? Had she been a fool?

Yes. She was. A stupid, silly fool. How would he want any more from her? From her? A single mother who couldn’t keep herself neat and tidy, who had to work on being nicely presented when everyone else seemed to manage it all so seamlessly.

She should have just eaten the damned duck and enjoyed herself, instead of holding back, trying to be good, trying to turn herself into something he’d be proud to be with. Even if just as friends. Friends? Even that was laughable. ‘You know, I thought we’d be able to do this, Nick. I thought we’d be friends when you came back. I hoped so. But there’s this tension we can’t seem to get over. Am I right? There’s something. Yes? Something weird?’

He flicked washing-up suds from his hands into the sink. ‘Leave it.’

‘Friends don’t leave things up in the air. Friends talk.’

‘I can’t wash up and talk. I’m a man. I don’t do deep, apparently, and I definitely don’t do multi-tasking.’ He shoved his hands back into the sink and turned away.

It was a miracle that none of the plates smashed with the way she threw them into the dishwasher. Or that the glasses weren’t thrown against the wall. Hard. Or that she didn’t tell him to leave.

Or shove him against the table and kiss him senseless.

---

For a few minutes, they put lids on the leftover food, scrunched up the paper bags and wiped down the counters. In silence. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. But when they’d scrubbed the table until there was little evidence of any varnish, she knew they had to do something. ‘Right, well, thanks for the food, but I’m bushed and it’s getting late, so I should get some sleep.’

His shoulders were hunched and his face was grim. ‘Okay, I get the message. I’m going.’

It was funny, though. Even though they could barely speak to each other, she felt as if there was something tugging them open, making them face things they didn’t want to face, making things deeper between them. Deeper, but still very raw. Her heart was aching to make things right.

Maybe a good argument was what made friendships better, lasting, deeper. Only time was going to tell. She walked him to the door. ‘I’ll think about the running club.’

He nodded. ‘Good, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Oh, and don’t go attacking anyone with flowers, okay?’

‘Okay. Even though it clearly runs in the family.’

‘I’ll keep my distance then.’ He looked at her and she at him, and she could see so many emotions flicking through his eyes. Something he wanted, something he needed. Something hungry and scary and also exciting in equal measure. He turned and tugged the door open, taking a step towards it.

But then he stopped, his breath quickening as he faced her, confusion in his eyes. Troubled. Struggling to find words. ‘No, actually, I won’t. You want to know things about me? About what I think? How I feel?’

The way he was looking at her, she wasn’t sure she did want to know. But she wanted him to stay. Yes. She wanted to know everything about him. How he felt in her arms, how he kissed. How he made love. How he felt about her—about this. ‘I—’

‘You want me to say it out loud? Do you?’ He didn’t wait for her to speak. ‘How about how freaked I was when I saw you on the floor in that house?’

‘Well, you weren’t exactly expecting me to be there.’

‘It wasn’t just shock.’ His hand dropped from the door handle and he took a step closer to her. Closer still. He filled the space in front of her. All she could see was the ardent look on his face, the way he was trying to stop the words. The intense gaze in his eyes. The broad chest of a man more used to exercise than sleep. She could smell his scent of clean and citrus, and she moved closer to it. ‘There was a lot more going on.’

The awkward irritation of before melted into something intense. The whole room felt alive with it. Her heart started to hammer. Her mouth was wet and dry, and she could barely force words out. All her senses were heightened to his smell, his voice, the heat shimmering off him. ‘What did you feel?’

His eyes glittered. ‘That I’m in deep trouble.’

Heat pooled in her belly and spread fast through her whole body. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Big, big trouble. The biggest. There’s something about you, Jenna….’ His thumb ran over her bottom lip and his gaze locked on to hers. ‘When we were sitting on that wall, I couldn’t think straight. I should have been making sure you were okay, or taking you home, or going back to work. I should have been the man. Looking after you, doing a ton of other things, but all I could think of was how much I wanted to…’

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Didn’t want to imagine—no, she imagined a whole lot. Wanted to live it too. ‘Wanted to what?’

‘To do this.’ His fingers cupped her face and drew her towards him. His head tilted and his mouth slid over hers with gentle pressure.

Her breath stopped in her lungs as her body began to tingle, then tremble.

But he drew slowly back, a question in his eyes. Is this okay?

She couldn’t find any words. Despite everything she knew, or thought she knew, this man… this amazing, beautiful, complicated man did want to kiss her.

It had been so long, too long. What if she did the wrong thing? What if she messed up or he didn’t like the way she responded? How do you kiss?

Geez, you’re twenty-bloody-six. Get a grip.

Instinct took over and she tugged him back to her, opening her mouth and tasting him—tasting the wine and something that was pure male, pure Nick.

She wound her hands around his neck and pressed herself against him as he deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping into her mouth making her knees almost buckle.

How do you kiss?

Like this and this and this and this and…

Her eyes fluttered open, and over his shoulder she could see the dark night sky through the open doorway. A smattering of stars, the glow of a streetlight. The noise of the road filtered through, and she blocked it out. Blocked all reality, all good sense, all reasoning. Because this was her one chance. They both knew it would never, could never, happen again.

She groaned against him as his hands ran along her neck, to her shoulders, caressing her, stroking her, and for one beautiful moment, she felt as light as those stars and blazing as hot. Hotter.

But suddenly, too soon, he pulled away, pressing his forehead against hers. ‘God, Jen, I’m sorry.’

‘No, don’t be sorry, Nick. Please, bloody well don’t be.’ She was still shaking, every part of her off balance because of him, because of that kiss. She held on to his shoulders to stabilise herself. Kissing was one thing, collapsing certainly wouldn’t look good. ‘That was amazing.’

‘And really dumb. I’m the last thing you need.’ Stepping back, he put distance between them, it might as well have been light years. He had no idea what she needed. Right now, it was a lot more kissing.

She could put off the regrets and the what ifs until the cold light of day. ‘No.’

‘Yes, Jenna.’ He shook his head, fists by his sides, pumping. ‘I told you before that I could choose what I felt. So that’s what I’m doing now. I’m going to choose to not have these feelings for you. And, I’m choosing to walk away too. I’m no good for you.’

Don’t go. But the words died in her throat along with stay.

Because she could have told him what was good for her. Kissing someone like him. Wild animal sex. Being treated as a woman rather than a mother, a daughter, a widow. Being held into the night. Waking up to a man by her side. Laughing. Telling him her darkest and wildest secrets.

She could have asked him to stay too. God, she wanted to. She wanted so much for him to kiss her again, to not stop kissing her.

But he was right. This was wonderful, absolutely freaking magic, but breaking every promise she’d made for herself, and for Evie. ‘Yes. You need to go.’