Page 25 of Match Point in Crumbleton
They’d catch each other’s eye and something would pass between them.
30 Love.
They’d put their drinks down and reach for each other across the table, fingers interlacing in the warm sunshine of an early Crumbleton evening.
40 Love.
Whew, where had that come from? Andy hadn’t had thoughts like that about anyone for ages. What was this new arrival doing to him?
He shook his head. Was he being ridiculous? Quite possibly. But there was something about Cath that was making him dream of those simple pleasures again.
‘Simple, my foot!’ he sighed, turning the machine and plodding slowly back the way he’d just come, lining up another stripe and inhaling the fresh, green scent of the newly mown grass.
In Andy’s experience, nothing was simple when it came to falling in love. Actually, that wasn’t fair. The falling part was simple enough… it was the bit that came afterwards that usually turned out to be complicated. That was when people seemed to want him to change.
Change his job, change his clothes, change his home.
Andy shrugged, trying to shake off the tightness that always appeared in his muscles whenever he thought about his ex. She was long, long gone by this point… but he still felt hurt that a person he’d loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world had wanted to change him so much. Tara had wanted to upgrade him… like an out-of-date mobile phone.
Maybe that was why he was so keen on looking after old things… like the cobbles and this ancient mower. He wanted them to know that they were loved exactly as they were, quirks and all.
‘Idiot!’ he sighed, shaking his head. Just because that’s what he wanted more than anything in life…
The mower gave an ominous choking sound, and Andy promptly paused and cut off the engine. Blimey… the grass bin at the back was full already and he’d barely completed the third stripe!
It was just as well that he had the rest of the afternoon free… he had a feeling this job was going to take a bit of doing, especially if he was going to go all-out on the extra bits. Still, it would be worth it. There was something special about Cath, and he wanted to get to know her better.
Andy nodded to himself. Decision made. He’d empty the grass onto the compost heap and then nip inside and ask Fergus’s permission to spruce things up a bit more than usual. Then he’d borrow a couple of deckchairs from Crumbleton Sands. That shouldn’t be a problem as he maintained them for the council, and always mended the roof of the little hut they were kept in when it got blown off every winter.
‘Then comes the really scary bit,’ he muttered.
Then he’d have to actually ask Cath out.
CHAPTER 11
CATH
Cath snuggled back into the cushions and let out a happy sigh. It had been another exhausting morning at the museum – and she’d spent it working outwards from the glass cabinet holding the various bits of tennis paraphernalia. After emptying about a dozen boxes—most of which had ended up in the “to be recycled” pile, Cath had decided to slink back to the flat for a spot of lunch.
She might not know Oli very well yet, but Cath could hug the man for leaving behind his beautiful patchwork sofa when he’d moved out. She could see it was going to quickly become her happy place.
After visiting Geraldine in the antiques shop the previous day, Cath hadn’t been able to face heading back to the museum again. The news that her job might be temporary had thrown her for a loop, and even though she’d momentarily distracted herself with the mystery of the “missing” Anthony Cheswell cup, finding it in the shop window next door had solved that particular puzzle a little bit too quickly. Besides, after her little chat with Geraldine, Cath’s mind had been racing with new possibilities. She’d wanted to give them space to grow, rather than losing them under the piles of rubbish still waiting to be sorted.
Instead, she’d decided to spend some time unpacking at the flat. Making the place more comfortable and homey might have looked counterintuitive to anyone else—given the chance she might have to move out again sooner than expected—but to Cath, it had felt a bit like a defiant act of rebellion. This was her home now, and she was going to make the most of it… even if she didn’t get to stay for very long.
All the unpacking and dragging around of furniture to find the perfect spots also meant that the rest of the day had disappeared. When she’d fallen into bed, she’d slept the sleep of the dead.
Still, all the hard work had been worth it. When she’d dragged herself blearily out of bed that morning, it had been heavenly to find herself in a flat that was no longer packed from floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. The kitchen was sparkling clean and stocked with her favourite cookware, dining sets and cutlery. Plus, her beautiful rainbow mugs were sitting on the counter, ready for her morning cuppa.
In the sitting room, the bookshelves were crammed with her own novels and knickknacks, and her multicoloured rag rug was looking right at home in front of the patchwork sofa.
It had all given Cath the boost she’d needed to face the new day with a smile on her face again, and what was more, the seed of the idea that had germinated the previous day had done some serious growing while she’d occupied her mind elsewhere.
Cath was now determined to find a way to make sure that she turned things around at the museum. It should be right at the heart of the community, not a tatty dumping ground everyone pretended didn’t exist. To do that, she needed to buy herself more time there… and stop it from falling down while she pulled it all together. To do that, she was going to need an injection of cash.
Her search through the boxes that morning had been far more focused than the previous couple of days. She was looking for more clues that would help her build on her new idea.
‘Question is, am I going to find anything useful in here?’ she yawned, settling a heavy photo album in her lap. She’d slipped it into her bag to look through while she was eating her lunch after discovering it at the bottom of a disintegrating box not far from the tennis cabinet. It had been hiding under a layer of yet more empty jam jars, and she’d come very close to dumping the whole lot onto the recycling pile without even checking through it.
