Read Online Move Over Darling by Christine Stovell - Free Book Online

stopped him confirming everything all the gossips had ever said about him.
    When Coralie closed her front door behind her the next morning, she was dressed for the cold and prepared with a can of lubricant to ease the screws of the casing that housed Betty’s broken headlight. She was unprepared, however, for the flat tyre that was also waiting for her. Terrific. She cast a longing look at the drawn curtains of the house next door, before quickly dismissing the thought.
    Gethin Lewis probably wouldn’t appreciate a summons at this hour. Besides, she could tell from the way he’d shot off at the earliest opportunity that he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d welcomed having to come to her rescue. He struck her as someone who was far too self-contained to think about help at all, either giving or receiving it. She, on the other hand, was compelled to rescue stray cats, glasses with faces, forgotten recipes, and any amount of unwanted and discarded flotsam and jetsam because she needed to. Because, after everything that had happened, she liked to feel that she was still capable of saving something.
    Opening the back of the van, she dug out tools and some old carpet to kneel on whilst she found a jacking point for the wheel. A stiff wheel nut almost had her weeping with frustration before she composed herself, flexed her aching fingers and freed it. Leaning panting against the wheel arch, she hoped fleetingly that Gethin Lewis would look out of his window and take pity on her. After an hour, she had finally changed a tyre, a headlight bulb and a set of clothes and was sitting in the driver’s seat waiting for everything to warm up when Gethin came down his front path and waved to her.
    ‘Need a hand with that front bulb?’ he asked, when she opened the window.
    ‘Yes,’ said Coralie, inwardly sighing at what the last hour would have done to his expensive jeans. ‘Tell me if it’s working, will you, please?’
    ‘But –’
    ‘Humour me,’ she insisted.
    His eyebrows rose as she winked both lights at him.
    ‘And slow down in these lanes, if you’re taking your new toy out,’ she advised before reversing out, ‘you’re not in New York now.’
    The smile on her face died when the post van flagged her down at the other end of the lane. Along with the junk mail was an envelope which she knew contained more unwelcome post. Another month, another visiting order, but familiarity didn’t make the routine any easier. Coralie checked the mirrors and drove away carefully. However difficult it was for her, it was so much worse for him. Ned needed her.
    Hurrying past the Summerhouse Café on her way to her shop unit a few minutes later, Coralie stopped short at the sight of Kitty inside and went in to see what she was up to.
    ‘I was thinking about how to cheer this place up for the Valentine’s Twmpath ,’ Kitty said, taking a tentative stab at an enormous cobweb with a broom. ‘It’s lost something since Marika and Jerzy left. Jerzy mainly,’ she added with a grin.
    ‘Well, yes he was a good reason to drop in at the café,’ Coralie had to agree, fondly remembering Jerzy, with his soulful dark eyes, floppy hair and ready smile. She pulled her Fair Isle jumper down over the waistband of her wide-leg forties’ trousers and considered the matter. ‘But I’m guessing for this place to keep itself it needs more than good-looking staff. How about using it for informal wedding receptions? The setting would be great for photos.’
    ‘It would have to be a small one,’ Kitty said, undoing a packet of Love Hearts. ‘There’s the fire certificate to consider; we’re likely to be close to the maximum number for the twmpath .’ She sighed and held out the sweets.
    ‘“Marry Me”,’ laughed Coralie. ‘No offence, Kitty, but you’re not my type.’
    ‘So who is?’ Kitty said, slyly. ‘Who are you hiding from us then? Who do you go sneaking off to meet? Anyone special?’
    Guessing that she’d been the subject of