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.It must have taken her hours.And she wasn’t even particularly slim – but her very old jeans and very new white T-shirt fitted perfectly and accentuated her curves in an irritatingly sexy girl-next-door manner.Amber absolutely loathed her.‘Hi,’ Amber beamed through her teeth.‘Lovely to meet you.’Win also was effusive in her welcome.Jem and Fern weren’t.‘I see Jem’s given you his present already.’ Lewis nodded towards the pentangle.‘I knew he wouldn’t wait until I got here.It looks even better on than off.Do you like it?’‘It’s wonderful,’ Amber touched the tiny star.‘So special.I love it.I’ve told him it’s the nicest present I’ve ever had and that I’ll always wear it.He’s very talented.’Jem grinned at her and blew her a kiss, then immediately frowned at Lewis and Sukie.‘And you just missed my round,’ Amber said, smiling so hard at Lewis that her jaw ached, ‘so I’ll get yours now – no, I insist.Lewis? The usual? And what would you like, Sukie? Just pineapple juice? Sure? OK.’Amber, valiantly trying to maintain the sunny smile, stomped away back into the pub.Zillah, taking a much-needed breather in The Weasel and Bucket’s doorway, had seen Lewis and Sukie arrive.Bugger.Just when she’d thought she didn’t have to worry any more.Just when she’d convinced herself that Amber wasn’t going to foolishly fall for Lewis’s charms, but that maybe they’d continue their friendship and that things may or may not develop from there.She’d eventually reassured herself that Lewis wasn’t interested in adding Amber to his list of love ’em and leave ’em conquests, and Amber, if she was hankering after Lewis at all, had been clever enough not to show it.Ever since Lewis had reached puberty, and her beautiful child had grown into an even more beautiful man, she’d been terrified that he’d make some poor girl suffer the way she had.If he – and the rest of Fiddlesticks – thought she was a sinisterly overprotective mother, then so be it.She’d had her reasons.Bizarrely now, Amber, Zillah thought, sipping her iced Coke in the stifling darkness, would have been exactly the sort of girl she’d like Lewis to settle down with.If only, of course, Lewis hadn’t inherited every one of his father’s womanising genes.She swallowed.The memories still wouldn’t leave her alone.She’d successfully buried them for so long, but now everything, from Big Ida’s casual mention of the solstice, to Amber finding that long-hidden record, seemed determined to remind her.And how genuine were her memories anyway? Oh, she remembered the searing hurt and heartbreak, the I-can’t-live-without-him desperation of sleepless nights, and then the almost unbearable fear of being left, young, alone and pregnant – but before that, had it really been as amazingly wonderful as her rose-tinted glasses would have her believe?Yes, he’d been the love of her life.Yes, she’d adored him unreservedly.And he’d loved her once, hadn’t he? Yes, surely the wild, mad, exciting, blissful things they’d done together hadn’t simply been the stuff of dreams? It had been real, perfect, total bliss, hadn’t it?She’d been so lucky to know what it was like to love and be loved like that, to be young and crazy and unconventional, to have her heart loop the loop each time he smiled, or feel her body shiver each time he touched her.She sometimes wished she’d never met him.But then, if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had Lewis … If only Lewis wasn’t so like him.‘Okay, Zil?’ Timmy, hands full of empty glasses, loomed up in the doorway.‘You can go and sit down for a while, if you like.’‘No, I’m fine.There’s no time to sit down – as you well know.I’ll be back in a minute.’Timmy smiled down at her and for an awful moment she though he was going to kiss her.‘You work too hard.’ He held the glasses over his head as a crowd of youngsters in baseball caps and strange, bright-white, hooded tops surged in.‘And maybe you were right about taking on some extra staff tonight.Constance and Perpetua are behind the bar at the moment as they were the only ones available but as they’ve never poured a pint in their lives it’s not going to be a long-term thing.About five minutes at the most.I honestly hadn’t expected it to be this busy – can’t remember Cassiopeia’s being this hectic last year.’‘It rained last year,’ Zillah reminded him.‘We all made our wishes to dark clouds in our macs and wellies.The rose petals got trodden into puddles, the rain fused the fairy lights, the barbecue had to be indoors and the balloons disappeared towards Winterbrook on a stiff north-easterly.’‘God, yes … Hell! Balloons! Where are the balloons?’‘In the cellar.With the helium.Don’t panic – Goff and the boys have them all in hand.Your bit is the buckets of rose petals, the Cassiopeia Cup and firing up the barbie – as well as serving ten thousand customers, of course [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]