Nine Ten Begin Again: A Grasshopper Lawns affair by EJ Lamprey

laughed a bit breathlessly. ‘Yes, please.’
    He lay back and the smile was back in his voice. ‘Roll away and get your sleep, Miss Prim. I’ll be here. Wake me any way you like, in the morning.’

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6 – Saturday November 16 th
    The new groundskeeper
     
    She glanced up from her newspaper to find him watching her, his lean face weary still from the long overnight drive but his eyes clear and very blue, his expression patient. ‘What?’
    ‘Drink your coffee. I want to talk.’
    ‘Talk, then.’
    ‘Edge.’ He spoke slowly, as though to a child, a hint of a smile on his mouth. ‘I’ve had my coffee. Drink yours. I’m going for a second cup.’
    She drank obediently, watching him walk away. How many times had they had breakfast together before? She smiled, and took a second long draught. Everything else had changed. But she did rather hope that their peaceful breakfasts didn’t.
    She’d finished her coffee by the time he returned with two fresh cups, and he quirked a brow at her. ‘Better. You really are horrible at breakfast. I can’t think why I missed you.’
    ‘I love you too. And you’re smug because you’re a cup ahead of me. So what are we going to talk about?’
    ‘Did you tell Black-Brown-Black yet that you’re planning to invest in the show?’
    ‘No, not yet.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought I’d wait until I was sure I was going ahead. Why?’
    ‘Because now I’m coming down with you, I’ve got two choices. Hang around our hotel bedroom like your personal dresser and greying sex toy, or attend at least some of the meetings as an investor. It occurred to me you could then do your planning with the potential funds in place, without personally being committed to putting them up. Might make it easier.’
    She thought about it, and nodded. ‘Yes, it would. Once I say I’m thinking of investing, there’d be a strain until I say yay or nay. If they think it’s you, no strain. That’s a really good idea, and it gets you out of the hotel bedroom. Because, of course, there’s nothing to do in Devon. The Devon authorities will lynch you if they hear you, you know.’
    ‘My dearest love, if you think I’m going surfing in November, you need another cup of coffee. And there’s not a lot else, not in that part.’
    She went slightly pink. ‘That’s a nicer name than Miss Prim.’
    ‘Ken.’ His eyes crinkled. ‘I thought I’d try it, see if I can bend you to my will when I do. I’ll be using it a lot if it works.’
    She chuckled into her cup, then glanced up smiling as Clarissa came slightly hesitantly over to the table.
    ‘Sorry to interrupt, but Edge, Vivian says you’re going away for two weeks so I think I’ll have left for Australia before you get back. You’d offered to take Maggie while I was away? I wanted to let you know Horace has asked to take her, and I said yes, if it was okay with you. When do you go?’
    ‘Oh, she’ll enjoy that. He walks for miles! Actually, Donald’s coming too, for a few days at least. I haven’t booked my flight yet. I was planning to fly down Monday week.’
    Donald shook his head. ‘We should drive down Sunday, then we’ve got the car with us for the evenings. I don’t want to be trying to book my return flight at short notice in the whole pre-Christmas rush, or, heaven forbid, end up stuck at the airport by bad weather. Also if we’ve got the car, we can take Odette. I don’t trust that Bateman woman not to switch off the kennel heating again.’
    ‘You could leave Odette with me, if you’ll be back before the end of November,’ Clarissa said wistfully and Donald smiled at her.
    ‘She’d never forgive me. Maggie may have mellowed now but Odette’s not completely forgiven or forgotten. I’m away for exercise class, I’ll see you both later?’ and he was gone.
    Clarissa sank into his chair and puffed out her cheeks.
    ‘That smile, Edge. How did you ever resist? And I’m not going to say