Anjuli’s mouth fell open. “You...I...”
“I’ve got to switch off the phone,” he said. “I’ll call when I get in.”
Anjuli shook her phone. She had to set Rob straight, but he would be gone for two weeks and that needed to be a face-to-face conversation. If he phoned, she wouldn’t allow the conversation to stray into dangerous waters, rudeness to friends notwithstanding.
* * *
Anjuli stared at the letter in front of her in rising horror. It wasn’t possible. After all this time, all the delays and requests for more information, the bank could not be refusing to lend her the full amount she’d asked for. Fifty grand would simply not cover it.
And Rob was happily on schedule.
Head in her hands, Anjuli’s elbows struck the bar with a loud bang. It was lunch time but the pub was empty except for her and Ash. Most of the village lined the streets outside, waiting for the beginning of the second week Common Riding parade. She’d brought the letter into Heaverlock, thinking to open it and celebrate the “good news” with her sister, and now...
Ash read the letter and gave Anjuli a hug. Her case was at the front door, and Viking due any minute to take her to hospital. Her blood pressure had been high during her doctor’s appointment and he’d decided to induce her the following morning. Viking was Ash’s birthing partner, a development she was unwilling to expand on but about which Anjuli was secretly pleased. The new barmaid hired to take his shifts would start tonight.
Before Ash left, she gave Anjuli a stern look. “Go outside and get some sunshine. We’ll think of something.”
“Like running out in front of the horses?”
“Drama queen.”
Anjuli stood in front of the pub and watched the parade advance down the high street, unable to enjoy the spectacle. She didn’t feel the excited buzz or see the green and white bunting decorating the streets, or the colourful flags in onlookers’ hands. The mounted riders seemed a mass of brown and black doom, coming to engulf her as punishment for her lies. Her mismanagement of everything, from her finances to her relationships with the people she valued the most. Drama queen indeed, but how was she to tell Rob she was thousands short of what she owed him? That she couldn’t pay for the rest of the restoration, that she had lied about her finances, hoping she would get the loan. That she had made a mess of everything.
Almost two weeks had passed since he’d gone to America, two weeks which had seemed like years. No matter the time difference or his schedule he phoned every night at eleven. Tempting fate, maybe, but she always answered. She could hardly ignore him, could she? They had Castle Manor to discuss, and email didn’t cut it. Surprisingly, their conversations had been relaxed and easy, as if Rob had tacitly agreed not to mention everything that lay between them.
She told herself she could convince him to forget about her secrets and about her, when he returned. She’d thought she had it under control, just as she’d convinced herself the bank would come through. Rob would be back in two days and then he would know what she had done. And he would be disgusted.
Scanning the crowd Anjuli crossed gazes with Betty McCullough, who stuck her nose in the air and turned away. Rude and out of character, or was her desperate state of mind interpreting Betty’s look—and that of several other villagers—the wrong way? Anjuli watched the lead riders trot past her to the end of the village, where they would begin their gallop across the moors. In a few hours they would reach the common land boundaries, where family and friends would meet them for a picnic. In the evening they would ride back through the village, to many cheers and shouts.
As much as she sometimes wished she were participating, Anjuli hadn’t given in to Mac’s urgings to ride her other horse. They’d bumped into each other at the post office and Anjuli had barely managed to speak to her without hyperventilating from guilt. She sighed. She’d been doing too much hyperventilating lately, mainly about Rob.
Farther down, Anjuli spotted Damien talking to Kayla Roberts. The young hairdresser looked as if she’d been handed a slice of treacle tart, greedy and unwilling to share. When she saw Anjuli looking, she said something to Damien and he frowned and walked over. A peck on the cheek, and he drew her hand through the crook of his arm.
“No attempt to steal a kiss?”
“Let’s keep them guessing.”
“I hear Kayla Roberts is single again,” Anjuli said. “She’s pretty and smart, and I’m sure she fancies you.”
Damien put on a martyred look. “Life as a gorgeous man is tough. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to be constantly pursued for my masculine attributes.”