Meet Me Under the Mistletoe. Carla Burgess

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СКАЧАТЬ all, and taking care of my parents’ new tenant. It wasn’t nice to be all alone in a new city, especially with Christmas approaching. No matter how much he liked to move around and be in new places, he was bound to get lonely sometimes. And he might even have a girlfriend already. Just because he lived alone didn’t necessarily mean he was single.

      I breathed the cool night air deep into my lungs as we approached the pub to try and calm my nerves. Anthony opened the door and stood back to let me enter first. The pub was quiet so finding a table was no problem. We sat at a table for two next to the window. He smiled as he passed me a menu and my stomach fluttered.

      ‘See, they have pie,’ I said, pointing at the menu.

      ‘Mmm, so they do,’ he smiled.

      A waitress came over and took our drinks order. I noted that he spoke just as courteously to her as he had to me and it made me like him even more. I found myself watching the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled up at her. At a guess, I’d have said he was about ten years older than me. Probably thirty-five, or thirty-six. The waitress jotted down our order and walked away.

      ‘So, I take it your boyfriend won’t mind you being out with me tonight?’ he said, turning back to me.

      ‘I haven’t got a boyfriend.’

      ‘You haven’t?’ He raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

      I narrowed my eyes at him to hide the fact I was flattered. ‘What about you? Will your girlfriend mind that you’re out with another girl?’

      ‘I haven’t got a girlfriend.’ He rested his chin on his hand and smiled.

      I raised my eyebrows. ‘Wife?’

      ‘Absolutely not.’

      ‘Boyfriend or husband?’

      ‘Nope.’ He shook his head, slowly.

      I sat back and looked at him. ‘I find it hard to believe no one’s snapped you up yet. A handsome, eligible man like you? You must have hordes of women after you.’

      ‘Not so far as I’m aware, but thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.’ His cheeks flushed slightly and he laughed as he fiddled with his menu with his long, elegant fingers. Realising I’d embarrassed him, I blushed and glanced down. Maybe that had been a bit much. I’d have to watch myself; I hadn’t even had a drink and I was showering him with compliments. ‘I’ve been single for quite a while, actually,’ he went on. ‘I’m not very good at relationships.’

      ‘Really? Why not?’

      He shrugged. ‘I work too much. So, what about you? How long have you been single?’

      ‘Four months or so. We broke up in July.’

      ‘What went wrong?’

      I smiled ruefully. ‘He worked too much.’

      Anthony laughed lightly. ‘What did he do?’

      ‘For a job, you mean?’ I winced slightly. ‘I was never completely sure, to be honest. He ran an IT company or something. Whatever it was required him being out of the country a lot.’

      ‘Where did he go?’

      I shrugged. ‘Places with no phone signal, usually.’

      Anthony raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Surely if he worked in IT he’d be going to towns and cities that had good network coverage?’

      ‘Exactly. I’m quite ashamed at how long it took me to realise he was stringing me along, but at least I got there in the end.’

      ‘How long were you seeing him?’

      ‘Just over seven months, but if you condensed that into the time we actually spent together, it would probably be more like one or two. He lived in London, so even when he was in the country it was difficult.’

      He wrinkled his nose. ‘London’s not exactly the end of the earth, is it. There are fairly regular trains, for a start. Did you go and visit him or did he come here?’

      ‘He came here.’

      ‘Always?’

      ‘Yes, apart from when we went to Paris one weekend.’

      The waitress appeared with our drinks and took our food orders. He thanked her before turning back to me. ‘You never got to see where he lived? Did that never strike you as odd?’

      I shrugged. ‘I was more concerned with when I was going to see him again. If we’d spent more time together, then maybe I would have. I suppose it doesn’t matter now anyway.’

      ‘You’re over him, are you?’

      ‘Yes.’ I reached for my drink and took a sip.

      ‘You don’t miss him at all?’

      ‘Not really. We didn’t spend enough time together for me to really miss him. I suppose I missed the idea of him at first. The possibility that he would come and visit me. But it didn’t take too long for me to realise that my life was pretty much the same as it had always been. If anything, it was easier because I didn’t have the agony of waiting for the phone to ring or the disappointment when he couldn’t see me, yet again.’ I sighed heavily and shook my head, more at myself than anything else. ‘It’s strange because, at the time, I was mad about him, but he feels like some kind of dream now.’

      ‘Dream? Or nightmare?’

      I laughed. ‘Oh, he was a dream. When he was around he was lovely. It’s just that he had no substance. He just came and went like some kind of stray cat. Anyway, let’s not talk about Patrick. What about you?’

      Anthony’s eyes flickered and he shook his head. ‘Nothing much to say really. I live a very boring, simple life. I run, work, eat and sleep, and that’s the way I like it.’

      I cocked my head to one side. ‘What job do you do?’

      ‘I’m a detective.’

      ‘You are?’ My eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Wow! I didn’t expect that.’

      ‘What did you expect?’ He laughed as he took a sip of his beer.

      ‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘Just not that.’

      ‘Does it bother you?’

      ‘Of course it doesn’t. Why would it bother me? I just didn’t expect you to work in the police at all, really. I thought you’d be something like… I don’t know… a barrister, or something?’

      ‘Why?’ He looked amused.

      ‘Because of your suit and your manners and how well-spoken you are.’

      ‘And detectives can’t wear good suits and have nice manners? What about Inspector Morse and Inspector Linley?’

      ‘I was СКАЧАТЬ