Holiday With The Best Man. Kate Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ a good one. I’ll call him on the way and have him on standby in case you can’t get hold of the landlord.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Grace said. ‘I appreciate this.’

      Roland called his plumber from the car, warning him that it was possibly a storm in a teacup but asking him to stay on standby. But, when he turned up at the flat, he discovered that Grace had been underplaying the situation, if anything. The water had clearly been gushing for a while and the carpets were soaked through; they’d need to be taken up and probably replaced. The sofa also needed to be moved, because water was seeping into it. And he felt another twinge of guilt as he noticed that Grace looked as if she’d been crying. Although she was clearly trying to be brave, this had obviously upset her.

      ‘Did you manage to get in touch with the landlord?’ he asked.

      She shook her head. ‘His details are probably somewhere in Bella’s shoebox—but I’m not blaming her, because I should’ve checked everything properly myself before she and Hugh left. I live here now, so it’s my responsibility.’

      ‘Shoebox?’ he asked, mystified.

      ‘Bella’s not really one for filing,’ Grace explained. ‘She has a shoebox system. Business receipts go in one shoebox, household stuff in another, and you just rummage through the shoeboxes when you want something.’

      ‘That sounds a bit chaotic.’ And it was definitely not the way Roland would do things. It wasted way too much time.

      Grace shrugged. ‘At least she has the shoeboxes now. It took a bit of nagging to get her that far.’

      What? This didn’t fit, at all. Wasn’t Grace the drunken, princessy one? And yet right now she was wearing a sober grey suit and white shirt; plus that looked like a proper briefcase on the kitchen table, along with a pair of sensible black shoes and an equally sensible-looking handbag. Her nails weren’t professionally manicured, her dark hair was cut simply in a long bob rather than being in a fussy high-maintenance style like the one she’d had at the wedding, and her make-up was minimal.

      Maybe he’d got her totally wrong. More guilt flooded through him.

      ‘The neighbours aren’t home yet, so I’ve left a note on their doors to tell them what’s happened,’ she said. ‘And I really need to find the landlord’s details and check the insurance.’

      Again, there was that tiny wobble in her voice.

      ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, hoping that she wasn’t going to start crying.

      ‘I’ve had better days.’ She lifted her chin. ‘And worse, for that matter. I’ll live. Sorry. I would offer you a cup of tea but, as I don’t have water or electricity right now...’ She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

      ‘It’s not a problem,’ Roland said. ‘My plumber’s on standby, so I’ll call him again to get him up to speed with the situation—and we need to shift that sofa in a minute before it soaks up any more water, to try and minimise the damage.’

      ‘And the bookcase. And the bed. And...’ She blew out a breath. ‘It’s just as well my car’s a hatchback. I’m going to have to move everything I can out of here until this place dries out. And find somewhere for storage—though, as all my friends have flats just as tiny as this and none of them have a garage I can borrow, even temporarily. It’s probably going to have to be one of those lock-up storage places.’

      ‘Give me a moment.’ Roland went outside and made a swift call to his plumber and then to one of the restoration specialist firms he’d used in the past. He also remembered seeing a café on the corner as he’d driven here; he made an executive decision to grab two takeaway black coffees, packets of sugar and two chocolate brownies. It would give them both enough energy to get through to the next stage. And if she didn’t drink coffee—well, now would be a good time to start.

      Grace had talked about finding a lock-up place to store the stuff from the flat. At this time of the evening, she’d be lucky to find somewhere to sort it out. And he had more than enough space to store her stuff. Even though part of him didn’t really want to get involved, part of him knew that if something like this had happened to his sister, he’d want someone looking out for her. Grace was his best friend’s sister-in-law. So that kind of made him responsible, didn’t it?

      On the way back to her flat, he called one of his team and asked him to bring a van.

      She was already loading things into the back of her car when he got there.

      ‘Coffee,’ he said, and handed her one of the paper cups. ‘I didn’t know if you took milk or sugar, so I got it black and there are packets of sugar.’

      ‘Thank you. How much do I owe you?’ she asked.

      He shook his head. ‘It’s fine. And I have a van on the way. Do you have some bags, boxes or suitcases I can start filling?’

      ‘A van?’ she asked, looking puzzled.

      ‘The flat’s small, but we’re not going to be able to fit its entire contents into your car and mine,’ he pointed out.

      ‘So you hired a van?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Actually, that makes a lot of sense. I should’ve thought of that. Thank you. Obviously I’ll reimburse you for whatever you’ve paid out.’

      ‘There’s no need—it’s my van,’ he said.

      She frowned. ‘But this isn’t your mess, so why...?’

      ‘Because you’re Hugh’s sister-in-law,’ he said. ‘If this had happened to my sister when I was out of the country, Hugh and Tarq would’ve looked out for her. So I’m doing the same, by extension.’

      ‘Considering that you and I didn’t exactly hit it off at the wedding,’ she said, ‘this is really nice of you. And I appreciate it. Thank you.’

      Roland was beginning to think that he’d seriously misjudged Grace. If she’d been the spoiled, princessy drunk he’d thought she was, she would’ve been wailing and expecting everyone else to sort out the mess for her—most probably while she swigged a glass of wine and wandered about doing nothing. Instead, while he’d been away, she’d been quietly and efficiently getting on with moving stuff out of the flat. Not liking the guilt that was beginning to seep through him, he handed her a brownie. ‘Chocolate. My sister says it makes everything better.’

      Then she smiled—the first real smile he’d seen from her—and he was shocked to discover that it made the street feel as if it had just lit up.

      ‘Your sister sounds like a wise woman.’

      ‘She is.’

      * * *

      Roland Devereux was the last person Grace had expected to come to her rescue, but she really appreciated the fact that he had. And today he was very different from the way he’d been at the wedding. This time, he didn’t make her feel the way that Howard’s mother always made her feel. He treated her like a human being instead of something nasty stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

      Fortified by the coffee and the brownies, between them they had most of Grace’s things outside in boxes and bags by the time Roland’s van arrived. And in the meantime, Grace’s neighbours had returned, СКАЧАТЬ