Blind-Date Baby by Fiona Harper

evening.
    Noah.

    Grace blew out a breath. She didn’t like this warm feeling spreading through her bones. How was she supposed to forget that kiss with these flowers stinking out her flat for the next week? Two weeks, probably. They came from one of the most expensive florists in town and looked like the sort of blooms that didn’t need gallons of water.
    She picked up the bouquet and rustled over to Caz. ‘Here, you have them,’ she said and dumped them on the counter.
    Caz just folded her arms tighter and shook her head. Grace shoved them an inch or two closer.
    ‘Go on. They’re far too posh for me. They’ll look out of place in my little flat. Have them for the café.’
    Caz just raised her eyebrows.
    ‘You’re impossible,’ Grace said and flounced off to find some scissors and spare jugs. When she returned she hauledthe bouquet onto one of the larger tables and set about slicing through the cellophane and trimming the stems.
    ‘Evict the daffodils from my jugs and I’ll dock your pay.’
    Grace turned and stared at Caz open-mouthed. ‘You wouldn’t.’
    Caz just blinked.
    ‘I’ll take you to Industrial Tribunal,’ Grace added, picking up a large green thing and trying to work out if it was a flower or just an ornate leaf.
    ‘Fine,’ came the reply. ‘Do it. But by the time it gets sorted, I’ll probably be out of business and you will get an award of big fat zero.’
    Grace’s eyes became slits. ‘Like I said—impossible!’
    ‘It’s high time you let a man buy you flowers. So, sorry, you’re stuck with them.’
    Well, she’d see about that.
     
    The computer whirred and, after a few seconds, pinged cheerfully at Noah. He looked up from his Sunday crossword and scanned the list of emails that had just arrived in his inbox.
    A stab of guilt hit him as he spotted one from his mother, inviting him to Sunday lunch the following week. It had been a while since he’d made the trip to the coast. In his opinion, relationships with parents were best conducted from afar—another reason he was pleased his mother was now quite the silver surfer, even if his father refused flatly to go near the PC.
    His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he tried to work out if he had a good excuse to duck out of travelling out of London to Folkstone next weekend. Eventually, he groaned and tapped out an acceptance.
    He loved his parents, of course he did, but the house they’d owned for the last half century always seemed so bleak, despite the old-fashioned, over-cluttered décor. When he pictured that house in his mind’s eye, nothing happened. Nomemories flooded his head. No jovial family dinners. No warm hugs to match the warm milk at bedtime.
    His mother was one of those jolly-hockey-stick sorts who was much more likely to tell a child to pick himself up and stop making a fuss than kiss it better. But at least he saw a sparkle of warmth in her eyes occasionally. His father had been fossilised at birth.
    Noah had thought that following him into the army might have elicited some longed-for approval. Noah had been wrong. The old man had hardly raised an eyebrow and had huffed something about how it would ‘finally make a man of him’. His current success with his books produced only the odd snort, even though on one visit Noah had found one of his hardbacks hidden under his father’s armchair with a corner folded down to keep his place.
    He sighed. It didn’t take one of his hunches to tell him that Grace wouldn’t ration the affection and fun for her daughter, as if saving them for a rainy day that never came.
    Finding that his hand had automatically returned to his mouse, he made use of it. There were a number of emails from Blinddatebrides.com and he clicked on one, wondering if one was from her.
    Another match suggestion. He tried to get excited about the honey highlights and the perfect smile, about the capable-looking professional woman whose profile seemed to match his every requirement for a wife.