Stirred with Love by Marcie Steele Page B

to his office rather than have her wait until she next went into Hedworth.
    ‘You could still get a tidy sum for it. Taylor Constructions are only interested in the land, not the building, to develop.’
    ‘And I won’t let them take it as it stands. I have to look after my retirement, Mr Stead. If I have a viable business here, it could be worth more.’
    ‘But you’ll have to spend more to get this place up and running again.’
    ‘Speculate to accumulate, I think.’
    ‘I admire your tenacity, Lily.’ Mr Stead extracted a large envelope from his briefcase and gave it to her. ‘Read through all the details tonight and come to see me next week. We can go over any questions you may have then.’
    Lily removed the lid from her pen before pulling out the contents and flicking to the back page. ‘Nonsense, Mr Stead. You’ve been my solicitor for a good many years. I think I can trust you on one last venture.’
     
    ‘I don’t know why they call it rush hour, love.’ The taxi driver peered through the rear mirror, adjusting it slightly to catch Kate’s attention as he pushed his glasses further up his large nose. ‘You can’t rush anywhere in this traffic. Where to?’
    ‘Somerley please. Church Square, number 11.’
    ‘Nice town. My daughter lives there. Riley Street. I’m sure you’ll find it. Somerley ain’t that big a place.’
    Kate had heard something similar herself. In Brentside, people would be charging around on their dinner breaks, rushing to stand in another queue in another shop, trying to shove a sandwich in their mouth, to make sure their lunch break was lived to its full potential. There’d be bank queues every Friday when everyone rushed out to spend their weeks wage before declaring themselves broke by Sunday night.
     Somerley, she assumed correctly, wasn’t that big. She’d read that the town was located in the north-eastern and highest part of the city, and was more of a district really. Although it covered a huge area, it was a drive-through-to-get-to kind of place rather than a park-up-to-shop. To her, it seemed somewhere that would come alive during the day but, once the majority of nine ‘til five working hours had been completed, would become silent quite quickly. Although living in a larger town would attract a good deal of clientele for the new business venture, Kate would hate to think that she was living somewhere that poured lager louts out onto her street every night.
    On the spur of the moment at the beginning of the week, it had been a great idea to book another day off work and travel to a job interview where she could get board and lodgings thrown in with a little left over for a good time. But now, as the taxi moved slowly along the road, Kate’s stomach began to flip around like a full load of washing.
    What if Nick missed her and wanted to come back after a few weeks?
    But surely this was why moving away was such a good idea? It would never be the same again, Kate knew that, but if she bumped into him all the time, she might weaken. Then where would they be in two years time? Exactly where they are now, but with two more years of anger and pain.
    She delved into her handbag as they inched forward in the traffic, pulled out the newspaper cutting and read the advert that had caught her attention two weeks ago. Yet again, she wondered if she had the right credentials. Her job as a project officer meant that she had to be a self starter, have the sheer discipline to keep going – or even worse, scrap something and start over if it wasn’t panning out well. She was known to be reliable and kept to deadlines on every project plan that bore her name against an action, something that she hoped might meet the approval of the woman she had spoken to over the phone.
    Lily Mortimer hadn’t gone into detail about what the cafe looked like. She’d given Kate a little background about its past and asked if she was still interested in a challenge. The word challenge had been