The Little Deli by the Lake

by Phillipa Ashley

Genres: General Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

'Lovely books filled with warm and likeable characters' Jill Mansell 'Crafted with humour and warm romance against the backdrop of the picturesque Lake District' Booklist A gorgeous story of second chances to escape with this summer. By the bestselling author of Summer at the Cornish Café and Return to Castle Bay, this warm and delightful read, set in the Lake District, will sweep you away. Adam Templar was Sophie's first love . . . and her first heartbreak. He was talented, brilliant and charming, and the night he finally noticed her - the real her - is one she will never forget. But she will also never forget what happened on the day he left their village for good. Ten years later, Sophie is shocked to her core when she discovers Adam has returned. Now a famous film director, he's returned to make a drama about a notorious local poet and brought his glamorous cast, crew - and girlfriend - with him. As the on-screen drama plays out, will Sophie and Adam lay the past to rest or will history repeat itself? A heartwarming and delightful read from one of the UK's most talented romance writers about second chances, new beginnings - and how one night can change your life forever. **Previously published as It Happened One Night

Release date: June 6, 2013

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 352

Sample

Sophie McBride hated horses. Her dad was right. They were dangerous, smelly and only kept by rich people who had more money than sense. She especially hated the horse whose hooves were dancing feet above her head, and as for its rider…

‘Whoa! Settle down, Tilda. Settle down, girl.’

Tilda’s rider tugged at her reins as the horse snorted and stamped. The hooves skittered further away as Sophie glared up at the young man who was patting his mount’s neck and reassuring her. ‘That’s better, girl. Don’t worry. There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s only Sophie McBride.’

Sophie pushed herself onto her elbows. ‘Thanks a lot! You could have killed me.’

Adam Templar glared down at her as if Sophie had nearly killed him. ‘You seem very alive to me and you’re wrong about me frightening you. In fact, you startled us. Tilda’s easily spooked and you’re lucky we didn’t run you down.’

‘I didn’t know you were here. You just appeared out of the mist… out of nowhere.’

‘What? Like Mr Rochester in Wuthering Heights?’

‘Rochester was in Jane Eyre, actually.’ Sophie was rather disappointed. Even if Adam made her combust with lust, he clearly didn’t know everything.

‘OK. Jane Eyre then, but with cagoules rather than crinolines?’

He was sort of smiling as he said it and Sophie wasn’t sure whether he was taking the piss or not. A cool girl would have known that but she didn’t feel cool, especially not in a cut-price plastic mac she’d snatched from the peg by the door of the cottage on her way out.

The mac and her bottom squelched as she levered herself out of the mud. Her jeans were soaked but there was one consolation: Adam was dripping wet too. His grey T-shirt clung to his chest like shrink wrap and OMG, you could see everything: the hollow of his navel, his six-pack and his – she tried not to even think the word – nipples. Even with her limited experience of the world, Sophie knew that Adam was probably as sexy as a human male could possibly be and here she was, sitting in a puddle, wearing a cagoule that made her look like a giant pale blue condom.

Adam kicked his feet out of the stirrups, swung his leg over Tilda’s quarters and dropped to the ground. Sophie averted her eyes from his soaking jodhpurs.

‘You’ve dropped your book,’ he said.

The book lay half submerged in a coppery puddle of water next to a rock.

‘Oh, crap.’

Adam laughed. ‘Is it that bad?’

‘It’s a library book. I’ll probably have to pay for it.’

As she bent to pick up the book, a sharp pain shot up her bum. She’d probably landed on her coccyx. Her A level biology teacher had pointed it out on the school skeleton a few weeks ago, before the sixth form had broken up for their revision and exam period. A blow to the coccyx was very painful, the teacher had said, sending all the boys into hysterics, the idiots. They were a world away from Adam, who, at twenty-one, seemed in a different universe when it came to sophistication.

Keeping one hand on Tilda’s reins, he fished the book out of the puddle, and shook the cover. The pages dripped muddy water onto his jodhpurs.

‘It’s for my A level course. I didn’t really want to read it.’ Sophie would have tossed back her hair in scorn if it hadn’t been stuck to her head like a helmet.

‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover? For A level? They are liberal at the local high school now aren’t they? And it really is a dirty book now.’

Adam grinned but Sophie’s cheeks burned. Of course she wasn’t doing Lady Chatterley for A level. She’d only got it out for the sexy bits, just like everyone else. In fact she’d been reading them on the loo in the cottage. That’s why she was late for the library van. That’s why she’d been hurtling down the path that led from her parents’ house to the village of Langmere, trying to catch the van before it left so she could return her books. Besides, there was a rumour going round that the new van driver looked a bit like Enrique Iglesias. That’s how desperate she was for a bit of excitement. That’s how boring Langmere was.

Until she’d bumped in Adam Templar and Tilda, of course.

She stretched out her hand for the book but Adam held it out of reach. Tilda snorted and stamped, as he peeled apart the pages and started reading aloud.

‘“She quivered again at the potent inexorable entry inside her so strange and so terrible,”’ he said dramatically, the words ringing over the fell side. ‘“It might come with the thrust of a sword in her softy opened body…⁠”’

‘Adam, no! Someone might hear.’

‘So what? It’s all total misogynistic crap, of course, and D. H. Lawrence was a fascist bastard. Best place for it, stuck in the mud.’

She was floundering, trying to banish the idea of Adam kneeling over her while she waited for his ‘potent inexorable entry’.

‘Look, can you give me the book, please? I need to return it to the van. We’re not actually doing Lady Chatterley as part of the course but we are doing Sons and Lovers and my English teacher said we should read some more of Lawrence’s work to put it in context.’

‘Hmm. I suppose you’re going to be an English teacher too, are you?’

‘Actually, I’d quite like to be a journalist.’ She hesitated then added, ‘On a broadsheet.’

‘I hope not. You’re far too principled for that.’

‘I can be as ruthless as the next person!’

‘Hmm… maybe. I’m going to be a film producer or a director. I haven’t decided yet.’

Just like that then? Sophie said nothing. ‘His sort can. Money buys everything,’ her father would have said, but Sophie knew Adam could do anything he set his mind to, loaded parents or not.

‘Overlooking your taste in literature, I’m sorry your book’s ruined. Maybe it is partly my fault you dropped it. Will you let me pay for it?’

Sophie had her pride. ‘No thanks!’

‘OK. Whatever you say, but don’t take any crap off that old bat of a librarian, Mrs Tyson. If she tries to fine you, I should tell her to shove her D. H. Lawrence where the sun doesn’t shine.’ Adam remounted the horse in one smooth motion, kicked its flanks and said, ‘Walk on, Tilda.’

Sophie wrapped the wet book in its even wetter plastic bag. ‘Goodbye, Adam,’ she muttered under her breath, deflating like a punctured balloon. She thought he was going to ride off; in fact he’d actually got a few paces before he stopped and turned Tilda back.

‘Sophie?’

Her heart cantered away. ‘Yes?’

‘My sister, Becky, is having some of her poxy friends round to the house for a party tonight. She’s sixteen, God help the entire male population. Mum’s gone to London and Dad’s away at some Masons’ do, so it’s my job to make sure they don’t wreck the place. The whole thing’s a total pain in the arse, but I wondered if you wanted to come along. If you’re completely desperate, that is.’

Sophie’s throat seized up momentarily. She’d spent the past five years hoping Adam Templar would notice she existed; now here he was, actually wanting something from her. Luckily Adam seemed to have interpreted her silence as genuine reluctance.

‘I know you probably have loads of stuff to do. In fact, you’re probably trying to think up an excuse to get out of it right now. But if you can stand it, just turn up. There’s no need to bring a bottle, that old git in the corner shop wouldn’t serve you anyway.’

‘I am eighteen, Adam.’

‘God, really? I thought your birthday was in August.’

‘No, actually. It was in May, while you were away at uni.’

‘Right, I was probably doing my bloody dissertation. I left it so late I didn’t surface from my room for two weeks. Mind you, I hadn’t done a stroke of work all term so it served me right. Far too busy enjoying myself.’

She let him carry on, reveling in the sight of him actually having to try for once in his life. Not for his exams, she knew he would have passed those with his eyes closed and a frontal lobotomy. No, she was relishing his efforts to ask her to the party. She wanted to make him suffer a little longer but wasn’t sure she dared.

‘Well… I had promised to go round to Julia Regan’s house but I suppose I might be able to get away later. Maybe.’

He grinned. ‘I’ll look forward to it, if you can drag yourself away from Julia, that is.’

He kicked Tilda’s flanks and cantered off, leaving Sophie on the fell side, soaked through to her knickers, but elated.

‘Hel-loo? Is there anybody the-re?’

Peeling off her cagoule, Sophie sang the customary McBride greeting into the depths of the cottage then wrinkled her nose. Hmm. Woodsmoke and fish and chips, a not unpleasant combination.

‘Bring out your dead!’ she called, imitating her father’s final warning to Sophie and her brother to get up for school or risk a glass of cold water over the head. Hearing no answer, she hung her cagoule on a peg in the porch. Water dripped off it onto the slate tiles and she vowed to buy a new waterproof, even if it meant going without a few nights out with her friends.

‘Mum? Nathan? Are you in?’

Her brother was standing at the bottom of the stairs in his Batman Y-fronts, his tawny hair sticking up like a chicken, blinking in the daylight. ‘What d’you have to go and wake me up for?’ he grumbled.

‘Because it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. Where’s Mum?’

‘I dunno. Out shopping I s’pose. Or in bed with her lover.’

‘Don’t be rude,’ said Sophie, whacking him on the arm with her soggy Lady Chatterley.

‘Ow! For fuck’s sake, Soph.’

‘And don’t swear. Mum will kill you.’

Nathan let out a belch. ‘Piss off.’

He turned back up the stairs, slamming the door behind him, making the latch rattle. Sophie dropped her book on the hearth, flopped on the sofa and closed her eyes. What an afternoon. After her encounter with Adam, she had, of course, missed the library van. That was the bad news. The good news was that the library van hadn’t actually turned up because Mrs Tyson had flu and ‘Enrique Iglesias’ had been in court for selling pirated DVDs. When Sophie had got to the car park, Mr Kirk, who owned the village deli, had come out specially to tell her.

Anyway, who gave a toss? Adam had asked her out. Even though Sophie didn’t believe in miracles, that fact enough was evidence they might actually exist. Eighteen years she’d known Adam, technically speaking; they’d both been born and brought up in Langmere but that’s where the similarity ended. Adam lived at Bracken House, a stonking great Victorian place by a lakeside, about half a mile out of the village. Sophie lived in a terraced cottage on the steep fell side that was too small for cohabiting hamsters, let alone a family of four.

Once upon a time, when Adam had been at the village primary school, they’d played together in the park or hung about outside the post office, but when she and Nathan had gone off the local high school, Adam and Becky had been packed off to boarding school in Yorkshire. After that, of course, their paths had crossed only in the holidays. She still recalled the day he’d come into Langmere post office while she was working behind the counter. He’d bought a six-pack of Stella Artois and she’d had to ask the postmistress if she could sell it to him because she was only fifteen. The shame had been so great, she’d almost passed out over the confectionery display.

Since she’d been in the sixth form and Adam had gone to university two years before, she’d only seen him a dozen times. He still spoke to her of course – usually with half-bored flirtatiousness or half-patronising indulgence – but he’d never seemed to really take notice of her. Not like today.

She was sure he really had wanted her to come and not only because he needed someone to distract him from Becky’s ‘poxy friends’. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Maybe she was letting her fantasies get the better of her. Her English teacher, Mrs Pohl, was always telling her she would have to ‘curb her wilder romantic leanings’, if she wanted to be a journalist.

Above her head, the loo flushed and the floorboards creaked. Sophie knew she would have to be careful. She didn’t want Nathan to know about Adam. He’d tease her mercilessly and she wasn’t sure she could stand it. He might also tell her mum and dad and that was the last thing she wanted. She already wondered how she was going to get out of the house without her parents finding out.

At eighteen and about to go off to university in a few months’ time, she thought she should be able to see whoever she wanted and that any reasonable person would have thought that too. But Sophie was certain that her parents, while loving and kind, needed some serious training in the art of letting their only daughter grow up. In her opinion, the sooner she left for university and gained her independence and freedom, the better. Nathan, on the other hand, needed a collar and leash.

On cue, a noise like an imminent tsunami rumbled from the stairway. There would be no peace now.

‘What is there to eat?’ Nathan slouched against the door frame, scratching his bum, the disgusting boy.

‘Mum left a leg of sabre tooth tiger in the fridge in case you got peckish and your trough’s by the door.’

‘Very funny. God, you look minging, Soph. Your hair’s all frizzy and your face is bright red.’

‘Better than looking like a strangled cockerel!’ said Sophie, throwing a cushion at him.

Spotting her book on the hearth, he picked it up. ‘What’s this crap?’

‘Hands off!’

He held it between his fingertips as it dripped coppery water onto the carpet. ‘What have you been doing with it? It’s filthy.’

‘I dropped it in a puddle.’

‘Shall I throw it on the fire, then?’

‘You dare and I’ll kill you!’

‘Oh, tou-chy. Here you are. Catch!’

Sophie dived forward and managed to stop the book from knocking over her mum’s Lladró vase. ‘You little shit, Nathan.’

Nathan laughed. ‘It’s only a book, Soph. One of those soppy stupid old things, is it? You live in a dream world, Soph. Why do you read this rubbish?’

‘Because it’s better than being an illiterate pig.’

Nathan crossed his eyes and opened his mouth, tongue lolling. ‘Doh. Illy what? Sorry. I don’t know what you mean ’cos I’m so thick.’

Grinning, he headed for the kitchen and, as she dried the book with an old duster, she heard the sound of Coco Pops being poured into a bowl. Sometimes she wondered if there had been a mistake at the hospital and her actual brother had been given to a tribe of Neanderthals while she’d been left with a sarcastic ratbag who claimed he’d used her Ladyshave to trim his pubes. Hearing the fridge door opening, she escaped upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom.

 

At seven o’clock, Sophie slipped quietly downstairs. She was wearing her second-best jeans, a fleece top and trainers so as not to arouse suspicion. Underneath, she was exfoliated, defuzzed and plucked within an inch of her life. Her bag contained her best jeans, a low-cut slinky top, a choice of two thongs and more make-up than the village pharmacy plus the world’s naffest packet of condoms, strawberry-flavour Xciters from the machine in the pub. She’d bought them a few months ago for a laugh, never dreaming she might actually use them with Adam. Then again, he’d be sure to have his own supply.

As she opened the door from the stairs to the sitting room, the latch rattled under her fingers. In the sitting room, her mum was watching Emmerdale and her dad was intent on the sports pages of the Daily Express. Nathan was lying on the carpet, earphones on his head, drooling over a dog-eared old copy of Sports Boat.

‘I’m just off to Julia’s then.’

Her mum looked up from the television and flicked the mute button. ‘Julia Regan’s?’

She threw her mum a trustworthy smile. ‘Yes. I’m staying over.’

Sue McBride squinted in her direction. She needed new glasses, thought Sophie, heartily relieved her mother couldn’t see her face properly.

‘Are Julia’s parents at home?’

‘Well…⁠’

‘Say hello to Ted Regan for me,’ her father said, without glancing up from his newspaper. ‘I fitted a new boiler for him the other week.’

‘I would do, Dad, but the Regans have gone to Paris for their silver wedding anniversary this weekend. I’m keeping Julia company while they’re away.’

Sophie felt genuinely virtuous because both of these statements were true. She was going to Julia’s for a while, but once Julia’s boyfriend had arrived to spend the night Sophie would be off to Adam’s house.

‘Enjoy yourself, love,’ said her mum. ‘Call us if you need anything or you’re worried.’

‘OK. Bye.’ She could hardly contain herself any longer. She gripped her bag tighter. Her hands were slippery around the handle. She wanted to go now.

‘Sophie.’ Her father had laid his newspaper across his knees and was staring hard at her and, unfortunately, he had perfect eyesight.

Sophie smiled at him, but not too broadly, or he really would get suspicious. ‘Yes, Dad?’

‘I worry about you girls being in that cottage on your own.’

She groaned inwardly, praying he wouldn’t offer to come with her or ask Julia to stay the night with them. ‘We’ll be fine. Honest.’

‘You may think so, but I know what you’ll be like when you’ve had a few drinks down you. I know you’ll be in the pub half the night first and who knows what state you’ll be in when you get back to Julia’s.’

Nathan had unhooked his earphones and was watching them, obviously enjoying seeing his sister treated like a baby.

‘Not to mention if you get a couple of blokes back there.’ Her father was watching her intently and he wasn’t joking. Sophie was getting annoyed now but getting arsey with her dad would be the worst thing she could do. He didn’t lay down the law very often at home, but when he did he expected to be obeyed without question.

‘Dad, can’t you trust me to go out for the night on my own? I’m eighteen. I’m off to uni soon,’ she said, and very reasonably in her opinion.

‘While you’re under my roof I’ll worry about you as much as I like. You can call me an old fart if you like but there was a burglary up on Barton Row last month. Make sure you lock the doors when you go to bed.’

Burglars? Was that what he was worried about? Relief flooded through her.

‘Yeah. Lock up or the bogeyman might creep into your bedrooms and ravish you both. If he’s really desperate.’

Their father batted Nathan with the Radio Times. ‘That’s enough from you, Nathan. Haven’t you got any homework to do?’

Or a cliff to jump off, thought Sophie.

‘It’s Friday night,’ he grumbled but everyone ignored him.

She opened the door to the porch, ready to rip out her hair in frustration. ‘I promise I’ll be careful. See you tomorrow.’

As she grabbed her horrible cagoule from the porch – and if that wasn’t enough to put her family off the scent, nothing was – Nathan appeared in the doorway, headphones dangling round his neck. She sniffed. He smelt funny, icky, but then he often did. He hovered by the door, while she tucked the cagoule in a plastic bag.

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Sophie.’

Her heart pounded even though he couldn’t possibly know where she was going.

‘Drop dead, Nathan. By the way you stink of weed.’

‘You stink of pork. Porky pies,’ he said, giving her arm a shove.

As she stumbled, her bag fell off her shoulder, spilling out her thongs and the telltale foil packet of Xciters. As Nathan’s mouth dropped open in disbelief then delight, her stomach plunged into her trainers.

‘Please,’ she mouthed as he picked them up off the slate floor.

A couple of seconds ticked by, seeming like a lifetime, as Nathan stared at the condoms as if they were alien spawn.

‘What’s going on out there?’

‘Nothing,’ Sophie called back to her mum, her stomach swishing horribly. She opened her bag and, after shaking his head slowly, Nathan dropped the packet back inside.

‘Thanks,’ she mouthed.

‘You owe me big for this, Soph. Huge,’ he whispered as she darted out of the porch.

At the corner of the lane, she heaved in a huge gulp of air. It had stopped raining and down in the valley the lake shimmered in the muted sunlight. Sophie felt like she’d been let off an execution. God knows, what she’d have to endure from Nathan after this. She didn’t think he’d tell her mum and dad; the horrible little creep had too much to gain by keeping her secret.

She dashed down the steep lane, past the rows of terraced cottages. Sod Nathan. He didn’t matter. Only tonight mattered and tonight she actually might make love with Adam. The very thought of it shot a thrill of lust right through the centre of her. Technically speaking, it wasn’t any of Nathan’s – or her mum and dad’s – business what she did with her life. At eighteen she was entitled to vote, pay taxes and shag whoever she liked but when you still lived under your parents’ roof – your overprotective, old-fashioned parents’ roof – it was so much easier if they didn’t know exactly who you were shagging. Especially if that someone was a Templar.

Adam’s Levi’s-clad bottom was poking out of the passenger door of a Mercedes when Sophie arrived at Bracken House. As she crunched up the gravel drive in her kitten heels, the rest of him emerged, a bottle of whisky in his hand.

‘I went out for something decent to drink. The house was awash with blue alcopops and cider.’

‘Great,’ said Sophie, who gagged at the taste of whisky and had already downed two alcopops at Julia’s to try to calm her nerves. God, she hoped her tongue wasn’t purple.

There was a shriek from the garden then a group of girls burst out of the front door, screeching. One was wearing only a bra and shorts and waving a vodka bottle.

Adam sighed. ‘It’s started already but I refuse to play Mr Heavy. Mum and Dad asked me to make sure things don’t get out of hand but it’s Beck’s party and as long as they don’t do any serious damage to the house or themselves, I’m going to try to keep a low profile.’ He smiled and Sophie melted like a warm Malteser. ‘Why don’t you come inside?’

Sophie followed him into the house, her eyes widening at the size and grandeur of the place. From the hallway, a staircase wide enough for two led up to the galleried landing on the first floor, the wooden balustrades gleaming and fragrant with Mr Sheen. Through one of the doors that led off the hall, a bass line thudded. There seemed so many doors, where did they all lead? Who could need that many rooms?

The bloody Templars, of course. Her father’s voice echoed in her head as Adam deposited the bottles on a table next to the telephone. Sophie had been in Bracken House a couple of times before together with Adam and a gang of friends from the village. They’d been allowed to use the loo and given glasses of Coke . . .