“How are you holding up?” Joe asked.
“Okay, I think. I’m looking forward to it all being over.”
“At least Star and Simone are keeping away from each other.”
“Those two cat-fighting is the last thing I need.”
“They wouldn’t, would they? Not today.”
“Ah, I forget you haven’t seen them together. Trust me, a little thing like our father’s funeral isn’t enough to keep them from fighting. One sideward glance would kick things off.”
Joe pulled a hip flask out of his inside pocket and held it out to her.
“It’s a little early for me,” she said, looking down at it. Since when does Joe carry a hip flask? Maybe that was the thing that was wrong with him—he was a secret alcoholic. Lord knows she hadn’t been able to find anything else to fault him on, other than his age, but neither of them could help that.
“It’s not booze,” he said.
“What is it, then?”
He smiled that smile that lit something inside her and made her feel much younger than her forty-four years.
“Tea.” He grinned. “Good, strong, hot builders tea.”
Maggie almost snatched the hip flask from him and sighed as she took a long, deep swig. “You are too good.” She smiled as she handed him back the flask.
“Then take me off the market.”
She looked up at him. His face was serious. “What?”
“I realize my timing’s off, and standing in a graveyard in the rain hiding from your family isn’t exactly moonlight and roses, but I am serious about you, Maggie, about us. I don’t want us to be a secret anymore. I know you don’t like me saying it, but I love you and I want everyone to know it. I don’t want to keep hiding.”
She rubbed her face with her hands. “Joe, I can’t do this now.”
“Then when?”
“I don’t know. But not at my dad’s funeral.”
“I’m not asking for a blood sacrifice. I just want to be able to hold your hand in public. I wanted to be able to put my arm around you today to comfort you, without you shrinking away from me. I want us to make plans and get excited about the future, instead of this limbo.”
She would have liked to argue that she would never “shrink away from him,” but he was right, she would. She had self-imposed rules for her and Joe; they were friends with benefits, nothing serious. She was never meant to have fallen for him, but how could she not when he was so thoughtful and funny and kind? He was also six feet three inches of pure outdoorsy man, dirty-blond wavy hair almost down to his shoulders, and four-day beard with just the right amount of scratch when he kissed her collarbone. He ought to work on a cattle ranch or as a surf instructor on the Cornish coast with those looks; he had no business being this sexy in the greengrocer profession.
“Why can’t we stay as we are?” she pleaded.
“Because I don’t want to be your fuck boy.”
“You’re not. You mean a lot to me.”
If she told him the truth—that she was holding back for his benefit—he would only argue with her. He believed he loved her now, but what about down the line when the age gap between them really began to show? What about when he realized that being with her would mean giving up on a family of his own? He would make a wonderful father. What right did she have to deny him that? Her baby days were over. She didn’t want more kids. She had to protect them both from heartbreak down the line. And losing Joe would break her heart, so it was better to never have him at all.
“But not enough for you to be with me in public.” Joe’s expression was one of genuine puzzlement.
“It isn’t you . . .” she started. I am saving you from yourself!
“Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not me, it’s you.”
“But that’s the truth! Please don’t be cross with me.”
Joe rubbed his hand through his hair and sighed, then pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry, I’m being a selfish idiot. This isn’t the right time. I didn’t mean to make today even harder for you. I guess I let the whole ‘life is short’ thing overwhelm me.”
Maggie buried her head in his chest. “Funerals can have that effect.” Her voice was muffled by the knitted jumper he wore under his jacket.
“You looked so lost in the church. I wanted to comfort you, my arms were literally aching to hold you, but I knew I couldn’t. Why are we wasting time? We could die tomorrow!”
“Morbid.”
“I don’t want to have regrets. I want to build a life with you.”
“You want to commit to a woman who wears elephant dungarees to a funeral?”
“I wouldn’t be seen dead with a woman who didn’t wear elephant dungarees to a funeral.”
Maggie breathed in the smell of him. He smelled like line-dried washing and fabric softener. Oh god, what was she going to do? Dearest lovely Joe. If only he was ten years older, or she was ten years younger. It couldn’t work. It simply couldn’t. And her brain was too damn full to take on extra complications. Why couldn’t they just stay as they were? She nestled in further, feeling his warmth envelop her.
“There’s such a lot happening at the moment, what with my impending homelessness and unemployment. And dad dying. My world feels like it’s imploding. I just . . .”
“Shhhh,” he soothed, kissing her head. “I’m sorry. Forget I mentioned it. I am here for you, however you need me. No conditions.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I’m not that good.”
“You are, you know.” She felt him smiling. When Joe smiled, it was like the very air around him changed and the world became a little warmer. She allowed herself to bask for one more moment. “We’d better join the throng; I need to be there when he’s interred.”
They left their quiet alcove and fell in with the crowd.
“Will you tell your sisters about the eviction?” Joe asked.
“Why would I?”
He changed the subject.
“Belinda did well to keep God out of the service,” he said as they followed the slow procession. “No mean feat for a vicar.”
Belinda was vicar for the parish of Rowan Thorp: a gregarious woman of ample cleavage with a ring through her nose and a laugh like Sid James. She was rumored to wear leather trousers beneath her cassock in winter.
“She’s been brilliant. It’s not easy to write a eulogy for a father more devoted to the open road than his children.” There was no malice in her voice, only a sad resignation.
Joe reached for her hand. She felt his warm fingers lace through hers and squeeze. She smiled up at him, gently freed her fingers, and drove her hand deep into her coat pocket. The flicker of hurt across his face sliced through her, but it was better this way; she wouldn’t give him false hope.
The grass was spongy and slick with mud as they trampled the rest of the way in silence. The hole in the earth ahead of them yawned black and hungry, and neither the muddied Astroturf sheets around the opening nor the flowers strewn atop it lessened the ugliness.
* * *
Star had never seen so many velvet cloaks in one place, which was really saying something. The little churchyard at St. Swithun’s resembled a wizarding convention as the funeralgoers clustered to watch Augustus’s environmentally friendly cardboard coffin being lowered. Despite her sadness, she was relieved when it touched down in one piece; she had been worried that the heavy rain would break down the cardboard’s integrity.