Blind-Date Baby Read Online Free PDF

kept walking. Every time she told people what she did for a living she got the same reaction, the same look. The one that said, why wasn’t she busy saving lives on the operating table or running a million-pound Internet business she’d started in her front room like other women of her generation?
    Because she hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice time with Daisy to build a career, that was why. Daisy had already lost one parent and she didn’t need the other to become a dim and distant memory while childminders did all the hands-on stuff. So Grace had taken a job that let her fit her hours round the school day and didn’t require evening shifts.
    The owner of the coffee shop was Aunt Caroline—or Caz, as she liked to be called. She was really Rob’s aunt, but had welcomed Grace into the family with open arms and had been a lifesaver when he’d died, taking Grace under her wing and letting her rent the upstairs flat. Grace’s parents had moved to the West Country when she’d got married and there had been no one close by to turn to. Her parents had begged her to move in with them, but she’d refused—too young, foolish and independent at the time to realise what a gift it might have been. But Rob was buried in the churchyard here and she hadn’t been able to wrench herself away, leave him behind.
    She became aware of someone following her and picked up speed. She shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of her job. She made the best pastries in the area. And, even if she hadn’t, she didn’t want to apologise for her work.
    She could hear heavy, pounding footsteps behind her now. Just for a while, she’d thought she’d been having a decent conversation with someone who didn’t assume she had an IQ of twenty because she baked and served coffee for a living. And he’d been nice to her…But only because he’d misheard her and thought she was something she wasn’t.
    ‘Grace!’
    He was right behind her now. She stopped and turned round, hardening herself, putting on that sassy front she used with difficult customers at The Coffee Bean. ‘Mr Smith.’
    ‘Grace, you got me all wrong! I don’t care if you work in a coffee shop or a lawyer’s office. I don’t want the night to end this way, do you?’
    No, she didn’t. Adult company, a little bit of sophistication, had been nice. And she’d thought Noah had been gorgeous too, right up until the end. But he’d come after her. That was quite nice. To be exact, he’d run after her. And they had been having fun.
    She started walking again. ‘What if I worked as a litter picker? Would you still have come after me?’
    His features shifted and changed. When they’d been sitting down in the restaurant, she hadn’t noticed how tall he was. Now, she had to tilt her head up to get a look in his eyes.
    They were the most beautiful colour. Green. Not the emerald-green of story books, but a cool, glassy green that verged on grey. Even so, their paleness didn’t detract from their intensity. When he looked at her she felt as if she had one hundred per cent of his attention, as if she were the only thing in his field of focus. But now they didn’t seem focused, they seemed puzzled.
    ‘Of course, I’d have come after you. I came out for a nice dinner and ended up chewing my own size twelve shoes. I needed to apologise.’
    He wasn’t taking the bait, playing her little game, but his honesty won her over. She didn’t have time for slimy men who oozed the right things. She’d settle for Noah Smith and his no-nonsense words—even if they were occasionally muffled by his shoe leather. Had he really said size twelves …?
    He fell into step beside her. ‘So, are we okay? Do you want to go somewhere for coff—a drink?’
    She smiled. ‘How about if I was a sewage worker? Would you want to have a drink with me then?’
    There was a tiny break in the rhythm of his steps. ‘Only if I was allowed to wear a peg on my nose.’
    Her tense jaw muscles relaxed and a smile