It Started With a Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

do this, you know.’
    ‘I know. But now I know you weren’t hallucinating, I’m actually quite excited about the whole thing.’ She nudged me with her shoulder. ‘It’s like something out of a chick-flick, isn’t it? The handsome stranger, the sudden meeting, the kiss that should be accompanied by a Randy Newman score …’
    ‘Apart from the fact that we have no idea where the leading man is,’ I reminded her, thrilled by the analogy nevertheless.
    ‘Pah, details . So where next?’
    I gazed down the slope of stalls towards a beer bar with strange rotating wooden slats and large polar bear on top. ‘There was a toy stall down that way – that’s what I collided with.’
    ‘Excellent. And seeing as you more or less demolished the stall, you should be easy to remember.’
    Wren has such a way with words sometimes …
    I could feel a cold sweat beading around my neck under my scarf as we headed towards the site of yesterday’s second-most mortifying moment. My right arm and shoulder still burned from their sudden meeting with the wooden stall frontage and my cheeks were burning now, too. How had I managed to lose my carefully constructed sense of self-dignity twice in one day, in such spectacular fashion? Inevitably, my thoughts strayed to the first such instance and I felt my heart plummet as the memory of Charlie’s horrified expression returned. If Wren was correct in her assertion that my preoccupation with the handsome stranger was a diversionary tactic to stop me thinking about Charlie, then it wasn’t working very well. Angrily, I shook his face from my mind and turned my attention to the task at hand.
    The toy stall was further down New Street than I remembered and I was surprised to see how far the stranger had walked to reach me in the craft market. He must have really wanted to find me. This thought thrilled me. Surely it proved that he was somebody special, that he saw something in me worth chasing after?
    When the jumbled pile of plush toys and hand puppets came into view, I braced myself for the abuse bound to flow from the portly male stallholder, but was surprised to see a lanky, bespectacled youth manning the stall instead.
    ‘I can help you, yes?’ he asked in a broad German accent, his adolescent eyes drinking in every detail of my best friend as she flashed him her brightest smile.
    ‘I hope so,’ she purred, all wide eyes and batting lashes. Even wrapped up in her multicoloured patchwork coat and long black pashmina scarf with its glinting silver sequins, the effect this had on her quarry was considerable. I resisted the urge to laugh, marvelling at Wren’s impressive attention-commanding skills. ‘I wonder if you remember my friend?’
    The lanky boy’s greasy brows lifted as he surveyed me, clearly congratulating himself at his obvious irresistibility to English women. ‘For sure I would like to remember you,’ he replied, giving me what he judged to be a devastating look.
    ‘No, you don’t understand. My friend knocked over your toys yesterday.’ Wren pointed animatedly at the drop-down display area.
    ‘Oh, I heard that, ja . But I was not here then: it was my brother. He said toys were everywhere.’
    Wren clapped her hands as I tried my best to ignore the creeping warmth flushing my face. ‘Brilliant! So did your brother tell you about the man who helped my friend to pick up the toys?’
    The teenager’s expression muddied and then he nodded. ‘For sure. There was a guy who was the only one to help.’
    Instantly, I forgot my embarrassment. ‘That’s it! Did he say what the man looked like?’
    ‘I dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘He just said a young man. That’s all I know.’
    Wren nodded at me. ‘Right, I see. And when will your brother be back on the stall?’
    ‘Oh, he doesn’t work this stall. He’s one of the organisers here. He was just looking after it for the day.’ He winked at Wren and went in for the kill. ‘So, you want a beer with me after we close