Little Kiosk By The Sea Read Online Free PDF

bigger boat. Move on like Sabine had when Dave died. Buying the cottage after the trauma of Dave being lost at sea, had certainly helped Sabine to get her life back on track. Strange really how they’d both lost their partners so early in life, but he’d always felt that while Annie had been the love of his life, Sabine hadn’t loved Dave in the same way. Oh they’d loved each other for sure, but he wasn’t convinced that they’d been true soul mates like him and Annie. Sabine had deserved a second chance with someone, but sadly it had never happened.
    A voice in his head asked how could he bear to severe the tenacious connection the cottage provided with Annie. The simple answer was: he couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe at the end of summer he’d think about it.

CHAPTER FOUR
    RACHEL
    Rachel stood back and looked at the cake critically. Cake decorating had never been high on her list of ‘learn how to do’ skills. In the past it had been so easy to nip down to the local patisserie and buy their most highly decorated concoction whenever she’d been asked to provide a cake. Somehow, even if that option was still available, she doubted that approach would go down well with the organisers of this particular fund-raising event who’d asked her to donate a cake. Every one of them was sure to be a closet Mary Berry.
    So this chocolate-covered three-tiered sponge had to be as good as she could make it. No doubt it’s homemade appearance would lose her brownie points and its butter-cream icing would be found wanting, but so be it.
    Rachel smiled wryly to herself as she carefully placed the cake in the largest box she could find, ready to deliver it later that morning. Who’d have thought, six months ago, she’d be baking a cake and participating in a spot of charity work? Not her, for sure. When she’d arrived, still stunned by the changes in her life, she’d simply wanted to shut herself away. Which she did. The only person she’d spoken to on a regular basis was Hugo, who phoned her daily, telling her she should never have left France and begging her to return to the villa. The one thing Rachel was determined not to do. At least not permanently, maybe a holiday in due course to see everyone would be wonderful. But first she had to sort her life out.
    Avoiding face-to-face contact with people, for weeks she ordered her food over the Internet for home delivery on a Friday with the instructions to leave the box in the porch. It had taken two months for her to discover she wasn’t cut out to be a hermit and to start craving some sort of social life. When she told Hugo she was starting to go out, his sigh of relief was audible down the phone. Within weeks she’d joined the library, been roped in to help at the town’s charity shop, found a favourite place for coffee and been cajoled into joining a book club which was where, after several glasses of wine following a particularly boring discussion, Susannah and Caroline had extracted a promise from her to bake a cake for their next coffee morning. And so far nobody had questioned her too closely about her past.
    Her, ‘I’ve lived abroad for years’ reply when asked about where she’d previously lived, quickly followed by, ‘My husband died recently’ earned her sympathetic looks and stopped people probing too deep. Although there had been a moment just last week at the book club when Caroline had pursed her lips and said: ‘Where are you from originally? I’ve been trying to place your accent but can’t quite make it out.’ To Rachel’s relief, before she could answer, somebody called out for more wine and Caroline had moved away.
    Glancing out of the kitchen window, she saw a sailing boat beating its way up river and for a moment she longed to be out there on board. Sailing was definitely on her agenda for this summer. She’d ask Susannah at the coffee morning later if she knew anybody who wanted the occasional crew. Maybe she’d brave the sailing club too and