Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 21

The sun had risen high in the sky and was giving out a lot more warmth than she was expecting. Normally she’d have been delighted – it had been such a dreadful winter – but now she was conscious of being very pink in the face and of sweat trickling down the back of her neck.
‘Oh, sure. Water? I have some iced tea, if you’d like.’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Polly, ‘but I’ll try it. Is it just tea you’ve let go cold? I do that. It’s not very nice.’ She realised she was babbling. She had clearly gone too long without talking to another human being.
‘I don’t know ’bout that. Sit yourself down there.’
He indicated a little wrought-iron table and chair set that had been placed in the middle of a cloud of daisies. It had striped cushions on the seats and looked wonderfully welcoming. Polly sank down gratefully and Huckle went into the house.
Polly looked around. It really was the most ridiculously beautiful garden. The buzzing in the air undercut the soft warmth of the sun on her face, and she found herself, with two broken nights on top of months of worry and a long walk, letting her eyelids droop, just for a moment. Just for a second…
‘Yo.’
Polly jumped up, not sure where she was. She saw the tall blond man standing nearby and blinked rapidly. He had taken off his beekeeping outfit and was wearing perfectly normal Levis and a red lumberjack shirt.
‘Oh my God, did I fall asleep?’
‘I hope so. Either that, or it was quite a fast coma.’
Polly rubbed her eyes, hoping frantically she hadn’t let her mouth fall open and drool drip out.
‘How long was I…’
‘Well, it’s Tuesday,’ said Huckle, and it took Polly a moment to register that he was joking.
‘Here,’ he said, proffering a glass. There were ice cubes clinking in it, and fresh mint floating on the top. Polly took a long swig.
‘Oh, that’s delicious,’ she said. ‘So that’s iced tea?’
‘Yup,’ he said. ‘Not as good as the stuff back home, but…’
He sat down companionably on the other seat. Polly remembered that she was ravenous. She considered it for a second, then decided to press on.
‘Um,’ she said. ‘Would you like to share my lunch?’
‘What, now that we’ve slept together?’ said Huckle, with that same serious drawl.
‘Ha,’ said Polly. She realised that she didn’t expect Americans to be sarcastic; the ones she’d met tended to tell you exactly what they were doing and why. She reached down for her bag. As she opened it, Neil waddled out, complaining.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have left you in there.’
He ignored her, pecking at the plastic bag that contained lunch.
‘Well, no,’ said Polly. ‘That’s why I put it in a plastic bag.’
She glanced up. Huckle was observing her with an amused look on his face.
‘What? Does this look weird?’
‘Er, I’m supposed to say no, right?’
‘Yes. Sorry. I guess it must look a bit odd.’
‘Is he a magic puffin? Can he talk?’
‘No, he’s just a normal one,’ said Polly.
‘Oh. Disappointing.’
‘I like him for who he is,’ said Polly stiffly.
Huckle smiled again. ‘Do you always keep a bird in a bag? Is this, like, a “thing”?’
‘Nope,’ said Polly, picking up Neil and displaying his bandaged wing. ‘We’re healing.’
‘In a rucksack?’
‘He likes company.’
Huck nodded and looked around. ‘So, here I am, just hanging out, not getting any lunch,’ he said.
Polly frowned, unwrapping the packaging.
‘You know it’s a British sandwich, not an American one, yes?’
She had been to New York once, with Chris. A long time ago. The quality and quantity of the food had amazed them both.
‘Do you mean I’ll be able to actually fit it in my mouth?’
‘You have quite a big mouth,’ said Polly. ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. Anyway. Here.’
She tossed him the package. He took one of the enormous doorsteps and handed the bag back.
‘I’d say this is not doing too badly in its efforts to be a big sandwich,’ he said, then took a bite. Polly did the same. It was surprisingly pleasant to be sitting in a lovely garden drinking iced tea and eating a sandwich with an odd giant. If her aim was, she reflected, to try new things in her new life, this was definitely a successful day.
‘Wow,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘That’s good. Where did you get this bread? The only stuff I can find round here is inedible; it tastes like plastic.’
‘I made it,’ said Polly, pleased. ‘Actually,’ she remembered, ‘I have something better than the sandwich. Try the focaccia first, I made it this morning.’
She unwrapped the other package and tore off some crumbs for Neil.
‘In fact, wait!’ She felt in her pocket for the rosemary. ‘Do you have some scissors?’
‘This is the worst honey-selling I’ve ever done,’ said Huckle, but he smiled as he said it, and got up. When he returned with a pair of pinking shears, Polly clipped little bits of the herb on top of the salty loaf. It smelled sensational and tasted even better. Huckle wolfed his half in about two seconds flat.
‘You are seriously good at this,’ he said, looking longingly at hers.
‘You can have it,’ she said, ‘but give some to Neil.’
‘I mean it. Do you do this as a job?’
Polly laughed wryly. ‘No. No, no job.’
She changed the subject.
‘So what about you and honey?’
‘Oh yes, let me get you some. It’s a shame it doesn’t go with focaccia.’
‘I’m sure I can make something it will go with,’ said Polly, hoping this didn’t sound flirtatious.
‘I’m sure you can,’ said Huckle in the same slightly silly tone of voice, so she had obviously failed.
He brought out a jar from a shed by the side of the wall, and a little wooden spoon with a winder at the bottom. The jar was prettily painted and had a sketch of the cottage on it, with ‘Huckle Honey’ written on the side.