Miranda Dickinson 2 Book Bundle. Miranda Dickinson

Annoyed, I walked over to him and attempted to retrieve the key. But it was no use. As my fingers touched the palm of his hand, Ed lifted it high above his head, laughing as I fell forward and ended up face to face with The Grateful Dead on his faded vintage T-shirt.

      ‘Well, hello there,’ he grinned down at me as I rested awkwardly against the warmth of his chest, ruffling my hair with his free hand before stepping away, the key still frustratingly out of reach. It’s one of the things I hate about being five feet four inches tall; it means irritatingly tall people like six-foot-two-inch Ed always have the upper hand on me. Literally, in this case.

      After much jumping about and other failed tactics like pleading, demanding and tickling (which, I must confess, made the fight far more amusing than annoying because Ed has a giggle like the Mayor of Munchkinland), I resorted to the vertically challenged person’s ultimate move. Mustering every scrap of strength possible, I stamped on his foot. Surprised and shocked by pain, he doubled over and I skilfully caught the key as it fell from his hand. Works every time.

      ‘Too easy,’ I mocked. ‘Never underestimate a shortie, tall guy.’ Flushed with victory, I swaggered back to the counter and resumed my task.

      ‘That’s so not fair!’ Ed wailed, clutching his wounded limb.

      ‘Sorry. Are you OK?’

      ‘Oh, sure, I’m fine,’ he shrugged.

      I let him sweat it out for a while. But once I’d finished cashing up, it was time to put him out of his misery. Grabbing his hand, I led him to the sofa and we sat down.

      ‘OK, mister. You want details? I’ll give you details.’

      Ed did his best to feign disinterest, but his eyes were far too twinkly for someone who didn’t want to know what I was about to divulge. ‘Well, in the light of the callous injury you’ve just inflicted on me, I reckon that’s the least you can do,’ he sniffed.

      In truth, there wasn’t an awful lot I could tell him. I wasn’t sure why Nate had chosen to visit today. After all, I still didn’t know a great deal about the man. But I could see there was a lot more to him than first impressions suggested. And I found that…well, intriguing. Ed smiled as I tried to explain this. The only way I could represent my gut feeling was by comparing Nate to an iceberg. Which, inadvertently, revealed my secret theory about Ed, when I added: ‘He’s just like you.’

      ‘You think I’m an iceberg?’ he repeated, more than a little taken aback.

      ‘Yes. In a good way, though.’

      Ed ran his hand through his dark brown hair and shot me a quizzical look. ‘What’s good about an iceberg?’

      I have to admit I was stumped for an explanation, but I made a valiant attempt anyway. ‘Well, you’re a good iceberg—meaning there’s a lot more to discover about you than first meets the eye. You know, as opposed to a bad iceberg, as in bad news for the Titanic. You get what I’m saying?’

      Ed’s expression remained unchanged. ‘I’m an iceberg…’ he muttered, as though considering an awful diagnosis and finding a deeper implication that I hadn’t meant.

      I put my head on one side and peered at him, my hand lightly resting on his knee. ‘Trust me, it’s a good thing. I find you…intriguing.’

      He laughed despite himself. ‘You sound like Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter.’ He adopted a clipped, old English film actor accent. ‘Do you find me terribly, terribly intriguing, darling?’

      ‘You are such an idiot sometimes,’ I smiled.

      ‘Hey, but this is only one-tenth of me,’ he replied. ‘Imagine how bad the other nine-tenths could be.’

      I squeezed his leg and let my eyes rove around my shop, so still and quiet now the Closed sign was turned. Outside New York continued to pulse with life, the rush-hour traffic along Columbus Avenue crawling at a snail’s pace; a colourful procession of frustration past our window. ‘Glad I’m not stuck in that today.’

      ‘The subway is a great invention,’ Ed agreed. ‘So Nate, huh? Reckon we’ll be seeing a lot more of him, then?’

      I took a breath and looked him straight in the eye. ‘You know, I think we might.’

      So there we sat: my hand still on Ed’s knee and his hand stretched across the back of the sofa, his wrist making the lightest contact with my shoulder. He smiled but his eyes were strangely serious as they bored into mine. Taxi horns blared in the traffic jam along Columbus and the clock behind the counter marked the passing seconds with its long, measured ticks. Just when the scrutiny was beginning to feel uneasy, he spoke. And it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear.

      ‘I’ll make the delivery tonight, Rosie.’

      ‘Oh.’ Disorientated by this sudden mood-shift, I stuttered, ‘Y-yes, great—if you don’t mind?’ I tried to gauge the emotion in his eyes. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

      ‘No problem.’ He turned and walked briskly to the back room, then reappeared carrying the pair of bouquets.

      ‘You have the paperwork?’ he asked, looking straight at me. His smile was bright as ever but somehow the tone was wrong.

      I reached behind the counter and handed him the order sheet. He thanked me and I followed him to the door, switching off the lights as we stepped outside into the noisy buzz of the city. As he went to leave, I grabbed his sleeve. ‘Ed, are you…is everything good here?’

      Ed leaned forward and gently kissed my cheek. ‘We’re good, Rosie. Stop worrying. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He smiled, turned and began to walk away quickly.

      Remembering something, I called after him. ‘Ed!’

      He spun round. ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Have a great time with Yelena tonight.’

      Without answering he raised a hand, saluted briefly and resumed his journey.

      I watched him until he disappeared round the corner of the next block. A ball of anxiety rolled to the bottom of my stomach. I pulled the shutter down, locked it and slowly set off on my journey home.

      New York was as loud, hurried and colourful as usual, but as I passed familiar blocks and crossed familiar streets it seemed to fade into the background somehow. Questions flitted around my ears like the insistent butterflies inside me. Nate, Ed, Marnie’s love life, Mimi and Caitlin Sutton, and that thing about ‘certain journalists’ that Brent had mentioned—all appeared like jigsaw pieces before me that didn’t quite fit.

      I was two blocks away from my street when I heard a familiar shout.

      ‘There you are, sis!’ James appeared at my side, face flushed and happy. ‘Mind if I walk back home with you?’ He held up a brown paper grocery bag. ‘I’ve stocked up from Dean & DeLuca.’

      ‘Then you’re more than welcome to come home with me,’ I laughed, suddenly glad of the company.

       Chapter Nine

      I remember watching the six o’clock news one time with Mum when I was about eight. When I was growing up there were several things we always did together: watching the news was one of them. Mum disliked the ‘game-show host’ journalists on ITV, preferring instead the serious-faced, crisply spoken newsreaders of ‘the good old BBC.’

      But one occasion sticks in my memory because a very out-of-the-ordinary news event was headlining. Some British hostages were finally released from Beirut. I remember Mum telling me that the three bearded, excruciatingly thin and tiredlooking men had been missing for five years. We saw one of them speaking at a press conference. He was smiling—telling the world how