The Trouble With Emma. Katie Oliver

went out the door. “Good morning. Can I help you?”

      “I certainly hope so. A dozen doughnuts, please.”

      She looked up to see a tall man with dark auburn hair standing before the counter. He wore a suit – she was certain it was bespoke – of dark blue with a tie of scarlet silk, and his arms were crossed loosely against his chest as he surveyed the display case.

      “We have blueberry, chocolate glazed, vanilla old-fashioned and lemon custard,” Emma told him. “Would you like an assortment?”

      His lips curved into a most engaging smile, full of cheek and abounding in good humour. “I’d like the whole bloody lot,” he replied, and his eyes crinkled. “But I’ll settle for six each of the chocolate glazed and six of the vanilla old-fashioned. It’s a very serious matter, you know,” he added. “Choosing a doughnut requires great thought and consideration.”

      “Indeed it does.” Emma folded one of the flats into a box, slotting the tabs in with fingers gone suddenly clumsy, and reached for a square of tissue paper. As she turned away to place the requested doughnuts into the box, she could feel his eyes on her.

      “We haven’t many left this late in the morning,” she said over her shoulder. “They go quickly.”

      “I’m sure they do. They’ll go even quicker once I get my hands on them, I assure you.”

      She smiled and turned to face him. “I’m sorry – we’ve toasted coconut today, too, if you’d like any of those –?”

      “Could I have one for extra?” He eyed her hopefully. “I do get an extra, don’t I?”

      “You do.” She smiled. Somehow it was impossible not to smile in his presence. He was like a little boy in a sweet shop…or a toy store. “One toasted coconut it is.”

      A moment later she handed over the box and a bag with the toasted coconut and rang him up. He handed her a hundred-pound note.

      “Oh!” Emma said, and stared at the crisp note, nonplussed. “I don’t think I can make change for this.”

      “Sorry. It’s all I’ve got on me at the moment.”

      “Excuse me, please...I’ll be right back.”

      He nodded and reached in his pocket to answer his mobile phone.

      “Boz,” Emma breathed as she hurried into the work room, “a customer’s just given me a hundred pounds and I haven’t enough change in the drawer.”

      He put his tray of olive savoury tarts aside and wiped his hands on a cloth. “No problem.” He went to a safe in the corner and withdrew a zippered bank bag. He counted out five, ten, and twenty pound notes into her hand. “There you are. Put the note under the till drawer, I’ll settle it up later when we cash out.”

      “Thanks.”

      When she returned, her customer was just sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Here we are,” she announced, and handed him his change. “Can I get you anything else?”

      “Not a thing.” He thrust the wad of notes in his wallet and returned it to his back pocket. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”

      With a gallant bow and another smile, he picked up his box, made his way to the door, and clanged out of the shop.

Chapter 10

      When it was time to cash the till out at two-thirty, Emma came up twenty pounds short.

      “Oh, no,” she exclaimed, and looked at Boz in dismay. “Perhaps I made a mistake.”

      But after he counted out the cash against the day’s receipts a second time, the result was the same – they were exactly twenty pounds short.

      “You either gave someone too much change,” Boz said, and shrugged, “or two bills stuck together. No matter – it happens sometimes.”

      “Of course you’ll take it out of my pay,” Emma told him firmly. “It’s my fault, after all.”

      “No. It’s an honest mistake, Em, and one we’ve all made at one time or another.” Boz shut the cash drawer. “Just be careful in the future when you make change, and make sure the new notes don’t stick together.”

      “I will do, I promise.” Guiltily, Emma remembered her distraction while waiting on the man in the bespoke suit. She’d forgotten to mention the coconut-toasted doughnuts, had barely been able to string a sentence together, and in the face of his engaging personality had quite lost the thread of what she was doing. “I’m so sorry.”

      “Don’t worry about it, love.” He smiled. “Help me and Viv clean up the kitchen, and then you’re free to go. And grab a couple of cream horns for your dad on the way out.”

      ***

      “So, tell me – how was your first day at the bakery?” Mr Bennet asked an hour later as he and Emma shared a cup of tea and cream horns at the kitchen table.

      “Fine, until it was time to cash out.”

      She told him about coming up twenty pounds short. “The notes Boz gave me were new,” she finished morosely, “and two of the twenties must’ve stuck together when I gave my customer his change.”

      Mr Bennet nodded. “Perhaps he’ll notice, and come back?”

      “I doubt it. Not that I think he’d deliberately keep the money – he certainly didn’t seem to need it,” Emma added. “But he didn’t even glance at the notes before he put them away in his wallet.”

      “File it away under ‘lessons learned’, and be more careful in future,” her father advised. “Perhaps,” he added thoughtfully as he picked up his pastry, “I’ll bake Boz some scones to show my appreciation.”

      “Daddy, he bakes dozens of scones every day.”

      “Oh. Yes.” He looked deflated. “No use carrying coals to Newcastle, I suppose.”

      She leaned forward and laid her hand on his. “Why don’t you make some for us? And we’ll need a couple of dozen more for Lizzy’s party, too.”

      “Right you are.” He set his cup down with a purposeful click. “Of course everyone will want scones.” He reached out for the pad of paper and pencil by the sugar bowl and drew it forward. “Hmmm…what do you think, Emma? A dozen savoury, and a dozen sweet?”

      ***

      Martine arrived at Litchfield Manor at eight o’clock the following morning, just as Emma attached the lead to Elton’s collar to take him for a walk.

      “Off for a stroll outside with Miss Em, are you, Mr E?” the girl asked, and set her purse aside to kneel down to pet and coo over the dog.

      “It’s stopped raining and the sun’s out,” Emma said. “We’re taking advantage of it while it lasts.”

      She eyed Martine’s leggings and faded Rolling Stones T-shirt with a barely concealed shudder and reminded herself to start on her makeover, and soon. The girl was in desperate need of an intervention.

      “Mum says she’ll make the curtains for you,” Martine said as she straightened and turned to Emma. “But she won’t hear of you payin’ her for it.”

      “I won’t hear of not paying her,” Emma said firmly. “We’ll talk about it when I get back. Oh,” she added as she opened the back door, “I have a few things for you to try on before you go.”

      “For me?” Martine looked doubtful. “I don’t know –”

      “It shouldn’t take long.” Emma’s words were brisk. “I have the most adorable trackies – bright pink, if you can imagine!” She grimaced. “They