The Trouble With Emma by Katie Oliver Read Free Book Online

her shoulder, Boz returned to the work area and left her alone in the front of the shop.
    ***
    Just before eleven, the bell over the door jangled.
    Emma, whose feet already ached from going back and forth from the display case to the till, barely looked up; she was busy counting out change into her customer’s outstretched hand.
    “I’ll be right with you,” she called out. “There you are, Mr Greene. Enjoy your buns.”
    “Oh, I will. They’re my little treat,” he confided as he took the box. “I eat ’em on the park bench, very slowly, so I don’t have to share them with my wife.”
    She laughed. “I promise I won’t tell her.”
    “Thank you. And not a word to my doctor, either.”
    Emma turned her attention to her new customer as Mr Greene 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,