Those Summer Nights (Corfu, Greek Island Romance) by Mandy Baggot Read Free Book Online Page B

at the villa again. Dark green shutters were closed over the windows shading the inside from the intense daytime heat and the window boxes were in full bloom. A fiesta of pink and white bougainvillea and lilac clematis budded from the sills, and urns of the same sat upon the front patio area. It seemed his grandmother might be too old to manage a restaurant full time but obviously her gardening wasn’t suffering. Another pot of flowers sat in the middle of the old round stone table on the patio.
    Panos stepped out onto the paving. Coming from the air-conditioned vehicle, the temperature outside hit him straightaway. The buzz of the cicadas invaded every sense and he started to roll up his shirt sleeves, looking towards the front door and wondering who was going to break first. He tucked the shirt sleeves in at his elbows and let out a breath. His grandmother was even more stubborn than him and shehad done nothing to deserve his disdain. On the contrary, she was the only constant he’d had when things began to fall apart.
    His gaze shifted to the left, to the patch of grass and pair of trees in front of the house, next to the driveway. A man sat on his grandparents’ seat between the olives, swigging from a bottle, his eyes on the view across the trees. Who was this? So carefree about sitting on his grandparents’ seat? Panos strode across the grass, his hands clenched into fists at his side.
    ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ His voice came out like an angry bark and the dark-haired young man jumped to his feet, dropping the bottle of water to the ground.
    ‘I—’
    ‘I asked you a question. What are you doing here?’ He narrowed his eyes at the man dressed in dungaree overalls, who looked no more than eighteen.
    ‘Pano!’ Elpida’s voice screamed from the house. ‘For the love of Zeus will you leave Nico alone?’
    Panos’ gaze went from the man to his grandmother. She was hanging out of one of the windows at the top of the house, waving a handkerchief in the air. ‘He’s the gardener!’
    Of course he was . Panos cleared his throat and hurriedly extended a hand to the worker. ‘Panos Dimitriou,’ he introduced. ‘I apologise. I didn’t realise my grandmother had hired a gardener.’
    ‘Is OK,’ the man answered, accepting the offered hand and shaking it. ‘Mrs Dimitriou does not like to have help. I offer to take care of garden and she cooks for my mother.’
    Panos shook his head. That sounded exactly like Elpida. Perfectly capable of paying for a gardener but preferring an old-fashioned bartering system. Unless… perhaps selling the restaurant hadn’t been about it being too much for her. Maybe the financial crisis had hit her too.
    He turned back to the house and waved a hand at his grandmother.
    ‘Come into the house! I have cooked kleftiko !’ Elpida called.
    The fragrance of the lamb, rosemary and bay leaves weakened Panos as he stepped over the threshold, a hard reminder of what he’d distanced himself from. The aromatic authentic Greek dish was kicking him where it hurt even more than the memories of playing on the olive tree swing as a boy or his grandmother’s unchanged home. He looked around the kitchen, trying to spot anything he didn’t recognise. There was the range – a copper-bottomed pot bubbling away, a fresh sheaf of lavender over the brick surround – the large circular moon clock slow as usual. As in the rest of Greece you never knew quite what the time was here. He wasn’t even sure why his yiayia had the clock.
    ‘Pano!’ Elpida greeted. ‘Come here, let me look at you!’
    Panos turned and met with the grandmother he allegedly hadn’t seen for a year. He smiled but inside his stomach twisted. Despite the neatly set, dyed blonde hair slightly streaked with silver, the bright pink silk scarf at her neck and the large glasses on her nose, Elpida was starting to look her age. Dressed in a tight-fitting knee-length orange dress, Nike trainers on her feet, the