Page 94 of The Village of Lost and Found

With Lucy looking like that, she could be about to tell him anything.

He glanced up at Belle for support, but she was just giving them both a knowing smile. ‘Usual pint of water for Keith too?’ she asked.

‘Yes, please.’

Lucy and Belle made small talk whilst Belle sorted out Keith’s drink. And then Lucy said to Tom, ‘Right, shall we go outside?’

She turned to head towards the door to the pub garden.

‘Holy moly,’ he said, staring at her as she walked in front of him. All he could see was a creamy expanse of bare skin. ‘You didn’t tell me it looked like that at the back.’

She glanced over her bare shoulder at him. ‘Are we having a drink or are you just going to stand there with your tongue hanging out?’

‘Can’t I do both?’ he said, still trying to recover any kind of coherent thought.

In a daze, he followed her to their usual table alongside the picket fence next to the river. The sun was beginning to sink slowly down behind the trees, leaving everything it touched bathed in a golden light.

That included Lucy. He couldn’t stop staring at her as she sat down opposite him. She looked incredible and he had never wanted to kiss her more than at that moment.

‘Cheers,’ said Lucy, clinking her wine glass against his pint of Diet Coke.

‘Cheers,’ said Tom, taking a welcome sip of his drink, suddenly aware of Keith sitting on his feet underneath the table.

‘Right,’ she began, leaning forward to look deep into his eyes. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about and I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it.’

‘OK,’ he said, his mind racing now. Had he upset her in some way? Was he staring at her too much and making her uncomfortable? Did she feel the same way about him as he did about her?

‘It’s aboutThe Cranbridge Times.’

Her words brought him back to his senses. ‘The newspaper?’ he said.

On some level, he was disappointed. She only wanted to talk about work. This wasn’t about the two of them at all.

‘Does it have to be just a newspaper?’ she asked.

He blinked rapidly whilst he tried to understand. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘You once told me that you wanted to make the world a better place. You wanted to bring people together and advise them. Help them, I think you said. That’s why you became a journalist. Well, I think we should do that and more besides.’

‘Aren’t we doing that now?’ he asked, perplexed.

Lucy shook her head. ‘I mean face to face. From what I’ve seen by talking to people when delivering newspapers and in the shops, they want to feel connected to where they live. And that means getting to know other people. Uncle Frank told me how everyone banded together last year during the floods. That was an emergency. But why shouldn’t they do that during the good times as well?’

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Tom, trying to figure out what she was trying to tell him.

‘I’m talking about a creating a community hub,’ she said. ‘I helped out at one for a while in London.’

Tom leant back in his seat. ‘A community hub?’

‘It’s a place for people to gather,’ she told him, her green eyes glittering with enthusiasm. ‘Sometimes they even run courses and projects. It’s not like we’ve not got plenty of space in the office. You could have one half for the newspaper. Your desk, files and all that. But where Molly sits, there’s bags of space on that side. Maybe we could have some hot desks to loan out to people.’

‘And if I’m working in the main room, what happens to my office?’ he asked.

She smiled at him. ‘You seem to prefer working with people around you and spend more time out of there than you do at your desk. So move out into the main area and we could maybe hire out the space to someone who needs it. Like the Mothers and Toddlers group.’

Tom was silent for a moment as he tried to think it all through. ‘Do you know what I’ve missed the most about most of the staff leaving?’ he said eventually. ‘It’s the people. The chatter. With so many more people working from home, I bet they miss it too.’ He was beginning to feel excited about the idea. ‘It might just bring us enough money in so that the newspaper could survive too.’

Lucy nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’