Page 6 of The Village of Lost and Found

Finally, she sat down and looked up to find Tom studying her.

‘How’s Frank?’ he asked.

‘Much better, thanks,’ she told him. ‘He’s hoping to be discharged tomorrow. I’m heading over to see him this afternoon.’

He nodded. ‘Good, good.’ But he seemed a little distracted. ‘I’m sorry, but have we met?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Her visits to Cranbridge had dwindled over the past year due to her parents pressurising her to prioritise work over everything else and she had barely left Uncle Frank’s bungalow on the rare times she had come to see him.

He frowned. ‘And yet your face seems familiar to me.’

Lucy shuffled awkwardly in her seat, hoping that she didn’t have to reveal what had happened to her during the past week. But, to her horror, there was a recent tabloid newspaper on the desk between them with her photograph splashed on the front page.

She looked up quickly at Tom to find him following her gaze onto the same newspaper. Then he stared back up at her incredulously.

‘That’s you?’ he said.

She shrugged her shoulders as carelessly as she could. ‘That’s me,’ she replied, with a small smile. ‘I’m this week’s front-page news unfortunately.’

Tom was still studying her with his blue eyes. ‘Hoping to become fish and chip shop wrapping by the weekend, eh?’ he said, finally.

She sighed. ‘For the record, I didn’t know he was married.’ She paused. ‘Off the record, he’s also an absolute pig and I wish I’d never laid eyes on him.’

‘Right. I see.’ Tom cleared his voice. ‘And you’d like a job here atThe Cranbridge Times?’

‘No. Not really.’ Lucy thought honesty was the best policy at that point.

Tom laughed, once more shocked. ‘You don’t want a job?’ he asked.

‘Well, yes, I need money to live on and I’m out of work at the moment, but hopefully that’s only a temporary state of affairs,’ she told him. ‘I’m just going to be staying with Uncle Frank for a week or so whilst he gets back on his feet.’

‘I see.’ Tom blew out a long sigh, looking perplexed. ‘So why am I meeting with you?’

‘I think Uncle Frank was just trying to help me out,’ she told him, with a smile. ‘I mean, I’m a hard worker, but I have no experience in working on a newspaper. I’ve only ever had various admin roles at my parents’ firm. In fact, I don’t really have any skills to speak of.’

His eyebrows rose up at that statement. ‘Is this your normal interview technique?’ he asked, a smile playing on his lips. ‘To tell your potential employer how bad you would be at the job?’

She laughed. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever worked for my parents. Look, I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. But I have nothing to offer that could possibly help you out. I mean, the best I could do is probably tidy up the place a bit. But that’s it.’

He continued to study her in silence until she shuffled awkwardly in her seat, which seemed to break the spell.

‘I may regret this, but OK,’ said Tom, standing up and coming around the desk. ‘The job is yours if you want it, starting Monday 9 a.m. sharp.’

She stood up. ‘I don’t understand,’ she told him. ‘What job? What would I be doing?’

‘Tidying up the place a bit,’ he said, repeating her words. ‘Think of it as a favour to Frank. And it probably wouldn’t do the place any harm either. So what do you say? We’ll just take it on a week-by-week basis, all right?’

Lucy was so shocked that she nodded dumbly. ‘Er, OK,’ she finally said.

Tom broke into a grin. ‘Well, that wasn’t so hard, was it? And you didn’t even have to take your top off.’

With that, he walked out into the main office.

Lucy followed him in somewhat of a daze. She had told Tom that she didn’t want a job. He didn’t appear to have a job for her. And yet, she was going to start working forThe Cranbridge Timeson Monday morning.

She wasn’t sure quite what had happened, but at least Uncle Frank would be happy that she had some kind of temporary work, she thought. It would probably only last a week or so.