CHAPTER ONE
Saffron flopped back down on the plastic chair at the roadside café and grinned at the elderly lady seated at the opposite side of the table. 'I've paid the bill and asked the proprietor to call us a taxi, it's half six and we have to be back on board by seven.'
'Don't fuss, child, and finish your wine.'
'Your wish is my command,' she quipped. 'But remember that is your third glass. Don't blame me if your arthritis plays up later on.' And with a wry smile tugging her wide mouth Saffron picked up her glass and sipped the sparkling wine. She hadn't the heart to deny Anna a few moments longer at the café is the ancient walled town of Rhodes. A café Anna had spent hours trying to find.
'What was so important about this particular place?' Saffron asked for the umpteenth time, but not really expecting an answer. Anna had been very secretive about the reason behind her search for tins café, but Saffron wasn't complaining.
A month ago she had been working as a beauty and aromatherapist for a London agency that provided a personal service to clients in their own homes, and also to a few of the more enlightened city hospitals, when a request for a home visit from Anna Statis's doctor had arrived. The lady had had a fall and badly braised her shoulder, which, combined with arthritis in her knee, had left her in a little difficulty with mobility. He had considered that aromatherapy might help her. Saffron was given the job. Ten days later she had a six-month contract as Anna's personal therapist, and for the past week they had been cruising the Greek Islands on the liner the Pailas Corinthian. Life could not be more perfect. Saffron sighed in contentment, and raised her glass to her lips.
They had just spent an enjoyable afternoon walking around Rhodes, discovering the Street of the Knights and marvelling at the inns that housed the Knights of St John. Then finally they had found this small bar, much to Anna's delight and Saffron's relief; she did not want the old lady overtired.
'My son was conceived here.'
'What?' Saffron jerked upright and swallowed the wine, almost choking with laughter. 'You're having me on. In a pavement café?' Her sparkling green eyes clashed with misty blue ones.
'It is true. I was a dancer on a cruise ship. Very daring for a well brought up English girl in my era. The ship visited Rhodes regularly and I met and fell in love with a handsome Greek, Nikos Statis, and in a room above this café my son Alexandres was conceived forty years age- this week.'
Saffron glanced at her employer, not sure whether to believe her. In her mid-sixties, her once blonde hair, now white, was swept up in a loose chignon, revealing the delicate features of a still beautiful face, but a sad, reminiscent, smile hazed ber blue eyes.
'And now you're back again. How romantic,' Saffron murmured. But privately she had her doubts., Within a week of taking up her live-in job as Anna's therapist she had watched in awe as the old lady had persuaded her doctor that what she needed to make a quick recovery was a cruise! Anna might look fragüe, but she had an amazing ability to get ter own way.
'Romantic! I thought so at the time,' Anna continued softly. "But I was wrong—so wrong.'
Saffron was intrigued and, eager to hear more, prompted, 'Wrong...?'
'Some day I will tell you my life story. I feel the need to tell someone, and in the short time we have been together I feel closer to you than I have to anyone in years. Probably because you have been on your own and lonely most of your life and so have I.'
'But you have a son,' Anna was always talking about him, but he neglected the woman shamefully. As far as Saffron was aware he had never so much as called his mother since she had started working for Anna.
'Yes, true.'
Obviously they were not close. A typical selfish, male, Saffron thought, but at that moment a taxi drew up at the kerb, and she knew any further revelations would have to wait.
Anna drained her glass and in a lightning mood change grinned. 'Finding this place today has helped me to lay some ghosts. But now we'd better malie tracks, hmm?'
'Yes,' Saffron agreed and, standing up, she added with a smile, 'I'm glad we found your café. You do look more content.'
'Content! Yes, do you know I really think I am? Thank you, Saffy.'
With a tender glance at her boss, Saffron swung her shoulder-bag over her shoulder and gently put a hand under a frail elbow, helping Anna to her feet. She waited and watched as the other woman gave one last lingering look at the top floor oí the building and was just about to help ter iato the car when to Saffron's astonishment someone yelled, 'Get the hell out of the way!' and grabbed the step of her bag, hard fingers scraping her bare flesh.