But she found herself prevaricating. ‘What other stuff?’
Suze made a wide gesture, embracing the whole world of romance. ‘Hanging together. Holidays. Giving each other breakfast in bed with the newspapers on Sunday morning.’
Zoe changed the ladder to her other side. It was quite unnecessary. The thing was not heavy. But it meant she didn’t have to answer.
Not that it mattered. When Suze was into one of her ‘Why You Ought to Live Like I Say’ homilies, she was impossible to deflect anyway.
‘I mean, with Simon you knew where you were. He’s practical, too.’ A thought struck her. ‘And we were relying on him to pick up the booze, weren’t we?’
‘It’s being delivered,’ said Zoe hastily.
‘I should have known you’d get it sorted.’ Suze shook her head. ‘What did he do, poor guy? Ask you to marry him?’
‘Marry him? Of course not. I’ve only known him a couple of months.’
‘Quite,’ said Suze dryly. ‘But men do seem to see you as settling down material. God knows why, with your record.’
The budding garden smelt of honey in the still afternoon sun. Zoe could not face spoiling it, after all. She would just have to wait for another opportunity.
She felt her coping mask twitch into place. The Zoe who could handle anything and make a joke of it, too. Privately she called it Performance Zoe.
‘It’s my cooking,’ she said lightly. ‘Ever since Gran taught me how to make bread and butter pudding I haven’t been able to get men out of my hair.’ She manoeuvred the ladder down a flight of four stone steps without difficulty and went to the battered garden shed. ‘Can you open the door, please?’
Suze did. But, ‘It’s more than bread and butter pudding,’ she said darkly.
Zoe disappeared inside. Various planks of the shed were rotting, and the tools were ancient, but it was painfully tidy. She hung the ladder on its allotted hook.
‘I doubt it,’ she said from the depths.
The house had been built on the side of a hill. As a result the garden was arranged into three wide terraces. The orchard was at the top, but this middle terrace was the largest, with a lawn and flowerbeds full of old cottage flowers. Bees buzzed among headily scented low-growing pinks. Suze flung herself down on the grass and stuffed her nose into a small grey plant with white flowers.
‘Heaven,’ she said dreamily. ‘I suppose you do all the garden as well? No, don’t answer that.’
Zoe emerged from the shed. ‘What?’
Suze rolled over on her back, heedless of grass stains and creases on her expensive navy skirt. She looked up at her friend lazily. ‘Come on, Zo. You know what a hot babe you are. Bread and butter pudding is just a bonus.’
Zoe sank down beside her and started plucking at the grass. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s true,’ said Suze dispassionately. ‘Men drool and women weep. If you weren’t my best friend I’d have put out a contract on you by now.’
Zoe picked a daisy out of the lawn and threw it at her. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘I might. If you got your claws into one of my men.’
There was something in Suze’s voice that startled Zoe. She stopped pulling at grass stalks and looked at her friend, shocked. ‘I would never do that.’
‘You wouldn’t have to,’ said Suze dispassionately. ‘It must be pheromones or something. All you have to do is turn up somewhere on your own and—wham!’
‘Wham?’ Even Performance Zoe blinked at that. ‘Get real, Suze.’
Suze sat up and linked her arms round her knees. ‘It’s real enough. Men—some men, anyway—take one look at you and go weak at the knees.’
‘Hey, I’m not that special. I’m not even beautiful.’
‘I know you’re not,’ her friend said candidly. ‘But there’s something about you.’
‘Pu-lease—’ said Zoe. She tried to joke but she was unnerved all the same.
‘There is,’ Suze insisted. ‘I’ve seen it, again and again.’ She rested her chin on her clasped knees, thoughtful. ‘At first I thought it was because you didn’t try as hard as the rest of us. I mean, your clothes were okay, but you always looked as if you’d scrambled into them at the last moment before going out. I said that to David once.’