If our story includes a romance, it includes attraction. (Sometimes, it includes attraction even without a romance!) This week, I’m sharing another bit from The Gingerbread Caper, and I’d love for you to share an extract of yours in the comments.

She joined him at the table. “It’s our quiet time, and I was about to stop for a cup of tea myself.” She offered him a plate with pieces of gingerbread cookie and a slightly flattened cupcake. “Milk?”

“A little bit, please and no sugar.” Her physical impact wasn’t lessened by her proximity. He’d been imagining a middle-aged, perhaps even an elderly woman. Someone with white curly hair, comfortably rounded, grandmotherly. Someone he could look at without wanting to fall at her feet, his tongue hanging out.

“You’re Patrick Finch, aren’t you?” she asked, and when he assured her that he was indeed, she opened her eyes very wide, her eyebrows shooting up. “I thought you would be much older.” She tossed ahead, clucking her tongue. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Ms Fotheringham–” Patrick began. She interrupted him. “You had better call me Meg.”

He said his own name, managing to manipulate the aforementioned tongue into the familiar syllables. The question he had been about to ask had to drained from his brain, and receded still further when those lovely eyes — brown with flecks of green — stayed focused on him, a question in their depths.

Before he could compose himself sufficiently to continue, she saved him the trouble. “I should explain that I am not my aunt.” She successfully interpreted the rapid blink with which she greeted this mystifying statement. “My Aunt Margaret owns this bakery and the flats upstairs. She was called away quite unexpectedly, and I am looking after the place for her. There wasn’t time to let you know, and I don’t suppose it makes a difference anyway, as far as you are concerned. In a minute I will show you your flat and leave you to get settled. As Aunt Margaret told you, your meals will be served down here in the tea rooms. Your rent includes all three meals, and morning and afternoon tea.”

Patrick sat there nodding, when what he really wanted to do was shake his head. This was a disaster. He had been sent out of town to convalesce — his doctor and his manager both insisting that if he stayed home he would not be able to resist working. Absolutely no stress, the doctor had said. He had been looking forward to a little mothering from the comfortable elderly lady he had expected. Instead, he was confronted by the finest example he had ever seen of that section of humanity that tied his tongue in knots and turned his feet into weapons of self-destruction.

A young woman. A lovely young woman. “I would like to lie down now,” he told her. His errant imagination, functioning with far greater facility than the rest of him, immediately presented a picture of Meg waiting for him in bed. Scarlet sheets set off her lovely complexion.

“Of course.” The real Meg stood immediately. “Aunt said you have been ill, and it is a long trip from Wellington. What do you do there, Patrick?”

“Senior policy analyst,” he said, shortly. She opened her eyes, wide. “Who for? What do you do?”

“It doesn’t matter.” It wasn’t a secret, but his head was both pounding and attempting to drift around the room. She must have sensed his need, because she dropped the questioning.

“Come this way. Here! Let me take one of those.” She picked up the heaviest of his two suitcases and led the way.

Patrick stumbled after her with the second suitcase, hoping his blush would be gone before she looked at him again, or at the very least she did not guess the thoughts that so embarrassed him. Lust is perfectly normal, he assured himself. As long as you don’t dwell on it or insult the young woman, all shall be well. You have several good books. You can go for long walks.

A door at the front of the shop gave on to a small hall and a bank of stairs. Meg led the way up, which put her jeans-clad behind directly at Patrick’s eyelevel.

I wonder if she has a boyfriend? He shook his head. Of course she does. A woman like this? Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help, Patrick.