Evan and Elle Read Free

barmaid’s face lit up as she spotted Evan.
“Noswaith dda, Evan bach!”
    Heads turned in their direction.
    “We were wondering where you’d got to, Evan
bach,
” Charlie Hopkins called. “It’s not like you to miss opening time. Betsy was all set to send out a search party . . .”
    “I was not!” Betsy said, her cheeks flushing. Evan was startled to see that Betsy’s hair was a dark, rich auburn color this evening. Ever since she had almost been seduced by a famous opera singer who liked his women dark she had beenexperimenting with hair color. She was also wearing a leopard print velour tank top with a low scooped neckline. The result was disconcerting, to say the least.
    “I know very well that Evan Evans can take care of himself,” Betsy went on, giving him a challenging smile. “I mean, he’s built for it, isn’t he?”
    “Unless he managed to find himself trapped by you someday,” Charlie Hopkins said, and his skinny body shook with soundless mirth, revealing missing front teeth. “I’d like to see him fight his way out of that!”
    Betsy smoothed down her tank top, pulling the low neckline to an almost X-rated level. “When I manage to get Evan Evans alone, he won’t want to fight his way out!” she announced to the assembled crowd. “And it won’t be bird-watching that will keep us busy, either . . . unless I decide to go ahead with those tattoos I’ve been thinking about.”
    The low ceiling echoed back the laughter. Evan gave a good-natured grin and decided there was nothing he could say that Betsy wouldn’t take as encouragement.
    “So what will it be tonight, Evan
bach?
Your usual Guinness?”
    “I think I’ll join Mr. Owens-the-Sheep and have a Robinson’s tonight,” Evan said. “I’ve worked up a powerful thirst.”
    Betsy’s hands deftly drew two pints of Robinson’s bitter with just the right amount of froth on top. “Here, get those down you, and then you can tell us where you’ve been.”
    “I told you he went out climbing today,” Roberts-the-Pump said. “I saw him heading for Glyder Fawr.”
    There was nothing that escaped the Llanfair bush telegraph.
    “I heard that Bronwen Price had a teachers’ meeting at the university in Bangor,” Evans-the-Milk said with a knowing wink.
    “Bronwen-bloody-Price!” Betsy muttered and set down a pint glass none too gently. Evan loosened his collar. It really was warm in here tonight.
    “Young Betsy was dying for you to come back, Evan,” Charlie Hopkins said, “so that you could invite her to the new French restaurant.”
    Betsy gave Evan a challenging smile. “I wouldn’t say no to an evening with Evan Evans, but I don’t fancy a French restaurant, thank you. They eat snails and frog’s legs, don’t they—and little birds with the heads still on them . . .”
    There was a mixed expression of disgust and laughter from the crowd.
    “They do,” she insisted. “I saw a travel program once on the telly.”
    “Just a minute—what French restaurant are we talking about?” Evan interrupted.
    “The new one that’s opening in the old chapel above Nant Peris,” Charlie Hopkins said. “Reverend Parry Davies spotted it this afternoon, didn’t you, Reverend?”
    “Indeed I did, Mr. Hopkins. It made my blood boil to see a house of the Lord turned into a den of iniquity.” The voice came from a table in a darkened corner. Unlike his counterpart at Chapel Beulah, Reverend Parry Davies was not above an occasional pint at the pub—so that my congregationknows I am human, was how he explained it. In fact he often took the back exit from the chapel and the back path to the Red Dragon with other male members of his congregation on Sunday nights.
    “It’s a restaurant, Reverend,” Evans-the-Milk pointed out, “Not a brothel.”
    “How do you know, boyo?” Barry-the-Bucket, the young bulldozer driver, chuckled. “It might be a front. I think I’d better go and check it out for myself, anyway. Chez Yvette, I like the