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“Matt—”
“Georgia—
“I was going to apologize. Not for kissing you, because I don’t regret it for a moment, but for making you feel uncomfortable.”
She didn’t regret the kiss, either—just the fact of who he’d been, who he was.
“Come round the farm with me.”
“No more kisses?” she challenged, and he smiled, a cockeyed smile that softened the strain in his eyes and made her forget who he was.
“No more kisses,” he said, and his voice was full of teasing regret.
“Okay,” she found herself saying, and wondered if she was quite mad, or if it was Matt’s job to finish sending her round the bend!
Dear Reader,
Do you have the slightest idea what we, the authors, subject ourselves to in the name of research? No, I don’t mean the love scenes! No, I don’t mean delightful, cozy dinners à deux. No, I don’t mean popping down to London for the Chelsea Flower Show and sniffing roses in a country garden.
I mean Fear. Terrifying, paralyzing, mind-numbing fear. Clammy hands. Cold sweat breaking out all over. Adrenaline like you wouldn’t believe. Nausea. For days. Invalidation of life insurance.
And why? Because it has to be Real. Because, in my infinite wisdom, I decided my hero would take my heroine up in a microlight. Hah! Foolish woman. It’s a mistake I won’t repeat, and I doubt she will, either! So, dear reader, please do me a favor. If you don’t suffer from a fear of heights, if you don’t mind sudden, unpredictable movements or handing control of your life to someone you’ve only just met, don’t get motion sick or suffer from panic attacks, spare a thought for those of us who do, and would suffer them anyway, for you, for the sake of authenticity!
I aged ten years the day I went up in a microlight and got to know my weaknesses in intimate detail. I hope you feel it was worth it! Enjoy the book, with my love.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
GEORGIA was exhausted.
She must have walked ten miles round that blasted building site if she’d walked an inch, and if she didn’t get her shoes off soon she thought she was probably going to scream.
She dropped her bag on the table, slid her portfolio into the gap between the seats and sat down with a plop. Then with a sigh of relief she kicked off her shoes under cover of the table.
Bliss! She squirmed her toes and sighed again. Thank goodness it was over, she thought, and stared out at the bustle of the railway station, reliving her fruitless and irritating day.
It wouldn’t have been as bad if the design hadn’t been so far advanced before the client had changed his mind, but no, he’d seen a video of the previous Chelsea Flower Show and been inspired. Could she use more metal? And how about a bigger water feature? Reflective, perhaps—or then maybe not. Perhaps a rill—a little falling streamlet—or better still a waterfall—on a flat site, already horribly over budget!
She’d had her teeth clenched all day so hard her jaws ached. How could the client be so vacillating and still be alive? She would have thought he would have been murdered by now, he was so infuriating!
Still, at least she wouldn’t have to speak to him for a few days. Maybe by then she’d have got her temper back—and maybe her hair wouldn’t be red any more!
She dropped her head back against the prickly cushion and winced. Damn. Hairclip. She squeezed the wings together and opened the wicked jaws of her favourite clip—the Venus fly-trap, she called it, which, with its vicious teeth, was about the only sort man enough to restrain her wild curls.
She shook her head and they broke free and tumbled down her back. Yet again she sighed with relief, and threading her fingers through her hair, she combed it out roughly, then leant back against the cushion again, comfortable this time. At least she had the little table to herself for a moment. No doubt that state of affairs wouldn’t last long, but in the meantime—
She wriggled her feet again, stretched her legs out under the table and propped her heels on the edge of the other seat.
Wonderful. Five minutes like this and she’d stand a chance of feeling human again…
Damn. It was almost full. Still, there was a small table by the window, occupied by a woman with foaming red hair. He chuckled to himself. Occupied, as in taken over completely. A bag as big as a bucket was dominating most of the tabletop, the contents threatening to splurge out—and on the other seat, sticking up like tiny sentinels, were the daintiest, cutest little feet he’d seen in a long time.
She was asleep, her lashes lying in dusky curves on the smooth cream of her cheeks, her mouth soft and rosy and vulnerable. Now in a fairytale, he thought, he would have to wake her with a kiss—
Matthew cleared his throat, pulling himself together. ‘Excuse me. Is this seat taken?’
Her lids flew up, revealing wide green eyes hazed with sleep, and she scrambled back into a sitting position and hooked her feet down, to his disappointment.
‘I’m sorry. No—no, I was just stretching out. I must have dozed off. I’m sorry.’
She was embarrassed, dragging the bag towards her and colouring delicately along those rather interesting cheekbones. Her mouth, a little too wide and slightly vulnerable, curved fleetingly into a wry smile as she pushed the bag down at her feet, red hair tumbling wildly around her head.
Matthew squeezed himself into the space between the seat and the table and tried not to fantasise. He put his briefcase down and flipped it open, pulling out the papers he intended to go over again, then snapped the locks shut and slid it behind his legs. Their feet collided, and apologising, they both withdrew to their own sides again.
‘There’s not much leg-room, is there?’ he said, bizarrely conscious of the warm place under his thigh where her feet had been, but she was staring out of the window again, ignoring him.
Just as well. She had a wedding ring on. If she hadn’t had, he might have persued the conversation, but it was pointless. Pity. She was rather attractive in a fresh and slightly chaotic sort of way.
He settled down to the papers in front of him, trying unsuccessfully to keep his legs to himself. He had to sit with his knees apart to accommodate hers, and the posture was strangely intimate and made him uneasy.
He hated the train. Given the choice he would have driven, but parking in London was a nightmare.
His phone rang, and he answered it absently, dealt with the call then made another, a follow-on call to clear up some of the unanswered questions, all the time trying not to think about that soft, wide mouth and the firm little knees between his own.
Georgia rested her head against the seat-back, closed her eyes and tried not to let her knees drop against his. It was just too—intimate, really, too personal. Too much.
She shifted in her seat, turning towards the window more, and her knee brushed his again.
They murmured apologies and she shifted back, trying not to eavesdrop on his conversation.
It was impossible not to hear, but it didn’t sound all that riveting anyway. Something about political unrest and financial insecurity and government intervention. She looked at him curiously. Arms? Probably plastic document wallets, she thought with a stifled smile—or loo paper.
He had an interesting face but not the face of a criminal. Not conventionally handsome, but somehow attractive. His chin had a little cleft in it, and when he laughed at something the other person said, his eyes creased with humour and she found herself smiling too.
He switched off the phone and put it down, picking up the document on the table and flicking through it, making quick notes in a sharp, jagged hand that fascinated her.
She tried not to stare, but her eyes kept drifting back towards him, to the way the soft lock of hair at the front kept falling forward when he leant over to consult the document. Then he looked up and speared her with those startling ice-blue eyes, and she tried nonchalance for a moment and then dropped her eyes, as guiltily as if she’d been caught with her hand in the biscuit tin.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw his mouth tip in a smile, and colour teased her already warm cheeks. Damn. By the age of thirty she should have learned to control that childish reaction!
She was relieved when the refreshments trolley was wheeled in and she could find something to busy herself. ‘Tea, please. White,’ she said, and fumbled for her purse.
The paper cup was set down in front of her, she was parted from an extortionate amount of change, and the trolley moved on.
She saw he’d bought a bar of chocolate and a can of some gaudy tropical carbonated drink that would strip his teeth of their enamel in minutes and do disgusting things to his insides. She shuttered inwardly and stared out of the window again at the advertising hoardings that towered over the grubby little houses, wedged up cheek by jowl against the railway line, crammed with people trapped in the bowels of the dirty city. She could see into their bedrooms—see the unmade bed in one, someone undressing in another. So little privacy.
She closed her eyes. It was too awful to contemplate. How she’d lived in London at all she found quite incredible, even if it had been Knightsbridge. It held no attraction for her at all now, and she couldn’t wait until she got home and could wash off the grimy smell and change out of her ‘city’ clothes into her jeans and soft, baggy old sweatshirt that said ‘World’s Best Mum’ on it in faded white letters.
She thought longingly of a hot bath and a cold glass of Chablis, followed by some light and delicate dish, something clever with fruit and parma ham, seasoned to perfection and exquisitely presented by a discreet and well-trained slave—
In her dreams! It would probably be frozen pizza again, and no doubt that would have to be slotted in round the children’s homework, sorting out a load of washing and doing a hundred and one other things that working women did that their spouses thought happened almost by accident.
Not that she had a spouse, not any more, thank goodness. Not for ages, now. Three years. It seemed much longer since her reprieve.
People had commiserated with her when Brian had died, and been puzzled when she hadn’t been heartbroken. All except her closest friends, who’d had an inkling of their unhappiness.
Georgia snorted softly. They hadn’t known the half of it.
Still, it was over now, over and done with and well behind them. She had a career to be proud of, a lovely house, two gorgeous children that she adored, and the rest of her life to look forward to.
Strange, then, how sitting with her knees between the warm, hard legs of a personable man made her so painfully aware of the emptiness that lingered in the shadows of her crowded and busy life.
She shifted further back on the seat, drawing her legs towards her and away from him, away from temptation and all that wicked sex appeal that she would do well to ignore…
She’d gone to sleep again, her legs falling against his as she relaxed, making him inescapably aware of the soft warmth of her knees pressed against the inside of his thigh.
Still, it gave him a chance to study her without fear of being caught, and as he did so, something teased at the back of his mind. Some occasion when they’d met, but he couldn’t place where. She’d been unhappy, though. He could remember those beautiful green eyes welling with tears—and his anger. He remembered the anger, the frustration of not being able to help her, but nothing more.
He tried again, but the memory was too elusive. It was too long ago, too insignificant an event to have registered.
A muffled electronic jingle gradually penetrated his awareness, and Matthew leant forwards and shook her arm gently. ‘Excuse me—is that your phone?’
Her eyes flew open and she sat up, her knees withdrawing from his as she scrambled for her bag under the seat. The hideous noise grew louder and she came up flushed and triumphant, phone in hand, and pressed a button, flashing him a smile of thanks that did strange and unexpected things to his heartrate.
‘Hello? Joe? Hello, darling. Are you all right?’
Her voice was soft, warm and rich and slightly deeper than he’d expected. A little husky.
Sexy.
Oh, hell. He wondered who Joe was, and tried not to eavesdrop. Fat chance in those close confines. There wasn’t much to glean, anyway. It was all trivial household stuff—probably her other half asking the ‘What’s for supper?’ question.
He wondered if she knew how her voice softened as she spoke, and wished he had someone to call who would respond so warmly.
‘You’re losing it, Fraser’ he told himself.
The journey was endless. They sat outside Chelmsford for half an hour, held up by a broken-down train ahead of them, and then finally pulled into Ipswich station three quarters of an hour late.
The train lurched as it came out of the tunnel, sending the dregs of her tea cascading towards her. With a startled shriek she leapt up, swiping wildly at the spreading stain on her skirt, and he stood up and blotted her with an immaculate linen handkerchief.
The feel of his hand against her thigh made her blush, and grabbing the handkerchief from him she gave the wet patch a couple more swipes and then handed it back. ‘Thank you,’ she said, kicking herself for sounding breathless and sixteen and totally out of control.
He smiled, the crinkling of his eyes softening the strangely icy colour, warming it.
‘My pleasure. Are you getting off here?’
She nodded, her feet chasing round under the table after her shoes, and finally locating them as the train eased to a much more civilised halt. ‘Yes, I am. Oh, where’s my portfolio?’
She pulled it out from between the seats, scooped up her bag and phone and left, vaguely aware of him following suit in a much more orderly and dignified fashion.
Georgia was past being dignified. Her skirt was soaked, her feet hurt, her baby-sitter would be edging towards the door and Joe and Lucy would be vile by now.
And if her client hadn’t fiddled about and changed his mind for the hundredth time, she would have been on the earlier train and in the bath by now! She ran down the platform and over the bridge, out of the doors and across the road to the car park, fumbling for her keys.
Aha! Finally locating them as she arrived at the car, she let herself in, started the engine and pulled away into the evening traffic. Ten minutes and she could have the wine, if not the bath, the gourmet dinner and the slave! She whipped round the inner ring road, out into the country, and was just turning into her lane when an orchestra struck up in her bag.
She stared at it dumbstruck for a second, then pulling over, she rooted about for the source of the noise and came up with her phone.
No, not her phone. His phone. Hers absolutely never spouted classical music!
She pressed a button and held it cautiously to her ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh—hi. It’s Simon here—can I speak to Matt, please?’
She stared at the phone in horror. ‘Um—Matt’s not here. He’s—’ Where on earth was he? ‘Um—he’s busy. Can I get him to call you?’
‘Sure—he knows the number. Oh, and tell him it’s about time.’ And with a chuckle, he cut off and left Georgia staring at the phone. With a shrug, she keyed in her own phone number, and waited…
‘What the hell?’
A familiar and ghastly electronic jingle erupted from his jacket, and as if it were red-hot, he drew into the side of the road and pulled the phone out of his pocket, staring at it suspiciously. ‘Hello?’
‘You’ve got my phone,’ her voice said.
He held the thing away from his face and looked at it, blinking. ‘I have?’ he said. It looked exactly like his own.
‘Yes—and I’ve got yours. They must have got muddled up in the train.’
In the shower of tea, more like. He smiled. ‘Ah—apparently. So what are we going to do about it?’
‘Well, I can’t do anything at the moment,’ she said a little crossly. ‘I’m already late home and my babysitter will be having kittens. Can you make do with mine until tomorrow?’
‘Or I could come to you,’ he suggested, wondering at the eagerness he felt surging in him at the thought. She hadn’t sounded exactly inviting. ‘I expect I’ll get all sorts of calls—it’ll irritate you to death,’ he added, piling on the ammunition.
‘Simon already rang,’ she told him. ‘He said to tell you it’s about time, and can you ring him?’
Simon? About time? About time for what? The only thing his friend ever got on to him about was his single status—and a woman had answered his phone. He groaned inwardly and tried again.
‘So—shall I come to you?’
‘Would you?’
‘Sure.’ He jotted down the address, noted with interest that it was only a few miles from him along the lanes, and pulling out into the traffic, he changed direction and cut across country towards Henfield. He hadn’t had anything else planned for the evening because he’d expected to be in London for longer—it might be rather fun to see where she lived, see if it matched up with the image he had of her.
The word ‘babysitter’ niggled at him, but he ignored it. She had a wedding ring on anyway, so he knew she was out of reach. That wasn’t the point.
He chuckled wryly. He wasn’t sure exactly what the point was, but he was almost sure he was wasting his energy thinking about her. If only he could remember more about the first time he’d met her, but he couldn’t. He might even have been mistaken, but he doubted it. He didn’t usually forget faces or names.
And anyway, he didn’t even know her name. Maybe when he did it would fill in the blanks…
‘Anna’s gone home,’ Joe told her, opening the door and scowling at her as she kissed his cheek. ‘Jenny’s here instead—she said she knew she was early but she’s going to help you get ready. Do you have to go out again?’ he tacked on accusingly.
She stared at her son in horror. ‘Go out? I’m not going out!’
‘Oh, yes you are. The Hospice Charity auction,’ her neighbour reminded her, appearing over Joe’s head in the crowded little hall.
Georgia sagged against the door and wailed. ‘I’m so tired,’ she whimpered. ‘I just want a nice cold glass of wine and a little bit of oblivion. Jenny, I can’t go!’
‘Oh, yes, you can. Go and run the bath, and I’ll bring you the glass of wine. You can drink it while you think about what to wear.’
Georgia dropped her folio in the corner of the hall, kicked off her shoes and headed for the stairs. ‘Where’s Lucy?’
‘In the sitting room, asleep. She was tired but she refused to go to bed till she’d seen you in your party dress.’
‘Oh, damn,’ she said very, very softly, and went upstairs, defeated. Absolutely the last thing she needed was this charity auction, but she’d volunteered her services, and she had to go to be auctioned.
Although why they couldn’t just auction her in her absence she couldn’t imagine. It was her services they were selling, not her body! Still, they wanted her to go along, so she would go.
She ran the bath, threw in a handful of rejuvenating bath salts, contemplated chucking in the rest of the bag and thought better of it. Since she’d remembered to fill up the water softener, she had enough trouble washing the soap off, without adding to the problem!
Jenny passed a glass of wine through the bathroom door, and she sank into the hot bubbly water, took a gulp of the wine and rested her head against the end. Bliss. If only she could stay there all night…!
Well, he was wrong about the house, anyway. He’d expected a chaotic, colourful little cottage, or a farmhouse down a quiet track. Instead, it was a modest, modern detached house set quietly in Church Lane, and the only thing about it that fitted with his image of her was the garden. It was gorgeous, a riot of unruly colour and texture, a real English cottage garden. That, definitely, was her.
He parked the car, walked up the path to the front door and rang the bell.
‘I’ll get it,’ a voice yelled over thundering footsteps, and the door was yanked open by a young lad of about eight or nine. He had brown hair, mischievous green eyes and the same mouth as his mother. ‘Yes?’ he said abruptly.
‘Um—is your mother in?’ Matt felt suddenly foolish. Not knowing her name made him feel awkward, a bit of a charlatan. He held the phone out. ‘We got our phones muddled in the train—I arranged to come and swap them.’
‘Oh. She’s in the bath. You’d better come in. I’ll tell her.’
And abandoning the door, he left Matt on the step and ran upstairs. Matt followed as far as the hall, then waited. A small girl appeared, her head topped with a brighter version of her mother’s curls, and eyed him curiously, her head tipped on one side as she dangled round the door frame, swinging backwards and forwards like a human gate.
‘Hello. I’m Matthew,’ he told her. ‘I’m here to see your mother.’
She took her thumb out of her mouth and smiled gappily. ‘I’m Luthy,’ she lisped. ‘Mummy’th going out—she’th going to wear a party dreth. I’m thtaying up to thee it.’
Matt worked his way through the lisp to decipher the underlying words, and wondered if he would be able to delay long enough to see Mummy in her party dress, too.
The boy thundered downstairs and skidded to a halt. ‘Mum says come and sit down, she’ll be out in a minute.’
‘Well,’ Matt said, ‘perhaps your father—’
‘He’s dead,’ they chorused, apparently unmoved.
‘Ah.’ Matt trailed obediently after them into a scene of utter chaos. The cushions had been taken off the furniture and stacked like a house of cards, to make a sort of den behind the big settee. The chairs had been shoved every which way, and the curtains had been dragged out from the windows to drape over the top, so that they hung at a crazy angle.
‘Oops,’ said the boy, and grabbing cushions, he began piling them haphazardly onto the furniture. Matt helped, discreetly turning cushions round so the zips were at the back and they went into the right place.
It reminded him of his childhood. How many times had he done that? And how many times had he been skinned for it? He hid a smile and straightened the curtains, just as the woman appeared in the doorway, her hair twisted up in a towel, her feet bare, an ancient towelling robe hastily dragged on and belted with symbolic firmness.
She looked impossibly young to be the mother of these two little scamps—young and vulnerable and freshly scrubbed. His heart beat a slow, steady rhythm, strong and powerful. Lord, she was lovely.
‘Hi again,’ she said.
‘Hi.’ His voice sounded rough and scratchy. He tried again. ‘Sorry to come at a bad time—’
‘That’s all right. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be going out.’
‘Somewhere nice?’ he asked, although it was none of his business, but she wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
‘Not really. It’s a charity auction for the hospice.’
Guilt prickled at him. He’d been invited and had turned it down because he hadn’t expected to be back early enough. Perhaps he ought to go anyway—and he could see her, of course. Not that that had anything to do with why he wanted to go, of course!