Her Boss and Protector

Callum’s features were impassive. She had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. He probably had her down as the worst housekeeper in the Cotswolds. The children stared up at him, open-mouthed. Connor was the first to recover, and looked up at him, his eyes dark with suspicion. ‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘I’m the man who lives next door,’ Callum answered.

‘In the big house?’ Rebeccah asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘No one lives there,’ Connor said doubtfully, still giving him that mistrustful look. ‘Is you a ghost?’

‘I don’t think so. At least, I wasn’t the last time I looked in the mirror,’ Callum answered, straight-faced. Seeing the children’s worried expressions, he quickly added, ‘No, I’m not. I’ve been away from home for a while, but now I’ve come back.’

Connor was clearly still unconvinced, and Jade said, ‘This is the man who was trying to talk to you in the garden. He’s not cross with you, and there’s no need for you to be frightened.’ She hoped that was true. She glanced at her neighbour, her expression willing him to agree with her.

‘That’s right,’ he murmured, but when he looked back at her niece and nephew his expression was serious, and Jade began to wonder whether he had ever had much contact with children. These two were a handful, to be sure, but his manner with them was verging on cool. ‘I do want a word with you, though,’ he said. ‘I think you have something of mine, don’t you? I would like to have it back.’

Jade stared at him. ‘I don’t understand. I didn’t see them take anything.’

His gaze flicked over her, skimming her jeans-clad figure and taking in the snug fit of her cotton top. ‘Perhaps that’s because you weren’t taking too much notice of what they were getting up to.’ He kept his voice low, but his tone was curt, condemning, and her mouth quivered slightly at the unfair criticism.

He turned back to the children. ‘When you leaned over to look at the tree, I think one of the branches broke off, didn’t it? Did you pick up the little birdhouse and feeder that was attached to the branch? It’s important to me. It belonged to someone who was in my family, and I wouldn’t like to lose it.’

Connor gave him a sombre look, but said nothing, and Jade guessed that he was too overwhelmed by the presence of this tall stranger to admit to anything. Rebeccah, wanting to do the right thing, spoke up for both of them. ‘We didn’t mean to take it. We just wanted to look at it.’

‘Do you still have it? It belonged to my grandparents, and it’s very precious to me. I would like to have it back.’

Jade decided that it was time to take control of the situation. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ she told him. ‘I had no idea that this happened, but I’m sure they meant no harm. They’re a little overexcited today.’

‘Yes,’ he said in a dour tone, ‘I gathered that.’

She ignored the implied censure. Glancing at Connor, she said, ‘Do you know where the birdhouse is?’

He nodded solemnly.

‘Then go and fetch it for me, please.’

He did as he was told, but hesitated before handing over the bird box. He held onto the branch from the tree, looking up at Jade. ‘Can I keep the stick?’ he said. ‘It’s a well good whacker.’

Stifling a smile, she said, ‘That’s up to Mr Beresford, I think.’ She sent her new neighbour a quick glance. ‘What do you think?’

He looked at the boy. ‘I imagine that will be all right,’ he said, ‘as long as you promise that you won’t go breaking anything with it. I don’t want to look out from my house and find that you’ve smashed a window or broken down the plants in the garden.’

‘It’s not up to you,’ Connor said. ‘We live here. It’s not your garden.’

Callum made a wry face. ‘Actually, it is, in a way. I’m your landlord. Do you know what that means?’

Connor shook his head, giving him an uncertain look.

‘It means that the house belongs to me, but I’m letting you live in it for a while. I want you to enjoy staying here, but there’s to be no more climbing on the shed. It’s dangerous, and you could hurt yourself. Do we understand each other?’

Connor nodded.

‘Good. Then perhaps we can be friends.’

Connor clearly wasn’t so sure about that. It was something he would have to think about. Giving the stranger a look from under his lashes, he sidled away, putting the stick in a safe place in a gap between the side of the fridge and the kitchen wall. He probably thought Callum wouldn’t bother trying to remove it from there.

Going over to the kitten, Connor coaxed it up into his arms. Then he stood and watched the man from a corner of the room, silently weighing him up, until Rebeccah whispered to him and led him outside.

Jade studied her new neighbour. ‘I didn’t realise that you owned both properties,’ she said. ‘I hope that’s not going to be a problem while I’m living here. I prefer to deal with the children in my own way, and if you have any issues with them I would rather you spoke to me about them than to them.’

He nodded. ‘That’s fair enough. At least now we both know where we stand.’ He picked up the birdhouse and feeder. ‘I’m glad that we’ve had the chance to talk,’ he said, ‘but I should go now. I have a lot of things to be getting on with.’

She nodded and started to move towards the hallway.

‘You don’t need to trouble yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ He glanced towards the garden. ‘I expect you’ll want to go and keep an eye on the children.’

‘They’ll be fine,’ she murmured. She went to the front door. Opening it, she said, ‘I’m sorry that we had such a bad start, but I’m sure you won’t have any cause for complaint from now on.’ She fervently hoped that was true. The last thing she needed was to be embroiled in a battle with her landlord.

He gave a brief smile. ‘I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.’

As soon as he had gone, she went back to the kitchen. The children were playing with the kitten on the lawn, and she watched them, thinking about her mother and her sister-in-law, and feeling sad inside for everything that had happened. She was all that the children had for the moment, and she would do all in her power to see that they were safe and happy.

Picking up the phone, she called the hospital and asked for news. The encounter with Callum Beresford had unsettled her, but she had to let it go. She had enough problems on her plate, without worrying about her dealings with her aloof, unsociable neighbour. She would try to put him out of her thoughts, and with any luck they would be able to avoid running into each other for the foreseeable future.

CHAPTER TWO

‘CONNOR—put the kitten down and start getting dressed for school, please. We need to hurry up.’ Jade was becoming increasingly anxious about the way time was slipping away from her. Looking after children was an entirely new thing for her, an undertaking that was strewn with pitfalls, and so far, no matter how efficiently she had tried to organise things, nothing seemed to be going right.

Added to that, she was supposed to make a start in A and E that morning and she was desperate for everything to go well. It wouldn’t do to be late on her first day, would it? Despite her nervousness, she wanted to make a good impression.

She recalled the first meeting with her new boss—at her interview just a short time ago—when she had quickly learned to respect him for his obvious skill and experience. Mr Ramsay, the consultant, was an older man, in his fifties, she guessed, a kindly, thoughtful man, and she didn’t want to let him down. They had got on well together, and she felt that he would be supportive, but it was still up to her to give of her best.

‘As soon as you’re both dressed, I want you to go downstairs and get your breakfast. I put some cereal out in your bowls but then I found out that there’s not enough milk, so you’ll have to leave those and eat the toast I’ve made for you instead.’ She hadn’t realised that Connor had been busy filling up the kitten’s saucer at regular intervals, and it was too late now to go and get fresh milk.

‘Can we keep the kitten?’ Rebeccah asked, picking it up as it escaped Connor’s clutches.

‘I don’t know.’ Jade made a face. ‘I know how much you both like him, but we don’t know where he’s come from. We’ll keep him for now, to make sure that he’s safe, but I’ll have to put some notices out to see if someone’s looking for him. He might belong to another family.’

Rebeccah wasn’t deterred. ‘But if no one comes for him, he might get to stay with us for always,’ she said, smiling happily.

‘Perhaps, but don’t get your hopes up too much. His real family might be missing him.’ She glanced at Rebeccah, who was nearly dressed. ‘You’re doing very well,’ she said. ‘I want to go and have a quick shower—I’ll be five minutes, that’s all. Will you take Connor downstairs and make sure he gets his breakfast? I should be down before you’ve finished.’

Rebeccah nodded, looking older and wiser than her tender years. ‘Mummy always asks me to help get Connor ready. He’s not very good, you know. He takes ages to get his clothes on because he always stops to play with his toys.’

Jade made a wry smile. ‘I’d noticed that.’ She made sure that the children had finished getting dressed, and then went to the bathroom. Ideally, she wanted to sit down with the children and have breakfast with them, but things were running away from her this morning. Instead, she took the quickest shower she’d ever had and then hurried downstairs. To her relief, she found that the children were sitting at the kitchen table, munching away at their toast and also at their breakfast cereal.

‘Are you fetching us from school today?’ Connor asked. He looked up at her, his mouth smeared with a creamy white covering of milk, and Jade frowned, wondering where that had come from.

‘No, your mummy’s friend, Libby, is going to meet you when school finishes, and she said that she’ll look after you until I come home from work. You’ll be able to play with her children, won’t you? I expect you’ll like that.’