Her Ideal Husband

He didn’t, of course.

Clover had found the football in a carrier hooked over a branch of the apple tree first thing that morning. And resting on top of the football had been a large chip punnet full of strawberries.

Dee’s eyes narrowed. ‘A neighbour? What neighbour?’ Her sister’s scrutiny only made things worse. ‘I thought you were the one who handed out all the garden goodies around here.’ Then, ‘Are you blushing?’

Stacey covered her cheeks with her hands. ‘Don’t be silly, it’s just the heat,’ she said, quickly. ‘And I’ve been thinking…’

‘Thinking?’ Dee raised her brows.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Stacey repeated, ignoring her sister’s sarcastic response, ‘about letting out one of my rooms to a student. What do you think?’

Stacey knew exactly what her sister would think, but she needed to change the subject, fast.

‘I think you should put the house on the market and sell it for whatever you can get while the sun’s shining. With luck prospective buyers will be so busy reminiscing about the last time they saw a dog rose, they won’t notice that the paintwork’s peeling and the gutters are falling apart.’ She paused. ‘Cutting the grass might help.’

‘If I took in a couple of students,’ Stacey said, ignoring the sarcasm, ‘my financial circumstances would improve, I would be able to get the house into shape and then, if I decide to sell…when,’ she amended, quickly, before Dee could launch forth on the subject, ‘when I sell, I’ll get a better price.’

‘You’ve been saying that since Mike died.’

‘I know. But there’s a lot to do.’

‘I won’t argue with that.’ Then she shrugged. ‘All right, I’m through nagging for today.’ She stood up. ‘I think you’re mad, but we might as well have a look at what you’ve got to offer.’

Dee was shaking her head over the lack of tiling in the bathroom when Stacey saw Nash on the far side of the wall. He was shifting a heavy wheelbarrow full of rubbish in the direction of a faint curl of smoke; the sun glinting off his sweat-slicked skin, the hard curve of well-developed biceps. As if he’d felt her gaze on him he turned, looked up and their eyes seemed to lock...

‘Actually, you’ve got a point,’ she said, quickly, easing her sister out of the bathroom. She knew exactly what Dee would have to say about Nash Gallagher. He was temptation on legs and she’d fallen once before. ‘I always take care about splashing, but I can’t expect anyone else to bother.’ She threw one last, lingering glance out of the window. ‘I’ll see to it. Will you put a card on the notice board at the university for me on the way home?’

‘If you insist. Maybe you should put a card up in the village shop, too. Or even an ad in the paper. Or…’ Dee remembered that she had other plans for Stacey.

‘Or marry Lawrence and never worry about money again?’ Dee didn’t deny it. ‘What makes you think he’d want to marry me? I’m hardly a prize catch for a man in his position. Even supposing I’d consider marrying a man for his money.’ Her sister, infuriatingly, just smiled, and it occurred to Stacey that she wasn’t the only one being set up. She might actually have felt some sympathy with Lawrence as a fellow victim of her sister’s matchmaking plans, but he was safe enough from her. Besides, she had problems of her own.

Such as what Nash Gallagher would make of the tin of home-made shortbread that Clover had taken it upon herself to leave on top of the wall as a thank-you present for returning her football. The shortbread she’d made for Archie.

By the time she’d discovered it was missing and Clover had admitted what she’d done, it was too late to do anything about it. It had gone.

CHAPTER THREE

‘HAVE you heard what’s happening to the old garden centre, yet?’ Dee asked, as they walked towards her expensive new Italian car.

Unwilling to admit to the industrial units—she’d had enough nagging for one day—Stacey just said, ‘There’s someone working over there, clearing the place up.’

‘They must have got planning permission, then.’ Dee sighed and shook her head. ‘I did warn you. The house will be worth nothing if you don’t sell it quickly.’

‘If I could have sold quickly, I would have done.’

‘No, darling, you wouldn’t. You’ve been putting off the inevitable, hoping your numbers will come up on the lottery so you don’t have to move at all.’

‘Not true. I can’t afford lottery tickets.’

Dee looked startled. ‘Are things that bad? Look, please…’

‘Don’t!’

‘All right, all right,’ she said, quickly backing off from offering money. ‘But you know what I mean. You don’t want to move. All this fiddling about trying to fix up Mike’s do-it-yourself disasters is just your way of putting off the inevitable. Let it go, Stacey. Let it go…’

Stacey picked up her two-year-old nephew and began to fasten him into his car seat, pretending she hadn’t heard. ‘Okay, Harry?’ Harry grinned at her. ‘You are so gorgeous, sweetheart.’ She straightened and stepped back. ‘I wish I had a little boy just like you.’

‘Feeling broody?’ Dee asked, slyly. She hadn’t been... ‘Marry Lawrence and I’m sure he’ll oblige.’

‘Really? Does it have to be a permanent arrangement? I’d be perfectly happy with just the baby.’

‘As if you didn’t have enough troubles.’ But her sister was wearing a suspiciously smug little smile, no doubt counting on Stacey’s hormones to do the dirty work for her. ‘I’ll call round with the dress.’

‘Fine.’

‘You won’t cry off at the last moment, will you?’

‘Don’t nag. I can’t promise to make Lawrence’s night but—’ she paused as Dee’s helpful suggestion that the children stay over at her house with Harry, in the care of the doting Ingrid, suddenly acquired a less innocent interpretation; there was no such thing as a free babysitter ‘—but I won’t let you down.’ She would be making her own babysitting arrangements, though. ‘You won’t forget to put up a notice about the room, will you?’

‘You’re quite sure you want to do this? You might get the tenant from hell.’

‘As long as he can pay the rent, I don’t mind where he comes from.’

Stacey watched her sister drive away, not entirely sure she could trust Dee to put up the ‘Room to Let’ notice for her. Her sister had an entirely different agenda, wanting her safely married to someone who would pay to send the girls to a private school and install them all in a house with every modern convenience, a house where the shelves had been put up by a proper carpenter—or at least someone who knew how to use a level.

She meant well.

Stacey turned and looked at her home with its sharply pointed gables and piecrust bargeboarding. She loved it, but she had to admit that it could have been the prototype for the ‘crooked little house’.

It had been, in that favourite estate agents’ phrase, ‘in need of improvement’ when Mike had inherited it from his uncle. Unfortunately, he was not the man for the job.

Mike had only ever been good at one thing. A husband, a father, needed more than five stars in the good sex guide...

‘What are you looking at, Mummy?’

Stacey dragged herself back to the present. ‘There are some housemartins.’ She stooped down to Rosie’s level. ‘Look, they’ve built a house under the eaves. Can you see?’

‘Wow, that’s so cool.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? If they raise a family there, they’ll come back every year.’ Not quite paying guests, but just as welcome. ‘Run and fetch Clover, will you, sweetheart? I want to walk down to the village.’ Just in case Dee decided not to risk the chance of her plans being upset by a student needing a room this late in the college year, Stacey would put a card in the window of the village shop. Before she lost her nerve.

And when they got back, she’d cut the lawn. Well, trim the heads off the daisies, at any rate, which was all her lawn mower was capable of. University students probably wouldn’t notice, but she didn’t want to risk putting anyone off.

Dear Nash

Mummy says I have to wait until you find my ball, but that mite be forever if you don’t know I’ve lost it. So I’m just telling you I kicked it over the wall again. Sorry. Love, Clover

PS Please don’t tell Mummy I rote this. I’m supposed to be pashunt and wait.