Читать книгу The Vengeance Affair - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 9

‘I’M SO sorry I’m late!’ Jaz burst out flusteredly as soon as Beau Garrett opened the door to The Old Vicarage in answer to her ring on the bell. ‘I did start out in good time to arrive at two-thirty, but the van developed a puncture on the drive here, and I had to stop and exchange it for the spare wheel, and then—’

‘Slow down, Jaz,’ he cut in mildly. ‘And calm down, too,’ he advised with a sweeping glance over her flushed face. ‘You have dirt on your cheek,’ he added softly.

She raised an impatient hand to rub the spot where she thought the dirt might be.

‘The other cheek,’ he told her ruefully. ‘Look, come inside,’ he added impatiently before she could transfer her attention to the other side of her face. ‘The washroom is through that door there.’ He pointed to the left of the front door. ‘The kitchen is at the other end of this hallway. Come through when you’re ready,’ he said dryly.

This would have to happen to her today, Jaz fumed as she went to the washroom and scrubbed the dirt impatiently from her cheek, and after assurances earlier to Beau Garrett that he could rely on her to be on time!

She had been just half a mile away from The Old Vicarage when she realized the van wasn’t responding properly, that it certainly wasn’t going where she was steering it, pulling in to the side of the road to get out and discover that one of her front tyres was absolutely flat.

The spare wheel didn’t look much better, but at least it wasn’t flat, although it had taken some time to get the punctured wheel off the van, the vehicle so old all the bolts seemed to have rusted up. And, as she had never changed a wheel in her life before…

Although none of that changed the fact that she had arrived at Beau Garrett’s home half an hour later than she had assured him she would.

‘I really am sorry I’m late,’ she apologized again as she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway as she looked around the transformed kitchen.

The last time she had seen this large room it had been as old and run down as the rest of the house, cracked lino on the floor, the kitchen cupboards of a particularly unattractive shade of grey, as had been the tiles on the walls, the work surfaces a depressing black, the range that provided heat as well as cooking facilities, old and temperamental.

The lino had been replaced by mellow-coloured flag-stones, the kitchen units now a light oak, the kitchen tiles a bright sunny yellow, the new Aga an attractive cream, and—thankfully!—throwing out lots of heat.

‘Wow,’ she murmured appreciatively. ‘This looks really great.’

He turned from pouring coffee into two mugs. ‘There was no way I could have moved in here with the kitchen the way that it was,’ he dismissed, putting the mugs, cream, and sugar down on the kitchen table before indicating for her to join him in sitting down.

Jaz sat, some of her earlier flusteredness starting to fade in the warm relaxation of the transformed room. ‘I don’t blame you,’ she nodded, adding cream to her mug. ‘It always was a cold, uninviting room.’ She took a grateful sip of her unsweetened coffee.

‘Always…?’ Beau Garrett repeated softly as he sat in the chair opposite.

Jaz looked up sharply; this man didn’t miss much, did he? She really would have to start remembering that!

‘Hmm.’ She gave a rueful sigh. ‘I may as well tell you before someone else does; my grandfather was the last vicar to actually live in this house. The man who took over from him moved into the new vicarage at the other end of the village where the Booths now live. But I spent a lot of time here as a child,’ she added flatly.

‘I see,’ Beau Garrett murmured slowly.

Jaz met his gaze unwaveringly. ‘Do you?’

‘Not really.’ He grimaced. ‘But if I live here long enough I’m sure that one way or another I’ll get to hear most of the local gossip,’ he added with distaste.

She was sure he would too. One way or another.

‘How did your visit to the shop go this morning?’ she changed the subject abruptly.

He gave a rueful smile. ‘Pretty much as predicted. Although, thankfully, I was saved after about fifteen minutes of fending off Mrs Scott’s increasingly personal questions by the arrival of another customer!’

Jaz nodded, smiling. ‘At which time you gratefully beat a hasty retreat.’

‘Very hasty,’ he confirmed grimly.

‘I shouldn’t worry about it too much,’ Jaz advised lightly. ‘Once you’ve lived here twenty years or so they’ll lose interest!’

‘Oh wonderful!’ he said with feeling. ‘Somehow village life isn’t quite as I imagined it would be.’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head.

‘Birds twittering in the hedgerows, children playing happily on the village green, neighbours chatting happily to each other over the garden fences?’ Jaz guessed teasingly.

‘Something like that,’ he confirmed dryly.

‘Oh, it can be like that,’ Jaz assured him. ‘Not usually in March, though. Too cold,’ she grinned. ‘And beneath the birds twittering, the happy children playing, neighbours chatting, you’ll find there is always the underlying gossip that binds us all together.’

‘The latter I can quite well do without,’ Beau Garrett assured her hardly.

She shrugged. ‘I did try to warn you the other evening.’

‘A little late, wouldn’t you say, when I’ve obviously already purchased The Old Vicarage?’ he drawled.

‘Just a little,’ she conceded ruefully. ‘But, don’t worry, if you intend staying, you’ll soon get used to it.’

‘Oh I intend staying,’ he told her flatly. ‘But I intend living here in quiet seclusion, have no intention of doing anything that will give the villagers cause to gossip about me,’ he added grimly.

Perhaps now wasn’t the time to tell him that he wouldn’t actually need to do anything to be the subject of gossip; just his being here at all, a well-known television star, had the inhabitants of Aberton agog with speculation as to why he had bought a house here. The last Jaz had heard, from the postman this morning as he handed her her letters, Beau Garrett had come to the village to escape an unhappy love affair when the woman in his life left him following the car accident that had left his face scarred.

That may be true, Jaz really had no idea, but somehow she doubted it was any more accurate than the rumour that he was here to research a book! What sort of book, and what sort of research, she couldn’t imagine, having heard from Beau Garret himself of his desire to be left in peace and solitude, but she had no intention of adding fuel to that particular fire by confiding that knowledge with anyone else, her answers to the postman noncommittal to say the least.

‘Perhaps we should go and look at the garden now?’ she suggested briskly, deciding enough had already been said concerning the speculation about him in the village.

‘The jungle, I call it.’ He stood up. ‘Although I am hoping that one day I’ll be able to call it a garden,’ he added wryly as they walked outside.

He was right, it was more like a jungle, Jaz realized with a heavy heart, years of rubbish accumulated in grass that was thigh high, overgrown with weeds, several of the trees in need of cutting down completely, and the greenhouse, once so lovingly tended by her grandmother, almost falling down, every pane of glass broken.

Looking at it Jaz couldn’t help remembering how in previous years she had played in this garden, built dens in the bushes, eaten picnics with her grandparents on the smooth green lawn, sat on the swing beneath the apple tree dreaming of a time when she would have her own home, her own apple tree with its swing, and children laughing as they played on it.

Now, at twenty-five, she had come to believe those dreams would never be more than that…

‘A disaster, isn’t it?’ Beau Garrett rasped disgustedly.

Jaz gave herself a mental shake; she was here to do a job, not wallow in the past. ‘Not really,’ she assured him crisply. ‘I’ll need to clear all the rubbish before we can actually begin putting it in any order, but I think most of it is salvageable.’

‘You have more optimism than I do, then,’ he dismissed with a shake of his head. ‘Sometimes I wonder what on earth I thought I was doing taking on a place like this!’ he muttered almost to himself.

Jaz turned to look at him. ‘Searching for your own piece of paradise?’ she suggested huskily, knowing that being back here again, after all these years, had affected her more deeply than she cared to admit. ‘My grandfather always said that you have to find contentment inside yourself before you can appreciate any other happiness in your life.’ And she had known all about discontent…

‘Did he really?’ Beau Garrett rasped harshly, his aloofness of Friday evening returning with a vengeance as he looked down his arrogant nose at her.

Jaz turned away, her cheeks flushed as she realized she had stepped over some imaginary line. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I wasn’t necessarily referring to you,’ she finished lamely, knowing it was being at The Old Vicarage again, her own memories, that had prompted the comment. And it hadn’t been directed at Beau Garrett at all, but at herself…

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He turned away abruptly. ‘Are you still available to start on Wednesday morning?’

‘Yes, of course—’

‘Then consider yourself hired,’ he bit out curtly. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind…? I have some other things I need to do this afternoon.’

Jaz didn’t ‘mind’ at all, felt an overwhelming urge to get away herself, had reminisced quite enough for one afternoon, thank you!

‘You’ll need a quote for how much the work is going to cost—’

‘Just do it,’ he rasped, obviously impatient for this conversation to be over now. ‘And send me the bill.’

‘Er…’ She grimaced, too embarrassed now to quite be able to meet that silvery gaze. ‘I’ll need to have a skip delivered to take away all the rubbish, and then there’s—’

‘Jaz, if you need a deposit to cover those costs then why don’t you just ask for one?’ Beau Garrett cut in impatiently.

‘Because I hate asking people for money, that’s why!’ She felt stung into replying, glaring up at him, all her earlier feelings of sympathy towards him evaporating in the face of his arrogant rudeness.

‘Then it’s no wonder that the tyres on your van are so bald they develop punctures, your business is obviously falling down around your ears, and the clothes you’re wearing would make a scarecrow look well dressed!’ he came back scathingly before striding back into the kitchen.

Jaz stared after him, too stunned by the suddenness of the attack to find an immediate reply.

The fact that every word he spoke was the truth certainly didn’t help!

The van was old, left to her on her father’s death, as was the run-down garden centre. As for her clothes…she couldn’t remember when she had last been able to afford anything new.

But for Beau Garrett to have said those things to her…!

‘I’m sorry,’ he spoke softly behind.

Jaz had stiffened at the first sound of his voice, blinking back the tears now, determined he shouldn’t see that he had made her cry with the hurtful things he had said to her.

‘Jaz—’

‘No need to apologize for telling the truth,’ she assured brightly as she turned to face him, blue eyes not quite meeting those probing silver ones.

He shook his head, his sigh heavy. ‘I’m a little—I shouldn’t have taken out my bad temper on you,’ he rasped with a self-disgusted shake of his head.

Jaz moistened dry lips before speaking. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken so personally to you, either.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s this place. I—’ she sighed, her frown pained. ‘I’d forgotten.’

‘Forgotten what?’ Beau Garrett looked at her compellingly.

Jaz found herself caught and held by the intensity of that silvery gaze, feeling a little like a rabbit must do when caught in the glare of a car’s headlights; trapped, mesmerized, totally unable to move.

But at the same time her own instinct for privacy came to the fore, giving her the impetus to break that gaze even as she gave a dismissive laugh. ‘Nothing of any importance,’ she assured him lightly.

He looked for a brief minute as if he would like to argue that point, but as Jaz continued to look at him unblinkingly he finally gave a rueful shrug. ‘Here.’ He held a cheque out to her. ‘That should cover any initial expenses you may have.’

A glance at the amount written on the cheque he gave her told Jaz that it would probably cover the cost of all of the work to be done here, not just the initial expenses.

Pride warred with necessity inside her—and it was necessity that finally won out. After all, she would do the work, and it would probably cost as much as this, so it wasn’t as if she were taking the money under false pretences. Besides, accepting it would mean that, as well as being able to pay off most of the more pressing bills, for a change she would also be able to eat more than either baked beans, or tomatoes, on toast!

The thought of a nice roast chicken for her dinner was enough to make her mouth water. And her pride seem petty.

‘Thank you,’ she accepted huskily as she stuffed the cheque into her denims pocket. ‘Eight o’clock on Wednesday morning, then.’

He winced as the sound of banging could be heard from the front of the house, Dennis still in the process of putting up the scaffolding in preparation of repairing the roof when Jaz arrived a short time ago. ‘Make it nine o’clock,’ Beau Garrett suggested. ‘If the place is going to be like a building site for the foreseeable future, I might as well arrange it so that I have some peace in the mornings, at least until after nine o’clock!’

Having accepted and been present at Madelaine’s drinks party last Friday, peace was something Jaz didn’t think this man was going to find too much of in the immediate future. Every other hostess in the village, from Barbara Scott at the shop to Betty Booth, the pretty young wife of the vicar, was going to be inviting him to lunch or dinner. Invitations, if he didn’t want to cause offence, he would find it hard to refuse, having accepted Madelaine’s.

Although somehow Jaz didn’t think Beau Garrett particularly cared whether or not he offended people!

Oh, well, that was his problem. Her own, more immediate concern was cashing his cheque so that she might have some money herself for a change.

‘That’s fine with me,’ she agreed lightly, hesitating as she turned to leave. ‘I should keep an eye on Dennis, if I were you,’ she added with a rueful grimace. ‘He has a habit of setting up the scaffolding and then forgetting to come back to start the job.’

Beau Garrett’s mouth set in a grim line. ‘Not this one, he won’t.’

No, he probably wouldn’t, Jaz conceded inwardly as she went back out to her van. Even work-shy Dennis must have already realized that Beau Garrett wasn’t a man to cross.

Something she had better remember herself if she wanted to keep her own job at The Old Vicarage.

If only just being here didn’t bring back such vivid memories for her. Memories she would much rather forget.