‘I’m five!’
Alice was too startled to smile at the tone. She’d been chatting quietly simply to put Emmy at ease. It was only now that she registered the accent.
‘Did you live in London, Emmy?’
‘Yes.’ Emmy was stretching up to reach Ben’s mane.
‘Where do you live now?’
‘Here.’
She couldn’t have walked from a neighbouring farm to get here by herself, surely. That left only one potential home. The big house. It was still quite a walk for a five-year-old to have made by herself. Who was Haylee? A sister? And where were the parents? Did they have no idea of the kind of hazards a property like this could present? What if she hadn’t been home or Ben wasn’t as gentle as he was? What about the river, for heaven’s sake?
Alice would have something to say to Emmy’s parents when she saw them.
‘What’s your last name?’ she queried.
Emmy didn’t answer. She was busy threading her fingers through a handful of mane.
Alice tried again. ‘What’s Daddy’s name?’
‘Daddy.’
Alice smiled. She gave up. Surely someone would come looking for the child soon enough. They were probably busy moving in right now and hadn’t noticed her wandering off.
‘Would you like to sit on top of Ben?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘You’ll need to wear my hat. It’s a special helmet just for people who sit on horses.’
A moment later and there she was. A little princess with blonde curls poking from beneath the helmet, sitting on the huge black horse which made her look like a pea on a pumpkin. A very happy princess. It was the first time Alice had seen the child smile and it was the best smile, simply radiating joy, quite contagious enough to have Alice standing there, smiling back.
They could have stayed like that for a very long time. Both totally content, but then Jake raised his head from his paws. The shaggy hair on his neck came up and he emitted a low growling sound.
And then, from some distance behind Alice, came the sound of a man’s voice. A very angry man.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing with my daughter?’
Emmy burst into tears.
Jake’s growl reached an ominous level and was reinforced with a loud bark.
But Alice didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not when she’d recognised that furious voice.
By some twist of a malevolent fate, ‘Daddy’ was Andrew Barrett and he was closer by the moment.
Oh…God!
‘Don’t cry,’ she said to Emmy. Or was she talking aloud to herself? ‘It’s all right.’
‘Nooo!’ Fat tears rolled down pink cheeks. ‘Daddy’s cross with me.’
‘Actually…’ Alice found a smile ‘…I think he’s cross with me.’
Emmy’s tears stopped. She stared at Alice. ‘Why?’
Why, indeed? If anyone was to be blamed for anything right now, it most certainly shouldn’t be Alice. She turned and had the satisfaction of seeing Andrew stopped in his tracks. Not only by the menacing form of Jake, who’d positioned himself between his mistress and the threatening man, but by the shock of recognition.
‘What are you doing here?’
There was dawning horror on the face of her old boss and, for just an instant, Alice had the peculiar notion that he was afraid of her. Totally ridiculous, of course, but it was enough for her to dredge up some confidence.
‘I live here. What are you doing here?’
‘I own this property,’ Andrew snapped. ‘And you most certainly do not live here.’
‘Yes, she does, Daddy.’ Emmy gave a huge sniff. ‘So does Ben.’
‘Be quiet, please, Emmeline. I’m talking.’
Good grief! What kind of father was Andrew Barrett? Talking to a five-year-old this sternly made any fantasy of his parental skills evaporate into an unpleasant mist. Alice didn’t like what she was seeing. Neither did Emmy, apparently. The small girl stuck out her bottom lip and scowled at her father. Andrew tried to take a step forward and Jake growled again.
‘Call it off,’ Andrew commanded.
Alice waited for a heartbeat. And then another. ‘Jake,’ she said softly. Her wonderful dog moved to sit beside her, pressed against her leg.
‘And now get my daughter down from that monster.’
That was too much for Emmy. ‘He’s not a monster!’ she declared. She leaned forward in the saddle and tried to wrap her arms around Ben’s neck. They barely made it to the halfway mark. ‘He’s lovely,’ Emmy said passionately. ‘He’s my new friend and he’s a magic horse. Alice said so.’
Alice was gripping Emmy’s leg, unsure of the child’s balance. At the same time, she was watching the muscles in Andrew’s face move. As though he was trying to digest the mutiny he was faced with and decide how he would deal with it. Or maybe he was trying to understand how this could possibly be happening.
Alice was with him on that one. This was a nightmare! Part of her brain, however, was registering the fact that Andrew wasn’t punishing his daughter in any way for the contradiction. Maybe he wasn’t as strict and controlling as first impressions had suggested. Or maybe he was just distracted by dealing with her for the moment. He didn’t look indecisive any longer. He looked furious. His gaze was chilly enough to send a shiver up her spine.
‘Where—precisely—do you live?’
‘In the cottage.’
Andrew shook his head. ‘No. The tenant in the cottage is someone called Amanda.’
Alice nodded. ‘Mandy Jones. She signed a twelvemonth lease but she decided to go to Italy with her boyfriend. I was already living with her so I took over the lease last October, when it still had six months to run.’
‘I wasn’t informed of any sub-lease.’
‘We saw the solicitor. I signed a contract.’
‘We’ll have to see about that. Won’t we?’
A horrible thought occurred to Alice. What if the contract was somehow illegal? Could Andrew simply kick her out? Where on earth would she go, with a horse and dog? She touched Jake’s head with her free hand, seeking reassurance. Trying to stem the awful sinking feeling that, once again, her life was falling apart.
‘Alice?’
