of his sexual aura.
He also had the most remarkably hypnotic silver-grey eyes. She could see them now, feel their heat burning her. She could…
‘Beth…?’
‘I’m sorry Dee,’ she apologised guiltily.
‘It’s all right,’ Dee assured her, with her unexpectedly wide and warm smile. ‘Kelly told me that you’d collected your stemware from the airport and that you were unpacking it. I must say that I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ve got some spare time tomorrow. Perhaps if I called round…?’
Beth could feel herself starting to panic.
‘Er…I don’t want anyone to see it until the town’s Christmas lights go on officially,’ she told Dee quickly. ‘I haven’t got it on the shelves yet, and—’
‘You want to surprise everyone by making a wonderful display with it,’ Dee guessed, her smile broadening.
‘Well, whatever you decide to do with it, to display it, I know it’s going to look wonderful. You really do have a very creative and artistic eye,’ she complimented Beth truthfully, adding ruefully, ‘And I most certainly do not. Which is why I needed your advice on the refurbishment of my sitting room.’
‘Your eye is actually very good,’ Beth assured her. ‘It’s just when it comes to those extra details that you need a bit of help. That crimson damask trimmed with the dull gold fringing would make a wonderful throw…’
‘It’ll be very rich,’ Dee commented doubtfully.
‘Yes, it will,’ Beth agreed. ‘Perfect for winter, and then for spring and summer you could switch to something softer. Your sitting room French windows open out onto the garden, and a throw which picks up the colours in that bed you’ve got within view of the window would be a perfect way to bring the garden and the sitting room into harmony with one another.’
Beth glanced at her watch and stood up. It was time for her to leave.
‘Don’t forget,’ Dee urged her, ‘if you do need some help in the shop, let me know. I realise that Anna sometimes stands in, when either you or Kelly aren’t available, but…’
She stopped as Beth was already shaking her head.
‘There’s no way that Ward will allow Anna to spend several hours on her feet right now. Anna says that you’d think no woman had ever had a baby before. Apparently it doesn’t matter how often she tells him that being pregnant is a perfectly natural state, that she’s happy and there’s absolutely nothing for him to worry about; he still treats her as though she’s too fragile to draw breath.’
Dee laughed ruefully.
‘He’s certainly very protective of her. He was most disapproving the other day when he found out she and I’d been to the garden centre and that I’d let her carry a box of plants. But then I suspect he still hasn’t completely forgiven me for sending him away when he came to look for Anna before they were married.’
‘You were only trying to protect her,’ Beth protested. She liked Ward, and was pleased that her godmother had found happiness with him after being widowed for so long, but she could well understand how two such strong characters as Dee and Ward would clash occasionally.
Only a very, very fine line separated a strong, determined man from being a bossy, domineering one, as she had good cause to know. Ward, fortunately, knew which side of the line to be on; Alex Andrews did not.
Alex Andrews.
He would certainly have enjoyed her present predicament, and he would have enjoyed even more saying ‘I told you so’ to her.
Alex Andrews!
Beth parked her small car outside the shop and let herself into the separate rear door which led upstairs to the living accommodation she had originally shared with Kelly.
Alex Andrews!
She was still thinking about him as she made herself a cup of tea and headed for her bedroom.
Alex Andrews—or, more correctly, Alex Charles Andrews.
‘I was named for this bridge,’ he had told her quietly the day they had stood together on Prague’s fabled Charles Bridge. ‘A reminder, my grandfather always used to say, of the fact that I was half Czech.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ Beth had asked him, curious despite her determination to remain aloof from him—aloof from him and suspicious of him.
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged simply. ‘My parents came here in the early days after the Velvet Revolution in 1993.’ His eyes had grown sombre. ‘Unfortunately my grandfather died too soon to see the city he had always loved freed.
‘He left Prague in 1946 with my grandmother and my mother, who was a child of two at the time. She can barely remember anything at all about living here, but my grandfather…’ He stopped and shook his head, and Beth felt her own throat close up as she saw the glitter of tears in his eyes.
‘He longed to come back here so much. It was his home, after all, and no matter how well he had settled in England, how glad he was to be able to bring up his daughter, my mother, in freedom, Prague always remained the home of his heart.
‘I remember once when I was at Cambridge he came to see me and I took him punting on the Cam. “It’s beautiful,” he told me. “But it isn’t anywhere near as beautiful as the river which flows through Prague. Not until you have stood on the Charles Bridge and seen it for yourself will you understand what I mean…”’
‘And did you?’ Beth asked him softly. ‘Did you understand what he meant?’
‘Yes,’ Alex told her quietly. ‘Until I came here I had thought of myself as wholly British. I knew of my Czech heritage of course, but only in the form of the stories my grandfather had told me.
‘They had no substance, no reality for me other than as stories. The tales he told me of the castle his family had once owned and the land that went with it, the beautiful treasures and the fine furniture…’ Alex gave a small shrug. ‘I felt no sense of personal loss. How could I? And neither did I feel any personal sense of missing a part of myself. But once I came here—then…then…yes…I knew that there was a piece of me missing. Then I knew that subconsciously I had been searching for that missing piece of myself.’
‘Will you stay here?’ Beth asked him, drawn into the emotional intensity of what he was telling her in spite of herself.
‘No,’ Alex told her. ‘I can’t—not now.’
It was then that the heavens well and truly opened, causing him to grab her by the arm and run with her to the shelter of a small, dangerously private alcove tucked into a span of the bridge. And then that he had declared his love for her.
Immediately Beth panicked—it was too much, too soon, too impossible to believe. He must have some ulterior motive for saying such a thing to her. How could he be in love with her? Why should he be?
‘No! No, that’s not possible. I don’t want to hear this, Alex,’ she told him shortly, pulling away from him and out of the shelter
