as her opening shot, then begun haggling. At last the agent had taken out his phone to consult a higher authority, and agreement had been reached on a price well below the maximum Sarah had been prepared to pay to live in Medlar House—which, quite apart from its other attractions, was only a short drive from the row of farm cottages she was about to transform into desirable dwellings.
All that seemed a lifetime ago. Feeling restless after her unaccustomed evening out, Sarah loosened her hair, then sat at the narrow trestle table that served as desk, drawing board, and any other function required of it. She booted up her laptop, did a search, and gave a snort of laughter. To say that Sarah Carver and Alexander Merrick were both in property was such a stretch it was ludicrous. These days the Merrick Group also had extensive manufacturing interests, at home and abroad—and the biggest buzzword of all—it was into recycling on a global scale. She closed the laptop in sudden annoyance. It was irrational to feel so hostile still. But the look the man had given her had annoyed her intensely. Oliver was sixty-three—she glanced at her watch—sixty-four now. She was almost forty years his junior. So of course Merrick Mark Three had jumped to the wrong conclusion about Oliver’s role in her life. Her eyes kindled. As if she cared.
She went through her night-time routine in her minuscule bathroom, then climbed up to her sleeping balcony and hung up the little black dress she hadn’t worn for ages. She got into bed and stretched out to gaze down through the balustrade at the moonlight streaming through the shutters, hoping the lobster wouldn’t give her nightmares. She had to be up early next morning, as usual. The first of the cottages was coming along nicely, and once furnished it would function as a show house to tempt buyers for the others in the row. Harry Sollers, the local builder who worked with her, would be there before her, in case, as sometimes happened, he knocked off half an hour early to do a job for a friend.
When the row of cottages had gone up for sale by sealed auction Harry’s circle of cronies at his local pub had fully expected some big company to demolish them and pack as many new houses as possible on the site. When the news had broken that a developer from London had snaffled the property there had been much morose shaking of heads in the Green Man—until the landlord had surprised his clients by reporting that the property developer was a young woman, and she was looking for someone local to work on the cottages. At which point Harry Sollers—semi-retired master builder, committed bachelor and misogynist—had amazed everyone in the bar by saying he might be interested.
Sarah never ceased to be grateful that, due to Harry Sollers’ strong views on the demolition of perfectly good living accommodation, he’d agreed to abandon semi-retirement to help her turn the one-time farm labourers’ cottages into attractive, affordable homes. Gradually Harry had helped her sort out damp courses, retile the roofs, and deal with various basic faults shown up by the building survey. He had been openly sceptical about her own skills until he’d seen proof of them, but openly impressed when he first saw her plastering a wall, and completely won over the day she took a lump hammer to the boards covering up the original fireplaces.
But from the start Harry had drawn very definite lines about his own capabilities, and told Sarah she would need to employ local craftsmen for specialised jobs. He’d enlisted his nephew’s experienced help with the cottage roofs, recommended a reliable electrician to do the rewiring, and for the plumbing contacted his friend Fred Carter, who soon proved he was top-of-the-tree at his craft. The houses had begun to look like real homes once the quality fittings were in place, but to his surprise Sarah had informed Fred that she would do the tiling herself, as well as fit the cupboards in both bathrooms and kitchens.
‘I’m good at that kind of thing,’ she’d assured him, without conceit.
This news had caused a stir in the Green Man.
‘You might have to put up with a few sightseers now and again, boss, just to prove Fred wasn’t having them on,’ Harry had warned her.
He was right. Harry’s cronies had come to look. But once they’d seen her at work they’d agreed that the city girl knew what she was doing.
But much as she enjoyed her work there were days when Sarah felt low-key, and the next day was one of them—which was probably due to Oliver and his coaxing about the vacancy in his chambers. It was certainly nothing to do with the lobster, which had not, after all, given her nightmares. Nor, she assured herself irritably, was it anything to do with meeting Alex Merrick. She’d slept well and risen early, as usual. Nevertheless her mood today was dark. She would just have to work through it. Fortunately Harry was never a ray of sunshine first thing in the morning either, and wouldn’t notice. But for once she was wrong.
‘You’re early—and you don’t look so clever today,’ Harry commented.
‘I was out socialising last night,’ she informed him, and went on with the cupboard door she was hanging.
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Who was the lucky lad, then?’
Sarah sometimes joined Harry for a ploughman’s in the Green Man at lunchtime, where the clientele was mainly male. Some of the regulars were retired, and came out for an hour’s chat over a pint, but the younger set were mainly tradesmen of varying kinds on their lunch-breaks. Harry had put up with a lot of teasing from the old hands about his pretty young boss, but some of the new ones tried to chat Sarah up. The more enterprising among them had even asked her out, and it had taken all the tact she possessed to refuse in a way that made no dent in local egos, so she could hardly blame Harry for being curious about her night out.
‘Much as he’d love to hear himself referred to as a lad,’ she said, with her first smile of the day, ‘we were celebrating my escort’s sixty-fourth birthday. He’s in Hereford on business for a couple of days so he drove over to take me to dinner at Easthope Court last night.’
He whistled, impressed. ‘I hear it’s pretty fancy there since it was done over—pricey too.’
‘Astronomically! I could have fed myself for a week on what Oliver paid for my meal last night. He comes down to check up on me now and then, convinced I’m starving myself to death, but usually all he asks of a restaurant is a good steak and a glass of drinkable claret.’ Sarah sighed, feeling a sudden need to confide in someone. ‘He’s a barrister by profession, Harry. He wants me to work in his chambers.’
‘Does it need building work, then?’
‘No.’ Sarah explained about the office job.
‘He thought you’d like that?’ Harry said, scratching his head. ‘Can you do typing and all the computer stuff?’
She nodded. ‘After I left college I ran the office at my father’s building firm.’
‘You did a whole lot more than that, I reckon. Your dad taught you his craft pretty good.’
‘Thank you!’ Coming from Harry, this was high praise indeed. ‘By the way,’ she added casually, ‘I met someone called Merrick last night. Do you know him?’
Harry grunted. ‘Everybody knows the Merricks. Old Edgar started off in scrap metal. A right old villain he was; so slick at making money you’d think he’d found a way to turn scrap into gold. His son George made an even bigger packet when he took over and started expanding. The family’s got a bit gentrified since Edgar’s day, with college education and all that. Easthope Court was one of their jobs. Lot of publicity at the time. Was it George you met?’
‘No. This one’s name was Alex.’
‘George’s son. Don’t know the lad myself, but word has it he’s a right ball of fire now he runs the show up here. I
