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better for it.”

      “Good idea. And if all this settles his mind for a short time, it won’t do either of you any harm. It’s Jonathan I’d be more concerned about. You two haven’t been in touch in years.”

      Maggie thought carefully before she broached the next subject. “By the way, guess who I saw today? With Jonathan?”

      “Oh, don’t tell me you’re another Sexy Shannon fan? I’ve heard enough about her today already, thanks very much.”

      “I wasn’t talking about Shannon. Three letters,” she said with a bright smile.

      Daisy’s cheeks went a deep shade of pink and her eyes widened.

      “TLC? No. Way. With Jonathan?”

      “Way.” That was Maggie’s second-favourite response. She’d overheard it from a teenager standing in the express aisle at Asda.

      “Where was he?” Daisy’s face lit up. Suddenly she felt like doing a chant or a dance on the kitchen floor.

      “At Isobel’s. Briefly. He and Jonathan are teaching in the same school in Donegal. They’re big buddies, apparently.”

      “What? Really? Oh, Mum, I’d love to have been here. Did you get a good, long look at him? Did he see you?”

      Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Ah, Daisy, I wasn’t staring. You should know me better than that. I was in the front garden tidying the flowerbeds and he pulled up with Jonathan in a taxi. They must have been coming from the pub, and he didn’t hang around, but yes, I took in every last detail for you. And I have three words.”

      “I can guess.”

      “Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.”

      Daisy bit her lip with excitement. TLC, or The Lovely Christian, to give him his full title, had once been the lust of Daisy’s life. Well, the lust of half the village’s life, to be more accurate. Young married women mostly, but Daisy strongly believed that there was something about Christian Devine that would make a nun weak at the knees. Devine by name, divine from top to toe. If he was around town again, this little unexpected visit home might not be so bad after all.

      “Right,” Daisy brightened. “Hit me with all the details. Long hair? Short hair? Yummy scale one-to-ten?”

      “Short…ish. And a bit messy, but nice messy if you know what I mean. Yummy scale is a huge ten out of ten. No, eleven.”

      “Tanned skin, pale skin?” Daisy wanted a full description. Christian couldn’t be long home from his worldly travels. The last she’d heard of him, he’d been trekking across Australia.

      “Tanned as always. Deeply tanned. Black t-shirt, faded jeans, very hunky…in a rugged, arrogant sort of way that only Christian Devine could get away with.”

      Daisy swooned.

      “Single or attached? This is the most important bit.”

      Maggie thought for a moment. How could she let her daughter down gently? She scrunched up her face and then told the truth.

      “Heartbroken, actually. Yes, heartbroken is definitely the word that Isobel had overheard. His latest girlfriend has left him for six months to do some travelling and apparently he’s gutted.”

      Daisy gulped. “Heartbroken and gutted? That’s not good … ”

      Heartbroken was better than single, but worse than attached. How do you ensnare somebody who is heartbroken? It would be like competing with a ghost, thought Daisy. A living ghost, if there was such a thing.

      “How heartbroken can he possibly be? I didn’t think Christian Devine even had a heart. I can’t believe Eddie failed to tell me all of this.” Daisy shook her head in a haze of excitement and disbelief. “I mean, this is high-quality need-to-know information, and I, of all people, have a real need to know. He is the biggest eye totty ever to come out of this backwater! He is like the Killshannon version of Colin Farrell. Phwoarr!”

      She reached for the kettle and poured a second cup of cappuccino.

      “I’m sure the tracking of TLC’s love life is at the very bottom of Eddie’s ‘to-do’ list at the moment,” said Maggie. “Anyhow,” she continued, “that’s as far as my research has gone. The rest, I’m afraid, will be up to you.”

      Daisy was very impressed with her mum’s work to date. Most mothers would have locked up their daughters at the sight of someone like Christian Devine. His reputation had left bleeding hearts all over Killshannon when he was a teenager, but he had been born with charm and a reputation as his own father had been a serial womaniser too. Maggie knew all about that from her own single days growing up around the village. Besides, the looks and charm of a movie star could get you further than most in a small town, and Christian, like his father, had certainly made the best of his finest assets over the years.

      “Ah well,” sighed Daisy. “He’s probably caught some terrible, nasty STD on his travels.” There was no hope competing with an absent girlfriend, so she figured she’d try and dwell on the negatives.

      Maggie looked at her in horror. “Daisy! Christian is a schoolteacher now. Don’t be so quick to judge people. Didn’t I always preach that to you?”

      “So, what? He’s a teacher. Big deal. A leopard never changes his spots and if he’s heartbroken, I’m the Virgin Mary.”

      Maggie straightened her Like a Virgin t-shirt and Daisy started to laugh.

      “I’ll really have to update your retro wardrobe some of these days, Mum. That yellow is wild and mothers aren’t supposed to dress in t-shirts from the eighties.”

      “If that’s what you think,” said Maggie with a nod. “Mothers shouldn’t really dress like their daughters, but some do. English teachers aren’t supposed to be sexy. But some are.” She cleared the table and made her way over to the tiny pantry. “Now, what would you like for tea?”

      Daisy’s stomach grumbled. Why had she left it so long to come home? This was better than Spain, she thought. Well, almost. So far, Killshannon was showing fantastic potential for a week of fun. All she needed now was for the sun to come out, for Eddie to come out, and she would happily reignite her friendship with her miserable suitcase and suntan lotions once and for all.

       Chapter 6

       Anything That Can Go Ring, Will Go Wrong

      Jonathan wiped his face with a towel and stared closely at his reflection in the mirror. To shave or not to shave, he thought, rubbing an even patch of fair stubble across the bottom of his chin. Shannon would be here soon with a “to do list” that was the length of her pretty legs, but Jonathan just couldn’t get his head around guest names or menus or anything remotely wedding- orientated at the moment.

      He had sincerely been looking forward to the whole occasion, which they had originally planned for the following year. But then Jonathan’s entire world had turned on its axis a few days ago and Shannon had insisted that the big event be catapulted into the very near future.

      His mother had cried the entire way home from the hospital on Friday. Having learned that her cancer had spread was a huge shock and poor Isobel had been diagnosed with a worst-case scenario – liver cancer and no option of surgery or treatment; just a very short space of time to suffer dreadfully in full view of her friends and family.

      Thank God Eddie was home, he thought, even if he was pulling some sort of silly stunt by bringing Daisy into the equation with their stupid tale of a made-up love affair. Even the dogs on the street knew Eddie was gay. Why did he feel he had to pretend? And why Daisy of all people? He was playing with fire by bringing her so closely back into their lives. Jonathan fished a disposable

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