LITMIR.BIZ

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You always love it when Dad cooks, don’t you?’

      Maisie knew that Jackie was standing up for her father but she couldn’t have chosen a worse moment. She didn’t dare look at Blaine. There was a pause and then, as two of Jackie’s little nephews grabbed her and pulled her off, Blaine murmured, ‘Of course, when Jackie was describing you she left out the accomplished liar bit. But I’m impressed. You fooled me for a moment and that is not easy to do, believe me.’

      Maisie suddenly found she didn’t like this little game they were playing. She didn’t lie—not usually, anyway—and neither was she all the other things he’d got her down for. She turned to look him straight in the face and, as she did so, she noticed the sensual mouth was faintly stern and his eyes weren’t smiling any more. He hadn’t liked being fooled, that much was apparent. It gave her no sense of satisfaction, however. ‘I’mnot an accomplished liar,’ she said painfully. ‘I’m not what you think I am at all, actually. It’s just that I’m in the middle of something awful and …’ Her voice cracked and died.

      To her horror she found she couldn’t go on, not without bursting into tears anyway. She looked down at her plate and speared a piece of shrivelled black something or other and began to chew.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was very quiet, the accent adding a smoky softness that brought her eyes up to meet his gaze. It was then that she made the mistake of trying to swallow.

      The next few minutes got her safely past the awkward moment with Blaine but created a hundred more in the pandemonium which followed her choking. The meat had lodged so firmly in her windpipe that it took one of Jackie’s sisters, an experienced nurse, doing a Heimlich Manoeuvre to remove it. As Anna was built like a brick outhouse with arms as powerful as any wrestler’s, Maisie seriously wondered if her ribs were broken once she could breath again.

      She was escorted into the house by a concerned Jackie, who managed to do a very good impression of a mother hen with a wayward chick, and once she was in the privacy of Jackie’s parents’ yellow and turquoise bathroom—something Jackie had long since stopped apologising for—she stared at her face in the mirror. She looked as though she had gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson. Her hair was plastered to her forehead, her eyes were swollen and bulging and the red blotches covering her face and neck were only matched in intensity by her bloodshot eyes.

      She sank down on the loo seat, gingerly feeling her ribs. They hurt. But not as much as her pride. She decided that as her eyes had been streaming for the last few minutes it was a good opportunity to have a surreptitious cry because no one would notice any difference.

      She felt a bit better afterwards, but not much. After washing her face, she removed the last of the black streaks from her cheeks which her mascara had left with some eye make-up removing pads from the bathroom cabinet. A scrubbed but distinctly the worse for wear reflection peered back at her from the mirror. A few minutes of splashing cold water on her heated skin took the worst of the colour away, however, and after liberally using the moisturising cream the cabinet yielded she rubbed her wet fringe dry and surveyed the result. Better. Not good, but better.

      ‘Maisie?’ Jackie’s voice sounded from outside the bathroom. ‘You OK in there?’

      ‘I’m fine.’ Maisie took a deep breath and opened the door. She had to face the lot downstairs at some point and it might as well be now.

      Jackie had her poor Maisie face on, but as she was holding a make-up bag along with a comb and brush Maisie forgave her instantly. ‘Thought you might need a few running repairs,’ said Jackie sympathetically. ‘Come in to my old room and titivate.’ Jackie had moved out of the family nest some years ago but, owing to the fact she often dived back home for an odd weekend when she was short on cash or needed some TLC, her room was a home from home with everything a girl needed.

      Once she had applied some eyeliner and mascara Maisie felt happier, and with just a touch of foundation and some gloss on her lips she decided she looked better than when she had first arrived. She then whisked her hair into a high knot on the top of her head, which was cooler, leaving just a few curling tendrils to soften the look.

      Right, she was ready. She just hoped everyone pretended to forget what had happened and that she could slip away some time soon.

      The barbecue was still going on when she reappeared with Jackie, who insisted on giving her a fresh glass of wine and a new plateful of food, despite her protests that she didn’t want any. Maisie was just gazing down at her plate when a male voice spoke in her ear. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ said Blaine.

      ‘You have?’ She stared at him in surprise. ‘Why?’

      His lips quirked. ‘Why do you think?’

      ‘I’ve absolutely no idea,’ she said with perfect honesty.

      ‘Come and sit down.’ The swinging seat was occupied by several small children, who looked in danger of upending it, but Blaine led her to two chairs in a corner of the garden under the shade of an old apple tree. Maisie went with him and sat down because it was easier than objecting. ‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he said once he was seated beside her, a glass of wine in his hand.

      She stared at him warily. Suddenly looking presentable again wasn’t enough protection.

      ‘Have you had a holiday this year?’ he asked coolly.

      ‘What?’ She was taken aback and it showed.

      ‘Have you?’

      She pulled herself together. ‘No.’ She was supposed to have been honeymooning in August but she wasn’t about to mention that.

      ‘I wondered how you’d feel about combining a holiday with some work for a few weeks?’

      She stared at him as though he was mad. ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘It’s very simple.’

      It might be but she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

      ‘My father is very ill, as you know, and my mother visits the hospital every day, often staying eight or nine hours at a time. There is an excellent hotel virtually next door to the hospital, but as she has a couple of horses and numerous cats and dogs she won’t consider staying away overnight. That’s where you would come in.’

      ‘Me?’

      ‘I need someone to babysit the animals, someone who is trained and capable. My mother wouldn’t tolerate anything less. If you were taking care of the home or, more to the point, her pets, I know I could persuade her to stay most of the time at the hotel. That way she doesn’t have the travelling and she’s safe, my father sees more of her, the animals have someone who can exercise them and who understands their needs; everyone is happy. This would be very good, yes?’ He grinned a fascinatingly sexy grin. ‘What do you think?’

      The danger signals which had been activated by that grin prevented her from replying immediately. Finally she managed to say, ‘From all you’ve told me about your mother, she would never agree.’

      ‘Ah, but she would. I have already spoken to her.’

      She stared at him disbelievingly. ‘How? When?’

      ‘That wonderful invention, the telephone. A few minutes ago, when you were in the house.’

      She couldn’t quite take this in. ‘You mean you suggested a total stranger living in her home and looking after her animals and she agreed without even seeing me?’

      ‘You are not a stranger to me, Maisie, and she trusts my judgement.’

      His judgement of her hadn’t been exactly flattering. Maisie eyed him suspiciously, wondering if she should speak her mind or find out more about this crazy idea—an idea which, she had to admit, she’d been stirred by the minute he’d voiced it. To get right away from everything for a while, to spend some time in the sun doing what she loved best in all the world—taking care of animals—sounded too good to be true. And when something sounded too good to be true, that

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