LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      About the Author

      KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily, and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

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      Chapter One

      HOLDING the steaming mugs high to avoid collision, Neve smiled an apology as she backed cautiously around a large, noisy family group who had bagged a much coveted table. One of them moved a bag out of her way as Neve continued to look around for Hannah, who was not where she had left her.

      The mistake, she recognized, had been saying, ‘Don’t move,’ before she went to queue at the bar for hot drinks.

      She gave a silent sigh and thought, When will I learn?

      Any instruction, no matter how innocuous, and Hannah could be guaranteed to do the exact opposite—the possibility that this half-term break might be a bonding experience had never been exactly realistic, but at that moment it seemed laughable.

      Neve paused, her narrowed eyes moving across the heads of the people crammed into the low-beamed room, people like herself, stranded travellers who had found sanctuary in this remote coaching inn. Her glance strayed to the leaded window, and she shivered; the blizzard that had embarrassed the weather forecasters and brought the West Country to a halt continued to rage unabated.

      She breathed in to let someone squeeze past and out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of blue. The controversial streaks in the dark glossy hair identified the head as that of her stepdaughter, who had taken possession of a wooden settle by a window.

      Neve took a deep sustaining breath and began to weave her way through the crowd. She managed to reach the window without scalding anyone with their hot drinks.

      ‘Nice work—you found a better seat.’ Keep it light, Neve. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she added, placing the mugs of cocoa beside the pot of fragrant blue hyacinths on the slate window sill before pulling the hat crammed down on her auburn curls from her head.

      She shook back her hair, easing free the strands that had insinuated themselves down the neck of her sweater, and peeled off her jacket. The room heated by roaring log fires at both ends was warm. ‘I thought cocoa might complete the warming process, topped with cream and marshmallows—I couldn’t resist!’ Even to her own ears her attempt at camaraderie sounded unconvincing and slightly desperate.

      Hannah clearly thought so too. Her stepdaughter flicked her a look of shrivelling contempt, of the type that it seemed to Neve only a teenager could pull off, before shrugging and ignoring the drink with a muttered, ‘Do you have any idea how many calories are in that? You should be fat as a pig.’

      So no lull in hostilities.

      With her smile pasted in place, Neve wondered if putting on twenty pounds would make Hannah dislike her less.

      Probably not. Also it would be pretty difficult: no matter what she ate her figure remained painfully skinny. She would have traded her boyish figure for feminine curves in a heartbeat, but it just was never going to happen.

      The moment she sat down Hannah shuffled to the far end to avoid any possibility of physical contact. Giving her aching cheek muscles a break, Neve let her smile slip.

      ‘Look, don’t worry, I’m sure the snow will stop.’

      Though it showed no sign of doing so yet, and until it did they were well and truly stuck here. Though admittedly, Neve conceded, looking around the crowded bar, there were worse places to be stranded—like outside in the snow-covered Devon moor. She shivered as she slid another look through the misted pane of the window. This was not exactly roughing it.

      Hannah bounced around to face Neve and so did her glossy dark hair, complete with the blue streaks that were responsible for Neve’s recent summons to the Devon school where Hannah was a weekly boarder.

      Neve had responded dutifully to the summons and had sat, hands neatly folded in her lap, and listened feeling more like a pupil than a parent as the headmistress had voiced her concern—concern Neve shared.

      ‘It’s not just the hair, Mrs Macleod, or the cigarettes.’ She dismissed the most recent episodes of rule breaking with a wry smile and consulted the file on her desk. ‘But I do feel this situation requires attention—a united approach?’

      Wondering if she looked as inadequate as she felt, Neve had nodded agreement, too worried to feel patronized. She needed all the help she could get; her parenting skills, it turned out, were zero.

      ‘There have been any number of incidents and, as you know, not all so minor. We were very lucky that the owners of the delivery van did not choose to press charges. You do know that if it wasn’t for the sad circumstances that would have been an automatic expulsion?’

      ‘And we’re very grateful,’ Neve had promised her earnestly. She saw no need to mention that Hannah’s ‘gratitude’ had taken the form of sulky silence and poisonous glares.

      ‘It is Hannah’s attitude that concerns us most. She is very confrontational.’

      Tell me about it, Neve thought. ‘I’m sure it’s only temporary.’

      ‘And her grades have slipped.’

      ‘She’s had a tough time. She was very close to her father.’

      ‘I know she was. It is sad for you both,’ the older woman continued.

      Neve was horrified when without warning her lower lip started to quiver dramatically—so much for projecting calm maturity!

      The genuine kindness in the other woman’s voice had pricked the hard protective shell she had developed and done what all the sneers, sniggers and tabloid cameras had failed to

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