Chapter 3

With a basket of flowers in her arm, Selena hurried down the muddy lane in pursuit of the two little boys. Thrilled by the growling noises she was making in her role as a pursuing bear, Billy and Bob were in fits of giggles. With her dog, Bruno, a tiny barrel-shaped mongrel, hard on their heels and barking like mad, they made a noisy trio. The insistent ring of a mobile phone sliced through the laughter. Selena fell still and with a guilty air of reluctance dug the item out of her pocket.

‘Bet it’s the Evil Witch again,’ Billy forecast gloomily.

‘Shush...’ Selena urged in dismay, wishing the children’s mother were more careful about what she said in front of her sons because the little boys didn’t miss a trick.

‘I heard Mummy tell Daddy that you’ll never get a man with the Evil Witch around. Do you need one?’ Bob asked earnestly.

‘Of course she does...she needs a man to have babies and change the light bulbs,’ Billy told his little brother with immense superiority.

‘Is that the children I hear?’ Elise Lynch demanded sharply. ‘Have you let Joy ensnare you with those horrid brats again?’

Giving the twins a pleading glance, Selena put a finger to her lips in the universal signal for silence and sidestepped the question. ‘I’ll be with you in less than an hour—’

‘Have you any idea how much still has to be done here?’ Her stepmother whined

‘I thought the caterers—’

‘I’m talking about the cleaning,’ her stepmother cut in acidly.

Selena almost flinched for it seemed to her that the past week had passed by in a relentless blur of labour. Even her back, well toned from regular physical activity at the plant nursery where she worked, had developed an ache. ‘Did I leave something out?’

‘The furniture is getting dusty again and the flowers in the drawing room are drooping,’ Elise Lynch snapped out accusingly. ‘I want everything to be perfect tomorrow for your father, so you’ll have to see to it all this evening.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Selena reminded herself that the endless preparation required to stage Elise’s buffet lunch for a handful of select guests was in aid of a very good cause. First and foremost, tomorrow was her father’s big day. Joshua Lynch had worked tirelessly to raise the funds necessary to begin the restoration of the overgrown gardens of Candy Manor.

Although the manor house was virtually abandoned, the gardens had been designed by a leading nineteenth-century garden lamps and the village was badly in need of a tourist attraction to stimulate the local economy. A host of local VIPs and the press would be present to record the moment when Joshua Lynch symbolically opened the long padlocked gates of the old estate so that the first phase of the work on the grounds could begin.

‘The Evil Witch always steals your smile,’ Billy lamented.

‘I’m a bear and bears don’t smile,’ Selena informed him with determined cheer, snapping back into play mode for the boys’ benefit. But the children had barely got to loose a delighted giggle at the fearful face she assumed when an outburst of frantic barking gave Selena something more pressing to think about.

‘Oh no!’ she groaned, racing for the village green where Bruno had clearly found a victim. She was furious with herself for letting her pet off the lead. Although the little animal was very loving and terrific with children he had one troublesome quirk. Having been dumped by the roadside by his first owners and injured as a result, Bruno had developed a pronounced hatred toward cars and was prone to taking an aggressive stance with their male occupants. Fortunately for him, he was so tiny that his belligerence usually struck people as a joke rather than a source of complaint.

‘Bruno...no!’ Selena launched the instant she saw her pet dancing furiously round the very tall dark male standing by the church gate.

In spite of the sunshine and his undeniably charming and rural surroundings, Alejandro was not in a good mood. The state-of-the-art satellite-navigation system in the limo, developed by one of his own companies, had proved to be as accurate as a tenth-century map when challenged to deliver the goods in this rural location. His chauffeur had tried to drive down a lane barely wide enough to take a bike and had scratched the limo’s paintwork before finally being forced to admit that he was hopelessly lost.

While Alejandro had climbed out to stretch his legs, his security team were endeavouring to locate another living being in a village so deserted that he would not have been surprised to find out that he had strayed onto the set of a disaster movie. An attempted assault by a freaky mini-dog with large rabbit ears and very short legs was no more welcome. As the careless pet owner approached him at a run Alejandro had an icy cutting reproof on his lips.

‘Bruno...stop that right now!’ Selena was surprised to see that Bruno had targeted a male dressed in an immaculate business suit, for in her experience such men were less tolerant of annoyances. There were two houses for sale on the other side of the green and she wondered if he was a city estate agent.

Alejandro looked down into her clear eyes that were as blue as the ocean, in a heart-shaped face of such rare beauty that for the first time in his life he forgot what he had intended to say. In a millisecond the opportunity to stare was lost. she bent down in an effort to catch the offending dog.

‘I’m so sorry...please don’t move in case you stand on him,’ Selena begged, frantically chasing her stubborn pet round masculine feet shod in the very finest leather. By the time she got a firm hand curved round Bruno wriggly little body she felt hot and exceedingly foolish.