by Liz Fielding
He frowned.
‘Nine,’ she prompted. ‘Eight, seven…’
He muttered a word that wasn’t quite six.
‘To be fair,’ she elaborated, ‘we have history. My mother had a weakness for travelling men. The fact that all three of us have birthdays in late February is not a coincidence.’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘You were all conceived in June?’
‘He doesn’t just make a mean cup of tea, he does mental arithmetic too.’
‘No point in making a rubbish one. That was the last of the milk, by the way. I’ll run you to the village shop in Rosie if you like. There’s nothing like a live appearance to generate publicity.’
‘That would give the old biddies a thrill.’
And not just the old biddies. Just the thought of being tucked up alongside him in Rosie sent a ripple of heat that had nothing to do with hot, sweet tea racing recklessly through her veins. And if you were going to get talked about anyway…
‘I’m here to serve.’
Oh, yes!
‘So what happens in June?’ he asked.
She blinked. ‘June?’ For a moment her brain freewheeled before she managed to get A grip, engage the cogs, start thinking. ‘The first week is the highlight of the Longbourne calendar. The only highlight,’ she added wryly.
‘The fair?’
‘I never go myself. I just stand on the sidelines looking at the men putting up the rides, erecting the stalls.’
‘Searching for a likeness?’ he commented thoughtfully.
No doubt about it, he was good at mental arithmetic. Give him two and two and he came up with a neat four, no problem.
‘I know it’s stupid,’ she said sadly. ‘I mean, what would I say? You don’t know me but I think you might have met my mother twenty-four years ago?’
‘Actually,’ he replied, ‘I think it’s far more likely that some man would look up, see you with the sun shining on your hair and remember a long ago summer interlude with a beautiful woman. Wish he was still young.’
She put the mug down on a low wall before she spilled her tea. Compliments were a rare commodity in her life and that one took her breath away. Then, aware that she was making a prize fool of herself and needing to get a grip, fast, she said, ‘No awkward pregnancy or morning sickness to mar the memory for him.’
‘What can I say?’
‘You don’t have to say anything. My mother was no poster woman for safe sex. Not much of an example to her daughters.’
In truth, she suspected that, as far as the village was concerned, Elle had been a real disappointment in terms of being gossip fodder but, with the house to take care of, Gran and two younger sisters to keep on the straight and narrow, as well as having to work to keep them all fed, she hadn’t had a lot of time or cash to waste on the temptations of the Longbourne Fair. Temptations of any kind. Her life was on hold for the foreseeable future and the village biddies had shifted their attention to Sorrel once she’d hit puberty. No luck there, either. She was totally focused on her studies—she didn’t want to end up like her big sister in a dead end job—to give them anything to gossip about.
But this year Angelica was looking promising. Sixteen was such a dangerous age and, obsessed with Dracula, she’d dyed her hair black, wore the palest make-up she could find and wore scarlet lipstick when she could get away with it.
Not that any age was safe for Amery women, as she’d found out when that Court Summons had arrived just after she’d started her first term at the local college.
Her hair was slipping from an elastic band that had lost its twang. Out of control, a bit like her. She gave it a sharp tug to restore order. Fat chance. Like her day, her week, her life it disintegrated in her hand.
‘Drat,’ she said as her hair collapsed untidily about her face and shoulders, digging around in her pocket to find another one, coming up empty-handed. ‘It really needs cutting.’
‘No.’ Sean’s smile faded as he lifted a handful, letting it run through his fingers. ‘Believe me, it really doesn’t. It’s perfect just the way it is.’
CHAPTER FIVE
The perfect ice cream is like the perfect woman: cool, delicate, subtle, with a flavour that lingers on the tongue.
—Rosie’s Diary
IT WAS a gesture of such intimacy that for a moment Elle couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Rooted to the spot, the only movement was the pulse beating in her neck, the rush of something irresistible sweeping through her veins. A weakness in her legs. The aching pull of desire for something that was unknown and yet as familiar as breathing.
As she swayed towards him, drawn like a magnet towards him, Sean let her hair fall. ‘Come on,’ he said, moving to the front of the van. ‘I’ll introduce you to Rosie.’
Elle remained where she was, her skin tingling where the back of his fingers had brushed her cheek. And not just on her cheek. Her entire body felt as if it had been switched on and was fizzing with energy.
‘Elle,’ Sean said with mock formality, ‘may I present Rosie? Rosie, this is Elle. She’s Basil’s great-niece and your new keeper.’
‘Sean,’ she protested.
‘It’s you or Granny,’ he reminded her.
‘That’s playing dirty.’ She might have already made up her mind to do the Saturday gig at Longbourne Court, give something back to the Pink Ribbon Club, but that was going to be the extent of her involvement. Absolutely. Definitely.
‘One of you is the registered keeper,’ he pointed out. ‘Your choice.’
She glared at him, but at least she was back in control of her legs and she was working on her breathing. ‘I’ve got nowhere to keep her,’ she pointed out.
‘Won’t she go in the garage?’
‘The generations of junk only leave room for the car and I can’t afford to have that towed to the scrapyard,’ she told him.
‘I’ll do that for you,’ he said.
‘Oh…’ She swallowed. Considering the money they’d spent at the garage over the years, they could have offered to do that for them, but she wouldn’t ask. It took a stranger to finally offer his help.
A stranger with an agenda, she reminded herself.
‘Any more objections?’
There had to be dozens, but right now she couldn’t think of a single one and she turned to the van. ‘Okay, Rosie,’ she said, ‘it seems that whether I like it or not I’m all you’ve got for now, so here’s the way it is. Behave yourself or you’ll join the rest of our transport. In the scrapyard.’
‘A word of advice, Elle,’ Sean said. ‘Like most females, Rosie usually responds better to gentle handling.’
Something she was sure he knew from personal experience and she kicked one of the white-walled tyres.
He tutted. ‘Asking for trouble,’ he said with an annoying you-have-been-warned shake of the head that made her want to kick Rosie again.
‘I don’t need to ask; it comes calling.’ Blue-eyed trouble wearing painted-on jeans and a melt-your-bones smile. ‘This time driving a pink van,’ she added pointedly.
‘Trouble is my middle name,’ he admitted. ‘So? What do you think of her?’
‘Honestly?’
‘It’s usually best, I find.’
‘Yes.’
For a moment their eyes locked, her mouth dried and she turned abruptly to Rosie, staring at her with unseeing eyes while she counted her breath—in one-two-three, out one-two-three—until she was capable of rational thought.
‘Honestly…’ she repeated as she took in the gentle rounded lines. Honestly, she thought that Rosie looked like something out of a children’s story book.
Pink and white with a chrome grille and little round headlamps that gave the impression of a smiley face. The ice cream cones on either side of the roof, like a pair of rabbit ears, added to the illusion.
The Happy Little Ice Cream Van…
Here Comes the Ice Cream Van…
Jingle Goes the Ice Cream Van…
&nbs
p; ‘I think she’s very…shiny,’ she said before she completely lost it. Rosie had been polished to a gleaming shine and, despite her advanced age, there was not a sign of rust to mar her immaculate paintwork. Her hair swung over her face as she bent to take a closer look and she tucked it behind her ear. ‘Tell me, did you buff her up specially before you came here?’ she asked. ‘To make her look particularly appealing?’
‘I gave her a once-over with the hose and leather to remove the dust,’ he admitted, ‘but that’s all. Basil wields the wax.’
‘Something else he expects me to do, no doubt.’
‘I think he’d excuse you the waxing, although no one wants an ice cream from a grubby van.’
‘I think, whoever he is, he’s got more neck than a giraffe,’ she retaliated, taking another walk around her.
She wasn’t particularly interested in the quality of Rosie’s bodywork, but it was a lot easier to concentrate on the problem with Rosie between them. So that she couldn’t see his shoulders, his muscular arms, be sandbagged by those blue eyes.
She paused, let her hand rest against the pink, sun-warmed metal of the door for a moment, trying to connect with this unknown great-uncle who had lavished such love on an inanimate object when he had a family living so close by.
Sean joined her. ‘Honestly?’ he prompted.
‘Honestly, I have to admit that she is rather sweet.’
Okay. She was kidding herself. Her concentration was totally shot.
‘Do you want to see inside?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, but opened the door and stood back and, as Elle stepped up into the serving area, she was instantly assailed by the faint scent of vanilla, the ghost of untold numbers of ices served in Rosie’s long lifetime. Echoes of the excited voices of children.
Her own memories of standing with a coin growing hot in her hand as she’d lined up with her mother to buy an ice at the fair. Not from Rosie… The van had been blue, like the sky, and she’d been happy.
Her heart picked up a beat and her mouth smiled all by itself, no effort involved. Fun. The word popped into her head unbidden. This could be fun.
Danger…
It was as if the word fun had clanged a warning in her brain. It couldn’t be that simple. There was always a catch. Fun had to be paid for.
And with the thought came a brown envelope dose of reality.
On her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, she might bear a passing resemblance to Cinderella but, while Basil fitted the role of Baron Hardup and Sean McElroy was undoubtedly a charmer, this was no fairy tale.
‘Will you tell me one thing, Sean?’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Exactly how much rent does Basil owe the estate?’
She hadn’t been conscious of him smiling until he stopped but at least he didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about.
‘You really think I’d put you out to work to pay off Basil’s debts?’ he asked, his voice perfectly even.
‘Man cannot live by ice cream alone and you seem very eager to drum up business,’ she pointed out.
For a heartbeat, the blink of an eye, nothing happened. Then Sean’s face emptied of expression.
‘I’m convinced, Elle. You don’t know Basil. And you certainly don’t know me. Step down,’ he said, moving back to give her room. She didn’t move. ‘Step down,’ he repeated. ‘Walk away and we’ll forget this ever happened.’
‘Just like that?’ When he’d gone out of his way to persuade her that she was responsible? ‘What happened to your determination to carry out Basil’s wishes, even if it meant bothering a confused old lady?’
She wanted him to tell her that he would never have done that. Instead, he said, ‘I’ll tell Basil the truth. That you weren’t interested.’
‘And if he doesn’t come back?’
‘If he doesn’t come back it won’t matter one way or the other, will it?’
And, in a heartbeat, the connection between them—sizzling, flashing like that dodgy plug ever since she’d opened the front door and seen him standing on the doorstep—overloaded, snapped. Confused, disorientated, Elle felt as if some internal power switch had tripped out and she’d lost her bearings. Momentarily blind. Adrift. In the dark.
Sean McElroy hadn’t raged at her for impugning Basil’s character—if a gambler who ran away from his problems leaving someone else to pick up the pieces could be said to possess one. Or, worse, for impugning his own.
He hadn’t lost his temper or raised his voice. He had simply switched off. Cut the connection.
She did it herself, using a polite mask to keep the Mrs Fishers of this world at bay, but this was something quite different. She had never dropped her guard with anyone before. Not even her immediate family. But her defences had crumbled beneath the spell of Sean’s blue eyes.
She’d never understood why her mother had fallen for the same line over and over. Now she knew how; lost in the grip of a response so powerful that it overrode sense, you could forget everything. To have that withdrawn was like having the rug pulled out from beneath you.
How could a man with such an expressive face, whose smile lit up a room, blank off his emotions so completely? More to the point, why had he needed to learn?
As always, there were more questions than answers. Only one thing was certain. She’d finally woken up sufficiently to question his motives and, having done so, she’d got exactly what she wanted.
Had wanted.
Life would be a whole lot simpler if she stepped away from Rosie, forgot she’d ever heard the name Basil and let Sean drive away, out of her life, so that she could go back to worrying about tedious stuff like paying the bills. Finding the money for Geli’s school trip. Coping with her grandmother’s total inability to deal with reality.
A lot safer if she could forget the way her pulse had quickened at the touch of his hand on her shoulder, her cheek, her hair. If she could tell him to walk away and leave Rosie to her. That she’d cope without him.
If only it were that simple. The Pink Ribbon Club was relying on Rosie to turn up next Saturday and she was determined to fulfil that obligation. Not just for the PRC but for herself. Stepping outside her small world and doing something positive, meaningful would give her a sense of accomplishment, self-worth.
Which left the small matter of the ice cream machine. While she might be able to work it out for herself, she could just as easily mess it up.
One look at his face, however, warned her that it was going to take a lot more than a simple, I’m sorry, my mistake to switch Sean McElroy back on. Soften eyes that were now the blue of case-hardened steel. Tease out the melt-your-bones smile that had been wiped from his face as cleanly as the incoming tide washed lines from the sand.
She took a deep breath. Okay. She’d been dealing with difficult situations since she was a teenager, confronting adults who thought they were dealing with a child. In a situation like that you learned fast not to show weakness, fear.
And, despite his annoyance, she had every right to question what he was getting out of this. He’d dumped and run yesterday, offloading Rosie without a second thought. So why had he come back?
Her hormones might be drowning in drool, but she doubted it was her sex appeal that was the draw. After all, he’d had the possessively glamorous blonde more than willing to keep him warm last night.
‘You’re right, Sean. I don’t know Basil. By his choice,’ she reminded him. ‘And, right again, I don’t know a thing about you either, but that’s a two-way deal.’ She didn’t wait for his reaction, but took a step further into the van, ran her hand over the serving counter, slid back the window, making it her own before she glanced back at him. ‘Neither of you knows a thing about me.’
She’d banked on him following her. He didn’t fall for it. Didn’t move, didn’t speak. Simply waited for her to take a look around and then step out again so that he could drive away. And why wouldn’t he? She was the one who’d been vehemently insisting that s
he didn’t want to know.
It wasn’t true, she discovered.
She wanted to know everything. Wanted to know about her mysterious great-uncle. Wanted to know what her grandmother had done for him. Why he’d been wiped from the family memory. Where he’d been all these years. Wanted to know what made Sean McElroy tick.
No. Scrub that last one.
She examined the stacked up cartons containing cones and the plastic shells used to serve ice cream sundaes.
‘Did Basil usually leave all these inside the van?’ she asked. Sean didn’t answer. She turned to look at him.
‘I have no idea,’ he finally answered.
‘His letter suggests he always intended to send Rosie here.’ She shifted the boxes of cones to uncover pallets containing litre cartons of UHT ice cream mix. She poked a hole in the shrink-wrap and removed one to take a closer look. ‘You did assume we were expecting her. A mistake anyone might make under the circumstances,’ she added mildly, looking down at him through the open window. And prompted a slight frown to add to the tightened jaw.
Content that she’d re-established a connection, even if it was at the frowning end of the spectrum, Elle set the carton down on the serving shelf, leaving him to contemplate the fact that he wasn’t infallible while she explored the storage cupboards.
‘Generations of my family have lived in Gable End,’ she said conversationally, filling the knowledge gap, then blinked at the powerful hit of chocolate as she lifted the lid on a box of flakes. ‘Basil must have grown up here.’
She took one, bit into it. Used a finger to catch a crumb of chocolate on her lip, sucked it.
‘My great-grandfather, Bernard’s father and apparently Basil’s too, was a stockbroker,’ she went on, continuing to explore the contents of the cupboard. ‘Did Basil tell you that?’
‘We confined our conversation to the state of Rosie’s working parts.’
