Starting Over

First published 2009 by Choc Lit Limited

Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB. U.K.

www.choclitpublishing.co.uk

The right of Sue Moorcroft to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE U.K.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Print: ISBN-978-1-906931-22-3
Epub: 978-1-906931-32-2
Mobi: 978-1-906931-42-1
PDF: 978-1-906931-02-5

Forever singing in our hearts

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Det. Supt Mark Lacey, Dr Adrian Perkins, Fig Taylor, Laura Longrigg, Mark West, who read an early draft and

persuaded me to stop using the word ‘piratical’, and all at Choc Lit.

Also to the Romantic Novelists’ Association, in this, the Association’s fiftieth year. It’s such a brilliant organisation and has provided me with both friends and writing opportunities. What else could I ask for?

~
(Priority)

Subject:
Wedding …

From:
Olly

Time:
18:14

To:
Tess

Tess,

No easy way to say this so will be direct.

Given it loads of thought and the idea of moving in with you & your messy workroom has got to me. I’ve gone cold on the wedding.

You’re normally the first to walk away from a bad situation but this time it’s me that’s recognised the issues & I think you’ll be glad I did, some day.

I’ve spoken to the travel agent re the honeymoon. I expect you will want to see to the return of the prezzies & whatnot, as I won’t be around. Am taking a contract in
Scotland
for a couple of months – good opportunity. As soon as I send this I’ll be out the door.

No point talking, anyway. My mind’s made up.

Sorry.

Married bliss is just not me.

Love

Olly x

Tess’s vehicle stopped as if a giant had slammed a door in its face.

Metal screeched, glass crashed, the seat belt wrenched the breath from her body and the airbag thumped her in the face.

Then, slowly, the bag deflated.

And everything went quiet apart from the ringing in her ears.

She found herself gazing into the flatbed of the breakdown truck she’d been following for the last two miles. Her windscreen had dissolved into a million crystals twinkling in her lap, on her chest, on the floor, on the dash and on an Izmir Blue bonnet bent up like a broken beak. One wiper twitched in mid-air. The rain that, until now, had been pounding on her windscreen, began to pound on her.

‘
Shit
!
’ she croaked.

A man ran from the breakdown truck, dark curls swinging around his eyes as he leant through the space where the windscreen used to be. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘My face is hot,’ she mumbled.

‘Yeah, airbag. But you seem to be breathing and thinking. Sit still.’ He fished out a phone.

‘Don’t ring anyone. I’m fine.’ She swivelled her head from side to side, flexed back and legs, then pushed at the driver’s door. It groaned outward, allowing her to fumble out of the seat belt and slither gingerly onto the road where the rain burbled into a gully.

The man glared, phone still poised. ‘What are you
doing
?
You could have a spinal injury!’

She pointed to her legs. ‘Working!’ Checking her nose for blood, her hand came away wet only with rain. She didn’t think it was the rain that was blurring her vision, though.

‘You need checking over.’ He seemed not to feel the torrent that flattened his hair and rolled down a hard-cut face and into blue eyes. If he needed two shaves a day it looked as if he seldom bothered.

Tess tried again to flex. Her back felt as if she’d just done a bungee jump. She hunched her shoulders. ‘I don’t like hospitals. Look, sorry I didn’t see you stop, I turned on the heat and the windscreen misted. My insurance will cover your truck OK.’

He glanced at where her Freelander was gnawing at his breakdown truck. ‘Doubt you’ve done more than add a couple of new scratches to the wrecker. It’s your Freelander that’s bent.’ He narrowed his gaze on her once more and his voice softened. ‘Better go to hospital, you know.’

She shook her head. And winced. ‘You’re from a garage, right?’ She indicated the sign
on the side panel of the truck. ‘MAR Motors is the garage in Middledip, isn’t it? At the Cross.’

‘Yes. You’re not local, are you?’

‘Just moving in – to Honeybun Cottage.’ Not that it was any of his business. ‘Can you give me a tow?’

He grimaced. ‘You’ll sue me if it turns out you’ve got a cracked neck.’

‘I won’t because I haven’t!’ she snapped. ‘But the Freelander’s undrivable. I’d appreciate a tow. If I have to call someone else I’ll be sitting here in the rain for hours.’

He hesitated. Then sighed. ‘Come on, then!’ Ungraciously, he installed her in the passenger seat of the wrecker before spending ten minutes clanging around at its rear, while Tess sank her swimming head on a seat that smelt of old oil and closed her eyes.

Finally, he climbed back into the cab, shook the rain off his hair and drove her the remaining mile or so to Middledip village. As the breakdown truck began to rumble along, he flipped his thumb in the direction of her poor Freelander. ‘Were you fond of it?’

‘Loads. Everyone said it was a posey vehicle – I was living in
London
. But I love it. What’s left of it since it hit your truck.’

‘Nobody forced you to run it up my backside,’ he pointed out, disagreeably.

Tess’s head was pounding and sudden tears pricked her eyes, blurring the already blurred raindrops that drummed on the windscreen and hissed beneath the wheels, bouncing and bubbling off the expanse of tarmac at the centre of the village, where three roads converged at the point known inaccurately as the Cross, and where there was a building with the sign: ‘MAR Motors’.

Wordlessly, she eased out of the cab and squelched across the forecourt, following her disagreeable saviour out of the deluge and in through a long run of folding doors. The floor was painted grey, like the pit garages at the motor races on television.

An office chair stood in front of a computer. He nodded at it. ‘Sit there while I have a look at your car, then we’ll talk about what to do.’ He raised his voice to a masked figure welding under a ramp at the back of the garage. ‘Jos! Can you get her a cup of tea? She’s had a prang. Pete! Give me a hand, will you?’ A man uncoiled himself from under the bonnet of a little red sports car, pushing back floppy fair hair, smiled at Tess and ran to help at the back of the breakdown truck.

Aching and shaking too much to object to being ordered about, Tess gazed out through the hammering rain to where an old-fashioned van in baker’s livery graced the forecourt along with two old cars. Not banger-type old but 1950s old, all grinning chrome grills, candy colours and swiping tail fins. The forecourt looked like a classic car show.

She let her chin sink onto her fist and once again closed her eyes. What a crappy beginning to her fresh start.

Jos, welding mask discarded, wiping his hands on his overalls and stamping about in motorcycle boots, rattled cups and filled the kettle. His long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he had a beard like Hagrid, not the trendy goatee worn by so many men she’d known in
London
. He brought her steaming tea in a mug with the MG logo on the side and an open pack of sugar with a spoon sticking out.

Through the strands of dripping hair she managed a smile, even as she shivered. ‘Thanks.’

His eyes were gentle. ‘Ratty’ll soon get you sorted.’

Presumably, he meant the disagreeable man. She made a face. ‘
Ratty
? Yes, he is, a bit.’

The eyes smiled. ‘
Ratt
enbury.’ And pointed to the ‘M. A. Rattenbury’ sign on the wall.

‘Oh. I get it.’ The owner of the blue eyes and black curls was the boss. She should’ve known.

In a few minutes, he was back. Draining a mug of tea, he bent over the computer, so close that Tess could feel the chill of the rain from his arms and shoulders. The sleeves had been cut from his T-shirt to exhibit small tattoos. Sculpted by physical work, he was a different breed from Olly with his designer labels and career in IT.

She jerked her gaze away.

She was done with men. She was here to concentrate on getting better, on freeing herself of the lassitude that had left her vegetating these past months.

He tapped the computer screen. ‘Want me to book it in?’

Her mind flipped to Channel 4 documentaries about tow bandits. Maybe he’d stick her with a £500 bill and she wouldn’t be able to argue because she’d
asked
him to bring the Freelander … ‘Wouldn’t it be better at Land Rover?’ she enquired dubiously, through her headache.

He tapped the screen again, harder. ‘Yes! There’s their number – ring and arrange for it to be fetched.’

Belatedly, she realised that what he’d called up on the computer was the contact details of the Land Rover main dealer in Bettsbrough.

He turned to a toolbox, obviously having a hundred better things to do than deal with her any further.

She didn’t need his tight expression to tell her she’d been out of order. Having run up the arse of his truck and demanded he rescue her, she supposed it would, actually, have been polite to put the resultant business his way. And starting at square one with another garage suddenly seemed exhausting. ‘Actually … I’d like to book it in here for the repair.’

A flash of those hard eyes. ‘Probably better at Land Rover.’

She propped her head back on her hand. ‘So you can’t do it here, at
your
garage?’

‘I
can
do it, but it’ll be
best
at Land Rover.’

He was annoying, scraping through his tools and not wanting her business. ‘It’ll be
convenient
to have it done here.’

‘Oh shi–– Book it in, Pete. Sheet it up until we can bring it inside.’

In silence, Tess watched as Pete and Jos fixed a faded blue tarpaulin over where the windscreen used to be, to direct the rain away from her front seats.