Trisha Ashley 3 Book Bundle. Trisha Ashley

all, and on into the house.

      As I expected, Zillah was in the kitchen, which had already taken on an even more exotically gaudy aspect than our last one. I think the bright red Aga must have gone to her head.

      Today she was wearing a red cardigan back to front under a purple one the right way round, with a corsage of orange felt roses pinned to the bosom. She’d added to the effect by wrapping a shawl covered in shrieking pink flowers over the whole ensemble and what looked suspiciously like a checked tea towel wound turban-wise around her head.

      It was a gloomy day but the lights were off, since she hated artificial light unless it was essential, not counting the big, flat-screen TV that was constantly on in the corner by an easy chair. When she smiled her teeth flashed white and gold in the light cast by the flickering screen.

      ‘There you are,’ she said, as though she’d been expecting me – indeed, she had two flowered china cups in front of her and was already pouring tea.

      ‘Zillah, I’ve just met the person from my past that your Tarot reading warned me about, but it was only David, after all.’

      ‘David?’

      ‘My ex-fiancé, remember? You bought a feather fascinator in six colours for the wedding ceremony.’

      ‘Ah, yes, him.’

      ‘He was just getting into his car outside the Green Man, so we had a chat. I’m meeting him in the Falling Star early Friday evening.’

      She looked up from swirling her teacup round and round, her bright eyes sharp. ‘Is that wise?’

      ‘Why not? A lot of water’s passed under the bridge since we were engaged to be married, so there’s no reason why we can’t meet as friends, is there?’

      ‘Hmm,’ said Zillah, removing my now empty cup and scrutinising the tea leaves at the bottom. ‘If you remember, I said that more than one person from your past might reappear and affect the course of your life,’ she reminded me.

      ‘Might – so maybe not. And anyway, people from my past can only affect me if I let them, can’t they?’

      ‘You’ve already agreed to let one of them do that, Chloe.’

      ‘No, I haven’t. Although it was nice to see David, I’ve no intention of falling for him all over again – or anyone else that might pop up from my past. You have a look at my tea leaves: they’ll show you.’

      ‘Sometimes you can’t see all aspects of the future until it’s unfolded.’

      ‘Then I’ll keep mine tightly creased. But maybe you could read the cards for Poppy? She’s getting so desperate for love that she’s abandoned the internet dating sites and started ringing up men advertising in the newspaper. Felix and I are both worried about it. That’s what we were doing at the Green Man earlier, keeping watch to see if her latest date looked OK…though I have to admit he looked very nice.’

      ‘I would have thought your angels would have told her what her future held,’ Zillah said, a trifle tartly.

      ‘They have. I did a reading for her birthday, but it was all a bit general.’

      ‘Oh, bring her to me, then,’ she sighed, putting my teacup down. ‘And whatever you say, your life is about to change greatly. The cards and the leaves don’t lie.’

      ‘No, but that could simply be interpreted as meaning all the changes involved in moving here and Jake going off to university in the autumn and that kind of thing, couldn’t it?’ Then a horrid thought struck me: ‘Oh God – perhaps the cards mean Mum’s about to turn up again and totally disrupt everything!’

      Although I would have been quite pleased to have had word that she was definitely all right, I wanted it to be in the form of a postcard from a long, long way away. Call me selfish, but I really didn’t want to share my little cottage with anyone, and especially not with my chaotic and totally self-centred mother.

      On the other hand, I could ask her who my father really was – if she actually knew. It was a problem I was going to have to deal with at some point, though I was not yet sure exactly how.

       Chapter Thirteen Ashes of Roses

      Jake and I had dinner with Grumps and Zillah and she came right out and told them I was going to see David again!

      Grumps looked up from his plate of seafood risotto (Zillah likes to try out new recipes from magazines, though she spices them up with peculiar little additions of her own), and said that if my former fiancé crossed the Old Smithy threshold he would ill-wish him, and that went for any of the other men who had let me down in the past.

      Then Jake said, ‘Good idea, Grumps – I’ll help!’ so clearly that news didn’t go down too well.

      ‘What does Felix think?’ Jake added, removing a clove from between his teeth and laying it on the side of his plate beside two more. I’d wondered what the hard black bits were until I’d tried to bite into one – but then, I think cloves are good for the teeth, aren’t they?

      ‘Why should it matter what Felix thinks? And anyway, David won’t be trying to cross your threshold, Grumps. We’re just having a friendly drink to catch up on what we’ve been doing the last few years, not rekindle the romance.’

      ‘That may be what you intend, but he may have other ideas,’ Grumps said. ‘You’re a fool. Felix is much the better man.’

      ‘I’m sure he is, but I’m not romantically interested in either of them. Nor do I expect an orderly line of all my previous boyfriends to start forming up outside the door any time soon, so this is all much ado about nothing.’

      I shot Zillah a dirty look, but she just gave me a glinting, minted smile and carried on eating.

      The following day was pretty busy. For a start, Grumps had surpassed himself and written three whole chapters of Satan’s Child in the early hours, plus several very long letters, so that it was mid-morning before I got round to printing off a whole sheaf of new Chocolate Wishes orders. I was usually on my way back from the post office by then, via Marked Pages for a cup of coffee, but I was still labelling the last boxes at lunchtime when Poppy burst through the door, looking even pinker and more dishevelled than usual.

      ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ I asked, surprised, but with my hands automatically continuing to slap address labels onto the parcels and adding them to the pile, like a one-person production line (which is what I am, I suppose). ‘Weren’t you having lunch with your Desperate Date today?’

      ‘I did! I was!’ she cried, flinging herself into the nearest chair. ‘Honestly, Chloe, you’re never going to believe this!’

      ‘Did he make a pass at you? Well, I did warn you, Poppy – and wasn’t Felix supposed to be calling your mobile in case you needed rescuing? You had a secret codeword and everything.’

      ‘Yes, and thank goodness he did call, because I pretended he was my mother telling me that Honeybun was taken ill and I had to go straight home.’

      I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘Did he fall for that one?’

      ‘He didn’t look entirely convinced,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t think I’m a very good liar. But he said he’d phone me and we’d have to do it again.’

      ‘Do what?’

      ‘Have lunch in the garden.’

      ‘That doesn’t sound too dreadful, Poppy, though February is hardly ideal picnic-in-the-garden weather, is it, unless he has one of those patio heaters?’

      She shook her head. ‘There was no heater and he’d laid lunch out on a table in a sort of summerhouse with three open sides.