The Vengeance Affair. Carole Mortimer

sign as it was.

      It served as a reminder. Of what, she wasn’t quite sure. But one thing she did know, every time she looked at that sign she felt a new resolve to make a success of this gardening centre.

      ‘And your mother?’ Beau Garrett prompted softly.

      Her mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘I don’t think she appreciated the joke, either—she walked out on my father and me when I was just seventeen!’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he bit out abruptly.

      ‘Oh, don’t be,’ Jaz dismissed hardly, moving to sit back behind her desk. She had no intention of telling him that her mother hadn’t left alone. Or that she and her lover had been killed in a car accident in the South of France three months later. ‘You know, Mr Garrett—’ she looked up at him assessingly ‘—you’re very good at this. No wonder your television show is so successful if you get your guests to talk about themselves in this same candid way!’ She hadn’t discussed her mother, or the fact that she had left her father and herself, for longer than she could remember, and yet a few minutes into conversation with this man and she seemed to have told him half her life history!

      But if she didn’t want to pursue that subject any further, then Beau Garrett seemed to share her view, his expression having tightened bleakly, his eyes glittering silver. ‘Perhaps we should get back to the subject in hand,’ he rasped. ‘You already know the problem, the question is, do you have the time to do something with the wildness of The Old Vicarage garden?’

      ‘Of course.’ Her own tone matched his in crispness, determined to get this conversation back on the footing of two strangers discussing a business transaction. ‘Would you like me to call round this afternoon and give you a quote on time and cost?’

      He arched dark brows. ‘Don’t you have to check your diary or anything like that first?’

      She met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘No.’

      Those brows rose higher. ‘Or need to know exactly what work I want done?’

      Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘I thought we could discuss that when I call round this afternoon.’

      The mocking humour returned to those pale grey eyes. ‘Business a little slow at the moment, is it?’ he drawled dryly.

      In truth, business, in the middle of March, was almost non-existent!

      It was too early in the season for any of her regulars to need their lawns or flower-beds tended, and the flowers and plants she had been carefully nurturing in the greenhouses. To add to that, she had nothing in the books for the landscape gardening side of the business. In fact, if she managed to get a down payment from Beau Garrett for the work he wanted done, she might actually be able to pay off one or two of the bills that were piling up on her desk!

      ‘A little,’ she allowed lightly. ‘But, then, it always is in March,’ she defended dismissively. ‘Although it’s the perfect time of year to clear and landscape a garden,’ she added reassuringly.

      His mouth twisted mockingly. ‘I believe you.’

      Jaz gave him a considering look. ‘I can’t believe you’ve really bought The Old Vicarage.’

      When the ‘Sold’ sign had gone up outside the old house a month ago everyone in the village had been agog with curiosity as to who could possibly have bought such a monstrosity. The house itself was big and old, very run-down, had stood empty for the last five years since the last people to rent it had moved out into one of the more convenient cottages on the edge of the village, claiming that the house was too big and draughty to keep warm, that the roof leaked, and the electric wiring and drainage systems were antiquated to say the least.

      Beau Garrett eyed Jaz speculatively now. ‘Is there some reason why I shouldn’t have done?’

      All of the above, Jaz would have thought.

      ‘It’s very run-down,’ she began tentatively.

      ‘The builder started work on that this morning,’ he dismissed.

      Next!, his tone seemed to imply.

      ‘I would have thought it was very inconvenient for commuting to London,’ Jaz obliged.

      This man’s chat show had taken the prime-time ten o’clock spot on a Friday evening for the last ten years, mainly because of his decisive, informative interviews, but his dark, brooding good looks certainly hadn’t done him any harm, either. But the village was a couple of hundred miles away from London, hardly within commuting distance for a man who worked from a London studio.

      ‘Good,’ came his uncompromising answer, his silver gaze palely challenging, his mouth thinning grimly.

      Jaz shrugged. ‘Isn’t it also a little big for just one man to live in? Unless, of course, you intend bringing your family up here, too,’ she added as an afterthought. After all, two could play at this game…

      ‘I don’t,’ he answered unhelpfully. ‘Now could we get back to the subject of your working on the vicarage garden?’ It was made as a request, but the steely edge to his tone clearly told Jaz that he had no intention of discussing his private life with her. Or, indeed, with anyone else!

      That was fine with her; it was his private life, after all.

      She nodded. ‘Well, as I’ve said, I’ll call round this afternoon and we can discuss what needs to be done. After that, I can probably start working on it by—would Wednesday morning be okay with you?’

      ‘Fine,’ he agreed tersely, turning to leave, and then pausing as he reached the door. ‘I hope you’re going to be more reliable than the builder—he should have started work a week ago!’

      ‘And he arrived this morning,’ Jaz said admiringly. ‘That’s pretty good. You must have made a good impression on him.’

      Beau Garrett’s mouth twisted ruefully. ‘No—I just made a damned nuisance of myself by telephoning every day for the last week to find out when he was going to start work!’

      She laughed, standing up. ‘Maybe village life is going to suit you, after all, Mr Garrett,’ she said appreciatively. ‘You obviously know how to deal with unreliable workmen,’ she explained at his questioning look.

      ‘Knowing how to deal with them has nothing to do with it,’ he bit out dismissively. ‘I just don’t suffer fools gladly.’

      Now that, even on such brief acquaintance, she could believe!

      But even so, Dennis Davis, the only builder for miles around, was well known for his lackadaisical attitude to turning up for jobs on time—in fact, Jaz had been waiting for weeks herself for Dennis to fix a leak on one of her shed roofs!

      She grinned sympathetically. ‘I can assure you, Mr Garrett, that if I say I’ll be with you at two-thirty this afternoon, then that’s exactly when I will be there.’

      ‘Call me Beau,’ he invited abruptly.

      Jaz felt the warm colour enter her cheeks, not sure she could take such a liberty—even when invited to do so—by this national television figure; it somehow seemed far too familiar with this distantly haughty man.

      ‘Jaz,’ she returned uncomfortably. ‘Two-thirty, then,’ she added briskly.

      ‘Fine,’ he accepted tersely. ‘I’m out of coffee, so I thought I might call in at the village shop on the way home,’ he added dryly, that hint of humour once again in those silver eyes. ‘But I should have escaped by two-thirty.’

      Effectively telling Jaz that as well as being aware of the neat precision with which Barbara Scott liked to stack her shelves, she was also, predictably, the biggest gossip in the village; there was no way Barbara would easily relinquish the novelty of Beau Garrett’s presence in her shop!

      Jaz smiled appreciatively. ‘You may just get used to village life, after all!’

      ‘Somehow