The Vengeance Affair. Carole Mortimer

as he drove away.

      But Jaz’s smile faded as soon as he had gone, a frown marring her creamy brow as she returned to the problem of the pile of bills on her desk even while her thoughts actually remained on Beau Garrett’s last comment.

      ‘Somehow’ she very much doubted he would ‘get used to village life’, either.

      Which posed the question: what was he doing here in the first place?

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘I’M SO sorry I’m late!’ Jaz burst out flusteredly as soon as Beau Garrett opened the door to The Old Vicarage in answer to her ring on the bell. ‘I did start out in good time to arrive at two-thirty, but the van developed a puncture on the drive here, and I had to stop and exchange it for the spare wheel, and then—’

      ‘Slow down, Jaz,’ he cut in mildly. ‘And calm down, too,’ he advised with a sweeping glance over her flushed face. ‘You have dirt on your cheek,’ he added softly.

      She raised an impatient hand to rub the spot where she thought the dirt might be.

      ‘The other cheek,’ he told her ruefully. ‘Look, come inside,’ he added impatiently before she could transfer her attention to the other side of her face. ‘The washroom is through that door there.’ He pointed to the left of the front door. ‘The kitchen is at the other end of this hallway. Come through when you’re ready,’ he said dryly.

      This would have to happen to her today, Jaz fumed as she went to the washroom and scrubbed the dirt impatiently from her cheek, and after assurances earlier to Beau Garrett that he could rely on her to be on time!

      She had been just half a mile away from The Old Vicarage when she realized the van wasn’t responding properly, that it certainly wasn’t going where she was steering it, pulling in to the side of the road to get out and discover that one of her front tyres was absolutely flat.

      The spare wheel didn’t look much better, but at least it wasn’t flat, although it had taken some time to get the punctured wheel off the van, the vehicle so old all the bolts seemed to have rusted up. And, as she had never changed a wheel in her life before…

      Although none of that changed the fact that she had arrived at Beau Garrett’s home half an hour later than she had assured him she would.

      ‘I really am sorry I’m late,’ she apologized again as she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway as she looked around the transformed kitchen.

      The last time she had seen this large room it had been as old and run down as the rest of the house, cracked lino on the floor, the kitchen cupboards of a particularly unattractive shade of grey, as had been the tiles on the walls, the work surfaces a depressing black, the range that provided heat as well as cooking facilities, old and temperamental.

      The lino had been replaced by mellow-coloured flag-stones, the kitchen units now a light oak, the kitchen tiles a bright sunny yellow, the new Aga an attractive cream, and—thankfully!—throwing out lots of heat.

      ‘Wow,’ she murmured appreciatively. ‘This looks really great.’

      He turned from pouring coffee into two mugs. ‘There was no way I could have moved in here with the kitchen the way that it was,’ he dismissed, putting the mugs, cream, and sugar down on the kitchen table before indicating for her to join him in sitting down.

      Jaz sat, some of her earlier flusteredness starting to fade in the warm relaxation of the transformed room. ‘I don’t blame you,’ she nodded, adding cream to her mug. ‘It always was a cold, uninviting room.’ She took a grateful sip of her unsweetened coffee.

      ‘Always…?’ Beau Garrett repeated softly as he sat in the chair opposite.

      Jaz looked up sharply; this man didn’t miss much, did he? She really would have to start remembering that!

      ‘Hmm.’ She gave a rueful sigh. ‘I may as well tell you before someone else does; my grandfather was the last vicar to actually live in this house. The man who took over from him moved into the new vicarage at the other end of the village where the Booths now live. But I spent a lot of time here as a child,’ she added flatly.

      ‘I see,’ Beau Garrett murmured slowly.

      Jaz met his gaze unwaveringly. ‘Do you?’

      ‘Not really.’ He grimaced. ‘But if I live here long enough I’m sure that one way or another I’ll get to hear most of the local gossip,’ he added with distaste.

      She was sure he would too. One way or another.

      ‘How did your visit to the shop go this morning?’ she changed the subject abruptly.

      He gave a rueful smile. ‘Pretty much as predicted. Although, thankfully, I was saved after about fifteen minutes of fending off Mrs Scott’s increasingly personal questions by the arrival of another customer!’

      Jaz nodded, smiling. ‘At which time you gratefully beat a hasty retreat.’

      ‘Very hasty,’ he confirmed grimly.

      ‘I shouldn’t worry about it too much,’ Jaz advised lightly. ‘Once you’ve lived here twenty years or so they’ll lose interest!’

      ‘Oh wonderful!’ he said with feeling. ‘Somehow village life isn’t quite as I imagined it would be.’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head.

      ‘Birds twittering in the hedgerows, children playing happily on the village green, neighbours chatting happily to each other over the garden fences?’ Jaz guessed teasingly.

      ‘Something like that,’ he confirmed dryly.

      ‘Oh, it can be like that,’ Jaz assured him. ‘Not usually in March, though. Too cold,’ she grinned. ‘And beneath the birds twittering, the happy children playing, neighbours chatting, you’ll find there is always the underlying gossip that binds us all together.’

      ‘The latter I can quite well do without,’ Beau Garrett assured her hardly.

      She shrugged. ‘I did try to warn you the other evening.’

      ‘A little late, wouldn’t you say, when I’ve obviously already purchased The Old Vicarage?’ he drawled.

      ‘Just a little,’ she conceded ruefully. ‘But, don’t worry, if you intend staying, you’ll soon get used to it.’

      ‘Oh I intend staying,’ he told her flatly. ‘But I intend living here in quiet seclusion, have no intention of doing anything that will give the villagers cause to gossip about me,’ he added grimly.

      Perhaps now wasn’t the time to tell him that he wouldn’t actually need to do anything to be the subject of gossip; just his being here at all, a well-known television star, had the inhabitants of Aberton agog with speculation as to why he had bought a house here. The last Jaz had heard, from the postman this morning as he handed her her letters, Beau Garrett had come to the village to escape an unhappy love affair when the woman in his life left him following the car accident that had left his face scarred.

      That may be true, Jaz really had no idea, but somehow she doubted it was any more accurate than the rumour that he was here to research a book! What sort of book, and what sort of research, she couldn’t imagine, having heard from Beau Garret himself of his desire to be left in peace and solitude, but she had no intention of adding fuel to that particular fire by confiding that knowledge with anyone else, her answers to the postman noncommittal to say the least.

      ‘Perhaps we should go and look at the garden now?’ she suggested briskly, deciding enough had already been said concerning the speculation about him in the village.

      ‘The jungle, I call it.’ He stood up. ‘Although I am hoping that one day I’ll be able to call it a garden,’ he added wryly as they walked outside.

      He was right, it was more like a jungle, Jaz realized with a heavy heart, years of rubbish