The Little Clock House on the Green. Eve Devon

then frowned. ‘Although I have to say it’s a huge surprise if I am – I mean, I always thought there’d be harp music or bells in heaven… I definitely didn’t figure on The Big Man being a Justin Bieber fan.’

       Chapter 8

       The Whirling Dervish in the Wild Wellies

       Daniel

      ‘A “what” fan?’ Daniel asked, unsure she was making sense. Maybe he’d really hurt her when he’d landed on top of her.

      ‘You can’t hear music?’ she asked, wincing slightly as she moved her head to the side, as if to check she could hear properly.

      Over the sound of his thumping heart, Daniel suddenly registered a voice singing the words, ‘Is It Too Late For Me To Say Sorry Now’, and in a smooth, and let’s face it, basic accountancy move, put two and two together. ‘Oh, hell. The music you can hear is coming from my phone. Hold tight,’ he said and with one hand anchoring her to him, he reached out to grab the phone that had fallen from his hand when they’d hit the ground. ‘Ted? I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call you back, okay?’ and without waiting for a reply, he ended the call.

      ‘So, I’m not in heaven, then?’ she asked.

      ‘I hope that’s not too disappointing for you.’

      An almost sorrowful expression that he couldn’t hope to decipher the meaning behind flitted briefly into her eyes before she chased it away with a determined, ‘Nah, I’m a glass half-full kind of gal.’

      He smiled and wondered how long he could leave it before mentioning her long legs clamped around his hips.

      Giving in to the urge to touch her again, he reached out and repeated the stroke of his thumb gently across her cheekbone. Her skin was like velvet and was it his imagination or did she tremble under him? ‘So.’ He blew out a soft breath. ‘You’re really real.’

      ‘As opposed to…?’

      ‘I’ve been wondering if you were a ghost,’ he admitted.

      She looked intrigued. ‘Are we talking about the “Don’t Cross the Streams” kind, or the standing behind a pottery wheel, kind?’

      ‘The second one, I think,’ he answered.

      She nodded. ‘Right, because who doesn’t love clay?’ And then that same haunting expression of earlier came back before she closed her eyes briefly, as if to smother it. When her eyelids fluttered open again, she said quietly, ‘It’s this place. It’ll do that to you. Bring back ghosts.’

      He wondered what ghosts she’d been running from when she’d hurled herself through the open door and into him and he wanted to lift the heaviness from her words. ‘Ah, but when I first saw you, you weren’t in here.’

      ‘I wasn’t? Where did you first see me, then?’ Her expression took on an exaggerated thoughtful pose before she suddenly snapped her fingers, ‘Oh wait… was it… in your dreams?’

      A laugh rumbled out of him. ‘You never say what’s expected, do you?’

      ‘And you do, I suppose?’

      ‘Plus, you have really weird hair,’ he replied, without missing a beat.

      She sniffed. ‘I’ll have you know that my current deconstructed/reconstructed Amy Winehouse do is all the rage. At least, it will be for prom,’ she added, as if that explained everything.

      It really didn’t, but being as he was lying on the floor in a building he’d just decided to buy, with a girl averse to talking in normal sentences, he was so far past surreal it would be silly to care.

      Hell, maybe the knock had rendered him unconscious and he was the one hallucinating. As if to double-check the woman lying under him was indeed really real, he stared back down at her. That was when he noticed the tear tracks.

      ‘You’ve been crying,’ he accused.

      The fun that had come back into her eyes left again.

      ‘Hey, your hair isn’t that bad,’ he added, trying to soften his claim about her crying.

      Her full lips twitched. ‘It really is, but it was made with love, so I had to go with it. Are you going to let me up, then?’

      ‘Thinking about it,’ he replied, trying to come up with an excuse that meant he didn’t have to. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Are you uncomfortable?’

      She gave him a look that said, not entirely, which he took as encouragement.

      Fine by him to stay on the floor with her.

      ‘So are you going to tell me why you’ve been crying?’ he prodded, wanting to know what it was that had sent her whirling into his arms.

      Immediately the shields came up. He shouldn’t have pressed it. He felt bad for landing on top of her, though – wanted to make sure he hadn’t put some of the sting in her eyes.

      ‘It’s fine. I’m fine,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘Let me up, will you?’

      ‘Or, we could do the Snow Patrol thing and let me lie with you and just forget the world.’

      ‘So tempting. And yet…’ This time there was a note of steel in her voice that had him holding his hands up in surrender.

      ‘Okay, letting you up now… Although I feel obliged to mention, that in order for me to let you up, you’re going to have to unwrap those gorgeous long legs of yours from around me first.’

      For a second, she looked like she didn’t really want to and he really liked how that made him feel, so much so that when, a few moments later, he felt her legs loosen their hold around him, disappointment punched him in the gut.

      Rising to his feet, he pulled her with him.

      ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’ he asked. ‘No wooziness? No sprains? No serious damage done?’

      She smoothed her hands over her torso and then down her long, long legs, making him completely lose his train of thought. ‘I think I’m good. You okay?’

      ‘Me? Oh, I’ll live. Had a perfect landing, didn’t I?’

      ‘I guess it’s not every day you get taken down by a whirling dervish in wild wellies. Sorry about that, by the way.’

      ‘Apology most definitely accepted. Daniel,’ he said, by way of introduction, taking her hand to make a formal handshake.

      ‘Daniel,’ she said, as if testing out the feel of his name on her tongue. She shook his hand firmly and then, with a tip of her head, queried, ‘Not Dan? Danny?’

      Daniel went from being super-aware of the sound of his name on her lips to being on the back foot. He never went by Dan and certainly never Danny. Danny Westlake was his father. ‘Just Daniel,’ he reiterated, waiting to see what she made of that.

      She hesitated, as if she could tell there was a story behind his insistence, and then seemed to accept that it wasn’t her right to know that story. It only made him like her more.

      ‘Okay, Just Daniel. I’m Kate.’

      ‘As in, Kiss me, Kate?’ he rallied, determined to settle his heart-rate back to a more normal rhythm. Unless he had the worst luck in the world and Kate was a racing-car fan, he doubted she’d have put the name Danny and the name Westlake together and come to a confirmation that meant their budding acquaintance was over before it had really begun.

      ‘As in, just Kate,’ she answered, although he could swear she was holding back a smile.

      ‘So,