Her Ideal Husband. Liz Fielding

she’d made for Archie.

      By the time she’d discovered it was missing and Clover had admitted what she’d done, it was too late to do anything about it. It had gone.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘HAVE you heard what’s happening to the old garden centre, yet?’ Dee asked, as they walked towards her expensive new Italian car.

      Unwilling to admit to the industrial units—she’d had enough nagging for one day—Stacey just said, ‘There’s someone working over there, clearing the place up.’

      ‘They must have got planning permission, then.’ Dee sighed and shook her head. ‘I did warn you. The house will be worth nothing if you don’t sell it quickly.’

      ‘If I could have sold quickly, I would have done.’

      ‘No, darling, you wouldn’t. You’ve been putting off the inevitable, hoping your numbers will come up on the lottery so you don’t have to move at all.’

      ‘Not true. I can’t afford lottery tickets.’

      Dee looked startled. ‘Are things that bad? Look, please…’

      ‘Don’t!’

      ‘All right, all right,’ she said, quickly backing off from offering money. ‘But you know what I mean. You don’t want to move. All this fiddling about trying to fix up Mike’s do-it-yourself disasters is just your way of putting off the inevitable. Let it go, Stacey. Let it go…’

      Stacey picked up her two-year-old nephew and began to fasten him into his car seat, pretending she hadn’t heard. ‘Okay, Harry?’ Harry grinned at her. ‘You are so gorgeous, sweetheart.’ She straightened and stepped back. ‘I wish I had a little boy just like you.’

      ‘Feeling broody?’ Dee asked, slyly. She hadn’t been... ‘Marry Lawrence and I’m sure he’ll oblige.’

      ‘Really? Does it have to be a permanent arrangement? I’d be perfectly happy with just the baby.’

      ‘As if you didn’t have enough troubles.’ But her sister was wearing a suspiciously smug little smile, no doubt counting on Stacey’s hormones to do the dirty work for her. ‘I’ll call round with the dress.’

      ‘Fine.’

      ‘You won’t cry off at the last moment, will you?’

      ‘Don’t nag. I can’t promise to make Lawrence’s night but—’ she paused as Dee’s helpful suggestion that the children stay over at her house with Harry, in the care of the doting Ingrid, suddenly acquired a less innocent interpretation; there was no such thing as a free babysitter ‘—but I won’t let you down.’ She would be making her own babysitting arrangements, though. ‘You won’t forget to put up a notice about the room, will you?’

      ‘You’re quite sure you want to do this? You might get the tenant from hell.’

      ‘As long as he can pay the rent, I don’t mind where he comes from.’

      Stacey watched her sister drive away, not entirely sure she could trust Dee to put up the ‘Room to Let’ notice for her. Her sister had an entirely different agenda, wanting her safely married to someone who would pay to send the girls to a private school and install them all in a house with every modern convenience, a house where the shelves had been put up by a proper carpenter—or at least someone who knew how to use a level.

      She meant well.

      Stacey turned and looked at her home with its sharply pointed gables and piecrust bargeboarding. She loved it, but she had to admit that it could have been the prototype for the ‘crooked little house’.

      It had been, in that favourite estate agents’ phrase, ‘in need of improvement’ when Mike had inherited it from his uncle. Unfortunately, he was not the man for the job.

      Mike had only ever been good at one thing. A husband, a father, needed more than five stars in the good sex guide...

      ‘What are you looking at, Mummy?’

      Stacey dragged herself back to the present. ‘There are some housemartins.’ She stooped down to Rosie’s level. ‘Look, they’ve built a house under the eaves. Can you see?’

      ‘Wow, that’s so cool.’

      ‘Yes, isn’t it? If they raise a family there, they’ll come back every year.’ Not quite paying guests, but just as welcome. ‘Run and fetch Clover, will you, sweetheart? I want to walk down to the village.’ Just in case Dee decided not to risk the chance of her plans being upset by a student needing a room this late in the college year, Stacey would put a card in the window of the village shop. Before she lost her nerve.

      And when they got back, she’d cut the lawn. Well, trim the heads off the daisies, at any rate, which was all her lawn mower was capable of. University students probably wouldn’t notice, but she didn’t want to risk putting anyone off.

      Dear Nash

      Mummy says I have to wait until you find my ball, but that mite be forever if you don’t know I’ve lost it. So I’m just telling you I kicked it over the wall again. Sorry. Love, Clover

      PS Please don’t tell Mummy I rote this. I’m supposed to be pashunt and wait.

      Nash spotted the note, stuck in a crack at the top of the wall, when he emerged from his tent at first light. The football took a while to find, but he didn’t mind that. He’d been looking for an opportunity to further his acquaintance with Stacey O’Neill. He’d hoped the strawberries would do the trick.

      She hadn’t responded in person, but the tin of shortbread suggested he wouldn’t be rebuffed if he looked over the wall to say thanks. The sound of a very sick lawn mower was all the excuse he needed.

      Stacey was crouched over the mower, feeding its apparently bottomless thirst for oil, when something made her look up. Nash Gallagher was sitting on top of the wall, watching her, his incredible legs just waiting for a invitation to jump down and make themselves at home.

      ‘Need a hand?’ he said.

      ‘What I need is a new lawn mower,’ she said, standing up, her face flushed from bending over the ancient machine. Maybe. ‘I just hope I’ve got enough oil to keep it going until I’ve finished.’ The fact that the grass was six inches high wasn’t exactly helping.

      He jumped down without waiting for the invitation and gave the mower an exploratory push, then frowned. ‘Have you got a spanner?’

      ‘Well, um, yes.’ He waited. ‘You want me to fetch it?’

      ‘It might be a good idea. Unless it’s trained to come when you whistle?’ One corner of his mouth lifted in something like a smile. Like a smile, but a whole lot more.

      Oh, good grief. She knew this type. She’d married one of them and apparently six years of living with a sweet-talking hunk with a roving eye hadn’t given her immunity to the breed. ‘You don’t have to,’ she said, quickly. ‘Really. I’ll be fine.’

      ‘Until you run out of oil.’ And he looked up, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘If you feel bad about it, you always can make me some more of that shortbread.’

      ‘Oh.’ She had known that the shortbread would be misunderstood. ‘That was from Clover. For returning her ball. Again.’

      ‘Really?’ He didn’t sound disappointed. Instead he switched the grin to Clover. ‘Nice one, Clover. Tell me, do your talents stretch to making tea?’

      Clover giggled. ‘Mum made the shortbread. I just put it there to say thank you. But tea’s easy.’

      ‘Well, I’m sure your mother could do with a cup. And, since you’re making a pot, I like mine with three spoonsful of sugar.’

      Clover giggled, again. Stacey fought, with difficulty, the inclination