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me as well?”
    “Of course.  Everyone’s going to be there.  Steven has a friend staying.  From what I hear, he can charm for England.  Causing quite a stir in the village, apparently.  Too old for you, thank goodness.  But the party won’t be all old fogies.”
    Evie could barely swallow her food.  A party!  And Joe Marsh was going to be there.  She didn’t care that he was older than her.  He’d said she was pretty and she had a chance to see him again at the weekend.
    But what was she going to wear?  She couldn’t go looking like a schoolgirl but she didn’t have a single dress.  Her dad had given her some money but she wouldn’t know where to start without Vanessa there to help her.  She dragged her attention back to what her grandmother was saying.
    “The Drydens have invited me to the wedding in London.  So kind when it’s years since I taught the two boys piano.  They’re putting me up in a lovely hotel and I’ve bought a nice little two piece.  It’s all very exciting.  But we’ll have to arrange for you to stay with someone overnight.”
    “Gran, I’m sixteen.  I don’t need a babysitter.  I’ll be fine right here.”
    “I don’t know what your parents would say about that.”
    “They’d say I was a sensible girl and this is hardly the crime capital of the western world.”
    Even as she said it, Evie wondered why she was being so insistent.  She normally hated being left on her own but somehow this felt different.
    “Well, I suppose it would be alright,”  Granny Barbara agreed eventually.  “You’re not your sister, are you?  I don’t suppose there’s much mischief you could get up to.”

Chapter 4
     
    Joe had told her she was pretty and Evie had been so thrilled she’d let him trade on it ever since.  How had she never realised that before?  She’d had her share of other male attention over the years.  She was thirty, of course she had.  But she’d never looked twice at anyone since Joe.  Until now.
    She’d been worried Jake wouldn’t show up and terrified he would.  Then suddenly there he was, looking gorgeous.  And very young.  He wore a soft black shirt, loose over jeans and hardly buttoned.  He had a leather jacket scrunched in one fist and a supermarket bag in the other.  Her pulse was racing, she had to get a grip.  It couldn’t be normal to jump in so deep at the first hint of a kind word.
    “Was that a motorbike I heard?”
    “I borrowed it from a mate for a couple of days.  Had to walk home last night when I didn’t get a shag.”
    He raised a cocky eyebrow.  He couldn’t be expecting an apology?  She pulled back the door to let him in, hoping he wouldn’t notice how nervous she was.  But he was too busy checking out her legs.
    She’d agonised over what to wear, reluctant to look like she was trying too hard for an afternoon in the garden.  She’d finally settled on khaki shorts and a green linen tank but wondered now if he’d think bare limbs were too encouraging.
    He dumped a bottle of wine and a six pack of lager onto the wooden drainer.  Who did he think was going to drink all that?  Certainly not her, if she wanted to keep her wits about her.
    “Food smells great.  What is it, chicken?”
    “With honey and mustard sauce,” she told him as he dipped his finger into the pan and nodded in approval.
    Evie was confident about cooking.  She liked good ingredients kept simple and luckily she’d stocked up with a few things yesterday in the village.  But she’d never cooked a meal for a guy who was so much younger and  virtually a stranger.  What on earth was she thinking?
    “Is there time to get the tour before we eat?”
    Relieved that she didn’t have to sit down with him yet, she turned off the gas.  But he surprised her by taking her hand, his loose cuff tickling her wrist as they went out into the sun drenched garden.
    Too aware of her hip brushing the warmth of his thigh, she showed him round the borders