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A scraggy black and white rooster had taken up a perch on the worn statue of Neptune on the paved terrace below his bedroom. Rafael sprang out of bed and hauled up the nearest sash window. The bird loosed one more teeth-clenching screech before hopping niftily down and taking urgent flight over the fence to disappear into the long grass in the field.
‘I can’t believe that neither of you heard the hideous racket that bird was making this morning,’ Rafael commented at the breakfast table.
‘I sleep like the dead.’ Una was loyally determined to protect Harriet’s rooster, Albert, from being identified as the culprit.
‘At over seventy I can’t expect to have the hearing of a young man.’ Tolly cast his amused blue eyes down.
Harriet’s day had enjoyed an equally lively beginning. Having slept in late, she got up in panic mode. She had to skip breakfast and race straight up to the yard to help feed the horses, for she felt that it was only fair to take advantage of Davis’s presence there when she was away from home. A large delivery arrived for the tack shop and she had to check the goods and set them out. After all, on Saturday next she would be open for business. To publicise that opening she had, with the help of several keen parents, organised a mini gymkhana for the same day, and had promised a substantial percentage of its profits to a children’s charity. The attendance of the local radio station at the event was part and parcel of her determination to promote the Flynn Court Livery yard in every way possible.
By noon she was still running against the clock and had to flee back to the cottage in a mad rush to get changed. Dressed in the first things that met her frantic hand, she sprinted out to her car. She was halfway to the airport before she appreciated that she was wearing a white T-shirt with a short pink canvas skirt that was the biggest current mistake in her wardrobe but which she had been too stingy to dump.
Her brother’s flight had already landed. Looking anything but anonymous, he was seated on a bench sporting large sunglasses and a Texan hat pulled down low over his spiky blond locks. If she had shaken him he would have rattled with exclusive designer tags.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late!’ she gasped.
With the ready warmth that made him so well loved by his entire family, as well as his fans, Boyce wrapped his arms round his sister in a bear hug.
Harriet stared at the small discreet dressing over his nose. ‘My goodness—what happened to you? Have you been in an accident?’
‘No…I got my nose straightened out a few days ago,’ Boyce admitted, in a pronounced whisper that warned her that his venture into the realms of cosmetic surgery was a matter of extreme confidentiality.
She was astonished, but she swallowed back any adverse comment on his decision. After all, her brother worked in an industry that was highly looks-orientated. He had been born with a snub nose that turned up at the tip in a slightly elfish fashion, and perhaps he had been teased about it, she thought ruefully. It was, however, a family feature they had shared until he’d decided to dispense with it, and she had to resist a strong urge to shape her own offending nose with apologetic fingers.
Picking up his bag, Boyce ran his eyes over her and slowly shook his head. ‘By the way, you look amazing. Getting shot of old Luke was obviously the best thing that ever happened to you!’
‘Flatterer.’ Harriet turned her head in reaction to an indefinable sense that she was being watched. Her attention sped over several clumps of passengers but nobody appeared to be looking in their direction.
‘I’m not flattering you,’ her brother argued. ‘You’re glowing because you’ve got your energy back. Last time I saw you, you were way too thin—and you were always exhausted. You’ve grown your hair and it suits you. Even the skirt’s a big improvement. Luke liked you to dress like an old lady, in drab colours.’
Harriet blinked, and then released an involuntary laugh. ‘Thanks for making me feel good!’
‘Why do you always refuse to believe in the positive things that people say about you?’
Harriet went pink. ‘Do I?’
‘It’s annoying,’ he informed her with brotherly bluntness.
‘You’re the second person to tell me that in twenty-four hours. I suppose I’ve never been very confident about my looks.’
‘You should be comfortable in your own skin,’ Boyce declared impressively.
‘That sounds good, coming from a bloke who’s just had a nose job.’
‘You’ve still got the knack of taking your little brother down a peg or two, haven’t you?’ Boyce shook his fair head with a rueful grin of appreciation, curving an arm round her to point her in the direction of the exit. ‘Come on—let’s get out of here. I don’t want to run the risk of being recognised.’
‘I shouldn’t think you’ve got much to worry about around here,’ she told him soothingly. ‘The price of land and the cost of farm feed are of more interest to my neighbours.’
Boyce loved the lush wildness of the landscape, and the quiet, often wooded winding roads. He even thought it was a treat to get stuck behind an ancient tractor driven by an even more ancient little old man, who helpfully kept on waving them on at blind corners. The cottage, with its eccentric roof, struck him as amazingly small and appealing. Even the guest room, which she had brightened up with her own furniture and bedding, looked very presentable. The huge television she had put in the kitchen where the desk used to be made his eyes light up.
‘I was scared you mightn’t have one,’ Boyce confided with a shudder. ‘I couldn’t live without the football.’
Harriet grinned and handed him the remote control. There was no need to tell him that she had only bought it the week before, in anticipation of his visit. She wanted him to feel at home and enjoy his stay.
Fergal knocked on the door when they were abo
ut to have the meal she had prepared the night before. Swearing under his breath, Boyce shot out of his seat and hurriedly backed out of the room. ‘Do you think he saw me?’
‘Of course he did…Look, Fergal’s up here every day, seeing to his horses—’
