Page 29 of Kingfisher Morning

'Thanks,' Ross said cheerfully. He looked at Donna's wet-eyed appeal. 'All right, dumpling! Uncle Ross will take you to ride on Jessie tomorrow morning!'

Donna gave Tracy a triumphant, damp smile, and Tracy finished her toast in silence.

Trying to placate her, Emma asked her to help with the washing up. Ross vanished with the other two children. Tracy's stiff-necked silence only held out for a short while against Emma's coaxing. A little judicious praise, a smile or two, and Tracy was cheerful once more, eager to demonstrate her skill with the tea-towel. They put the breakfast things away together in all amity.

Mrs Pat was pleased to see the children. As usual, her garden was alive with flapping washing, the hens were contentedly scratching and squawking and her small black kitten was perched on a low branch above the fence, arching and spitting as it eyed a stray dog which was barking at it from the lane.

'There's so much to do at Mrs Pat's,' Tracy said with a sigh of content, racing up the garden with Robin and Donna in her wake.

Mrs Pat beamed at Ross and Emma. 'Off to ride, then?' She looked with approval at Emma's sturdy blue jeans. 'That's right, you enjoy yourself. Worked well with the children, hasn't she, Ross?' And her gaze challenged him to hesitate with his response.

He grinned. 'What am I expected to say? Of course she's worked well with them. A proper tower of strength, as you've said before, Mrs Pat. I'm sure Judith is very grateful.'

Emma laughed. Mrs Pat shook her head reprovingly at him. Edie, who was still shy with him, had scuttled into the kitchen and they heard her getting down cups and banging the kettle about. Mrs Pat said a hasty goodbye and vanished to find her sister.

'Mrs Pat would like to hear me give you a glowing testimonial,' Ross said mockingly. 'Shall I?'

Emma walked off. Over her shoulder, as he came after her, she said coolly, 'Don't bother.'

'Now you're offended,' he said, catching up with her.

'Everything I've done has been done for the sake of the children,' she said calmly, 'and for your sister. I don't want anything from you, Ross.'

'I see,' he said in an odd tone.

'Do you? I hope you do,' she said, wondering why she felt the need, the positive need, to say all this, to make it clear to him…to make what clear, though?

He looked down at her. She raised her eyes, brown and warm as shiny new chestnuts with the sun on them. They stared at each other for a very long time in silence. Ross's eyes were unreadable to her, but his eyes searched hers as though seeking and finding the answer to some question he did not wish her to know he was asking.

She looked away at last. 'You think too much about ulterior motives, Ross,' she said sadly.

'Do I? Perhaps I do,' he said.

'Oh, I know your experiences have sometimes been unhappy in that direction, but everyone isn't made the same way. You can't always be suspicious of other people. I couldn't live like that. I couldn't bear to be so constricted, so suspicious and remote. You have to open up to life, to give people the benefit of the doubt.'

'Is that what you're going to do?' His voice was serious and questioning. 'Are you going to risk another heartbreak, Emma? Another emotional tangle? Haven't you learnt your lesson?'

She thrust her hands into the pockets of her yellow wool jacket, thick fisherman's knit, warm and comforting. Her chin was up. 'That's what life is about,' she said. 'Risk-taking.'

'I remember you once said to me that you would be cautious in future. This mouse stays clear of traps, you said!'

'I was wrong,' Emma stated flatly.

Ross stood still, staring at her bent head and waiting until she lifted it and looked up at him. 'You are an amazing girl,' he said. 'You say that with such simplicity.'

She was puzzled. 'What?'

'You said that you were wrong…no qualification, no excuse…just the blunt statement of fact.' His smile was brilliant, heart-touching. 'I like that. It's a rare quality. Most people want to make excuses for themselves, even when they know they're in the wrong. They want to say yes, but…You just fling the words out without any strings attached to them, just as you walked away at once when you realised how things were between your friend and your young man. That took guts, Emma. A lot of girls would have put up a fight for him, and there would have been a lot of pain for everyone concerned then.'

She was embarrassed. Praise to her face made her want to run away. 'Where is this stable?' she asked huskily. 'Is it much further?'

He laughed. 'No, just up Bundle Lane.'

'Bundle Lane?' Eagerly she questioned the name. 'What a strange name!'

'About fifty years ago there was a house at the top of it which was owned by an old miser who bought bundles of old clothes and the usual portable objects people try to sell when they're hard up—he was a sort of pawnbroker,' Ross explained. 'When he died they found his house crammed with peculiar objects. He sold the rags to a dealer, but he often kept the china or glass, and some of the stuff was very valuable. Some of it was rubbishy, naturally. He had no relatives, so the house and all its contents were sold and the money went to the church. His will had been made years earlier, but he had been religious as a youth.'

'What did the church do with the money, I wonder?' Emma was desperately trying to keep the conversation on impersonal subjects.

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