‘You can wear my black dress.’
‘Your black dress?’ She should have known that her sister had a fall-back plan to cover her fall-back plan... Then her jaw dropped. ‘You don’t mean the black dress?’
‘Of course I mean the black dress,’ Dee said, calmly, and Stacey finally managed a laugh.
‘Now I’m really worried. Tell me, have you got some enormous bonus riding on your ability to fix Lawrence up with a date for this dinner?’
Dee’s brows quirked invitingly. ‘Would you go out with him if I had?’
‘Would you split it with me?’ Then, quickly, ‘Don’t answer that. I don’t want to be that tempted.’
‘Oh, come on, Stacey. It’s a night out. Gorgeous restaurant, lovely food, rich bloke. How many offers like that do you get these days?’ Not many. Actually, none. ‘He’s completely house-trained, I promise you.’ Dee meant to reassure her, but Stacey didn’t want a house-trained man. What she wanted was someone like Nash Gallagher. All right, not like Nash Gallagher. She wanted him. In person. ‘You’ll be safe enough,’ she promised. ‘Tim and I will be there.’
That’d be fun. An evening with Mr Nice, Mrs Bossy and Mr Deadly-Dull-but-Totally-Dependable...
But Stacey caught a tantalising glimpse of a way out. ‘If you’re going to the dinner, I won’t have anyone to babysit.’ There were many times when she wished her parents hadn’t sold up their business and moved to Spain to grow old disgracefully in the sun. This was not one of them. And Vera, her next-door neighbour and best friend, who looked after the girls on her occasional—very occasional—evening out, worked on Saturday nights at the local petrol station.
‘Clover and Rosie can stay over at our house,’ Dee replied, with all the firmness of a woman who’d made it in business and wasn’t about to take no for an answer. Even from her tiresome little sister. ‘Ingrid is looking forward to having them.’ The firmness of a woman who’d made it to the top in business and the smugness of one who’d got a ‘treasure’ for an au pair. ‘And I’m going to take you for a facial and a manicure, too.’
‘Now that is tempting,’ Stacey said. She glanced at her hands and surreptitiously scraped away the rim of blue paint that was stubbornly clinging to her thumb-nail. Her sister had bought her some horrendously expensive gardener’s handcream a while back; maybe she should start using it. And maybe Dee was right. After all her hard work, she deserved a treat.
A meal she hadn’t had to cook herself, a manicure and a chance to wear a designer label frock certainly came under that heading.
‘Can I really borrow your black dress?’
‘I’ll bring it round tomorrow.’
‘Heavens, Dee, the dinner isn’t until next Saturday…’
She grinned. ‘I know. More than enough time for you to come up with a dozen excuses, but once that dress is in your wardrobe you won’t be able to resist the chance to wear it.’
‘That’s sneaky.’ But maybe she could put it on, do the whole mascara bit and get Clover to kick her ball over the wall... Dee’s voice dragged her back from dreamland.
‘If sneaky is what it takes to get you out of the house, I’ll go as low as it takes.’ And she grinned. ‘Can you spare some more of those strawberries, or are you saving them for the girls?’ She glanced out to where Clover and Rosie were sitting in the long grass, picking daisies and decorating their young cousin, Harry, with daisy chains.
‘Finish them off. They’ve had more than enough.’
Dee scooped the fruit into her bowl. ‘They’re the best I’ve tasted this year. Where did you get them?’
‘Um…from a neighbour.’ And Stacey felt herself blush. She hadn’t seen Nash since the afternoon she’d climbed the wall and been caught with her fingers in the strawberry patch. Only the glow of a camp fire late at night when she’d been going to bed.
And she’d been congratulating herself on resolutely sticking to her guns and refusing to ask Nash to look for the ball when Clover kicked it over the wall just before bedtime, no matter how much her daughter had pleaded. Of course, she hadn’t had the promise of an Armani dress, then.
No, she was determined. She wasn’t looking for Mr Right. And she had had enough experience of Mr Wrong to last a lifetime. The girls would have to wait until he noticed it. And if he took his time about it, maybe Clover would learn to be more careful.
He didn’t, of course.
Clover had found the football in a carrier hooked over a branch of the apple tree first thing that morning. And resting on top of the football had been a large chip punnet full of strawberries.
Dee’s eyes narrowed. ‘A neighbour? What neighbour?’ Her sister’s scrutiny only made things worse. ‘I thought you were the one who handed out all the garden goodies around here.’ Then, ‘Are you blushing?’
Stacey covered her cheeks with her hands. ‘Don’t be silly, it’s just the heat,’ she said, quickly. ‘And I’ve been thinking…’
‘Thinking?’ Dee raised her brows.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Stacey repeated, ignoring her sister’s sarcastic response, ‘about letting out one of my rooms to a student. What do you think?’
Stacey knew exactly what her sister would think, but she needed to change the subject, fast.
‘I think you should put the house on the market and sell it for whatever you can get while the sun’s shining. With luck prospective buyers will be so busy reminiscing about the last time they saw a dog rose, they won’t notice that the paintwork’s peeling and the gutters are falling apart.’ She paused. ‘Cutting the grass might help.’
‘If I took in a couple of students,’ Stacey said, ignoring the sarcasm, ‘my financial circumstances would improve, I would be able to get the house into shape and then, if I decide to sell…when,’ she amended, quickly, before Dee could launch forth on the subject, ‘when I sell, I’ll get a better price.’
‘You’ve been saying that since Mike died.’
‘I know. But there’s a lot to do.’
‘I won’t argue with that.’ Then she shrugged. ‘All right, I’m through nagging for today.’ She stood up. ‘I think you’re mad, but we might as well have a look at what you’ve got to offer.’
Dee was shaking her head over the lack of tiling in the bathroom when Stacey saw Nash on the far side of the wall. He was shifting a heavy wheelbarrow full of rubbish in the direction of a faint curl of smoke; the sun glinting off his sweat-slicked skin, the hard curve of well-developed biceps. As if he’d felt her gaze on him he turned, looked up and their eyes seemed to lock...
‘Actually, you’ve got a point,’ she said, quickly, easing her sister out of the bathroom. She knew exactly what Dee would have to say about Nash Gallagher. He was temptation on legs and she’d fallen once before. ‘I always take care about splashing, but I can’t expect anyone else to bother.’ She threw one last, lingering glance out of the window. ‘I’ll see to it. Will you put a card on the notice board at the university for me on the way home?’
‘If you insist. Maybe you should put a card up in the village shop, too. Or even an ad in the paper. Or…’ Dee remembered that she had other plans for Stacey.
‘Or marry Lawrence and never worry about money again?’ Dee didn’t deny it. ‘What makes you think he’d want to marry me? I’m hardly a prize catch for a man in his position. Even supposing I’d consider marrying a man for his money.’ Her sister, infuriatingly, just smiled, and it occurred to Stacey that she wasn’t the only one being set up. She might actually have felt some sympathy with Lawrence as a fellow