by Unknown
'Yes, I daresay it is,' Katie had agreed quietly. 'But you seem to forget Max that I already have a job.'
'I know you do,' Max had agreed, 'but I'm not completely blind Katie, something's gone wrong in your life.
Look, I'm not going to pry or ask questions, God knows I don't have the right to act the big brother with you now, after all I was hardly a caring one to you when you and Louise were growing up. What I will say to you, though, is that some people need to seek solitude, to lick their wounds and heal themselves, and others need the care and comfort of their close family, and we both know which camp you fall into.'
It was true, Louise, Katie's twin sister was more the type to seek the solitude Max had just described than her, but then Louise was hardly likely to need to do so.
Louise after all was blissfully in love with and loved by Gareth.
Louise and Gareth.
Katie had closed her eyes thankful that no one had guessed her shameful poisonous secret. It made no difference that she had loved Gareth quietly and sedately and from a distance a long time before Louise had realised the exact nature of her feelings for him. And the reason it made no difference was not just because Louise was her other half, her dearly beloved if sometimes somewhat headstrong and exasperating twin, but because Gareth himself did not love her... Gareth loved Louise.
Stoically Katie had accepted the agonising searing burn of her own pain, claiming pressure of work for her increasingly infrequent visits home and her even more infrequent get-togethers with her twin, but then as though fate had not done enough she discovered that it had another blow in store for her.
Her boss, for whom she had worked ever since she had joined the legal department of the charity to do her articles after leaving university, had resigned, and the man who had taken his place...
Katie closed her eyes in midstep. Jeremy Stafford had at first seemed so charming, so very much on her own wavelength that even now she couldn't properly come to terms with what had happened.
When he had started asking her to work late, she had done so willingly, enjoying not just the rapport between them but the knowledge that the work they were doing was ultimately benefiting people who were so very desperately in need of help.
The first time Jeremy had suggested dinner as a "re-ward" to them both for their hard work, she had felt nothing but pleasure, no sense of wariness or suspicion had clouded her happy acceptance of his suggestion.
How naive she had been, but then from the way that Jeremy had always talked about his wife and small children she had assumed that he was so happily married that any kind of betrayal of his wife and their marriage vows—well, it had simply never crossed her mind that it might have crossed his... But she had been wrong...not only had it crossed his, it had lingered there and quite unequivocally taken up a very lustful and leer-ing residence as she had so unpleasantly discovered.
At first when he had started to compliment her on her face and then her figure she had simply assumed that he was being pleasant, but then had come the night when he had put his arm around her when they were leaving the restaurant and then attempted to kiss her.
She had fobbed him off immediately, but to her consternation instead of apologising as she had expected him to do he had turned on her claiming that she had led him on; that she was a tease and worse, oh yes, much much worse. Of course after that there had been no more intimate dinners and no evenings working late, instead there had been hostility and even victimisation: accusa-tions about missing reports which she knew she had filed, mistakes which she knew she had not made, errors which she knew were simply not hers.
Not that she had any intention of telling Max any of that. The change her elder brother had undergone following the attack he had suffered on a Jamaican beach while he was in that country trying to trace their father's missing twin brother, David Crighton, had not merely converted him into a passionately devoted husband and father, it had also turned him into a surprisingly caring and concerned brother and son. If Max guessed for one moment what was going on, Katie knew that he would lose no time in seeking out Jeremy Stafford and demanding retribution for his behaviour.
Had they been children still involved in playground jealousies and quarrels that might just have been acceptable, but they were adults. She was supposed to be in charge of her own life. As a modern independent woman she was expected to be able to deal with her own problems. The sadness was, she loved her work, loved knowing that what she was doing no matter how small, was a benefit to other people.
The Crighton women carried a strong gene of responsibility and duty towards their fellow men and women.
In her great-aunt, Ruth Crighton, it had manifested itself in the establishment of an enclave of charitably run accommodation units for single parents and their children.
In her mother, Jenny, it showed in the way she gave so much of her time and energy to others. Katie's sister had become involved in a programme to help young drug addicts in Brussels where she and Gareth lived and worked.
Katie froze as the sudden sharp screech of a car's brakes brought her back to reality.
Without realising what she was doing she had started across the road without looking properly, but that in no way excused the manic dangerousness of the speed at which the driver of the car, now stopped in front of her, had to have been driving to have been forced to halt with such a screech. Katie knew nothing about cars and the fact that the very powerful engine of the Mercedes the man was driving was responsible for the intensity of his braking rather than his speed was therefore completely lost on her. Instead what she was aware of was the look of totally unwarranted fury in his eyes as he glowered ferociously out of the car at her.
As her own shock held her motionless she was distantly aware of the fact that he was outrageously good-looking with thick, virtually jet-black, well-groomed hair, chillingly icy grey eyes and a mouth that even when clamped grimly closed still betrayed the fact that he had a disturbingly full and sexy bottom lip.
But none of that compensated for the fact that he had nearly run her over. Determinedly Katie took a step towards the car and then stopped as the driver behind him hooted impatiently. Much as she longed to give Mr Sexy Mouth a piece of her mind, she really didn't have time.
She was due at the office ten minutes ago, hardly a good start to her first official working day with her father and Olivia.
It had been a wrench leaving her job, despite the problem she had suffered with Jeremy and she still wasn't sure she had made the right decision in agreeing to join the family practice. Both her father and Olivia had held out the inducement, as Max had already indicated, that in time she could expect to become a full partner, even if right now she was simply being retained by them as a salaried employee. Money had never motivated Katie, but then to be fair she knew that it didn't motivate either her father or Olivia either.
She was to start by taking over the conveyancing side of the business, the legal work attached to the buying and selling of properties. She had pulled a small face when her father had told her this.
'Well at least I should have some practice by the time it comes to my buying my own home,' she had told him ruefully.
Although her parents had offered her back her childhood room permanently, after several years of living independently at the University and then in London, she had felt that it would be more sensible to find her own separate accommodation. In London she had rented and while she waited for the right property to buy to present itself to her at home, she had, just temporarily she had told them, moved back in with her parents.
It had felt distinctly odd to be back in her old room—
without her twin.
Louise had been more excited about Katie's decision to return to Haslewich than she had herself; trying to cajole her into a flying visit to Brussels to spend the week with them before Katie took up her new duties.
'Why don't you go?' her father had asked her when he had learned via Jenny of her decision to turn dow
n Louise's invitation.
There wasn't any logical explanation she could give and she had been grateful to her younger brother Joss and her cousin Jack for creating a small diversion as they both pleaded with Jon to be allowed to take up Louise's offer in her stead.
Since it was Joss's all important GCSE year Katie had well been able to understand her father's refusal to agree until after his exams were over and loyally Jack, who was two years older than his cousin, had announced that1*
he didn't want to go until they could both go together.
The pair of them were almost as close as the pairs of twins the Crighton family produced with such regularity, Jack having made his home with Katie's parents after the break-up of his own parents' marriage and the disappearance of his father David.
Ten minutes later, as Katie walked into her father's office after a brief knock on the door, she apologised.
'Sorry I'm late... I'd forgotten how busy the town is and I couldn't find a close by parking spot...'
'Mmm...if you think this morning is busy just wait until market day,' her father warned her good-humoured-ly. 'Olivia won't be here until ten,' he added. 'During term time she does the morning school and nursery run.
Caspar picks the children up in the afternoon.'
Caspar, Olivia's American husband, held a Chair at a nearby university where he lectured in corporate law and it had been while she was on a course that Olivia had met and fallen in love with him.
'It can't be easy for her, working full-time with two young children,' Katie commented.
'No, it isn't,' her father agreed, adding briskly,
'We've cleared out a room for you to use and I've organised some preliminary file reading for you. We'll start you off on some straightforward conveyancing...'
'That's fine,' Katie responded absently.
'Is something wrong?' he asked, sensing her preoccupation.
'Not really...not unless you count nearly being run down by some speed-crazed driver,' Katie told him, briefly explaining what had happened.
'Mmm...it has been mooted that the town be made a no traffic area, but...'
'But...' Katie raised her eyebrows. The town had been there before the Romans, its surrounding salt making it a highly prized asset. The Normans had built a castle which the Roundheads virtually destroyed during the Civil War, and the town's streets dated in the main from the Middle Ages and were consequently narrow and tor-tuous and certainly not designed for the volume of modern-day traffic that used them.
'Well in order to make that a viable proposition, a new ring road would have to be built, and you can just imagine the cost of it...'
'Mmm...but if it keeps drivers like Mr Sexy Mouth off the road...'
'Like who?' her father questioned.
Katie flushed a little. Now what on earth had prompted her to use that particular description of him out loud?
'Er... Nothing,' she denied hastily, quickly turning her attention to the files her father was showing her.
CHAPTER TWO
'JENNY Crighton is giving an informal supper party in a few weeks' time,' Guy gave his cousin the date, 'and she's invited you to go along with us, Seb. You'll enjoy it,' he encouraged when he saw the way Seb was frowning.
He had called round to see him expressly to deliver Jenny's invitation as well as to see how his cousin had settled in at Aarlston-Becker.
'Shall I?' Seb challenged him.
'Which reminds me,' Guy added before Seb could continue, 'Chrissie said to tell you that you're more than welcome to come round and dine with us any time you wish.'
'Thanks, I really do appreciate the offer, but right now I'm so involved at work...' Seb stopped and shook his head. Despite his misgivings about returning to the town of his birth, Seb had to admit that the sheer scope of the work he was involved with at Aarlston was proving enormously challenging and satisfying. The company was right at the forefront of research into and the creation of a new generation of drugs.
'I had planned to drive over to Manchester that weekend to see Charlotte, but it seems she's organised to go away with a group of friends, which means...'
'Which means that you'll be free to accept Jenny's invitation,' Guy told him firmly. 'You'll enjoy it. Saul is bound to be there. Have you met him yet? He's head of a section of the Aarlston legal department and...'
'Yes... I was introduced to him the other day. Nice chap...'
'Have you found a house that appeals to you yet?'
Guy asked him.
'Not so far. Ideally I'd like somewhere large enough for Charlotte to have her own space when she comes to stay, which means somewhere with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, but I don't really want something quite as large as a three- or four-bedroom house, from a practical point of view if nothing else.'
'Mmm...well there's a large Edwardian house on the outskirts of town which was recently converted into a series of luxury apartments, although I think most of them have already been sold. From the sound of it one of them would suit you ideally.'
'Mmm...who are the agents? It's certainly worth looking into,' Seb agreed.
The small terraced house he was currently renting was only two streets away from the one he had lived in as a child and Seb was finding staying in it faintly claustrophobic. His mother had moved away to live with her widowed sister following the death of Seb's father and Seb had no immediate family left in the town, but it seemed that everywhere he turned he was confronted with the Cooke name and the Cooke features, battalion upon battalion of assorted aunts, uncles and cousins.
And as for the Jenny Crighton supper party, that was something he would have preferred to have got out of attending but he suspected that there was no way that Guy was going to allow him to do so.
There was a certain something in Guy's voice when he mentioned Jenny Crighton's name that made Seb wonder if those rumours about Guy's feelings for Jenny before Chrissie had come into his life had been just mere rumour. Whatever the case though there was no doubt about the fact that he loved Chrissie now.
'Mmm...that looks interesting,' Olivia commented as she walked past Katie's desk and saw the estate agent's details lying there.
'Who is the prospective purchaser?' she asked curiously as she studied photographs of the elegantly shaped Edwardian rooms and the sweeping views of the grounds that surrounded the newly converted apartments.
'Me, hopefully,' Katie told her, adding ruefully, 'although the price they are asking is rather high.'
'Can't you bargain them down?' Olivia suggested practically.
Katie shook her head. 'I doubt it, there are only two apartments left.'
'Mmm...well I can see why they've sold so well, two double bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and dressing-room, a large sitting-room, dining-room and good-sized kitchen, and those views...'
'Yes, and because this one is on the top floor it's got its own balcony,' Katie told her.
'I went to view it with Dad last night and I must say that I was really impressed even if it's still an awful lot of money, but with Mum and Dad so generously offering to help me out I can just about afford it.'
'Well, you certainly won't lose out by buying it,'
Olivia told her, 'not with Aarlston-Becker expanding at the rate it is and the demand for housing expanding along with them.'
'True... I see we're getting an increasing number of farming clients applying for change of use in planning permission for some of their agricultural land.'
'Yes, and there's been a lot of controversy about it with a huge continuing debate in the local press. Those against any kind of new building on existing farmland are claiming that there are plenty of infill sites which should be used up first, while those who are in favour of granting planning permission insist the infill sites simply aren't adequate to cope with the growing demand for housing, stating that the town's prosperity is too closely linked with Aarlston to risk the threat of the company moving elsewhere because their employees can't find homes.'
&nb
sp; 'I should imagine that argument is something of a double-edged sword,' Katie murmured thoughtfully.
'Very much so,' Olivia agreed. "The old die-hards are bitterly opposed to the Aarlston presence on the outskirts of the town claiming that it threatens its identity as a traditional market town in the centre of an agricultural area.'
'It's going to be a long-running battle, I suspect.'
After Olivia had left, Katie picked up the telephone receiver and punched in the number of the estate agents.
There was no point in trying to persuade them to get the developers to drop the price of the apartment, she would just have to bite the bullet and offer the price they were asking. The apartment was, after all, perfect for her in every way, and if Olivia and her father were to be believed it would ultimately appreciate in value and prove to be a good financial investment.
While she was on the phone to the agents she decided that she would also arrange to look over the apartment again so that she could take proper measurements. Her mother had offered her some pieces of furniture she herself no longer needed including some very pretty antiques, but she would need to buy new carpets and curtains if the purchase went ahead.
Seb frowned as he studied the details of the apartment he had looked over the previous evening. On the top floor of the original Edwardian house it was one of a pair and ideally suited to his requirements. Guy had been right about that, it was exactly what he wanted even if the price was a little on the high side—not that that was a prime consideration for him—it was easily within his price range.
He had phoned Charlotte to tell her about it and she was going to travel to Haslewich from Manchester today after her classes had finished in order that she could see it. He had given her directions so that she could get a cab there and find it, and had arranged a time to meet.