by Anna Jacobs
Kieran drove Janey home, feeling tired now. ‘I don’t think you’re going to need to leave town. Yarford won’t come near you again. I should think he’ll spend quite a lot of time in prison. Don’t cry.’
She smiled at him through the tears. ‘It’s the relief. I can get on with my life now.’
‘And stay in Peppercorn Street?’
She nodded. ‘Oh, yes. It’s a wonderful place to live. Unless you think I’m too troublesome a tenant?’
‘No, you’re a perfect tenant, just the sort I like to have in my building. But if I can, I’ll put you in a ground-floor flat. I’ll see if the tenant in the flat next to me will change.’
‘I like where I am. It feels safer than the ground floor and I like looking out of the window. And Millie won’t always be in a buggy.’
Only when he’d seen Janey to her flat and told Miss Fairbie what had happened did Kieran go down to his own flat, feeling utterly exhausted now.
He could leave the reporting of this case to Jim, who would help the police unpin other details, he was sure. From what Mrs Dobson had sobbed out about that Stevenall, and the bribes they’d had to pay, the woman would be losing her council job.
He picked up his phone. ‘Nicole? How are you? Want to know what happened to William and Janey? Right. I’ll be round in a few minutes. Is it really only nine o’clock? It seems later. Yes, I’d love something to eat, and a glass of wine would be perfect.’
Nicole opened the door to him, smiling, looking much better than she had earlier. He couldn’t help it, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
As she melted against him, he closed his eyes and when the kiss ended, simply held her close for a few moments. ‘I needed that,’ he said huskily into her hair.
‘So did I.’ She laughed shakily. ‘I don’t know why we’re standing in the hall. Come in properly and sit down.’
He sat on the sofa, accepted a glass of wine and watched Paul switch off the television and turn to look at him enquiringly. ‘I’d better tell you about William first.’
Nicole was sitting beside him and her hand fumbled for his as he explained what little he knew. ‘We’ll ring the hospital tomorrow.’
She nodded.
‘Do you think they can help him?’ Paul asked.
‘I hope so. Nothing’s guaranteed, though.’
‘Even if they do, he’ll still be a bully and I don’t want anything else to do with him.’
Nicole looked at him sadly, then admitted, ‘I feel the same now, but if they manage to get him back to normal, we’ll see.’
After a pause for a few seconds, Kieran changed the subject. ‘About Janey, the news is much better.’
They were both smiling when he’d finished. ‘She deserves to get her life together,’ Nicole said. ‘It’s going to be hard work rearing that baby on her own.’
‘She’ll cope. She now has Miss Parfitt, Mr Shackleton and Dawn’s mother as adopted grandparents, not to mention Dawn on her side. Not a woman to tangle with, our Dawn.’
After they’d eaten, Paul went to bed and Kieran pulled Nicole closer to him on the couch. ‘So … what about you and me?’
‘What about us?’ Her voice sounded breathless and girlish, and the little he could see of her cheek was faintly flushed.
‘Do you think I can start courting you now?’
She raised her eyes then, meeting his and smiling slightly as she nodded. ‘That sounds an excellent plan. Paul’s already given his approval.’
‘He has?’
‘Oh, yes.’
He smiled. ‘I hope that means he’ll accept me as a stepfather one day. He’s a great kid.’
‘Nearly a young man now.’ She cuddled up and they didn’t say anything for a while, just sat and enjoyed the peace and the feeling of being loved, even if that hadn’t been put into words yet.
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About the Author
ANNA JACOBS is the author of over sixty novels and is addicted to storytelling. She grew up in Lancashire, emigrated to Australia in the 1970s and writes stories set in both countries. She loves to return to England regularly to visit her family and soak up the history. She has two grown-up daughters and a grandson, and lives with her husband in a spacious home near the Swan Valley, the earliest wine-growing area in Western Australia. Her house is crammed with thousands of books.
By Anna Jacobs
THE PEPPERCORN SERIES
Peppercorn Street
THE GREYLADIES SERIES
Heir to Greyladies
Mistress of Greyladies
THE WILTSHIRE GIRLS SERIES
Cherry Tree Lane
Elm Tree Road
Yew Tree Gardens
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in 2014.
This ebook edition first published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2014.
Copyright © 2014 by ANNA JACOBS
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1707–1