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CHAPTER ONE

JOSS saw her first He was on his way back froreat-aunt Ruth in her house on Church Walk and she was standing in the churchyard studying the headstones, her head bent over one of the her face When she looked up, alerted to his presence by the sound of a s under his foot, Joss stared at her in open wonder and awe

She was tall, much much taller than him; at least six foot, he estimated

‘And a couple of inches,’ she drawled in aht, ‘and then I guess you’d be souess no one kinda likes to think of a wo over six foot Tell the so tall, but tell the on six-two and they think you’re a freak After all, what kinda right-thinking wouys’

‘I don’t think you’re too tall,’ Joss told her gallantly,up into her eyes

And what eyes they were, surely the deepest, darkest blue that ever was Joss had never seen eyes like them before He had never seen anyone like her before

She watched hiravely for a second before her mouth curled into a smile that made Joss’s insides turn to jelly and told hiuess I knohat you’re really thinkingthat for a woh for ht,’ she went on with another dazzling smile, ‘and if you happen to know of any—’

‘I do,’ Joss told her quickly, already fiercely protective of her; already determined that no one should dare to criticise her or find her less than coazed at her, his eyes mirrored the intensity and immediacy of his first calf-love

Speculatively she hesitated, not wanting to hurt hiht deflect her fro there

Haslewich ht not be on any official tourist route like Chester, but she had been determined to visit it and, as yet, she had still not seen the remains of the castle and its wall, nor the newly sanitised salt-works that had recently been opened to the public as a tourist attraction, never mind the rest of the town’s historic sites So far, in fact, all she had done was glance around the churchyard

‘I’ve got two cousins,’ she heard Joss telling her ‘Well, they aren’t exactly cousins,’ he acknowledged ‘They’re really seconds, or maybe even thirds, I don’t knohich Aunt Ruth would know

‘But anyway, James is six foot two and Luke is even taller and then there’s Alistair and Niall and Kit and Saul, too, I suppose, although he’s quite old—’

‘GeeI’ently

‘I could always introduce you to the to be here for a while?’

He let the question hang

‘Well, that kinda depends You seegeeI’m sorry but I don’t know your name We haven’t introduced ourselves yet, have we? I’m Bobbie, short for Roberta,’ she told him whilst inwa

rdly acknowledging ruefully that she really didn’t have the ti, but he was just so appealing and not a day over ten or eleven Give hi to be dynamite She wondered absently what his cousins were actually like

‘BobbieI like that,’ he told her and she hid her smile as the look in his eyes told her that whatever her naot an equally enthusiastic response ‘I’hton’

Joss Crighton That altered everything Thick eyelashes veiled her eyes

‘Well now, Joss Crighton, suppose you and I go find a diner and get to know one another a little bit better and you can tell htons, too?’ she asked him casually

‘Yes, they are,’ he agreed ‘Butwell, it’s a long story’

‘I can’t wait to hear it They’re my favourite kind,’ she assured him solemnly

As he fell into step beside her, antly felances at her

She earing cream trousers and a shirt in the same colour with a camelly-coloured coat over the top; her blonde hair, now that she had lifted her head, hung down past her shoulders in thick, luxurious waves Joss could feel his heart threatening to burst with pride and delight as he guided her through the town square and into one of the pretty, narrow streets that led off it

‘Gee, is that really real?’ she paused to enquire as they passed a clutch of half-tiether for support

‘Yes, they were built in the reign of Elizabeth I,’ Joss told her importantly ‘The main structure of wooden beams is infilled with panels of wattle and daub—that’s sort of bits of branches held together with a s,’ he told her kindly

‘Uh-huh,’ Bobbie responded, refraining fro hi her talents to afield

‘We don’t actually have diners in this country,’ Joss informed her politely, ‘but there is aa place just down here’

Bobbie hid her a her to the town’s McDonald’s Only, as she soon discovered, he wasn’t and she hesitated fractionally as he directed her attention to a very shtfully fron above the doorway that stipulated that alcoholic beverages were not supplied to persons under eighteen to Joss’s very obviously nowhere near eighteen-year-old face and back again She didn’t want to hurt his dignity, but at the sa asked to leave because she was accompanied by a minor

‘I can go in so long as I don’t have anything alcoholic to drink I know the people who run it,’ he explained as he pushed the door open for her At the saers behind his back as he tried to calculate just what he could buy as left of his week’s bus fare and spending money, which was all he had in his pocket, and whether or not Minnie Cooke, who ran the wine bar, would give him any credit

Minnie’s brother, Guy, was in partnership with Joss’s nised Joss as soon as he walked into the wine bar, her eyebrows lifting slightly as she looked from Joss to his companion

‘Yes, Joss?’ she asked him cautiously

‘Ierwe’d both like a drink and so in a far less certain voice, ‘Minnie, could I have a ith you?’

‘Look, why don’t you lethis dilee when any kind of public huht, was ashe wanted to do was to hurt or slight him in any way, but Minnie Cooke, too, had summed up the situation and stepped into the breach