Starting Over. Penny Jordan

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      She had always been inclined to be impulsive, a trait which had got her into plenty of trouble as a girl but even she was surprised to hear herself accepting the job whilst saying, ‘There’s one problem though. I … er … don’t actually have anywhere to live locally as yet and—’

      ‘Oh, that’s no problem.’ Frances Sorter beamed. ‘There’s a flat upstairs that you could have rent free. In fact, if you did you would be solving another of our problems. The insurance company are insisting that the flat is tenanted. Apparently they consider that an empty property is more at risk from thieves and vandals. It’s only small but the previous owners had it completely refurbished since they lived “over the shop” and, well, let me take you up and you can see for yourself.’

      Well, Sara reflected ruefully half an hour after she said goodbye to Frances. This morning as she left her friend the last thing on her mind had been coming to Haslewich, never mind accepting a job here, and yet here she was … Sara was a firm believer in fate and in taking the kind of chances other people more cautious and less imaginative would give very wary distance to. Life was an adventure—or at least it should be. Her eyes began to sparkle. Who knew, she might even get the opportunity to even the score a bit for her sweet vulnerable little stepgrandmamma and put some of those powerful lordly Crightons in their place. Now that was a challenge she would accept with relish!

      Nick Crighton stifled a small sigh. It had been very kind of his brother Saul and his wife Tullah to offer him a room in their home to recuperate in following the injuries he had sustained whilst visiting one of his clients who was incarcerated in a Thai jail.

      Another inmate had attacked Nick’s client in a drug-crazed frenzy and when Nick had gone to help him, he had ended up being knifed.

      Luckily the knife had missed all his major internal organs, even if his recovery was taking longer than expected thanks to an infection that had developed in the site of the wound. That had cleared up now but he had been told by his doctor to take things easy until the wound had completely healed.

      Yes, it was kind of Saul and Tullah to insist that he stay with them, but the truth was that he was beginning to get rather bored by all the cosseting he was receiving.

      He was a grown man, after all, a man used to spending his spare time on the outdoor pursuits he enjoyed: rock climbing and sailing, white water rafting … anything with just that little touch of exhilaration and excitement about it—not that he ever took foolhardy or dangerous risks…. Well, not often!

      The last time he had had a medical check-up he had tried to persuade his doctor that he was well enough to return to work. After all, as a lawyer he was hardly likely to be overtaxing himself physically he had suggested slyly to his GP.

      ‘Mmm … I take your point,’ the other man had agreed. ‘Sitting at an office desk or even standing in court certainly aren’t going to do you too much harm now that the wound has actually started to heal….’

      ‘Great! So I can go back to work then?’ he had pounced eagerly.

      ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Nick,’ the doctor had refused affably. ‘You may be a lawyer but I happen to know that your job is very much a hands-on affair. You run a business that involves taking the kinds of risks that no sane man with a healthy respect for his own physical safety would ever take.’

      Nick had shrugged, knowing that there was nothing he could say. His work as a negotiator for people caught up in the legal systems of other countries often took him into situations that were physically dangerous. It hadn’t been unknown for him when dealing with a particularly corrupt government to bribe his ‘client’ out of gaol and then have to make a quick and sometimes dangerous getaway over the border with him or her.

      As a newly qualified solicitor he had volunteered to help the parents of a university friend to make an application to a far Eastern government for their daughter to be released from prison where she was being held on drug smuggling charges.

      After he had successfully won the case he had been besieged by other parents requesting his help with similar cases.

      It appalled Nick that even now when surely the most naive of travellers must be aware of the dangers, young people, especially young girls, fell into the trap of allowing themselves to be used—sometimes knowingly but more often than not as mules—by drug traffickers.

      He did other work, of course, as a locum which allowed him plenty of time to travel. Work to Nick was a means to an end, not an end in itself.

      ‘I’ve booked us a table at the Sorters’ new restaurant for tonight,’ Tullah had announced this morning over breakfast. ‘They’ve got their Michelin now and I must say I’m looking forward to sampling their latest menu. You’ll enjoy it, Nick.’

      Well, yes, he would enjoy it, but … but what he was hankering after right now was something a little bit more adventurous than domesticity of the type enjoyed by his brother Saul and his wife and family. It was all very well … all very cosy, but it was not for him … not yet. This mating, nesting instinct that seemed to have affected so many members of his generation of Crighton males was not one he shared. Not that he was against commitment or marriage per se … he wasn’t; he just didn’t want it for himself—not now—not ever! He valued and needed his freedom far too much.

      ‘Do you think he’ll like it?’ David asked his wife as they stood arm in arm studying the just finished small suite of rooms they had had converted from a loft over what had once been stables but which were now a garage.

      ‘He’ll love it,’ Honor assured him with a smile, her breath racing in her lungs as he turned to kiss her.

      ‘You two!’ the elder of her daughters from her first marriage had complained the last time she had visited them. ‘I’ve never known a couple so besotted with one another.’

      ‘Mmm—are you besotted with me?’ David had asked her whimsically after Abigail had gone back to London.

      ‘Certainly not,’ Honor had denied sternly, her voice softening as she added, ‘Only just totally crazily head over heels in love with you—that’s all!’

      ‘I wonder when he’s going to arrive?’

      They had been married a few short weeks ago and had known one another less than a year but Honor had never for one moment doubted that she was doing the right thing. She knew the story of David’s past with its shadows and secrets, its shame, and she knew too of his glorious resurrection, his rebirth from the shell of his own past. Now she was looking forward to welcoming into their home the man who had played such a large part in that rebirth—Father Ignatius—the Irish priest turned missionary who was presently in Ireland on a visit. David and Honor were pleased that they had managed to persuade him to leave Jamaica and make his home permanently with them.

      ‘He’s due to fly to Manchester from Dublin tomorrow,’ David said with concern. ‘I wanted to meet him off the plane but he wouldn’t let me. He said there were things he had to do.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ Honor agreed patiently as though she hadn’t heard all of this a dozen or more times already.

      ‘And then he said that he wanted to make his own way here and not have me drive over to Dublin to collect him.’

      Honor smiled soothingly again.

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