CHAPTER ONE

      THE longing to be back with someone who loved her was so strong that Kate Barrington could almost taste it as she drove through the last few miles of the countryside where she’d been brought up.

      She wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her. To be back in her bedroom beneath the eaves of Jasmine Cottage so that she could weep away the anger and feeling of betrayal that had been with her over the past few days.

      She was feeling as low as she’d ever felt in her life. Mentally because the wedding that she’d been dreaming of was not to be, along with the relationship that went with it, and physically because she felt ill.

      It had come upon her the night before. Aching limbs, high temperature and vomiting, which had made her even more anxious to leave the southern counties where she’d been based for the last two years. There was nothing to keep her there any more. The job had folded at the same time as the wedding plans.

      As she pulled onto the drive of the old stone house, loosely described as a cottage, with its four large bedrooms and spacious downstairs accommodation, Kate’s mood was lifting. Here she was hoping to shut out some of the unhappiness that had erupted into her life. Any second the door would be flung open. Her mother would be there with arms outstretched and nothing would seem quite so bad.

      She’d left a message on the answering-machine the night before to say she was coming home, and thought if there wasn’t a fatted calf to greet her there would at least be some of the good home-cooked food that she’d missed so much while she’d been working away.

      As she began to heave her cases out of the boot she saw that the door remained closed and the house had an empty look about it. Her heart sank. Where was her mother? she thought fretfully as her head throbbed and she shivered in the afternoon of a chilly autumn day.

      If her mother had received her message she wouldn’t have budged an inch. She had been begging her to come home ever since she’d split up with Craig. But there’d been as much to do in cancelling a wedding as there’d been in organising one, and she’d only just finished tidying up all the loose ends.

      The house felt cold when she went inside and Kate wondered if it was because the heating wasn’t on, or if it was the chill of disappointment that was getting to her. Whatever it was, the empty rooms were telling their own tale. Her mother was not there, and after coaxing the central heating boiler into life, Kate switched on an electric fan heater in the sitting room and lay on the carpet in front of it to get warm.

      As she gradually thawed out, her eyelids began to droop and just as she had decided that the sensible thing to do was to go to bed with a hot-water bottle, fever and exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.

      She awoke when the light was switched on and as she lay with her eyes closed against the sudden brightness, Kate heard a deep voice say in surprise, ‘So what have we here?’

      It didn’t have her mother’s lighter tones, and with eyes bright and cheeks burning with a temperature that was still rising she sat upright and found herself gazing up into the dark hazel eyes of a man dressed in a smart suit, with shirt and tie to match.

      ‘Who are you?’ she croaked. ‘Where is my mother?’

      He gave a quirky smile. ‘One thing I am not is the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, so there’s no need to look so alarmed. Your mother is fine. That is presuming that you are the prodigal daughter. I’m Daniel Dreyfus and I’m staying here for the time being.’

      ‘As a guest or a lodger?’