CHAPTER ONE

      JO ALMOND had finally worked out that she was not lovable when she was just fourteen.

      It had hurt. But, after the first searing shock, Jo was philosophical about it. She’d known she had other things going for her. She was practical. She had found she could be brave. She didn’t give up easily. She was energetic, clear-headed and calm. But lovable? Nah.

      The man who finally taught her this painful lesson was her language teacher—a French student on teaching practice. He’d been twenty-three, with kind eyes and a passion for learning. For a while he’d believed in her. He’d been the only person in the whole world who had.

      He’d also listened to her. Not for long, of course. But for a precious few hours she’d seen what it could be like if someone was on your side.

      She ran away again. That time she’d got as far as Dover. She’d been just about to step on a ferry when a kindly policeman had caught up with her and organised her return home. Well, to her aunt’s house. Jo would not call it home.

      Jacques Sauveterre asked her to stay behind after French on her first afternoon back in school. By that time, Jo was good at keeping her own counsel. She stood there, not meeting his eyes, fidgeting.

      ‘But why, Joanne? I would really like to understand this.’

      ‘I wanted to go to France,’ muttered Jo.

      ‘But of course.’

      She did look up at that. ‘What?’

      His kind eyes were twinkling. ‘Everyone in their right mind wants to go to France. France is paradise. It is only natural. But maybe it would be easier if you waited until the school holidays?’

      For a moment she stared at him, disbelieving. He wasn’t shouting. He didn’t think she was next stop to a criminal. He was laughing at her, but very gently.

      She gave a tiny, cautious smile—just in case this was real.

      He sat on the corner of the teacher’s desk and looked at her gravely. ‘You know, people keep telling me that you are a tearaway. You don’t care about school. You hardly ever do your homework. But you don’t seem like that in my class, Joanne.’

      No one had looked at her like that before. So interested. So warm.

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘Now, why don’t you tell me why you really ran away from home, hmm? The real reason?’

      Well, that was impossible, of course. What could she say? My so-called aunt hates me and her husband is a drunk who hits me? No, she couldn’t say that. Carol and Brian Grey were pillars of the community, and Jo had just demonstrated how irresponsible she was. No one would believe her if she said that.

      But she told him a tiny bit of the truth. ‘My aunt won’t let me do Latin.’

      He was utterly taken aback.

      ‘Latin?’

      ‘I asked if I could. She said no.’

      Just as she said no to anything that Jo might enjoy or that might make her feel normal. It was not that Jo refused to do homework. Her aunt insisted that she do housework every night. And she had to make little Mark’s tea and wash and mend his clothes. Jo didn’t mind that. She loved Mark, who was the closest she had to a brother, in the same boat as she was and who loved her back. They took good care that the Greys didn’t find out, though, and always growled at each other when Brian or Carol was around. If she knew they were close, Carol would find a way to use it against them. As she used everything else; even Jo’s love of cars.

      When Jacques Sauveterre called to protest about the block on Jo taking his extra new class in Latin, Carol was all concerned interest.

      ‘Jo is a natural linguist, Mrs. Grey,’ he told Carol earnestly in his melting French accent. ‘It’s a crime to keep her out of Latin.’

      Carol widened her pansy brown eyes. ‘But of course, Jo must do whatever she wants at school. She told us she wanted to do car maintenance classes.’ She gave that tinkling, treacherous laugh and added, ‘I suppose poor Geoff Rawlings isn’t the pin-up he was, now that you’ve arrived.’

      She didn’t have to say it. The message was loud and clear. Clumsy, plain teenage Jo has got a crush on you. And, as so often with Carol, there was just a hint of truth among the lies. Jo was good with cars. She did like them. And everyone knew it.

      It was Jacques’s first job. The whole staffroom was warning him about the risk of teenage emotionalism. Carol Grey was pretty and appealing—and she sounded so sensible. He believed her. Of course he believed her.

      Standing there listening, Jo was helpless. She burned with shame.

      ‘Maybe it’s adolescence,’ Carol Grey told him sadly, glancing at Jo with spurious kindness. ‘She’s such a great gangling thing, poor child, and with those shoulders. Like a wardrobe. I suppose a man can’t really understand that, Monsieur Sauveterre.’

      Jacques blushed. In the face of this gentle female mockery he forgot all his campaigning zeal and nodded.

      ‘Oh,’ he said, avoiding Jo’s eyes. ‘Well, I’m sure you know best, Mrs Grey.’

      And he fled. Leaving her to deal with the fallout on her own.

      Carol’s mask dropped frighteningly the moment the door closed behind him. ‘So you thought you’d run away with the pretty little Frog Prince, did you?’ Carol said softly. ‘Think again. Who would want a giraffe like you?’

      Jo put her head down and didn’t answer.

      It maddened Carol. ‘If you’ve got time to do bloody Latin, you’ve got time to help me in the business. You can start filing tonight.’

      So there was the end of ever doing homework again.

      ‘No point in getting ideas above your station,’ Carol said, again and again. ‘The next thing we’d know, you’d be wanting to go to college or something.’ And she laughed heartily. ‘Much better if you stay here and learn to do as you’re told. That’s all you’re good for. All you’ll ever be good for.’

      Jacques Sauveterre did not talk to Jo after that. Never singled her out in class again. Never so much as smiled at her when she took Mark to the under-elevens football game that he coached. He was kind to Mark, though. Jo tried to be grateful for that.

      And his example also inspired someone else. The car maintenance teacher was more streetwise than Jacques Sauveterre.

      ‘She just doesn’t fit in,’ he said to Carol. ‘The others are tough kids in combats. Jo isn’t. But she soon will be if you aren’t careful.’

      That night, every garment disappeared from Jo’s wardrobe except two pairs of army surplus trousers and some khaki tee- shirts.

      ‘See if Monsieur le Frog looks at you now,’ said Carol, gleeful.

      ‘I’m sorry, Jo,’ said Mr Rawlings. ‘Hope I didn’t make things worse. Well, at least I can give you the history of the combustion engine.’

      He started lending her books on classic cars. Jo read them at school in the breaks. She also became a first-class mechanic.

      Carol never knew. She thought she was keeping Jo fully occupied, caring for Mark and working in her home sales business. It gave her a whipping