Sweet Surrender With the Millionaire(2)

       
           



       

The furniture van arrived and the cheery driver helped Willow manoeuvre  her bed and chest of drawers upstairs. There was a built-in wardrobe in  the bedroom she'd chosen to sleep in. A two-seater sofa and plumpy  armchair and coffee table for the sitting room completed her purchases;  her portable TV was in the car, along with her microwave.

That night she fell into bed and was asleep as soon as her head touched  the pillow, and for the first time since she had left Piers there were  no bad dreams. When Willow awoke in the morning to sunlight streaming in  the uncurtained window, she lay for a long time just listening to the  birds singing outside and drinking in the peace and solitude. The house  she'd shared with her friends for the last months had been on a main  road and the traffic noise had filtered in despite the double glazing,  but that had been nothing to the noise within most of the time! And  before that-

She sat up in bed. She wasn't going to think about the years with Piers  in any way, shape or form. New resolution. New start. Off with the old  and on with the new. She could so do this. She'd always had her fair  share of willpower.

The next couple of days were spent cleaning and scrubbing every room,  but by the time Willow had dinner with Beth she was satisfied the years  of dirt were dealt with. OK, the place needed serious attention, but the  roof was sound and she'd keep to her original plan and do a job at a  time as the money dictated. Buying furniture had taken every spare penny  but she could work on the garden for the rest of her holiday.

She drove home without mishap after an enjoyable evening with Beth and  Peter, and the next day began the assault on the garden. By the weekend  she was scratched and sore and aching in muscles she hadn't known she  had, but she'd cleared a good-sized section of land. Sunday afternoon  the sun was still shining and she decided to have a bonfire. That was  what people did in the country, after all.

At some time there must have been a small picket fence separating part  of the garden. This had long since rotted, but the remains were useful  as a base for the bonfire, along with armfuls of other pieces of wood  she had found and old newspapers. When she'd opened the door of the  dilapidated pottingshed a couple of days earlier, she had found it  stacked from floor to ceiling with old newspapers, magazines, cardboard  egg boxes and food wrappers. The old lady must have deposited her paper  and cardboard there for years before the garden became too overgrown for  her to reach it.

Willow piled the brambles and nettles and other vegetation she'd cleared  as high as she could. It would take ages to burn the contents of the  potting shed alone, but she had until it got dark. She had positioned  the bonfire at the end of the garden some feet from the high stone wall.  Beyond this, she understood from the estate agent, was the garden of a  larger manor house. The house in question was set in extensive grounds  and obscured from view by massive old trees, but the landscaped gardens  visible from the lane spoke of considerable wealth. It had been the  country residence of the local squire who had owned most of the village  set in a dip below Willow's cottage in the old days, apparently, and her  cottage had been the gatekeeper's property before the cottage and  garden had been sold off. These days the manor house was the weekend  home of a successful businessman, according to the estate agent.

Once the bonfire was well and truly alight, Willow began to enjoy  herself. There was something immensely satisfying in burning all the  rubbish and she fetched more piles of newspapers from the potting shed,  throwing them into the crackling flames with gay abandon. This would  save a good few trips to the local refuse site if nothing else.

Quite when a sense of slowly mounting unease turned into panic, Willow  wasn't sure. Her gung-ho approach with the newspapers had resulted in a  large quantity of pieces being picked up by the breeze-still merrily  burning-and sailing over the wall in ever-increasing numbers. She tried  to knock a pile that was smouldering off the fire with a big stick, but  only succeeded in fanning the flames.

She had followed a tip of Peter's and drenched the wood at the bottom of  the bonfire in petrol before she'd piled the rubbish on it; now there  was no stopping the blaze. Increasingly alarmed by the power of the  monster she'd created, she retreated to the cottage to fetch a bucket of  water to throw on the flames now leaping into the sky with  ever-increasing ferocity and strength.                       
       
           



       

She was still filling the bucket in the kitchen when she heard shouting.  Turning off the tap, she picked up the half-full pail and hurried into  the garden in time to see the figure of a man hoisting himself astride  the stone wall, his curses mingling with the roaring fire and the wild  frenzied barking of what sounded like a pack of rabid dogs.

'What the hell are you playing at?' he snarled at her as she approached. 'Have you lost your reason, woman?'

How rude. The abject apology she'd been about to make died on her lips.  She stared into a pair of eyes so blue they were dazzling-which wasn't  helpful in the circumstances-and stopped dead in her tracks, which  caused a good portion of the water in the bucket to slop over onto her  grubby work trainers. 'This is my property,' she said coldly. 'And this  isn't a smoke-free zone.'

'I've got nothing against the smoke,' he bit back, his tone acid. 'It's  your determination to start fires all over the neighborhood I'm  objecting to, and the danger to life and limb. One of my dogs has had  its fur singed as it is.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, equally acidly.

'You sound it.' He ducked as a particularly large piece of burning paper  wafted past his left ear. 'There's bits of this stuff floating in my  swimming pool and all over the grounds, and my dogs are playing a game  of Russian roulette as we speak. Damp it down, for crying out loud.'

'I was about to when you materialised.'

'With that?' He eyed her bucket with scathing disgust.

'You might as well use an eggcup. Where's your garden hose?'

'I don't have one.' She glared at him, her eyes narrowed.

'Give me strength … '

As he disappeared back into his own garden Willow stared at the spot  where he'd been, her cheeks burning, and not wholly because of the heat  from the fire, which was intense. What a horrible individual and how  dared he growl at her like that? Anyone would think she'd done this on  purpose. Couldn't he see it was an accident? She'd hardly meant to send  stuff into his stupid garden.

As the breeze mocked her by gathering a handful of paper and causing it  to pirouette over the wall she groaned softly. He had a point, of course  he had a point, and she would have apologised if he hadn't rushed in  all guns blazing. She slung the remaining contents of the bucket on the  fire. It treated the paltry amount of water with the contempt it  deserved and blazed fiercely as if to confirm she was fighting a losing  battle.

She was just about to run back to the house for more water when there  was a scrambling noise and the man reappeared. 'Stand back,' he said  tersely.

'What?' She stared at him, taken by surprise.

'I said, stand back.' He bent down to someone on his side of the wall as he spoke, adding, 'OK, Jim, I've got it.'

Willow saw the garden hose in his hand a moment before the jet of water  hit the flames. For a minute or two all was hissing and spitting and  belching smoke, ash from the fire covering her and the surrounding area  along with droplets of water. She had instinctively moved when he'd  shouted at her, but she was still near enough to the bonfire for the  spray to reach her. She stood, utterly taken aback as she watched him  douse the flames as though he was enjoying himself. He probably was.

'That's done it.' He passed the hose back to the unseen assistant and  turned to look at her. 'Never start a bonfire without having the means  at hand to put it out should something like today happen,' he said with  what Willow considered sickening righteousness, and then he grinned at  her.

She stared at him. The piercing blue eyes were set in a tanned face that  was more rugged than handsome and topped by black hair that reached the  top of the collar of his open-necked shirt. His smile showed dazzling  white teeth and he seemed totally at ease on his perch on the wall now  the imminent danger was over. 'Morgan Wright,' he said calmly when she  continued to gaze dumbly at him. 'As you may have gathered I'm your  next-door neighbour.'

'Willow Landon,' she managed at last, suddenly aware of how she must  look as the blue eyes washed over her. 'I-I moved in last week. I've  been doing some gardening,' she finished lamely.