CHAPTER ONE

Tess’s vehicle stopped as if a giant had slammed a door in its face.

Metal screeched, glass crashed, the seat belt wrenched the breath from her body and the airbag thumped her in the face.

Then, slowly, the bag deflated.

And everything went quiet apart from the ringing in her ears.

She found herself gazing into the flatbed of the breakdown truck she’d been following for the last two miles. Her windscreen had dissolved into a million crystals twinkling in her lap, on her chest, on the floor, on the dash and on an Izmir Blue bonnet bent up like a broken beak. One wiper twitched in mid-air. The rain that, until now, had been pounding on her windscreen, began to pound on her.

‘Shit!’ she croaked.

A man ran from the breakdown truck, dark curls swinging around his eyes as he leant through the space where the windscreen used to be. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘My face is hot,’ she mumbled.

‘Yeah, airbag. But you seem to be breathing and thinking. Sit still.’ He fished out a phone.

‘Don’t ring anyone. I’m fine.’ She swivelled her head from side to side, flexed back and legs, then pushed at the driver’s door. It groaned outward, allowing her to fumble out of the seat belt and slither gingerly onto the road where the rain burbled into a gully.

The man glared, phone still poised. ‘What are you doing? You could have a spinal injury!’

She pointed to her legs. ‘Working!’ Checking her nose for blood, her hand came away wet only with rain. She didn’t think it was the rain that was blurring her vision, though.

‘You need checking over.’ He seemed not to feel the torrent that flattened his hair and rolled down a hard- cut face and into blue eyes. If he needed two shaves a day it looked as if he seldom bothered.

Tess tried again to flex. Her back felt as if she’d just done a bungee jump. She hunched her shoulders. ‘I don’t like hospitals. Look, sorry I didn’t see you stop, I turned on the heat and the windscreen misted. My insurance will cover your truck OK.’

He glanced at where her Freelander was gnawing at his breakdown truck. ‘Doubt you’ve done more than add a couple of new scratches to the wrecker. It’s your Freelander that’s bent.’ He narrowed his gaze on her once more and his voice softened. ‘Better go to hospital, you know.’

She shook her head. And winced. ‘You’re from a garage, right?’ She indicated the sign on the side panel of the truck. ‘MAR Motors is the garage in Middledip, isn’t it? At the Cross.’

‘Yes. You’re not local, are you?’

‘Just moving in – to Honeybun Cottage.’ Not that that was any of his business. ‘Can you give me a tow?’

He grimaced. ‘You’ll sue me if it turns out you’ve got a cracked neck.’

‘I won’t because I haven’t!’ she snapped. ‘But the Freelander’s undrivable. I’d appreciate a tow. If I have to call someone else I’ll be sitting here in the rain for hours.’

He hesitated. Then sighed. ‘Come on, then!’ Ungraciously, he installed her in the passenger seat of the wrecker before spending ten minutes clanging around at its rear, while Tess sank her swimming head on a seat that smelt of old oil and closed her eyes.

Finally, he climbed back into the cab, shook the rain off his hair and drove her the remaining mile or so to Middledip village. As the breakdown truck began to rumble along, he flipped his thumb in the direction of her poor Freelander. ‘Were you fond of it?’

‘Loads. Everyone said it was a posy vehicle – I was living in London. But I love it. What’s left of it since it hit your truck.’

‘Nobody forced you to run it up my backside,’ he pointed out, disagreeably.

Tess’s head was pounding and sudden tears pricked her eyes, blurring the already blurred raindrops that drummed on the windscreen and hissed beneath the wheels, bouncing and bubbling off the expanse of tarmac at the centre of the village, where three roads converged at the point known inaccurately as the Cross, and where there was a building with the sign: ‘MAR Motors’.

Wordlessly, she eased out of the cab and squelched across the forecourt, following her disagreeable saviour out of the deluge and in through a long run of folding doors. The floor was painted grey, like the pit garages at the motor races on television.

An office chair stood in front of a computer. He nodded at it. ‘Sit there while I have a look at your car, then we’ll talk about what to do.’ He raised his voice to a masked figure welding under a ramp at the back of the garage. ‘Jos! Can you get her a cup of tea? She’s had a prang. Pete! Give me a hand, will you?’ A man uncoiled himself from under the bonnet of a little red sports car, pushing back floppy fair hair, smiled at Tess and ran to help at the back of the breakdown truck.

Aching and shaking too much to object to being ordered about, Tess gazed out through the hammering rain to where an old-fashioned van in baker’s livery graced the forecourt along with two old cars. Not banger-type old but 1950s old, all grinning chrome grills, candy colours and swiping tail fins. The forecourt looked like a classic car show.

She let her chin sink onto her fist and once again closed her eyes. What a crappy beginning to her fresh start.

Jos, welding mask discarded, wiping his hands on his overalls and stamping about in motorcycle boots, rattled cups and filled the kettle. His long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he had a beard like Hagrid, not the trendy goatee worn by so many men she’d known in London. He brought her steaming tea in a mug with the MG logo on the side and an open pack of sugar with a spoon sticking out.

Through the strands of dripping hair she managed a smile, even as she shivered. ‘Thanks.’

His eyes were gentle. ‘Ratty’ll soon get you sorted.’

Presumably, he meant the disagreeable man. She made a face. ‘Ratty? Yes, he is, a bit. ......