OceanofPDF.com
Summer
OceanofPDF.com
Seven
La Canette, 1pm
Today Millie wore a new pair of apricot linen trousers with a white sleeveless blouse and silver drop earrings. She wrapped one of Joanie’s cheese-and-tomato mini quiches and an apple to take on her lunchtime walk.
Nurse Ann was watching her. “You even walk differently now. You hold your shoulders up.”
“My improved fitness,” Millie said.
“No. Not that.” Nurse Ann put the tray of medicine on the kitchen table. “We used to call it the freedom walk, in Ireland. Back in the 1930s, when the Irish got their independence, they walked taller.”
“Thank you.” Millie found a bottle of water in the fridge and put it into her tote bag. When she looked up, she found Nurse Ann’s eyes on her.
“I don’t know what happened in your marriage, but you’re well rid of him.”
An hour later, sitting on East Hill, warm air rustling the sweet chestnut leaves around her, Millie felt deeply grateful. What a far cry from that day she sat shivering in a café with a stranger’s coat around hershoulders.
Mr Flash BMW. If only he could see her now, free at last. Single.
Why did the wordsinglecome with its evil-twin word,lonely? Twenty-nine, divorced and lonely.
No.Don’tgo there.
Twenty-nine, divorced andavailable.
Millie leaned back against the sun-baked rock, let her eyes close and thought about the tall stranger with the warm coat that smelled ever so faintly of oak and spice and… something else.
She imagined his arms going round her, draping the coat over her, holding her close, keeping her safe. She imagined snuggling into his body, burying her face into the crook of his neck. His skin would be warm; she inhaled deeply as he held her in his embrace. His hands lifted her off her feet, and he carried her gently, comforting her, allowing no resistance. He pressed her into his chest. Closer and closer until there was nothing but his heat and his scent and the circle of his arms. Not lonely, not here with him. His face moved closer to hers, looking into her eyes. Her fingers sank into his hair, his breath hot on her face, and she closed her eyes forhis kiss…
“It’s very hot,” he said, concerned. She saw his face through her lashes; his devastatingly handsome face was full of concern.
Except… the light was too strong. Nothing like that grey afternoonin April.
“I shouldn’t sleep too long in the sun, if I were you,” he told her. “Let me help you up before you get a heat stroke.” He stretched his hand down to her.
Her eyes flew open, and she sat up like she’d been drenched with a bucketful of ice. She looked at his hand and looked up into his face. He was smiling, slightly amused.
She shook her head to wake up properly from her dream, but when she opened her eyes, he was still standing above her, one hand hooking a linen jacket over his shoulder. His body—Oh dear God, his body. Lean and tall, his chest stretching a white T-shirt which did nothing to hide his pecs. His figure tapered to narrow hips and long legs in faded jeans.
He hunkered down to look at her. “Are you all right?” He took her hand in his.
She must have sun stroke. This couldn’t be happening.Wake up!
But no matter how many times she blinked, the vision didn’t change and her feverish fingers were still in his cool hand. Slowly she allowed him to pull her up.
“You must be Millie, my father’s assistant. I’m George DuMontfort.”
Oh,him.
She did her best to hide her surprise as the world settled the right way up and reality came into proper focus.
She’d been told about George, the son that Mr Du Montfort liked to call “that interfering, controlling, selfish sonof mine.”
