‘You’re a daft bugger, Noah Hathaway.’
‘I know. But I’m a daft bugger who’s completely mad about you.’ He dipped his head and their lips met, in the first proper kiss of that evening. The kiss deepened, and Bella was taken back to their first under the stars. It had felt so right, then, as if everything was falling into place. She should have trusted her instincts. Now, she had no such qualms. As she pressed closer to Noah, feeling herself growing warmer and more aroused, she felt him hard and excited against her.
‘I’m glad we’re here, and not at the cottage,’ she murmured. ‘And, in a weird sort of way, I’m glad we waited.’
‘Me too,’ Noah responded between kisses.
Bella took hold of one of his hands and led him to the bed. In a few more moments, they had shed their clothes and were beneath the crisp white cotton bedlinen. Bella was relieved to find that Noah made love as expertly as he kissed, and as she let the physical sensations overtake her, she remembered a few tricks of her own. Feeling his back arching as he reached his own ecstatic peak, she realised that this would never, ever go out of style.
Some time later, when they’d both come back to earth, Bella reached for a glass of water by the bed. Noah was dozing, but when he felt her move, he opened his eyes.
‘Are you OK?’ he murmured.
‘Never better.’ Bella smiled down at him. ‘I can’t quite believe I’m here.’
‘Well,’ Noah propped himself up on one elbow, ‘here’s to many more nights like this. It’s not often you get to go to bed with a musical superstar!’
Bella snorted. ‘That’s over-selling it, even for an estate agent.’ She leaned back on the deep, comfortable pillows and made a mental note to congratulate Jen on her soft furnishing choices. ‘But seriously, what happens now? Are you shooting off back to London tomorrow night? Will I still need to get out of the cottage?’
‘I will have to get back for Monday,’ Noah admitted. ‘But, if everything goes to plan, I should be spending a whole lot more time down here in a few months.’
‘Really?’ Bella sat up in bed. ‘Why?’
As Noah filled her in on the agreement between himself, Mollie and Martyn Fellowes, Bella’s heart started to beat faster. Noah’s expertise really had come through for Purrfect Paws, and, even more excitingly, it meant that he reallywasserious about being with her, too.
‘So I guess that means I’ll have to find a way of sticking around in Lower Brambleton myself,’ she said as he finished explaining.
‘Why, were you planning on going anywhere?’ Noah raised an eyebrow.
‘Taylor Swift called while you were getting the drinks in. She wants me to join her next world tour!’
‘Well,’ Noah laughed. ‘With an offer like that, between us we’ll be able to keep Mollie’s cats in Dreamies until the next century!’
Bella giggled. ‘A girl can dream, but I think, with what Jason and I raised tonight, it should keep the wolves from the door of Purrfect Paws for a while longer, until Taylor really does call. Paddy reckoned it was a good few grand, and that’s not accounting for the donation buckets on the door at the end.’
‘That’s great news.’
Noah looked serious again, and Bella knew she had to ask the question. ‘And this? You and me? This is what you want?’
In answer, Noah rolled her beneath him and kissed her hard. ‘This is what I want. Now, and forever, if you’ll have me.’
‘I think I can manage that.’ Bella smiled up at him. ‘Something tells me that Monty would have approved, too.’
And somewhere outside, as a shooting star streaked across the sky, there was a grumpy, and possibly ghostly, yowl of agreement.
EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER
‘Well, I didn’t think we’d get here, but here we are!’ Bella smiled as Noah looked around at the faces who’d joined him on this, his first official day of trading in the newly launched micro-branch of Noah Hathaway Country Estates. The champagne had been poured, and everyone had a glass. Beside him, in his half of the building that, on the other side of the freshly built partition wall still hosted Purrfect Paws, was Mollie, who’d left the shop in the capable hands of one of the many volunteers while she popped next door for a glass of bubbly.
Also joining them was Mollie’s old friend, Lorelai Ashcombe, who, due to a recent broken hip and a flare-up of her old foe, arthritis, had decided that it might be time to look for a smaller home, and Paddy and Jen from the pub, as well as Noah’s brother, Joel, who, to everyone’s surprise, not least Bella’s, had been very enthusiastic about the idea of a second branch of the estate agency. After the way he’d treated Bella when he’d confronted her at Jack’s cottage, Bella had been wary of him, but over a long evening of good food and even better wine at Noah’s rented cottage in Everscombe, the three of them had come to an understanding. Bella had come to the grudging conclusion that Joel, much like Monty, only lashed out when he felt threatened. She wasn’t sure they’d ever be close, but he had at least apologised sincerely for the way he’d spoken to her, and she had accepted. This time around, Joel was only here for the night, having booked a swift flight back out of Bristol airport in the morning, but Bella was pleased that the two brothers had finally buried the hatchet. Marc had sent good wishes from Toulouse but couldn’t get away.
Bella was also pleased to see Nick Saint and Thea Ashcombe had joined them. They were possibly in the market for a place together, finally, but Lorelai had already warned Noah, with a twinkle in her eye, that her granddaughter, Thea, was as stubborn as her old gran, so not to over-egg the sales pitch. The last members of this impromptu gathering were Marieke and Gerard, who were living together in bliss, even though Gerard had to take a regular dose of antihistamines whenever Bella came over.
‘These past few months have been a learning curve, in more ways than one,’ Noah continued. Bella’s smile grew wider as his eyes briefly met hers. ‘If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be taking a risk this big and setting up a second branch of the estate agency, I’d probably have gone screaming from these beautiful Somerset Hills straight back to Fulham!’ The small crowd in the even smaller shop laughed.
‘But if there’s one thing I’ve learned lately, it’s that life can come at you when you least expect it. I thought I was just going to sell Grandpa’s cottage and get the hell out of here, but spending time in the village, and realising how important my ties to the place were, helped me see that wasn’t what I wanted at all.’ Seemingly forgetting about the people around him for a long moment, Bella’s heart sped up as Noah’s eyes locked with hers. ‘I have every hope that Noah Hathaway Country Estates will be the first in a long line of satellite branches for my company, but even bigger than that hope is the desire to make Lower Brambleton my home as much as it was Grandpa’s. This little village cast its spell on me when I was a kid and its magic is even stronger now. Coming home here, and it really does feel like home, was the best decision I could’ve ever made. So, I’d like to raise a glass to Lower Brambleton and all of you. With my little part of this village, I hope I can do you, and my grandfather, proud.’
