TheSmallPrint (2 page)

Ten minutes tapping keys and the damn thing still told him he wasn’t connected to the internet. Turner was well aware he was probably missing something obvious but frustration got the better of him.

He called George. “Sorry to—”

“Tool bar. Top right. Make sure there’s no tick in the work offline box.”

“How—?”

“Hartley and Stonehouse,” George said.

Turner glared at his phone. “I haven’t even asked you anything.”

“Didn’t you want the name of the estate agent?”

“I was just calling to tell you to be careful in the sun. You know how it burns.”

George had the temerity to laugh. “Take this contact number down.”

Turner scrambled for a pen and scribbled on the top of the newspaper.

“That’s the number of the young lady who has the keys,” George said. “Her name’s Matty Hobsbawn. You’ll like her.”

“Thanks.”

He’d like her? He wondered why George had come to that conclusion. The name was off-putting enough. Turner imagined some frog-like woman, rounder than she was tall with flabby cheeks, bulbous eyes, poisonous skin and a tongue that… Turner shuddered. Too much late-night TV. He called the number.

“Hi. I’m not here. Well, I might be here but I’m not with my phone, so please leave a message after I say now. No, not that now. This now. Wait for it, wait for it—now.” A laugh followed.

Turner rolled his eyes and spoke in a clear, loud voice. “I’ll collect the keys for Milford Hall at six thirty this evening.”

He switched off his phone. He didn’t like dealing with idiots. Especially idiot females.

* * * * *

Turner stared at the scrap of paper taped to the door of the closed estate agent’s office and struggled to decipher the appalling writing.

“I’m across the road in The Rising Sun.”

He presumed the message was for him. Turner might be two hours late, but she could have waited in her office. He turned to stare at a pub festooned with twinkling fairy lights and shuddered. Illuminated Christmas angels flashed in every window, blue icicles hung along the line of the roof and an inflated Santa straddled the chimney. Turner sighed. The beginning of November. Two months of
ho-ho-hoing
to look forward to.
Wonderful.

Turner strode over the road, pushed open the door and reeled. Bright lights, people shouting and the smell—beer, greasy food, unwashed bodies—oh God, he wanted to slam the door shut again. Instead he straightened his spine and walked in. It belatedly occurred to him that he had no idea how he was supposed to recognize Miss Frogspawn.

“You’ll like her,” George had said.

A woman with long, mud-colored hair stood by the bar. She wore plastic knee-high boots and a tight dress that emphasized a generous backside.
Not her.
A skeletal girl brushed past him, the strong scent of her perfume eddying in her wake like a noxious tide of effluent.
Not her.
Two women sat by the window, heads together, giggling, tops cut low enough for Turner to see the swell of their pneumatic breasts.
Not likely.

This was why he never went out anymore. It wasn’t that his standards were too high, more that he
had
standards. He was far better off with his own company, that way he was never disappointed. Turner had given up ideas about sharing his life with anyone twenty years ago. He’d let his guard down and it had been a disaster. He watched a man pull Miss Plastic Boots into his arms and kiss her. As they wrapped their arms around each other, Turner felt a pang of…something—and put it down to disgust. What a way to behave in public. He swept his gaze over the room.

“Are you looking for me?”

The voice came from behind him. He turned, expecting a small green frog, and blinked. In front of him stood a tall woman in her late twenties who looked as though she’d grabbed a Van de Graaf generator. Her short white hair stuck out all over the place, as did the fluff on her white jacket. She wore the tightest black pants Turner had ever seen. He could make out her hip bones and…
Don’t stare
,
idiot
. He yanked his gaze back up only to stall again. Her smile was so wide, her whole face lit up. Her eyes were large and dark and—

“I’m Matty. You must be Turner.”

“How did you know?” Turner asked.

“George described you.”

They’re on first-name terms?
“He did? What did he say?”

“Tall, dark and handsome with a ferocious scowl.”

Turner glared.

“Wow, guess he was right.” She laughed.

He didn’t know whether to be pleased or insulted, and settled for the latter, deepening his glare.

“I’m happy to meet you anyway,” she said.

Matty held out her hand, and the moment he touched her, Turner’s world tipped on its axis and started to spin the other way. Everything he’d kept locked up for years burst out of confinement and roared back to life. His long-compliant, usually docile cock filled with blood and began to investigate ways out of his boxers like a revitalized explorer with a new map. Turner was forced to launch into a coughing fit to stifle his whimper. He was tempted to lift his other hand to flatten his hair in case she’d electrocuted him.

He only came to his senses when he realized she was staring wide-eyed at their joined hands with a little grin on her face. He wrenched his fingers away and she flinched then jumped to one side as a man came past carrying two pints of beer. A moment later she jumped the other way to avoid a collision with Miss Plastic Boots. So she did have something in common with frogs.

“Good journey?” she asked, rubbing her hand.

“Fine, thank you,” Turner said.

“Then why are you so late? I’ve been waiting two hours. You could have called.”

Turner wanted to leave his old place tidy and had tossed the newspaper with her number in a dustbin, not remembering until he was lost that he hadn’t copied it into his phone.

“I misplaced your number,” he said.

She gave him a puzzled look. “But you left a message. You could have just recalled the number from your phone.”

I could?
“I used a different phone,” he said quickly.

She sighed. “I’ve been imagining you in a ditch, water rising around you, inching upward to cover your head while you battled to get free of your seat belt. Then I thought maybe you’d picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be a psychotic axe murderer and you were lying in a thousand pieces in the trunk of your car.”

Turner and his limbs, all five of them, cringed in unison. “I got lost.”

He had no idea how to program the sat nav. George always did it. Turner had spent the entire journey with a woman’s strident voice telling him to turn round, trying to take him back to his old home. He couldn’t switch the damn thing off. Something about women was inherently annoying, he thought, staring at the incredulous face of the one standing next to him.

“Lost? We’re only a couple of miles off the motorway.”

Her eyes weren’t batrachian-like and bulging at all, but doe-like and a rather pretty dark gray velvet.

“How could you possibly get lost?” she pressed.

Turner bristled. “I took the wrong exit, missed the turn for Milford and found myself on a twelve-mile detour along single-track roads with nowhere to turn around.”

“What are you driving? A double-decker bus?”

Turner didn’t have to put up with this. He had enough trouble with George’s sarcasm. He held out his hand. “Keys please.”

Her face fell. “Sorry. I sometimes speak without thinking. Well, not sometimes. Often. Never an unspoken thought, my dad used to say. And my mum. And my employers.”

Whereas Turner never spoke without due consideration. Calm, measured and thoughtful was his mantra. She reminded him of someone he used to know who could never shut up. She jumped again as a group of men headed for the bar behind her and squirmed out of their way as if desperate not to be touched. So they had something in common. Turner didn’t like to be touched either. Well, he hadn’t. He looked at her fingers.

Matty lurched into him to get out of the path of a burly guy who made no effort to avoid her.

“Hey, watch out,” Turner said to the man.

“It doesn’t matter,” Matty blurted.

The guy turned and glared at him. “What’s your fucking problem?”

“I don’t have a problem,” Turner said. “I merely wished you to be careful, not to bump into my companion.”

The man looked either side of Turner and laughed. “Right.”

“It’s okay.” Matty tugged his sleeve. “Come over here out of the way.”

Turner followed her across the room. She turned and held out the keys.

When his fingers brushed her palm, spikes of tingling sensation shot down every limb and arrowed to hit his groin. Static from that crazy jacket, he decided, and rammed his free hand into his pocket in an attempt to disguise his cock’s renewed breakout attempt. No wonder he never went out in public if this was what happened. His cock was up and down like a yo-yo. Turner could only think that he’d deprived himself of female company for so long his body no longer knew the appropriate way to react.

It shouldn’t be reacting at all to this…weird, jumpy woman who had amazing warmth in her eyes and… Why hadn’t she let go of the keys?

“Pity you couldn’t have arrived for the first time in daylight,” Matty said.

Oh God, are we welded together?
Why didn’t he want to let go?

“I can’t believe you bought Milford Hall without even seeing it,” she said.

Turner tensed. “Is there something wrong with it?”

She smiled and he could have sworn her whole face glowed. “Oh no. It’s a gorgeous house. I’m sure you’ll be very happy there. Shall we go?”

We?
Turner was alarmed to find the idea of going somewhere with her was rather appealing, but why did she feel she needed to accompany him? He tugged the keys out of her grasp.

“I’m positive you have better things to do with your leisure time. I apologize for my late arrival. Good evening.”

He gave a polite nod and made for the door only to find her at his side when he opened it.
Hell, she’s fast.

“I’ve left you the basics in the fridge. George said not to bother, but it was no trouble. I need to show you how the central heating works, it’s a bit quirky.”

Again with George? “I’m sure I’ll cope. Thank you.”

Turner hurried across the road, got in his car and accelerated up the road.

* * * * *

You’re going the wrong way.
Matty sighed, torn between exhilaration and annoyance—with herself, not him. After she’d spoken and he turned and looked at her, she’d wanted to throw herself at him. When her legs failed to move, her heart had tried to do its own thing and leap from her chest into his arms. Only, good thing it hadn’t because she suspected Mr. Uptight would have dropped it.

Then she’d cocked everything up—again. Never had she felt so excited and so disappointed at the same time. Tall, dark and handsome nowhere near did Turner justice. He was at least six four, with jet black hair and a face that could launch a million ships. She loved his square jaw, sharp cheekbones, sensuous lips and those dark eyes rimmed by even darker lashes.

Oh, and the ferocious scowl might have been kind of cute if it hadn’t been aimed in her direction, but it was. It was obvious he had zero interest in her. But she wasn’t going to give up. Turner was the first man in ages, apart from George, to even cast a glance her way. Nor had she misinterpreted what happened when she touched Turner’s hand. Something sparked between them—instant attraction.

Ah, or instant revulsion. She wilted.

Still, Matty intended to wipe that ugly scowl from his face even though he’d driven off as if the hounds of hell were on his tail.

She made her way home with a smile on her face.

Chapter Two

Turner slammed his car door, tempted to kick it. Milford Hall was one mile from the center of the village. It had taken him twenty frustrating minutes to find it. Typical—there was no one around to ask for directions when needed. Turner might have considered the tricky location an effective deterrent to would-be visitors had he not suspected the difficulty all lay on his side. He could have walked faster.

Only after he’d circled the church three times did he spot the narrow lane off to the left with the decrepit signpost pointing the way to his destination. Was it worth removing the sign? But then a question posed in the village, provided someone was around, would reveal the hall’s location in an instant. No point laboring under the illusion that moving house or removing a sign would keep Gabriel from finding him.

He leaned against his car and stared at the Grade II listed Georgian building, revealed under moonlight in all its splendid glory, and Turner’s troubles slid away. Constructed in the 1720s and designed by John James, the place was a stunning monument to the architect’s genius. Yet it wasn’t the house that had Turner so excited but the land on which it was situated.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” said a familiar voice behind him, and Turner stiffened.

“Over
fifty-five hundred square feet, with a beautiful entrance hall, drawing room, study, sitting room, dining room, breakfast room, kitchen, orangery, wine cellar, master bedroom suite, guest bedroom suite, three further bedrooms and two further bathrooms.”

Turner faced her and glared. “Did you follow me?”

Matty snorted. “I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes. Where’ve you been?”

“For a leisurely drive around the village.” Turner gritted his teeth. He did
not
need to explain himself.

“O—kay,” she said. “Well, in addition to the main house, there’s also a converted coach house with a games room, gym and a swimming pool with a large hot tub.”

Turner clenched his fists. “Yes, I read the brochure. Now I can see for myself. Thank you. Good night.”

“The estate is set in mature gardens, with an ornamental water feature and a walled kitchen garden plus an extensive orchard. Apple, pear and plum trees. There are also Edwardian greenhouses and ten acres of meadow and—”