‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘He definitely promised.’ Sam was standing in the doorway, still clutching his frog box, and now he raised his voice to call someone in the distance. To Molly’s horror, it was Jackson. ‘Mr Baird, come and tell Aunty Molly that you’re buying the farm.’

‘No! Sam, no!’ Molly gasped, and tried to tell him to close the door-but it was too late. Jackson must have been walking down the passage as Sam had called. Now he appeared above Sam, so man and child were framed in the bathroom door, both gazing at her with very different levels of interest.

Jackson’s gaze found her under the soap suds and his grey eyes glinted with wicked laughter. But his voice, when he finally spoke, was deadpan.

‘Miss Farr, I believe I’d like to formally let it be known that I’d like to buy the farm,’ he said.

Molly took a deep breath and took a firmer grasp on her towel. It was covering the important bits-just-which left her free to concentrate on what had to be the major issue here. A sale. ‘You mean it?’

‘Why wouldn’t I mean it?’

‘You agree to the asking price?’ She wasn’t letting a bit of false modesty get in the way of a sale, and Jackson’s laughter deepened.

‘Yes. You want to stand up and shake on it?’

‘In your dreams.’ She glared at him. ‘You realise I don’t have Miss Copeland’s conditions yet?’

‘Neither do I, and of course it’s dependent on those, but I gather there are frogs.’

She looked uncertainly at Jackson, and then at Sam. ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’ she demanded of her nephew.

‘I know Miss Copeland cares about frogs,’ Sam told her. ‘And Mr Baird says he’ll save the frogs.’

Oh, for heaven’s sake! She was trying to keep a grip on the situation and they were discussing frogs! She was trying to sound businesslike, which for a girl who was depending on soap suds was rather tricky. ‘Right. But let’s assume there are to be other stipulations. I need to find out.’ She chanced another uncertain look at Jackson. She was very much at a disadvantage here-realtor in bathtub.

Realtor stark naked!

But if she was out of control Jackson was very much in control-and enjoying himself hugely. ‘So what are you waiting for?’ He was cordiality itself. He folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb, his eyes gleaming. ‘Sitting round in bathtubs when you could be wrapping up a sale…’

‘Go away!’

‘Go away?’ His eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘You want me to tell Trevor that when I asked to sign a contract you told me to go away?’

‘I don’t have the contract in the bathroom with me.’ She was fighting for her dignity for all she was worth.

‘You sure you don’t have it hidden on your person?’

That was a bit much. The man had no shame! ‘It’d be pretty soggy if it was,’ she retorted, and he grinned-and kept right on grinning. He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. They stood, man and boy, laughing down at her, and Molly’s insides twisted as they hadn’t been twisted for a long, long time.

Sam was leaning back into the man behind him, and the little boy seemed to be relishing the hand on his shoulder-the intimacy of his aunt in the bath and this man taking a proprietary role. This man was exactly what Sam needed, Molly thought, and then she thought, This man is exactly what I need…

‘You know, those suds are disappearing,’ Jackson said kindly. ‘You must have been using soap. Bath foam always disappears when you use soap.’

Molly gave a squeak of indignation and clutched at her towel as if her life depended on it. She could use another six inches of towelling here. Badly. ‘Sam, take Mr Baird out and close the door after you.’

‘We’re comfortable here,’ Sam said. He grinned and his aunt moaned.

‘Sam, don’t you dare turn into another machiavellian male before my eyes. I depend on you.’

‘That’s why we’re staying.’ Jackson grinned. ‘Because you depend on us.’

‘I don’t depend on you.’

‘You hear that, Sam? And that’s about a man she’s hoping to make a sale to.’

‘Get out.’ Molly was caught between laughter and exasperation. And something else. Jackson was engendering a feeling she hadn’t known she was capable of. The way he held Sam. The way he laughed down at her…

‘Get out,’ she said again, and her eyes locked on his and held.

A message passed between them.

A message?

No. It was more than that. It was a forging of a link, Molly thought faintly, and that link she didn’t fully understand, but it was a link for all that. Strong and warm and…

‘Get out,’ she said again, but this time it was more than that. Get out-and she wasn’t just talking about leaving the bathroom.

This man was starting to alarm her.

Starting? Ha!

And Jackson? He stood staring down at her for a long minute, and very gradually the laughter died from his eyes. Finally he nodded, and it was as if he’d come to a decision.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We know when we’re not wanted.’ And he turned and walked back down the passage without a backward glance.


By the time she’d dressed and dried her hair she almost had herself under control. Almost. Molly was badly flustered and it showed. She blew dry her hair and didn’t concentrate, so she had to do it again-it was that or wear an unruly mop for dinner. Even when she wet and reblew it, her curls still flew everywhere.

No matter. It didn’t matter. Did it?

No. She dressed in jeans and a clean shirt, then changed her mind and donned a skirt-then went back to jeans. By the time she finished she was thoroughly disconcerted, and Sam was asking questions.

‘Why is it taking you so long? Don’t you know Mr Baird is waiting?’

It was exactly because Mr Baird was waiting that she was taking so long, Molly thought. She gave her curls a last despairing brush and headed for the kitchen, Sam skipping by her side.

Because, yes, Mr Baird was waiting.


To her dismay Doreen and Gregor had no intention of joining them for their barbecue.

‘Gregor hates sand,’ Doreen told them, casting an affectionate glance at her husband. ‘You’d think after forty years of living at the beach he’d grow accustomed to it.’

‘I’ll never get accustomed to sand,’ Gregor said morosely. ‘Foul stuff gets everywhere. You even find it between your toes!’

‘Don’t you like sand between your toes?’ Sam asked, his eyes falling to Gregor’s severely laced boots. The vision of Gregor’s old toes was somehow fascinating and repelling all at once.

‘Don’t tell me you do?’ Gregor demanded. ‘Well! There’s no accounting for taste. But that’s why Doreen’s packed you a hamper of everything you might fancy to eat on sand while I eat my dinner at the kitchen table like a gentleman.’

And that was that. They were, it seemed, dining on the beach alone. Just Molly and Jackson and Sam.

Great, thought Molly, and…help?


But the setting itself was magic. At any other time Molly would have loved it. The sun was sinking over the mountains, the surf was rolling in long, low swells onto the wide ribbon of beach, and the sand was still warm from the heat of the day. Gregor had been down before them and had lit a fire.

‘Main course is a nice piece of beef I’ve buried in the coals, and there’s spuds down there as well,’ he told them. ‘Just dig when you get hungry.’

Or eat the rest of their food? They could certainly do that. The appetisers alone would have satisfied even the hungriest of diners. Doreen had done them proud. They unpacked onto the picnic rug and discovered prawns on ice, and scallops and oysters in their shells. There were tiny sausage rolls, still warm. Delicate sandwiches, asparagus, chicken and avocado, smoked salmon…

And the sweets…

‘And this after morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea… The Grays must think we starve in our other lives,’ Molly said, awed, and Jackson grinned and reached for a prawn.

‘Who’s complaining? Sausage roll, Sam? Lemonade? Champagne, Miss Farr?’

‘There’s four different types of wine.’ Molly was practically dumbfounded. ‘How did they do this?’

‘Mrs Gray rang up some people while you were out today,’ Sam told her. ‘They delivered stuff.’

They certainly must have. ‘You’ll have to push me home in a wheelbarrow if I wrap myself round this lot.’ She shook her head as Jackson offered her wine. ‘I’ll have lemonade, please.’

‘You’re not scared things might get out of control?’ he asked, gently teasing, and she flushed.

‘No. But I’m careful.’

‘Because of my reputation?’

‘I hardly think you’ll try a spot of seduction with Sam here,’ Molly snapped, and she got what she asked for.

‘What’s seduction?’ asked Sam.

‘Making ladies kiss you when they should know better,’ she told him. Her response was out before she could stop herself, and there was a crack of laughter from Jackson.

‘That means your Aunty Molly would really, really like to kiss me but she thinks she’s too respectable.’

‘Is that why she changed three times before she decided what to wear tonight?’ Sam asked, interested in this weird adult behaviour, and Molly was torn between embarrassment and laughter.

Suddenly laughter won. Well, why not? It was either laugh or blush to the roots of her hair, and Jackson had the upper hand already.

‘Hand me a sausage roll,’ she told Sam. ‘I’m missing out on valuable eating time talking about stupid things like kissing.’

‘I thought girls liked kissing.’ Sam was looking from Jackson to Molly and back again, trying to figure things out for himself. ‘You mean you don’t want to kiss each other?’

‘What, kiss Mr Baird? Why on earth would I want to kiss Mr Baird?’

Sam thought that one through and found it a reasonable question.

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to. But some people might.’