Molly cast a sideways glance at Hannah and found her beaming to match Angela. ‘At last,’ the old lady approved. ‘A proper relationship. You don’t want to buy my farm, do you, dears?’

‘For three million?’ Guy grinned and held his love tight. ‘Sorry. No chance.’

‘You know, realtors wear the strangest clothes,’ Hannah said, perusing Angela from head to toe and wrinkling her already wrinkled nose. ‘One dresses for a funeral and the other dresses for…’

‘For passion,’ Angela said promptly, and giggled again. And then she explained. ‘Guy arrived with a bus,’ she told Molly. ‘A whole bus.’ She hugged her beloved, who was turning a delicate shade of gratified pink. ‘There was a florist just near the school, where he dropped Sam. He said there wasn’t room in his car for all his flowers and there were kids lining up for a school excursion. So he made a practically obscene donation to their literacy programme-plus he shouted them all ice cream cones-on condition that they detoured past my place. He gave every kid on the bus a bunch of roses and they came up the fire stairs to deliver them.’

‘Good grief!’ Molly’s eyes flew to Guy, whose pink was turning fast to crimson. Wow! The man had improvised on her suggestion and then some. She hadn’t known he had it in him.

‘I was standing on the landing with a really angry taxi driver, because I’d left my handbag at your place, and all these kids filed up and handed me their roses one after another. Then Guy got down on bended knee and asked me to marry him-and the kids were watching and cheering… What was a girl to do?’

‘How…how special,’ Molly said, and Angela beamed some more.

‘It is.’ She turned to Hannah, moving right on. ‘So you’re Miss Copeland.’ She held out her hand in greeting. ‘How do you do? Are you trying to shake some sense into these two?’

‘Sense?’ Hannah sounded totally bemused.

‘These two are made for each other,’ Angela declared. ‘But he’s engaged to this other woman-’

‘Angela!’ Molly was on her feet, enraged. ‘You’re way out of line!’

‘He’s not engaged,’ Hannah said, and Molly thought, Please let the ground open up under me. Please let this be a nightmare.

‘He’s not?’ Angela was brought up short. She focused on Jackson. ‘You mean the woman in the newspaper is not your fiancée?’

He gave a wry smile-but he was watching Molly. What had Angela said? These two are made for each other… ‘Um…no.’

‘Thank heaven for that,’ Angela said bluntly. ‘Marry Molly.’

‘Angela!’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ Jackson was half-laughing, half-exasperated, but Molly was no such thing. She was just plain appalled.

But Hannah was listening intently. ‘Do you think he should?’

‘Yes,’ Angie said promptly, and hugged her Guy close. ‘She should be as happy as I am.’

‘He’s never going to marry her if she wears funeral clothes,’ Hannah said, and Molly took a deep breath.

‘Excuse me!’

She was ignored. ‘She doesn’t usually wear black,’ Angela explained. ‘She usually looks gorgeous. Only her sister and brother-in-law were killed and she has to look after her little nephew-who’s a real sweetie, but she feels totally responsible. She and her fiancé were saving for a house, but when Molly said she had to look after Sam the creep told her the wedding was off. And he had the whole deposit in his name-which is why the first rule of buying a house is don’t trust anybody-and don’t ask me why Molly trusted the creep, but there it is, and now he’s got her money and she has nothing. And then…’ She took her first breath for about three minutes and it was a long one. ‘Along comes Jackson.’

‘Jackson,’ Hannah repeated faintly, and Angela pounced.

‘She’s nutty about him,’ Angela declared, and Molly felt herself sliding under the table. She held onto the edge and managed to stay upright, but it was a near thing. ‘And he kissed her.’

She’s nutty about him… Jackson turned to stare at Molly’s blenched white face. Put that on the backburner, his brain told him. Concentrate on practicalities. ‘How many people know that I kissed you?’ he demanded, and Hannah chortled and answered for her.

‘The entire restaurant, at least.’ It wasn’t an understatement. The whole restaurant had hushed to a deathly silence and Angela had the floor.

‘Anyway, it’s true.’ Angela flushed slightly and sounded defensive, but still she continued. ‘Molly came home after the weekend lit up like a Christmas candle, and it’s the nicest thing that’s happened to her since the loathsome Michael. And now there’s this stupid newspaper article.’ Her eyes narrowed on Jackson. ‘But you’re not engaged?’

‘No! And I don’t believe the paper did say I was engaged.’

‘Then this Cara-’

‘Is none of your business.’ Jackson closed his eyes for a brief respite and then he rose. With resolution. Things were getting entirely out of hand and he wanted time to think.

‘I need to go. Miss Copeland, if you’re not prepared to sell me the property-’

‘Oh, I am.’ Hannah’s eyes were alight with laughter. ‘But not just yet.’

‘I don’t like being messed with.’ He wasn’t looking at Molly as he said it.

‘Neither do I, dear.’ Their eyes locked and Molly thought, She’s as astute at business dealings as he is.

‘Then what?’

‘You’re coming back from overseas in three weeks?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ll sign in three weeks,’ she told him. ‘Down at the farm. After I’ve met this Cara.’

‘I…’

‘That or nothing,’ she told him. ‘You do want to buy the property, don’t you?’

He did. They could all see it. Part of him wanted to walk away from this deal-walk away from these crazy lady realtors and from emotions he didn’t know how to handle. The other part knew he was getting a never-to-be-repeated bargain. The farm was indeed wonderful.

Common sense won. ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘But I’ll deal through my lawyer and no one else.’

Hannah nodded. ‘But you and Cara will be there in person in three weeks-and I’ll deal through Miss Farr and no one else.’

‘I’m not going back to the farm,’ Molly wailed, and the attention of the entire group swivelled to her. The attention of the entire restaurant swivelled to her.

‘Of course you’re going,’ Hannah told her.

‘And there’s the little matter of releasing Sam’s frog,’ Angela added. ‘What better reason to make another trip?’

That was enough to sidetrack Guy, if no one else. ‘You’re building a Taj Mahal of a froghouse and you’re going to let the frog go?’ Guy was incredulous.

‘They won’t breed in captivity.’ Molly was distracted past the point where anything was making sense. She was grasping at straws.

‘And breeding’s important,’ Hannah approved. ‘Mating. Relationships. The whole gamut of-’

‘Of frog life?’ Jackson was standing gazing at the lot of them. ‘I see.’ He shook his head. ‘Enough. I’m off.’

‘Me, too,’ Molly said, and picked up her handbag and headed for the door.

‘You’ll both be at the farm on Saturday three weeks from now?’ Hannah demanded after he and Molly paused.

There was a long silence.

If she didn’t go she wouldn’t have a job, Molly thought.

And Jackson thought if he didn’t go he wouldn’t have the farm he so badly wanted.

‘Yes,’ said Molly.

‘Fine,’ said Jackson.

‘Excellent,’ Hannah told them both. ‘And now I suggest we all settle down and have sweets. The lemon tart here has to be eaten to be believed.’

‘I believe I’ve had enough,’ Jackson retorted. His eyes swung to Angela. ‘Tarts and all.’ And he walked out through the door as if he was being shot from a cannon.

CHAPTER TEN

IT WAS nine o’clock in the evening and Molly hadn’t yet recovered from the disastrous ‘business’ lunch. Sam was asleep, but under protest. ‘How can we have such a great froghouse and not finish it?’ he’d demanded. ‘Our frogs are only here for three more weeks. The way it’s going we won’t finish until it’s time for them to leave.’

‘Yes, we will,’ Molly told him, staring in dismay at the instructions for frame assembly. Maybe they could just fill it up without putting it on legs, she thought. Maybe she could get Angela and Guy to stop thinking about each other for long enough to come over. Maybe she could figure it out herself.

Ha! None of those solutions was remotely possible.

‘I’ll ring the aquarium,’ she told him as she tucked him in. ‘They’ll send someone over.’ Though it’d cost her money she could ill afford.

‘Mr Baird said he’d fix it.’

‘Yeah, well, let me tell you something. Have you noticed how good-looking Mr Baird is?’

‘Um…no.’

‘Trust me. He’s good-looking. And it’s time you took on board some sage advice, young man. Never trust the good-looking ones.’

He thought that over and frowned. ‘Girls, too?’

‘Yes. Girls, too.’ But mostly men, she thought. Mostly men.

‘I really thought that he’d come,’ Sam said sleepily into his pillow. ‘I’m sad that he’s so good-looking he breaks promises.’

And so am I, Molly thought, back in the living room and staring at various construction bits. Really, really sad. And if I wasn’t a girl with responsibilities I’d go find myself another tub of Tia Maria ice cream. She stared down at Sam’s frogs, who stared back at her from their too-small box with expressions of mutual lack of interest.

‘Okay. Okay. I’m useless as a builder but I make a great realtor. When I go to bed I’ll let you guys free in the bathroom.’ Then she thought back to something Jackson had said and an appalling possibility presented itself. ‘Only you have to promise to leave the toilet alone. Even I don’t think life’s that bad.’

This statement didn’t cheer the frogs up at all. Well, why should it? It certainly didn’t cheer her up.