Excerpt from my next book

Here's an excerpt from my current book, the third in the Bluebell Road series, Lydia's story. Note that this is in draft format, with edits still to come. All going well, it will be published before the end of this month. Read on...

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

THE DOOR TO the house flew open and Lydia took a step back as William—she figured it was William because he fit the description from his shaggy dark hair to legs that seemed to go forever in black jeans—gave her a confused look.

He said, “You’re not—” He snapped his fingers together, and she said for him, “Nicole?”

“Nicole. Yes. Nicole. You’re not her.” His forehead creased. “Or are you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m Lydia. Nicole’s cousin.” She took in a breath against the absurdity of the situation and explained, “There’s been a problem. A bit of a family emergency, actually. Although,” she pre-empted as his eyebrows looked to be on the cusp of rising, “not of the dead or dying sort.” She tamped down on a grimace. It was the ‘Lydia, please do this for me, please, Lydia, please, please, please…’ variety.

“The thing is,” Lydia went on, “Nicole can’t make it and so she asked me to come in her place.”

Willian pursed his lips together, glanced down the hallway behind him, and then back at Lydia. He folded his arms across his chest.

“Let me get this straight,” he began. “I hired Nicole to work for three days and she decides, on a whim, with barely any notice, that she can’t uphold her side of the agreement because there is a family emergency. And so, without consulting me, she sends someone else from, I assume, the same family, to take her place.” His gaze slid over her in a cool, assessing way. “A stranger. You.”

Lydia beamed a fake smile as her senses alternated on who to curse: Nicole for doing this to her, or herself for allowing Nicole do this to her.

“That’s it in a nutshell,” she said, “but of course the decision is up to you as to whether you think I’m a suitable person to replace Nicole. Rest assured, I believe I am.” She added unnecessarily, “But it is, of course, your decision.” Part of her hoped he’d tell her, ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ and close the door, but the bigger part hoped that whatever happened, whatever he decided, this wouldn’t go badly for Nicole. Nicole was going through a tough time and the situation with her boyfriend, Donovan, had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back, so it seemed to Lydia.

“I think I understand,” William murmured as he stood back. “Look, you better come in.” He beckoned for her to step inside. “Then you can appraise me some more because I had no idea Nicole wasn’t going to be here and I was counting on it. Did she tell you I’m leaving for Glasgow this afternoon?”

“She did.” Lydia stepped inside. “But honestly, Nicole had no idea she wasn’t going to be here.” Lydia gave the hallway a quick and approving assessment, William closed the door, and Lydia was suddenly swept up in his cologne. She added hastily, “The thing is Nicole didn’t know she couldn’t make it until this morning, and she called me and asked me to come in her place.” Lydia inhaled more of the fragrance. What was it, she wondered?

“Hmm.” William shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, leant against the front door and studied her. “Then given it is nothing to do with death or dying, I’m going to assume it’s the more common of that unholy bunch of reasons. As in, a relationship disaster she’s had to deal with.”

He said the word with more amusement than disdain, although there was a tinge of something in there that made her think it paid not to go into too much detail.

Lydia clasped her hands behind her back. “Pretty much. And she apologises and she hopes that I can fill her boots.” She paused and cleared her throat.

“Although,” she said warily, “I should say up front that I do not work in a veterinary practice.”

This time Williams’ eyebrows did rise and the first trace of alarm crept into his eyes. “You don’t?”

“No.”

William pushed himself away from the door, his gaze drilling into her. “So you don’t work at Geoff’s vet practice, and you’re not a colleague of Nicole?”

“Like I said, she’s my cousin, not my colleague. I’m not a vet nurse.”

William straightened but this time concern shadowed his eyes. He said, “I’ll be out of town for three nights and I need someone with some veterinary knowledge to be here. I know Nicole is still doing her training, but Geoff speaks very highly of her.”

Lydia nodded her most soothing smile. She was good at soothing. It was a gift she suspected she’d been born with. “To be fair,” she said, “Nicole did ask one of the other assistants at the vet clinic but they couldn’t leave on such short notice.”

William narrowed his gaze at her. “And yet, you could?”

She stiffened, but there was no insinuation there that inferred she didn’t have a life so of course she could jump when her cousin needed her. The truth was, of course, that she would jump when anyone needed her because that’s what she did. And it went without saying that she did have a life. A very satisfactory life, actually.

She unclasped her hands and said, “I know this puts you in a bind and that Nicole has reneged on the arrangement you had, but she did ask me if I could fill in for her and so, here I am, offering to take her place. If you still want someone to look after your pet while you’re out of town, then I am available. If you don’t, however, or you think I’m unsuitable, then that’s fine, too.”

“Oh, no, I still want someone. I absolutely do, and clearly your cousin has left me in a damned tricky predicament.” He gestured for her to walk with him and they headed down the hallway, and through a door into a wide, open room. Lydia gave it a quick assessment. It led into a kitchen and dining area, and beyond that a living area.

William said, “Considering she is meant to be here this afternoon, it doesn’t leave me time to find someone else. I doubt even an agency could find anyone at this short notice who would stay over and that’s really the point of this exercise.”

She followed his gaze to a gas fire and the mat in front of it. On the mat lay a large, ginger cat.

“That’s the fellow in question,” William said. “That’s Phillip.”

Phillip appeared to be deep in sleep, emitting the occasional twitch and even mew as if he was in the middle of a feline fantasy.

“He sleeps a lot,” William said. “This is his favourite place now its winter.”

“I see.” With her eyes on Philip, she crossed the floor, bent down, and studied the sleeping cat. He was indeed large. Overweight, she assumed. Which meant he probably wasn’t going to be leaping over furniture and tearing everything up.

“Nicole said he was an older cat,” she murmured. Her gaze was drawn to the lighter coloured fur on his belly as he breathed. Lord, she hoped he stayed breathing, if she did do this cat-watching lark. She glanced back at William. “How old exactly is he?”

“Seventeen years old,” William said. “That makes him elderly in cat years.”

Seventeen? She swallowed down nervously. “Nicole never mentioned he was that old. He must be the equivalent of being in his eighties.”

“A whisker off ninety,” he said but his mouth curled. “Excuse the pun.”

She took a deep breath and felt a moment’s trepidation. “Nicole also mentioned something about him needing daily medication.”

“Heart pills,” William said as he checked his phone. “Excuse me a moment.”