One Hot Summer: A heartwarming summer read from the author of One Day in December. Kat French
the grass.
In the caravan a couple of hours later, Alice went into battle with the archaic heater and lost. She wasn’t altogether surprised; disappointed, but not especially surprised given that it was a game of luck to get the gas rings on the cooker to work and the water pump was distinctly dodgy. The eBay seller who’d sold her the caravan had certainly added a gloss of efficiency to the advert that wasn’t strictly true, but Alice wasn’t to be deterred. This was home now. She was just relieved to have a roof over her head, even if it was made of tin and not one hundred per cent draught proof.
Making herself a sandwich as she warmed the kettle to fill two hot water bottles, Alice considered her new neighbour. The last thing she’d expected when she opened the door to Borne Manor that afternoon was a six-foot-two cowboy, much less a cowboy with broad shoulders, clear green eyes and something about his guarded manner that rendered her mildly speechless. He was … interesting.
Climbing into the huge bed, Alice set herself up for the evening. The memory foam mattress from the house had been a pain in the ass to lug down to the caravan, but boy was she glad of it now. She was equally glad of the myriad pillows and the cloud of quilts, and especially thankful for the luxury fur throw she’d given to Brad for Christmas that he hadn’t bothered to take. The rest of the caravan might be lacking in amenities, but the bed was hotel luxurious with her five-hundred-thread-count bed linen thrown into the mix.
Warm and fed, Alice lay back and pulled the quilt up to her nose. Through the trees she could just about make out the honey glow of lights in the kitchen up at the house, and she could imagine standing by the Aga to warm her bum as the underfloor heating warmed her toes.
Bah. Who needed all that jazz anyway? She wiggled her toes on the hot water bottle and switched her Kindle on, the only light inside the dark caravan. Clicking through to the internet to browse for something new to read, Alice scrawled through the recommendations and huffed softly as a scorching cowboy romance appeared on the screen. The blurb promised a hot Texan bad boy who could do a lot more than play the guitar with his wicked hands. Her index finger hovered over the buy button for a second, and then she thought better of it and scrolled forward to the next recommendation. Cowboys might make good romance novel fodder, but she’d had her fill of romance for at least the next twenty years. All that romance had got her lately was a broken heart, a dodgy heater and a no-fixed-abode address. Resolute, she clicked buy on the latest gory thriller to hit the top of the charts and settled down to read.
Up at the manor, Robinson picked up the coffee he’d just made and turned out the kitchen lights. Beyond the windows he could see only evening darkness, no sign of any lights or life beyond the tree line. This really was turning into the strangest of days. Bizarre as it was, it would seem that he’d flown straight out of Nashville and become the lord of his very own English manor, complete with fairies at the bottom of the garden.
‘There’s a cowboy living in my house.’ Alice shrugged her damp coat off and left it on the hooks just inside Niamh’s front door. She’d huddled inside the hood of her parka and made an early morning dash from the caravan to the cottages, eager to talk about the new tenant of Borne Manor.
Dropping into the armchair by the fire, she gratefully accepted the mug of tea Niamh had already made for her in anticipation of her arrival.
‘A cowboy?’ Niamh perched on the seat of the other armchair. ‘As in Elvis and horses and all that stuff?’
‘Are you sure Elvis was a cowboy?’
Niamh shrugged. ‘I’ve definitely seen him in a Stetson, and he sure sounded like one, ma’am.’
Alice raised an eyebrow at Niamh’s dodgy attempt at an accent. ‘Not as much as this guy does. He has a guitar, and he wears his jeans like a cowboy, and he speaks with this deep drawl.’
Niamh considered Alice’s words for a moment then held up her palm. ‘Whoa. Back up there a second. He wears his jeans like a cowboy? What does that even mean?’
Alice floundered for the right words and pulled a face. ‘You know … all low slung and snug. As if he’s just got off his horse or something.’
’Please, God, tell me he’s good-looking?’
Alice paused, trying to decide how to answer.
‘He’s sort of striking, yeah. He’s got that laid-back, tanned cowboy thing going on.’
She looked at Niamh, who raised her eyebrows and waited for more. Alice shrugged, not wanting to over commit about the handsome but somewhat grumpy man living in her house.
‘I don’t know, really. He’s just got this capable way about him. Charismatic, I suppose.’
Niamh laughed into her coffee mug.
‘I think I need to see this man for myself. Think he’d fancy sitting for me?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Doubt it. He seemed a bit grouchy, to be honest. Although …’
‘What?’
Alice glanced across at Niamh’s canvas on the easel behind the armchairs, at the all too evident beginnings of yesterday’s octogenarian nude.
‘Nothing,’ she said, her eyes dancing as she looked back at Niamh. ‘It’s just that from the way those jeans fit him, I think you might need more than an old fig in your fruit bowl.’
A little later that morning, Robinson pulled back his bedroom curtains just in time to catch his resident woodland nymph running across the grass towards her mystery residence beyond the trees. Although she was more Eskimo than nymph this morning; he wouldn’t have recognised her except for her telltale red boots and the long blonde trails of hair escaping the hood she’d turned up as protection against the lashing rain. ‘Welcome to England,’ he muttered, scrubbing his hands through his hair to wake himself up. Jetlag was one hell of a bitch to shake.
His thoughts turned back to his new landlady as he brushed his teeth. Where had she been so early, anyway? Or had she just been coming home after a night elsewhere? He pushed the disturbing thought away and headed downstairs. He didn’t really object to her coming and going, but it was going to be kind of hard to keep a low profile if his garden became a thoroughfare for a steady stream of Alice’s friends and lovers.
Maybe that fence she’d mentioned was going to be necessary after all.
‘Alice?’
Even though she’d barely had one conversation with him, Alice recognised Robinson’s voice straight away. No one else in Shropshire, or in England for that matter, had that odd mix of gravel-rough and silky smooth when they said her name. She swung the caravan door open, frowning at the grey, drizzly day beyond the canopy awning.
‘Morning,’ she said, keeping her guard well and truly up. ‘Have you decided you need that guided tour after all?’
‘You live in an Airstream.’
Alice looked at him steadily, taken aback by his bluntness. ‘Yes. I do.’
His face had confusion written all over it. ‘You moved out of that huge house into a van in your own garden?’
It nettled her that he didn’t keep his confusion to himself, mostly because she wasn’t any more ready to elaborate on her situation than he’d been when he’d arrived yesterday.
‘Is that a problem to you?’ she said, not quite challenging, but not quite polite, either.
He looked mildly taken aback, shaking his head with a tiny shrug.
‘I guess not, so long as you don’t plan on throwing all-night parties down here.’
Alice considered her options for a moment. If she argued her right to do whatever the heck she pleased down here, then she’d also need to prepare herself for