Bride Required. Alison Fraser

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      BAXTER was just about to give up the search when he found the right girl.

      She was sitting in a long corridor that connected underground platforms. He looked for the usual cardboard sign saying ‘hungry and homeless’. There wasn’t one. She sat, eyes on the ground, playing a flute, and left passers-by to choose whether to throw a coin in her instrument case or not.

      But she was still one of them: the dispossessed, the destitute, the growing army of young people living on the streets. It might have shocked him, their number—it was such a contrast to the affluence of central London—but he’d been warned that the capital had changed in ten years. And, besides, he’d seen worse on the streets of Addis and Mogotu.

      Later he was to question why he’d selected her. At the time it was first impressions. She was wearing an army-surplus jacket and torn jeans, but at least they looked reasonably clean. She was young, but not too young. The flute playing put her one up the scale from begging, but still suggested she might be desperate enough.

      Or perhaps it was simply the dog.

      He’d seen several homeless people with dogs. Mostly men or couples, New Age travellers—whatever they were—with some scrawny animal, perhaps in the hope of eliciting more sympathy than their merely human plight. But they’d been mongrels, dogs cast on the streets like their owners.

      This girl’s dog was something else—a pure-bred retriever with a healthy coat and benign disposition; he barely opened a sleepy eye at the world passing by.

      The girl didn’t look up either, even when he drew near and threw a pound coin in the case. She might have nodded in acknowledgement of the offering, but her eyes remained fixed on the ground while her fingers continued to scale the instrument.

      Baxter walked along, stopping only when he’d turned a corner. He was in two minds. He hadn’t really caught a good look at her face, but what he’d seen of her—hair cropped short, and the three gold rings adorning one earlobe—wasn’t exactly to his taste. She wasn’t the sort of girl he would have dated, but that was scarcely relevant. At least she didn’t look as if she might do nightshift as a hooker, which was more than could be said for some of the girls he’d considered that day.

      He rehearsed what he was going to say before retracing his steps and coming to a halt before her.

      Dee had a good memory for shoes. After all what else did she stare at all day? You didn’t stare at the punters. They were nobody. Start looking at them and they might think they were somebody. Terry had told her that. He worked a pitch on the Northern Line, playing a guitar—badly.

      So it was the shoes she recognised. Brown laced boots of the walking kind. They had passed five minutes earlier, dropping a pound in her flute case. Now they were back, and she didn’t think it was to admire her virtuoso performance.

      She resisted taking a squint at their owner, and kept playing. It had happened before. Guys who fancied their chances. Guys who imagined she might like to make more money flat on her back. She kept playing, but this one stood where he was, waiting for her to acknowledge him.

      When she finally looked up, she was surprised.

      She’d expected some creepy-looking individual, and instead registered a tall man with brown hair streaked blond by an un-English sun, straight brows and an angular face that could have belonged to a male model.

      The handsome face creased into an equally handsome smile that had Dee muttering ‘Phoney,’ to herself even before he spoke.

      ‘You’re very good.’ He nodded towards the flute.

      ‘I know,’ she responded, unimpressed.

      He was disconcerted for a moment, then murmured dryly, ‘Not hampered by false modesty, either.’

      She shrugged, dismissing his opinion, then, raising her flute back to her lips, waited for him to move on.

      It was a heavy enough hint, but he chose to ignore it.

      She decided an even heavier one was required. ‘Look, mate, I have a living to earn, so, unless you’re a talent scout for the London Philharmonic…’

      ‘Unfortunately, no.’ He briefly flashed straight white teeth at her in a smile that never reached his eyes. ‘I do have another proposition for you, however.’

      ‘I bet,’ Dee muttered darkly in return.

      ‘Not that kind.’ He was quick to correct any wrong impressions.

      Dee continued to look at him sceptically, but then she looked at all men that way now.

      ‘Look—’ he took out his wallet and produced a twenty-pound note ‘—I’ll pay for your time.’

      ‘You do think I’m cheap, don’t you?’ Dee wasn’t sure what the going rate for an afternoon quickie was, but she felt it should be more than that.

      His eyes narrowed, displaying the first trace of anger. ‘I just want to talk to you. Nothing sexual. Believe me.’

      The reassurance rang true, as did his glance, which travelled over her asexual clothing, thin, pallid face and cropped hair. Whatever this man wanted, it wasn’t her body.

      Dee should have been pleased. She dressed this way specifically not to attract the opposite sex. But to have someone look at her quite so dismissively was offensive.

      ‘We can go to the nearest café and I’ll buy you and Rover a tea.’ His glance was warmer when it was directed at the dog.

      ‘Henry.’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘That’s his name,’ Dee informed him, wondering why she had.

      ‘Henry,’ he repeated, and put out a hand as the dog slowly lifted himself to a