Tender Touch. Caroline Anderson

       CHAPTER ONE

      GAVIN hefted the key in his hand, a slow, satisfied smile touching the corners of his brilliant blue eyes.

      His first house—bought on impulse and his before he really even had time to think it all through, but now nevertheless and somewhat surprisingly his very own.

      Well, his and the bank’s.

      His car just fitted neatly on the drive, leaving room for one more in case he had visitors. A good thing, because the lane outside the row of cottages was narrow and twisting.

      He looked up at the front of the cottage, a soft pink bathed in the warm glow of the April sunset, and excitement tickled at his veins. With a grin that wouldn’t be hidden, he put the key in the lock, turned it and let himself in.

      The sun came in with him, slanting in through the doorway and bouncing off the dust motes that floated in the air.

      Lord, it needed a clean! He looked around with interest, the first time he had seen the room empty. It seemed bigger now, and he began to visualise it as it could be, with a new carpet to replace the tattered rag that more or less covered the floor, pictures on the walls, and one enormous chair, like Eliza Doolittle’s. He’d need another, for visitors—perhaps a small sofa, and maybe a rocking chair, unless he acquired a cat. Now there was a thought. Company. He’d heard rumours that one of Andrew Barrett’s cats had spawned again. A little kitten might be fun.

      He grinned again, ridiculously pleased at the idea, and, ducking to clear the low doorway, he wandered through from the large room he had entered into the kitchen at the back. His feet echoed on the red quarry tiles, eerie in the empty room. He looked around. The old stone sink hung at a crazy angle, dangling from the broken cupboard that half supported it. The tiles were grimy and mouldy in the gap where the cooker had stood, and such units as there were had definitely seen better days.

      He didn’t see the squalor, though. Instead he saw the tiles gleaming with polish, the sink refurbished and straight, set in a hand-built cabinet, the rest of the room gutted and filled with old pine dressers and a small table and chairs—and curtains. Floral ones, he thought, because a country cottage should have flowers or gingham at the windows and he didn’t think gingham would be colourful enough to brighten the gloomy room.

      He went through a poky little lobby with an outside door, through into the bathroom tacked on the end, the facilities primitive but serviceable, he supposed, if you excused the cracked basin and the broken loo seat. The bath could do with a good scrub, he thought, and refused to be depressed.

      There was masses of time. He only had to work slowly on it, and he didn’t have to live in it while he was sorting it out. He went back into the front room and through a doorway at the side into the next room, formerly the living-room of the next-door cottage. It was smaller than the first room, but still a decent size—big enough for him, at least. It had a little wooden staircase set behind a door in the corner, winding up to the solitary bedroom on the next floor, and he went up and looked around.

      It was almost presentable, the walls in passable condition, and he could see it would take very little work to turn it into something quite respectable.

      A good job, because he realised that in the cold light of day the cottage actually needed more doing to it than he had anticipated and he would have to get someone in to share the costs—if he could find anyone willing to live in it. He’d have to sort out the bathroom and kitchen, at least, before he could even try. Then he would need central heating, probably some rewiring—the list was endless.

      That was what you got for buying on impulse, he thought with a humourless laugh. He had viewed the pair of cottages—an executor’s sale—on the day of the auction, bid for them on a whim and bought them without even the benefit of a survey. He hadn’t even realised the second cottage was included at the time. That was how thoroughly he’d looked round.

      The subsequent survey had proved the structure sound, the building society had been quite happy to advance him the money, and the whole thing had been sewn up in two short weeks.

      Talk about hasty, he thought with a wry grin. His careful, ultra-cautious father had had a fit when Gavin had asked him to lend him the deposit. ‘You always hurl yourself into situations without a second thought. One day you’ll come unstuck—I thought it would be over a woman, some lame duck with horrendous problems that you’ll fall for hook, line and sinker, but maybe I was wrong. It’ll probably be now, with this latest piece of madness. Why couldn’t you buy a nice, safe modern house like your sister has? Why a tumbledown old cottage on its last legs? It’ll probably fall down around your ears!’

      Gavin chuckled, but then the smile died. Please God, don’t let him be right, he thought with a sobering flicker of doubt in the surveyor’s competence, but then, quelling the doubt ruthlessly, he went down the stairs and back