Her Ideal Husband

Stacey picked up her two-year-old nephew and began to fasten him into his car seat, pretending she hadn’t heard. ‘Okay, Harry?’ Harry grinned at her. ‘You are so gorgeous, sweetheart.’ She straightened and stepped back. ‘I wish I had a little boy just like you.’

‘Feeling broody?’ Dee asked, slyly. She hadn’t been... ‘Marry Lawrence and I’m sure he’ll oblige.’

‘Really? Does it have to be a permanent arrangement? I’d be perfectly happy with just the baby.’

‘As if you didn’t have enough troubles.’ But her sister was wearing a suspiciously smug little smile, no doubt counting on Stacey’s hormones to do the dirty work for her. ‘I’ll call round with the dress.’

‘Fine.’

‘You won’t cry off at the last moment, will you?’

‘Don’t nag. I can’t promise to make Lawrence’s night but—’ she paused as Dee’s helpful suggestion that the children stay over at her house with Harry, in the care of the doting Ingrid, suddenly acquired a less innocent interpretation; there was no such thing as a free babysitter ‘—but I won’t let you down.’ She would be making her own babysitting arrangements, though. ‘You won’t forget to put up a notice about the room, will you?’

‘You’re quite sure you want to do this? You might get the tenant from hell.’

‘As long as he can pay the rent, I don’t mind where he comes from.’

Stacey watched her sister drive away, not entirely sure she could trust Dee to put up the ‘Room to Let’ notice for her. Her sister had an entirely different agenda, wanting her safely married to someone who would pay to send the girls to a private school and install them all in a house with every modern convenience, a house where the shelves had been put up by a proper carpenter—or at least someone who knew how to use a level.

She meant well.

Stacey turned and looked at her home with its sharply pointed gables and piecrust bargeboarding. She loved it, but she had to admit that it could have been the prototype for the ‘crooked little house’.

It had been, in that favourite estate agents’ phrase, ‘in need of improvement’ when Mike had inherited it from his uncle. Unfortunately, he was not the man for the job.

Mike had only ever been good at one thing. A husband, a father, needed more than five stars in the good sex guide...

‘What are you looking at, Mummy?’

Stacey dragged herself back to the present. ‘There are some housemartins.’ She stooped down to Rosie’s level. ‘Look, they’ve built a house under the eaves. Can you see?’

‘Wow, that’s so cool.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? If they raise a family there, they’ll come back every year.’ Not quite paying guests, but just as welcome. ‘Run and fetch Clover, will you, sweetheart? I want to walk down to the village.’ Just in case Dee decided not to risk the chance of her plans being upset by a student needing a room this late in the college year, Stacey would put a card in the window of the village shop. Before she lost her nerve.

And when they got back, she’d cut the lawn. Well, trim the heads off the daisies, at any rate, which was all her lawn mower was capable of. University students probably wouldn’t notice, but she didn’t want to risk putting anyone off.

Dear Nash

Mummy says I have to wait until you find my ball, but that mite be forever if you don’t know I’ve lost it. So I’m just telling you I kicked it over the wall again. Sorry. Love, Clover

PS Please don’t tell Mummy I rote this. I’m supposed to be pashunt and wait.

Nash spotted the note, stuck in a crack at the top of the wall, when he emerged from his tent at first light. The football took a while to find, but he didn’t mind that. He’d been looking for an opportunity to further his acquaintance with Stacey O’Neill. He’d hoped the strawberries would do the trick.

She hadn’t responded in person, but the tin of shortbread suggested he wouldn’t be rebuffed if he looked over the wall to say thanks. The sound of a very sick lawn mower was all the excuse he needed.

Stacey was crouched over the mower, feeding its apparently bottomless thirst for oil, when something made her look up. Nash Gallagher was sitting on top of the wall, watching her, his incredible legs just waiting for a invitation to jump down and make themselves at home.

‘Need a hand?’ he said.

‘What I need is a new lawn mower,’ she said, standing up, her face flushed from bending over the ancient machine. Maybe. ‘I just hope I’ve got enough oil to keep it going until I’ve finished.’ The fact that the grass was six inches high wasn’t exactly helping.

He jumped down without waiting for the invitation and gave the mower an exploratory push, then frowned. ‘Have you got a spanner?’

‘Well, um, yes.’ He waited. ‘You want me to fetch it?’

‘It might be a good idea. Unless it’s trained to come when you whistle?’ One corner of his mouth lifted in something like a smile. Like a smile, but a whole lot more.

Oh, good grief. She knew this type. She’d married one of them and apparently six years of living with a sweet-talking hunk with a roving eye hadn’t given her immunity to the breed. ‘You don’t have to,’ she said, quickly. ‘Really. I’ll be fine.’

‘Until you run out of oil.’ And he looked up, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘If you feel bad about it, you always can make me some more of that shortbread.’

‘Oh.’ She had known that the shortbread would be misunderstood. ‘That was from Clover. For returning her ball. Again.’

‘Really?’ He didn’t sound disappointed. Instead he switched the grin to Clover. ‘Nice one, Clover. Tell me, do your talents stretch to making tea?’

Clover giggled. ‘Mum made the shortbread. I just put it there to say thank you. But tea’s easy.’

‘Well, I’m sure your mother could do with a cup. And, since you’re making a pot, I like mine with three spoonsful of sugar.’

Clover giggled, again. Stacey fought, with difficulty, the inclination to join in. Clover had an excuse; she was nine years old. At twenty-eight, she knew better. But she was still glad of the excuse to escape to the garage and get her features under proper control while she fetched the toolbox.

‘I brought the box,’ she said, dropping the toolbox beside him on the grass. They’d inherited it with the house and there was nothing less than fifty years old in it. ‘You should find something that fits.’

He folded himself up, opened the box and checked out the contents, testing a couple of spanners against the nuts. ‘Okay, we’re in business,’ he said. Stacey watched, chewing anxiously on her bottom lip, as he began to strip down the mower. Mike used to begin like that. Full of confidence. Nash glanced up, saw her expression. ‘Don’t look so worried. I’ll put it back together again.’

Stacey swallowed. Mike used to say that too. ‘I’ll, um, get on with trimming the edges of the lawn, then.’

He just smiled and carried on taking her precious, if difficult, mower to bits. She couldn’t bear to watch. Instead she worked her way slowly round the edge of the lawn with a pair of long-handled clippers that, too late, she realised were in dire need of sharpening. She just wasn’t into the razor-edged lawn look.

She struggled on, hoping Nash wouldn’t notice.

It had taken her a while to learn to bite her tongue rather than say, ‘I really could do with a shelf…’ or ‘Have you noticed that cracked tile in the bathroom…’ or ‘Let’s decorate the dining room…’

Mike had thrown himself into everything, but she’d eventually caught on to the fact that his enthusiasm outstripped his competence by a country mile. And that when things went wrong his enthusiasm ran out fast. But he’d been dead for three years and she was out of practice.

She glanced quickly over her shoulder at Nash. If he messed up, she would be in big trouble. She might not keep her lawn short, but she had to keep it manageable so that the girls had somewhere to play. And grass didn’t stop growing just because the mower was out of action.

Clover put a mug of tea down beside her, then carried one across to Nash and stayed beside him to watch what he was doing. ‘Clover, don’t get in the way,’ she called out.

‘She’s fine.’ Nash patted the grass beside him, inviting her to sit down, and began to explain what all the bits were and what they did. Rosie, not to be left out, sidled up and joined them. ‘This is a washer, and this is a nut,’ he began, holding out his hand so that they could check them out. ‘And this bolt goes through here, see?’ He leaned back so that they could have a good look. ‘Then you put the washer on the end of it... Do you want to do that, Rosie?’ Rosie giggled. ‘You are Rosie, aren’t you?’

‘Her real name’s Primrose,’ Clover said. ‘But nobody calls her that.’

‘I like Primrose,’ Rosie protested.

“‘Primrose first-born child of Ver, Merry Springtime’s Harbinger…’’’ he quoted. ‘I bet your birthday’s in March.’

‘It is,’ she said, a little breathless from the attention. ‘It is.’

‘Okay, Primrose.’ He offered her the washer and she took it and put it where he showed her. ‘That’s right. And now the nut goes on here to hold it all together. Clover, can you do that for me?’ Clover carefully screwed it into place. ‘Hey, we’ll have this done in no time.’

Stacey watched, her heart aching for her girls, for the way it should have been for them. Not that it would have been. Their father had never had that kind of patience.

Nash glanced up, and when he saw she was watching he raised his brows, as if saying, Is this okay? She forced her lips into a smile and then turned away and carried on forcing the blunt shears through the lawn edges.

‘Mummy, your tea’s getting cold.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ She stopped, stooped to pick up the mug and, despite herself, turned back to watch. ‘Do you have children of your own, Nash?’ her mouth enquired, before her brain could stop it.

‘No. No children. No wife.’ He handed Clover another nut and looked up. ‘I’m a rolling stone. I’ve never stopped travelling long enough to gather any moss.’

She remembered him saying that he’d stayed in worse places than the garden centre. ‘Where?’

‘All over.’ He must have seen the next question in her eyes, or maybe he just knew what was coming. ‘I started with VSO in South-East Asia... That’s Voluntary Services Overseas,’ he explained.

‘I’ve heard of it.’ Had thought, once, that she would do that after college. Before she’d met Mike and anything but being with him had suddenly seemed pointless.

‘I did a couple of years with them before working on a project with Oxfam. Then I moved on to South America. I’ve been there for about five years.’

‘And now you’re home.’

He thought about that for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ He sounded surprised. As if he couldn’t quite believe it. ‘Hey, girls, I think this is about done. Let’s give it a whirl, shall we?’

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