The Vengeance Affair

‘Slow down, Jaz,’ he cut in mildly. ‘And calm down, too,’ he advised with a sweeping glance over her flushed face. ‘You have dirt on your cheek,’ he added softly.

She raised an impatient hand to rub the spot where she thought the dirt might be.

‘The other cheek,’ he told her ruefully. ‘Look, come inside,’ he added impatiently before she could transfer her attention to the other side of her face. ‘The washroom is through that door there.’ He pointed to the left of the front door. ‘The kitchen is at the other end of this hallway. Come through when you’re ready,’ he said dryly.

This would have to happen to her today, Jaz fumed as she went to the washroom and scrubbed the dirt impatiently from her cheek, and after assurances earlier to Beau Garrett that he could rely on her to be on time!

She had been just half a mile away from The Old Vicarage when she realized the van wasn’t responding properly, that it certainly wasn’t going where she was steering it, pulling in to the side of the road to get out and discover that one of her front tyres was absolutely flat.

The spare wheel didn’t look much better, but at least it wasn’t flat, although it had taken some time to get the punctured wheel off the van, the vehicle so old all the bolts seemed to have rusted up. And, as she had never changed a wheel in her life before…

Although none of that changed the fact that she had arrived at Beau Garrett’s home half an hour later than she had assured him she would.

‘I really am sorry I’m late,’ she apologized again as she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway as she looked around the transformed kitchen.

The last time she had seen this large room it had been as old and run down as the rest of the house, cracked lino on the floor, the kitchen cupboards of a particularly unattractive shade of grey, as had been the tiles on the walls, the work surfaces a depressing black, the range that provided heat as well as cooking facilities, old and temperamental.

The lino had been replaced by mellow-coloured flag-stones, the kitchen units now a light oak, the kitchen tiles a bright sunny yellow, the new Aga an attractive cream, and—thankfully!—throwing out lots of heat.

‘Wow,’ she murmured appreciatively. ‘This looks really great.’

He turned from pouring coffee into two mugs. ‘There was no way I could have moved in here with the kitchen the way that it was,’ he dismissed, putting the mugs, cream, and sugar down on the kitchen table before indicating for her to join him in sitting down.

Jaz sat, some of her earlier flusteredness starting to fade in the warm relaxation of the transformed room. ‘I don’t blame you,’ she nodded, adding cream to her mug. ‘It always was a cold, uninviting room.’ She took a grateful sip of her unsweetened coffee.

‘Always…?’ Beau Garrett repeated softly as he sat in the chair opposite.

Jaz looked up sharply; this man didn’t miss much, did he? She really would have to start remembering that!

‘Hmm.’ She gave a rueful sigh. ‘I may as well tell you before someone else does; my grandfather was the last vicar to actually live in this house. The man who took over from him moved into the new vicarage at the other end of the village where the Booths now live. But I spent a lot of time here as a child,’ she added flatly.

‘I see,’ Beau Garrett murmured slowly.

Jaz met his gaze unwaveringly. ‘Do you?’

‘Not really.’ He grimaced. ‘But if I live here long enough I’m sure that one way or another I’ll get to hear most of the local gossip,’ he added with distaste.

She was sure he would too. One way or another.

‘How did your visit to the shop go this morning?’ she changed the subject abruptly.

He gave a rueful smile. ‘Pretty much as predicted. Although, thankfully, I was saved after about fifteen minutes of fending off Mrs Scott’s increasingly personal questions by the arrival of another customer!’

Jaz nodded, smiling. ‘At which time you gratefully beat a hasty retreat.’

‘Very hasty,’ he confirmed grimly.

‘I shouldn’t worry about it too much,’ Jaz advised lightly. ‘Once you’ve lived here twenty years or so they’ll lose interest!’

‘Oh wonderful!’ he said with feeling. ‘Somehow village life isn’t quite as I imagined it would be.’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head.

‘Birds twittering in the hedgerows, children playing happily on the village green, neighbours chatting happily to each other over the garden fences?’ Jaz guessed teasingly.

‘Something like that,’ he confirmed dryly.

‘Oh, it can be like that,’ Jaz assured him. ‘Not usually in March, though. Too cold,’ she grinned. ‘And beneath the birds twittering, the happy children playing, neighbours chatting, you’ll find there is always the underlying gossip that binds us all together.’

‘The latter I can quite well do without,’ Beau Garrett assured her hardly.

She shrugged. ‘I did try to warn you the other evening.’

‘A little late, wouldn’t you say, when I’ve obviously already purchased The Old Vicarage?’ he drawled.

‘Just a little,’ she conceded ruefully. ‘But, don’t worry, if you intend staying, you’ll soon get used to it.’

‘Oh I intend staying,’ he told her flatly. ‘But I intend living here in quiet seclusion, have no intention of doing anything that will give the villagers cause to gossip about me,’ he added grimly.

Perhaps now wasn’t the time to tell him that he wouldn’t actually need to do anything to be the subject of gossip; just his being here at all, a well-known television star, had the inhabitants of Aberton agog with speculation as to why he had bought a house here. The last Jaz had heard, from the postman this morning as he handed her her letters, Beau Garrett had come to the village to escape an unhappy love affair when the woman in his life left him following the car accident that had left his face scarred.

That may be true, Jaz really had no idea, but somehow she doubted it was any more accurate than the rumour that he was here to research a book! What sort of book, and what sort of research, she couldn’t imagine, having heard from Beau Garret himself of his desire to be left in peace and solitude, but she had no intention of adding fuel to that particular fire by confiding that knowledge with anyone else, her answers to the postman noncommittal to say the least.

‘Perhaps we should go and look at the garden now?’ she suggested briskly, deciding enough had already been said concerning the speculation about him in the village.

‘The jungle, I call it.’ He stood up. ‘Although I am hoping that one day I’ll be able to call it a garden,’ he added wryly as they walked outside.

He was right, it was more like a jungle, Jaz realized with a heavy heart, years of rubbish accumulated in grass that was thigh high, overgrown with weeds, several of the trees in need of cutting down completely, and the greenhouse, once so lovingly tended by her grandmother, almost falling down, every pane of glass broken.

Looking at it Jaz couldn’t help remembering how in previous years she had played in this garden, built dens in the bushes, eaten picnics with her grandparents on the smooth green lawn, sat on the swing beneath the apple tree dreaming of a time when she would have her own home, her own apple tree with its swing, and children laughing as they played on it.

Now, at twenty-five, she had come to believe those dreams would never be more than that…

‘A disaster, isn’t it?’ Beau Garrett rasped disgustedly.

Jaz gave herself a mental shake; she was here to do a job, not wallow in the past. ‘Not really,’ she assured him crisply. ‘I’ll need to clear all the rubbish before we can actually begin putting it in any order, but I think most of it is salvageable.’

‘You have more optimism than I do, then,’ he dismissed with a shake of his head. ‘Sometimes I wonder what on earth I thought I was doing taking on a place like this!’ he muttered almost to himself.

Jaz turned to look at him. ‘Searching for your own piece of paradise?’ she suggested huskily, knowing that being back here again, after all these years, had affected her more deeply than she cared to admit. ‘My grandfather always said that you have to find contentment inside yourself before you can appreciate any other happiness in your life.’ And she had known all about discontent…

‘Did he really?’ Beau Garrett rasped harshly, his aloofness of Friday evening returning with a vengeance as he looked down his arrogant nose at her.

Jaz turned away, her cheeks flushed as she realized she had stepped over some imaginary line. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I wasn’t necessarily referring to you,’ she finished lamely, knowing it was being at The Old Vicarage again, her own memories, that had prompted the comment. And it hadn’t been directed at Beau Garrett at all, but at herself…

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He turned away abruptly. ‘Are you still available to start on Wednesday morning?’

‘Yes, of course—’

‘Then consider yourself hired,’ he bit out curtly. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind…? I have some other things I need to do this afternoon.’

Jaz didn’t ‘mind’ at all, felt an overwhelming urge to get away herself, had reminisced quite enough for one afternoon, thank you!

‘You’ll need a quote for how much the work is going to cost—’

‘Just do it,’ he rasped, obviously impatient for this conversation to be over now. ‘And send me the bill.’

‘Er…’ She grimaced, too embarrassed now to quite be able to meet that silvery gaze. ‘I’ll need to have a skip delivered to take away all the rubbish, and then there’s—’

‘Jaz, if you need a deposit to cover those costs then why don’t you just ask for one?’ Beau Garrett cut in impatiently.

‘Because I hate asking people for money, that’s why!’ She felt stung into replying, glaring up at him, all her earlier feelings of sympathy towards him evaporating in the face of his arrogant rudeness.

‘Then it’s no wonder that the tyres on your van are so bald they develop punctures, your business is obviously falling down around your ears, and the clothes you’re wearing would make a scarecrow look well dressed!’ he came back scathingly before striding back into the kitchen.

Jaz stared after him, too stunned by the suddenness of the attack to find an immediate reply.

The fact that every word he spoke was the truth certainly didn’t help!

The van was old, left to her on her father’s death, as was the run-down garden centre. As for her clothes…she couldn’t remember when she had last been able to afford anything new.

But for Beau Garrett to have said those things to her…!

‘I’m sorry,’ he spoke softly behind.

Jaz had stiffened at the first sound of his voice, blinking back the tears now, determined he shouldn’t see that he had made her cry with the hurtful things he had said to her.

‘Jaz—’

‘No need to apologize for telling the truth,’ she assured brightly as she turned to face him, blue eyes not quite meeting those probing silver ones.

He shook his head, his sigh heavy. ‘I’m a little—I shouldn’t have taken out my bad temper on you,’ he rasped with a self-disgusted shake of his head.

Jaz moistened dry lips before speaking. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken so personally to you, either.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s this place. I—’ she sighed, her frown pained. ‘I’d forgotten.’

‘Forgotten what?’ Beau Garrett looked at her compellingly.

Jaz found herself caught and held by the intensity of that silvery gaze, feeling a little like a rabbit must do when caught in the glare of a car’s headlights; trapped, mesmerized, totally unable to move.

But at the same time her own instinct for privacy came to the fore, giving her the impetus to break that gaze even as she gave a dismissive laugh. ‘Nothing of any importance,’ she assured him lightly.

He looked for a brief minute as if he would like to argue that point, but as Jaz continued to look at him unblinkingly he finally gave a rueful shrug. ‘Here.’ He held a cheque out to her. ‘That should cover any initial expenses you may have.’

A glance at the amount written on the cheque he gave her told Jaz that it would probably cover the cost of all of the work to be done here, not just the initial expenses.

Pride warred with necessity inside her—and it was necessity that finally won out. After all, she would do the work, and it would probably cost as much as this, so it wasn’t as if she were taking the money under false pretences. Besides, accepting it would mean that, as well as being able to pay off most of the more pressing bills, for a change she would also be able to eat more than either baked beans, or tomatoes, on toast!

The thought of a nice roast chicken for her dinner was enough to make her mouth water. And her pride seem petty.

‘Thank you,’ she accepted huskily as she stuffed the cheque into her denims pocket. ‘Eight o’clock on Wednesday morning, then.’

He winced as the sound of banging could be heard from the front of the house, Dennis still in the process of putting up the scaffolding in preparation of repairing the roof when Jaz arrived a short time ago. ‘Make it nine o’clock,’ Beau Garrett suggested. ‘If the place is going to be like a building site for the foreseeable future, I might as well arrange it so that I have some peace in the mornings, at least until after nine o’clock!’

Having accepted and been present at Madelaine’s drinks party last Friday, peace was something Jaz didn’t think this man was going to find too much of in the immediate future. Every other hostess in the village, from Barbara Scott at the shop to Betty Booth, the pretty young wife of the vicar, was going to be inviting him to lunch or dinner. Invitations, if he didn’t want to cause offence, he would find it hard to refuse, having accepted Madelaine’s.

Although somehow Jaz didn’t think Beau Garrett particularly cared whether or not he offended people!

Oh, well, that was his problem. Her own, more immediate concern was cashing his cheque so that she might have some money herself for a change.

‘That’s fine with me,’ she agreed lightly, hesitating as she turned to leave. ‘I should keep an eye on Dennis, if I were you,’ she added with a rueful grimace. ‘He has a habit of setting up the scaffolding and then forgetting to come back to start the job.’

Beau Garrett’s mouth set in a grim line. ‘Not this one, he won’t.’

No, he probably wouldn’t, Jaz conceded inwardly as she went back out to her van. Even work-shy Dennis must have already realized that Beau Garrett wasn’t a man to cross.

Something she had better remember herself if she wanted to keep her own job at The Old Vicarage.

If only just being here didn’t bring back such vivid memories for her. Memories she would much rather forget.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHAT the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Jaz turned frowningly at the sound of Beau Garrett’s furious voice, struggling to hold a rather large rock in her arms as she did so. ‘Sorry?’ The wind was strong this morning, whipping her hair into her face and eyes, so that she looked at him through the screen of her tousled hair as he strode purposefully down the garden towards her.

‘I said,’ he grated much closer to her, reaching out to take the rock from her arms and drop it disgustedly into the wheelbarrow beside them, ‘what do you think you’re doing?’ His eyes glittered silver as Jaz was finally able to brush the hair from her eyes and look at him.

And then wished she hadn’t.

Not that he wasn’t worth looking at, virilely attractive in faded denims and a navy-blue sweater to keep out the cold. But the anger she could see in his face, that scar shown in stark relief, were enough to make her take a step backwards.

She moistened wind-dry lips. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not throwing these rocks away—’

‘I don’t care if you smash them to pieces and scatter them to the wind,’ he cut in harshly. ‘What I want to know is why you’re picking them up in the first place!’

Jaz’s apprehension at his obvious anger turned to confusion. ‘Exactly what I told you I would do,’ she answered slowly. ‘Clearing away all the debris so that I can see what we have to work with.’

She had arrived at The Old Vicarage just over an hour ago, Beau Garrett obviously out when she’d got there: his Range Rover had been missing from the driveway, and there had been no answer to the ringing of the doorbell, only Dennis up on the roof industriously hammering away.

So Jaz had simply let herself into the garden by the side gate, had already half filled the skip at the side of the house that had been delivered yesterday, with old bicycles and other rubbish that had no practical use. In fact, she couldn’t imagine how an old bath could possibly have found its way amongst the weeds; as far as she was aware, apart from the kitchen, Beau Garrett hadn’t yet started on the redecorating of the other rooms in the house. But she had dumped that into the skip along with the other accumulating rubbish.

Beau Garrett’s expression was darkly disapproving. ‘I presumed when we agreed that you would do the work that you would have someone to help you.’

Jaz raised dark brows. ‘Such as?’

‘Such as a labourer of some kind to do the heavy work,’ he bit out impatiently.

‘Ah.’ Jaz straightened knowingly, realizing that her five feet four inches in height were far from imposing. ‘A man, you mean?’

‘Well, of course I mean a man,’ he came back with barely constrained irritation. ‘I had no idea that you intended doing all this heavy work yourself.’

‘Mr Garrett—’

‘Beau,’ he snapped.

‘Beau,’ she complied with a nod. ‘Apart from old Fred at the garden centre, I don’t have anyone working for me. I’m a one-man band—’

‘One-woman band,’ he corrected grimly.

‘And that’s the problem,’ she guessed ruefully.

‘Of course that’s the problem!’ he snapped. ‘I can’t possibly allow you to collect all this rubbish up and carry it out to the skip—’

‘I’m using a wheelbarrow,’ she pointed out practically.

‘Wheeling it out to the skip, then,’ he corrected with no show of a lessening of his impatience.

She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘I realize I’m not very big, but I’m really quite strong, you know.’

His gaze raked over her scathingly, obviously not at all impressed with her height or her size-ten frame. ‘You may be,’ he allowed skeptically. ‘But there’s no way I’m going to let you clear all this lot on your own.’ He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all the rubbish still scattered about the weed-engulfed garden.

And there was no way that Jaz was going to use some of the precious money he had given her in order to hire a labourer for a couple of days to help with the clearance! Especially when she knew she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.

‘I’ll help you,’ Beau told her dryly as he seemed to read at least some of her thoughts.

But hopefully he couldn’t read the ones she was having now!

Beau Garrett, television star, urbanely elegant man, always voted in the top five in the ‘sexiest men on television’ poll that came out each year, was going to shift stones and debris like some common labourer?

Worse—he was going to shift stones and debris like a common labourer alongside her!

She may have given up any interest in love and marriage, but that didn’t mean she was immune to men, that she couldn’t be totally aware of one in a sexual way. As she was totally aware of Beau Garrett…

Top five ‘sexiest men on television’ be damned—this man was too lethally attractive for his own—or anyone else’s!—good.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea—’

‘Why not?’ he rasped impatiently.

Jaz had no intention of telling him the real reason ‘why not’ the truth being that, dressed in disreputable denims and a ragged sweater, her face hot and sweaty from lifting heavy weights, she felt about as feminine as one of the rusted bicycles she had thrown in the skip!

Not that she thought a man like Beau Garrett would have looked at her twice even if she were looking her best, but she still had her pride, even if he did think she made ‘a scarecrow look well dressed’.

No matter how determined she may have been on Monday afternoon not to let him see how hurt she had been by that insulting remark, it had definitely hit a raw nerve…

She shrugged. ‘My insurance wouldn’t cover any injuries you—’

‘Insurance be damned,’ Beau Garrett cut in scathingly. ‘This is my garden, and as such my rubbish, and if I choose to help clear it away then that’s my problem, not yours.’

Jaz could clearly see the challenge in his gaze. ‘I’m not sure an insurance company would see it quite that way—’ She broke off, knowing her protests to be completely wasted as he moved determinedly to pick up one of the larger stones that littered this particular corner of the garden.

‘Where could all these rocks have come from?’ he muttered disgustedly as he dumped it into the wheelbarrow.

‘My grandmother’s rock garden…?’ she suggested with a grimace.

‘I should have guessed!’ Beau shot her a rueful glance as he continued to load the rocks into the barrow.

‘Mmm,’ Jaz nodded, blue eyes glittering mischievously. ‘She was very fond of her rock garden.’

He paused before bending to pick up another rock, one dark brow raised over mocking grey eyes. ‘Are you going to help or just stand there watching me all day?’

Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. ‘Sorry. I—I just can’t believe you’re actually doing this.’ She gave a dazed shake of her head even as she moved to pick up one of the smaller rocks.

‘Believe it,’ he muttered through clenched teeth as he dumped another huge rock none-too-gently on top of the others. ‘Besides…’ he straightened, running his hands down his denim-clad thighs to remove the dirt ‘…you don’t seriously think, now that I’ve seen you’re managing here alone, that I could just calmly go back into the house and read the newspaper, do you?’ His expression was grim.

Jaz gave a shrug. ‘You could always try pretending that you hadn’t seen me.’

‘No,’ he bit out, ‘I couldn’t.’ A frown furrowed his brow as he looked down at all the rocks still remaining on the ground. ‘If we put all these in the skip there won’t be any room for anything else.’

‘Oh, but they aren’t going in the skip,’ she assured him happily.

His frown deepened. ‘In that case, what do you intend doing with them?’

‘Don’t worry.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not the sort to steal them to use for another job!’

Beau gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘I didn’t for a moment think that you were!’

Jaz grinned. ‘Then, in answer to your question, I’m going to store them in the greenhouse.’

He gave a grimace. ‘The last time I looked in there it was full of cigarette butts and empty beer cans; I think some of the local kids have been using it to hold small parties!’

‘Already disposed of in the skip,’ she assured him, prevented from wheeling the barrow over the garden to the greenhouse as Beau neatly took over the handles.

‘And exactly why are we keeping these particular rocks?’ he prompted impatiently, barely breathing hard from the effort of lifting the heavy weight across the garden.

‘So that I can eventually make another rock garden.’ Jaz studiously ignored his disapproving frown as she helped transfer the rocks to the greenhouse. It was what he was paying her for, after all!

‘Right,’ he acknowledged self-derisively.

They worked in companionable silence, after that. Well…as companionable as it could be for Jaz when she was aware of everything about him, from his tousled dark hair, lithe body, to the long muscular length of his legs.

If anyone had told her a week ago that she would be working alongside Beau Garrett, of all people, she would have laughed in their faces!

‘Time for a coffee break, I think,’ he decided crisply ten minutes later when the rocks were neatly stacked in the greenhouse.