Anyway, it isn’t vandalism,’ she added with a sweet smile. ‘It’s local history.’

Fantasy time.

After the best night’s sleep she could remember, Kate was lying in the bath with bubbles up to her ears and a blissful grin on her face that wouldn’t go away. What a magical day yesterday had turned out to be. What a day today would hopefully turn out to be – heavens, from now on anything could happen.

Closing her eyes to make visualising it easier, Kate conjured up a Christmassy picture not dissimilar to the final moments of It’s A Wonderful Life. There was Jake with one arm round her and the other round Sophie – actually, no, because then she and Sophie would be separated; far better to have Sophie in the middle, hugging them both and being hugged in return to show how happy they were. Anyway, so there they were, all together, just like a proper family – and if she and Jake ended up getting married there’d be no problem with warring in-laws because Estelle and Marcella got on brilliantly together, and she and Maddy had put their silly differences behind them. God, this was the best fantasy ever, and it could actually come true- Yeek, phone, that was probably Jake now!

Racing downstairs with bath bubbles cascading down her body and a towel hastily slung round her middle section, Kate skidded breathlessly into the kitchen.

‘Was that for me?’

Estelle, eating toast and compiling a shopping list, looked surprised.

‘No, darling. Will Gifford just rang, he’s coming down this afternoon.’

Wrong answer. Completely wrong answer. Who gave a toss about bumbling Will Gifford?

‘Expecting a call?’ said Estelle.

No wonder she sounds amazed, Kate thought. What with me and my action-packed social life.

‘Not really.’ Realising she was dripping water and foam onto the kitchen floor, Kate said, ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’

‘Darling, I’m so glad you and Maddy are friends again.’

Kate nodded; Estelle had in fact got quite tearful last night at the thought of happy endings all round.

Not that her mother knew yet about the particular happy ending she had in mind for herself and Jake.

Struggling to contain a giveaway smirk, Kate said, ‘Me too.’

By eleven o’clock she was setting off down Gypsy Lanewith a bounce in her step and a fully-fledged plan in her brain. Because basically, why hang about waiting for Jake to ring when she was perfectly capable of making things happen herself? Even Norris seemed more cheerful this morning, jauntily ambling along, exploring the hedgerows and almost – but not quite – breaking into a run when he spotted Bean cavorting outside Jake’ s workshop.

Even our dogs get on, Kate thought joyfully, what could be more perfect than that?

It was cooler than yesterday, with an overcast sky and the threat of rain in the air. Instead of sitting outside his workshop with his shirt off, Jake was inside wearing a pale grey lambswool sweater and jeans. He was working on a casket, painstakingly brushing varnish over a transferred painting of a snowy mountain range.

Looking up as Kate entered the workshop, he flicked his sunstreaked blond hair out of his eyes and flashed his trademark dazzling smile.

‘Hi.’

He loves me.

‘Hi.’ Kate felt herself go fizzy all over; when a man smiled at you like that, you knew that yesterday had meant something extra-special. ‘Listen, what are you doing tonight?’

This was Jake’s cue to do his sparkly-eyed thing and murmur flirtatiously, ‘I don’t know, what am I doing tonight? You tell me.’

Instead he said, ‘I’ve been bullied into taking Sophie to the cinema to see the new Spiderman movie. I must be mad, the last one scared me witless.’ He pulled a face. ‘But that’s Soph for you. What can you do with a girl who has three pairs of Spiderman pyjamas?’

‘Well, it’s my night off,’ said Kate, ‘so why don’t we all go? Then I can hold your hand during the scary bits.’

‘It’s good of you to offer, but it’s Spiderman.’ Jake shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Hardly your kind of thing. You wouldn’t enjoy it.’

Actually, this was a fair point. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy sitting in the darkened cinema holding Jake’s hand, but as a breed, movies starring comic-book heroes left her cold.

‘OK, better idea. I’ll meet up with you after the cinema and we’ll go for a pizza.’ Kate beamed, pleased with herself, then realised that Jake was hesitating and added hurriedly, ‘I meant all of us go for a pizza, you, me and Sophie.’

‘Kate, look, I’m sorry, but I have to say no.’

Time stood still. She wondered if she’d somehow misunderstood this last sentence; if, in fact, he was actually saying yes. But that was taking fantasy too far.

Slowly Kate said, ‘No to what? Pizza?’

‘No to all of it. Meeting up, visiting cinemas together, doing the kind of things couples do, the whole works.’ Jake shook his head. ‘Yesterday was great, OK? We both enjoyed ourselves. But that’s as far as it goes. I keep my private life and my family life separate. It wouldn’t be fair on Sophie, introducing her to an endless stream of girls, letting her think I might be getting serious about this one or that.’ He paused, then said gently, ‘Does that make sense to you?’

It made about as much sense as being hit across the face with a wet towel. This wasn’t what Kate had been expecting to hear at all.

Stunned, she said, ‘Is it because of the way I look?’

‘Oh, please. I thought we’d cured you of that. I just don’t want to confuse Sophie, that’s all. If I know I’m not going to be settling down with someone, why get her hopes up?’

What about my hopes? Kate wanted to scream, and the awful realisation that he meant what he said struck her like a stake through the heart. This was rejection of the most brutal kind, brutal because she genuinely hadn’t been expecting it.

Despising herself for being pathetic, already knowing the answer deep down but still needing to hear it from Jake’s mouth, she heard herself ask, ‘So do you want to carry on seeing me when Sophie isn’t around? Or was yesterday just a one-off?’

Jake sighed. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. But OK, it was a one-off.’

‘So you lied to me.’ There was a telltale tremor in Kate’s voice. ‘I thought you really liked me. You told me you liked me. But it was just a big lie.’

‘That’s not fair. I do like you,’ Jake said evenly. ‘But we’re never going to be a couple.’

Kate felt her fingernails digging into her palms as a glimmer of hope shone through. ‘We could be!’

Her heart raced as she realised what this was all about. ‘Is this because your family’s poor and mine are rich? Jake, it doesn’t matter a bit, I don’t care that you don’t have any money—’

‘Well, nice of you to say so,’ Jake interrupted, ‘and I’m very flattered, but it’s nothing to do with that.’

Helplessly Kate blurted out, ‘It is my face.’

‘Stop jumping to conclusions and just listen to me. And you do have to stop blaming everything on your face, by the way,’ said Jake. ‘Because, trust me, it matters to you a damn sight more than it matters to anyone else.’

‘Go on then, fire away.’ Outside the workshop, Kate could hear Norris and Bean playing, happily rolling around together – not unlike Jake and herself yesterday afternoon. Now, fiddling with the button of her thin navy jacket, she said, ‘What, then?’

‘It’s quite simple,’ said Jake. ‘When you fall in love with someone, it doesn’t happen because you want it to. Sometimes it’s the last thing you want – crikey, look at the mess Maddy’s got herself into – but you don’t have any kind of control over it. It just happens.’ He paused, and there was compassion – or sadness – in his green eyes. ‘Or not, as the case may be.’

And that was that. Stung by the rejection, Kate stalked back up the hill to Dauncey House at such a rate that poor Norris’s paws barely touched the ground.

So much for having thought she might actually be about to discover how it felt to be happy. Now she was back to square one, all over again.

Chapter 33

‘Oh God, not you again.’

‘Enchanting to see you too,’ Will Gifford said amiably, stepping to one side as Kate swept past him. Catching the front door before it had a chance to slam shut in his face, he added, ‘Is your mum in?’

‘Does it make any difference?’ Kate shot him a look of irritation. ‘You usually enjoy a good nose around whether anyone’s here or not.’

‘Ouch,’ said Will with a grin.

Contemptuously Kate hissed, ‘Oh, grow up.’

Estelle had her mouth full of mint Aero when Will came into the kitchen. Jumping guiltily away from the fridge where she kept her stash of chocolate, she covered her mouth with one hand and gave him an embarrassed wave with the other.

‘Just passed the ray of sunshine on her way out,’ said Will.

Estelle winced, managed to swallow a giant chunk of Aero in one go and said shamefacedly,

‘Hence the comfort eating.’

‘Still giving you the run around?’

‘I don’t know what’s happened. Yesterday she was fantastic, so cheerful you wouldn’t believe it.’

Seeing from Will’s face that he didn’t, Estelle went on earnestly, ‘Really, it’s the truth. She was happy, laughing, she even made up with an old friend she’d fallen out with years ago. I thought this is it, we’ve turned the corner at last, but this afternoon we’re back to square one. It’s as if yesterday never happened, like Brigadoon, and I don’t know what’s wrong. I mean, am I being really dense here?’

As she said it, a sob burst from Estelle’s throat, as unstoppable as a sneeze. ‘Other people seem to manage to have children who don’t treat them like a pile of poo, but it just doesn’t seem to be h-happening for m-me.’