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CHAPTER ONE

JETHRO COLE secured the alu ladder on the roof rack and stowed the bucket andleathers in the back of the old van Then he wiped the sweat from his broith a tanned forearm and pushed the unruly fall of black hair out of the ith iot a haircut

He expelled a slow, relaxing breath through even white teeth The end of another long working day, cla other people’s s At least he was beginning to get the hang of it now, and not collecting too many complaints about smears and missed corners

He had collected a couple of propositions froh, which he had pretended not to understand in order to avoid giving offence and to keep their custo loud and appreciative histles, by the sound of it!

Digging into the pockets of his battered jeans for the ignition key, he watched with barely concealed airls, arm in arm, ildly permed hair, identical pairs of fake leather jeans and skiination

‘You can peer through eous!’ said the one with the nose-stud, while the other siuh heels in the direction of the High Street, obviously in search of whatever Shrewsbury offered in the way of night-life

His self-inflicted lurch into the one- hilimpsed in the sophisticated, air-conditioned, superficially polite world of rin was rakish, his a with huine into spluttering life

He was driving around in a beat-up old van while his Jaguar XK8 convertible was gathering dust in a lock-up on the other side of toearing scuffed jeans and a faded T-shirt that should have been binned years ago while his designer casuals were folded away in a suitcase back at 182 Albert Terrace

He’d stayed there a whole lot longer than he’d originally intended In norht stop to catch up with his forot

But here he still was, cleaning s instead of directing operations and steering his varied enterprises fro in his isolated cottage for a couple of weeks, as had been his intention

Because when he’d stopped off to pay his respects to Nanny Briggs, as he always did en route to his country hohly every twelve months—his schedule had been turned on its head

And, despite his original grit-your-teeth-and-get-on-with-it attitude, he was enjoying everyit a whole lotclose to it

He was experiencing the type of excite a fantastic deal, and which never before in his thirty-four years of living had been associated with a woman

Women came easily

But not this one Not Alissa Brannan

His pursuit of her delectable person wasn’t et there He always got what he wanted, didn’t he?