Fiona Harper - Her Parenthood Assignment

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Andy, my own grumpy hero.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

STUPID map!

Gaby stood on the deserted quay and cursed herself for being on the wrong side of the river. She reached through the open car door for the map book and squinted at it. Then she turned it sideways and squinted again.

David had always said she was useless at map-reading. Mind you, her ex-husband had said she was useless at most things. She’d spent the last year doing her utmost to prove him wrong and it rankled that one of his thousand-and-one reasons to leave her had some foundation.

She slammed the car door and looked back across the river.

Lower Hadwell was only a quarter of a mile away as the crow flies, but it would take her at least an hour to drive to the nearest town with a bridge and navigate her way back to the little village.

Botheration! Her first prospect of a proper job in almost a decade and she was already late for the interview. And not just fashionably late. She was all out, start-calling-the-hospitals late.

David’s mocking face filled her mind. ‘Shut up!’ she said out loud. Stupid, but it made her feel better.

She looked down at the map and a slow smile crept across her face. A little line of blue dashes. There was a ferry! Not so useless after all. Hah!

On one side of the quay a steep ramp led down to a shingle beach exposed by the receding tide. How on earth was she going to get the car down there without it rolling into the river? She blessed her sensible driving shoes and walked halfway down the ramp to get a better look.

‘Afternoon.’

The gravelly voice that came out of nowhere almost had her speeding back to London on foot. She put a hand over her stampeding heart and faced the stocky man who’d stood up from inspecting a rather unseaworthy-looking boat. He was so much a part of the scenery she hadn’t noticed him before. She half expected him to be covered with the same vivid green weed and barnacles as the ailing boat.

‘Oh, good afternoon.’ She smiled. ‘I was wondering about the ferry. Do you know what the timetable is?’

‘This time of year it don’t have one.’

‘Oh.’

He went back to examining a broken bit of wood and she waited for him to continue, hands clasped in front of her. When it became apparent that he believed their conversation to be over, she crunched her way across the shingle towards him and stopped a few feet away.

He looked up at her again, his face crinkled against the February sun. She had no idea how old he was. The tattooed skin of his arms was smooth, but his face was etched like an old man’s. He looked as if he’d spent most of his life scrunching his face against the reflection of the sun on the water, and the salt and wind had weathered it into deep furrows.

He didn’t speak, but nodded in the direction of a large post in the car park. A brass bell crusted with verdigris hung from it. There was a sign, but she couldn’t read it from down here on the beach, so back up the ramp she went.

Underneath the brief timetable was the following information: ‘30th October to 30th March—Please ring bell to call the ferryman.’

Great! South Devon was obviously still operating on medieval principles.

She took hold of the frayed rope that hung from it and flung the clapper hard against the brass. The salty-looking boatman looked up, wiped his hands on the back of his jeans and sauntered up the slope.

‘Yes?’ he said, folding his face up even further.

Gaby shook her head and looked at him hard. Perhaps all those stories about in-breeding in rural communities were true. She spoke slowly, pronouncing each word carefully. ‘I want to take my car across on the ferry.’

He threw his head back and laughed and suddenly she had the horrible feeling the tables had been turned and she was the one with the single-digit IQ. She brushed the thought away and stood a little taller.

‘There’s a ramp, isn’t there?’

He rubbed a stubby hand across his mouth and brought the rumbles of laughter to a halt. ‘Yep. And that over there is the ferryboat.’

She turned to where he pointed. A small boat, maybe fifteen feet in length, with a square cabin at the front and wooden benches round the back was tied to a ring near a mossy flight of steps.

The map book was still in her hand and she pulled it back in front of her face.

Passenger ferry, it said. Okay, so it wasn’t just map-reading she had a problem with, but reading in general.

She lowered the book to find him still looking at her. He obviously thought she was unspeakably dim, but he was grinning. Probably glad of the entertainment.

‘Hop in,’ he said. ‘Your car’ll be fine here. Last ferry back has to be before six, mind. I go off duty then.’

Her lips pressed together while she thought of something to say. Phrases whirled round her head and the moment slid away until anything she said would just sound forced. So, in the end, she just smiled back, locked her car and followed him down the steps to the ferry.

When he turned to start the motor she scrubbed her face with her hands and half-sighed, half-chuckled. You had to be able to laugh at yourself, right? One thing she’d learnt since her divorce was not to be so worried about doing or saying the wrong thing. Nobody was perfect, after all. Now, if only she could remember that on the next visit to her parents. Especially when they sighed and exchanged glances.

She knew what they thought. She must have been a terrible wife if she couldn’t keep a ‘catch’ like David happy. Her husband had traded her in for a newer, more compact model and it must be her fault. Nothing to do with the fact he was a self-centred, tyrannical little…

She turned her face into the wind so it blew her long brown hair behind her and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her fleece.

Lower Hadwell sat hibernating on the far side of the river, the ice-cream colours of the cottages muted by the winter sun. A narrow road separated a row of houses from the beach, then curved up a steep hill lined by cottages and shops, tightly packed as if huddling together for warmth.

Strange, that a picture-postcard village like this could contain a man with such a dark past. She wondered if they knew. Did the locals close ranks and whisper when he walked into the pub, or had they welcomed him into their little community? She hoped it was the latter. He deserved a fresh start, far away from the twitching net curtains of the suburbs.

Soon the ferry came alongside the string of pontoons that trailed down the beach from the village. The tide was so low that only the last two or three were floating. The rest lay helpless on the shingle, waiting for the murky water to rise and give them some purpose.

Gaby paid the ferryman and hopped out of the boat. No one was around. Well, almost no one. A lone figure in an oversized red fleece stood at the edge of one pontoon, hunched over and staring into the water. It was a girl, not more than eleven or twelve years old, her long dark hair scraped into a severe ponytail. Now and then she looked up and just stared into the distance.

Gaby knew that look. She’d spent many hours as child staring out of her bedroom window wearing the same heavy expression. Wishing her life were different, wishing she’d been born in a different time or a different place.