((Authors Note –
Please note that this is Adult Fiction, so should only be read by those who qualify!
Hope you'll bear with me on this one!
I started with the best intentions of keeping this down to a couple of pages, but I got too interested in the characters to rush it, so it's a bit longer than I intended...
Hope you find it a good read though and as always I'd love to read your comments - and see you vote!
Duke ))
*****
1.A Minor Problem
The look that I gave him should have left him consumed by fire.
Just a pile of smouldering ashes!
How could he have got me into this ridiculous mess?!! And the way that my cousin Peter just casually shrugged, and stared back at me with those innocent, pleading eyes just infuriated me even more. I mentally called up another bolt of lightning!!
I suppose I ought to explain.
It's not that I blame Peter for everything that goes wrong in my life, but...
You see we're really close, even though I'm four years older and sometimes feel like a substitute mother! We were brought up in the same small Leicestershire village, played together a lot when we were young, and because his own mother died in a car accident when he was nine, I sort of, well, took over. God, that makes me sound old! But here I am, an honours graduate from Oxford , slim, medium height with silky, shoulder length straw blond hair. A youthful twenty three year old with my life opening up in front of me.
Or it was until just a few moments ago!!
I know that it's not really his fault that he knows instinctively how to push my buttons. And what makes it even more annoying is that he doesn't even know that he's doing it! He just naturally gets into all sorts of scrapes in his life and when he's run out of options to get out of them on his own, he passes everything over to his older 'sis', Janine, me, to sort out. Christ, I'm not even his biological Sister either!! Of course, it's not usually anything that serious. Maybe just a local farmer or two to placate like when, as a ten year old, he'd inadvertently burned down a haystack while trying to prove that you really can get sparks from flints!
"I didn't really expect it to work," he'd explained innocently later with a sheepish expression spread across his youthful features, small locks of sandy hair blowing in the breeze, " ...and it was ... well, sort of ... like homework after all!"
It's like I said , buttons again! I'd just spent the whole of the previous week chivvying him about doing his homework after he'd come home with a bad school report and his father had gone ballistic! So it was all my fault then!
I checked in his direction again. Disappointingly, there was no sign of the lightning bolt and he was still looking back at me angelically, totally confident that I would wave a magic wand and somehow get us out of this, his latest and most spectacular scrape to date! With that heavy weight of expectation on my shoulder I sucked in a deep breath and glared at him again.
And that air of total innocence just served to remind me that he'd been the one responsible for breaking my heart, the reason why I'd just jetted off around the world with my best friend to try and forget the pain, forget Jamie! Well, that may be a little strong I suppose. You see Peter didn't have a clue about what was happening on that fateful Spring afternoon in Hampshire. He was just being his usual helpful, innocent self I suppose.
2.A Worrying Moment
I'd actually been quite surprised to make the garden party at all. It was only because I'd been unexpectedly released early from an open day at my prospective new employers when one of their key staff came down with a bug of some kind that I'd arrived at the country hotel three hours earlier than I'd expected. So, after I'd dropped off my overnight bag in our room, I'd headed straight down to the garden tents, bathed in warm sunshine, and full of family members celebrating the umpteenth anniversary of my aunt and uncle.
I was thinking delicious thoughts about Jamie, my handsome Scottish boyfriend of almost two years as I'd fielded felicitations from friends and family and searched high and low for his flame red hair. He'd sounded disappointed when I'd told him that I'd be delayed until the evening , but I'd promised him something 'special' for later to make up. I'd gone out the day before to purchase his 'surprise' and I'd been feeling a little annoyed that the sexy new suspenders set was still packed up in my case and not sliding silkily over my bare skin. I'd shivered slightly in anticipation of the way that he'd look at me later as I undressed and the way that he'd slowly, ever so slowly, slide off my underwear before...