Chapter One

It had only been six months, but Kat was pretty certain that even after six years, she’d still get a thrill out of seeing the words Head Teacher on the door to her office. Not bad for a girl whose school report had stated she would never amount to much. Or, more specifically, she would never amount to much if she didn’t spend less time talking and more time listening. And concentrating. Well, she’d shown them (and she was still talking).

“Your ten o’clock appointment, Mr. Holroyd, has arrived.” Angela, the office manager, popped her head through the open door and waggled her eyebrows.

Kat looked at her questioningly.

“You’ll see.” Grinning widely, she rolled her eyes and waggled her eyebrows once more before disappearing.

With a brief laugh, Kat settled down at her desk and glanced at the clock on the wall. Mr. Holroyd was ten minutes early. Well, punctuality was something she could admire, because she was habitually late for everything. She’d probably even be late for work, if it wasn’t for the fact that her daughter now attended the same school. Molly, nearly six but going on sixteen, made sure they both made it through the front gates on time.

So, Kat mused as she booted up her computer, who is this man, Jake Holroyd, who has the ladies all aflutter? Angela, recently married and usually too cool for school, had clearly turned into a drooling fool at the sight of him. Her friend Mary, on whose recommendation Kat had contacted Jake in the first place, had suffered a similar reaction. Waiting for her computer to spring to life, Kat recalled the conversation with Mary, when she’d happened to mention that she needed a new climbing frame for the school.

“I’ve got just the answer for you,” Mary had told her, springing from her chair and bustling around her kitchen like a woman possessed. “Ah, here.” She’d thrust a business card into her hand. “He’s a magnificent carpenter. Such skilled hands. The way he works with the wood, combining strength and artistry…” Her friend had shivered then. Honest to God shivered. “It’s beautiful to watch.”

Kat remembered looking at her friend in astonishment. Ten years older than Kat’s twenty-eight, Mary was a warm-hearted mother of three, but one who called a spade a spade, sometimes to the point of bluntness. She had never, in the five years Kat had known her, waxed lyrical about anyone.

It was only later, after a few glasses of wine, Mary had admitted though Jake’s carpentry skills were indeed excellent, it was the way he’d filled out his jeans that had really impressed her.

Chuckling at the memory, Kat quickly scanned her emails, making sure there was nothing so important it had to be dealt with before her meeting with the intriguing Mr. Holroyd. There wasn’t. So with a sense of real anticipation she rose to her feet and prepared to greet the good carpenter. If he was as good as Mary had promised, Kat figured she’d not only be able to get the school a great climbing frame, built by a local business—something she was keen to promote—she’d also be able to provide the mainly female staff with some eye candy in the process.

****

As he tried to fit his large frame onto a small plastic chair in the school reception, Jake checked once again that his hands were at least moderately clean. There was something about sitting outside the school office that took him back to his childhood. To those occasions he had been forced to sit outside the head teacher’s office, waiting for the summons. He could still taste the dread, bordering on fear. He hadn’t been in trouble often. As the son of a police officer, obeying the rules had been drummed into him from an early age. However, that had only served to make those occasions he had been sent to see the head all the more damning. Not that his father had scolded him. The look of disappointment on his face had always been enough of a punishment for Jake.

“Mr. Holroyd?”

He looked up to find a trim, petite-looking woman with a mass of curly hair and pretty brown eyes. “That’s me,” he replied, standing slowly. Boy, she really was short. He knew at six feet four he was tall, but she barely made it to his shoulder.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Kat Kingsway. If you’d like to come through to the office?” She proceeded to lead the way back down the corridor.

Jake did a double take. That was the head? Hell’s teeth. Headmistresses had never looked like that when he was at school. He followed her toward the office, unable to take his eyes off the way her bottom wriggled beneath the slim-fitting skirt as she walked. Oh to be a schoolboy again.

“Well, Mr. Holroyd, please take a seat. Can I offer you a drink? Tea, coffee?”

Jake shook his head. This wasn’t a social call and, no matter how pretty she might look, he wasn’t one for idle conversation. “Shall we get straight to business, Mrs. Kingsway...”

“Miss, actually.”

“Sorry, Miss Kingsway...”

She shook her head, the edges of her mouth turning upward, revealing a pair of cute dimples. He’d already rated her as highly attractive. Now he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Look, this is ridiculous,” she said on a half laugh. “The only people who call me Miss Kingsway are under ten years old. It’s Kat. Well, Kathleen really, but that makes me sound like a maiden aunt. Just don’t call me Kathy. I’ve never seen myself as a Kathy...” She trailed off, as if aware she was talking too much.

“Right then, Kathleen...”

She raised an eyebrow. “Interesting that you chose the maiden aunt option.”

“I avoided Kathy,” he retorted quickly, irritated by the note of defensiveness that crept into his voice. Did she really expect him to call her Kat? He hardly knew the woman. Calling her by her nickname felt far too familiar. He glanced up and saw she was smiling at him, her eyes warm and amused. Despite his irritation, he almost found himself smiling back.

“So you did,” she acknowledged with a brief nod of her head. “For which I’m very grateful.”

Jake found his eyes locked onto hers, and for a fleeting moment he was unable to look away. Entranced, spellbound, transfixed. Whatever the words were, he experienced it and wasn’t sure he liked it. To cover his unease, he cleared his throat. “I understand you’re after a climbing frame for the school.”

“That’s right.” She sat back in her chair, and he tried hard not to look at her slender figure, sheathed in the lilac silk blouse. “I wondered if you could show me some pictures of frames you’ve done in the past. And of course the costs.” This time she grinned, the dimples back in force on either side of her wide smiling mouth. Everything about her shrieked sweet. And sexy. “I’m sure you’ve heard the sob stories about how poorly funded schools are, so the costs are probably the most important part.”

He dragged his mind back to the business. “Sorry, lady, but that’s not the way I work.”

She frowned and narrowed her eyes. Briefly he understood how it might feel to be one of her pupils.

“What do you mean?”

Sucking in a deep breath, he tried for patience. From the look of her, it hadn’t been that long since she’d been in school herself. Surely she still remembered what it was like to be a child? “What I mean, is that I don’t have a standard list of climbing frames I make. If you want that, you need to go to one of the major suppliers. I can give you a list of their names.”

“It sounds rather like you don’t want this job.”

“On the contrary,” he countered quickly, wondering how he’d managed to slip so easily onto the back foot. “I just don’t do off-the-shelf products. Everything I make is to order, based on what the customer wants. I’d be happy to make something, but I can’t tell you what, or how much it would be, until I talk to the customer.”

Her large brown eyes widened and she looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “Err, hello. I thought that’s what we were doing. Talking. I’m the customer.”

He shook his head. “You’re the person who’ll pay the bill. The customers are the kids who’ll use the frame.”

Kathleen’s smooth brow wrinkled. “What are you suggesting? That you need to talk to every one of the pupils before you can come up with a proposal?” She was clearly trying to work out if he was some kind of lunatic. He probably was. Okay, hopefully not a lunatic, but certainly not a normal carpenter. Sometimes he wondered what the hell he was doing in the profession.

“Well, I don’t need to talk to all of the children. Just a representative sample.” He tried a smile, figuring that the friendly approach had more chance of securing him the job than his current approach of making her cross. Then again, he was pretty out of practice at being friendly. “Perhaps a boy and girl from each class?”

Slanting her head to one side, she regarded him thoughtfully. “Well, I had been expecting to choose a climbing frame from a catalogue. I like the idea of the pupils having some input, but I’d had in mind simply getting them to vote on a couple of options.” She tugged at a curl that bounced onto her forehead. “Do you really think getting their ideas at this stage is necessary?”

Temporarily distracted by the sight of her trying to push the curl back into position, it was a few seconds before Jake realized she was staring at him, waiting for an answer. Hastily he averted his eyes. “Look, if you want something above the ordinary, something that your students will really want to play on, then yes, I think talking to some of them at the beginning is necessary.”

There was a moment of silence during which he wondered if he’d blown it. Then her face broke out into a wide smile.

“Okay. I think I’m starting to understand where you’re coming from. And actually, this is something the whole school could take part in. We’ll ask a couple of students from each form to feedback not just their views, but those of their class. It shouldn’t be too difficult.” Once more he got a flash of those dimples. “I don’t know how much contact you’ve had with children of today, but one thing’s for certain. They’re quick to offer an opinion, whether it’s sought or not.”

He felt himself stiffen, which really annoyed him. It was a rhetorical question. She wasn’t asking him about his children. Hell, even if she had been, he should have a better handle on himself by now. Glancing down at his clenched hands, he forced them to relax.

“I’m sure they are,” he replied steadily. “Can I see the site where you plan to put the climbing frame?”

She looked surprised at his question, but not half as surprised as he was. For some reason, despite feeling clumsy and gauche around this lady, he wasn’t ready to say good-bye to her just yet.

“Sure, come with me, and I’ll show you the playground.” She gave him a hesitant smile then stood up from her desk and opened the door. “If you’re really unlucky you might get to see some of your customers.”

He was so intrigued by the way her curls bobbed when she moved that he almost bumped into her when she stopped and turned.

“That was your word, wasn’t it? Customers?”

“Err, yes.” When she started moving again, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. Where had this embarrassing awkwardness come from? Anyone would think he’d never come across an attractive woman before. He’d been married to one once, for God’s sake.

But that had been a few years ago now, he reminded himself as he followed Kathleen out of her office. Since then he hadn’t met another woman who’d made him feel. Until now.