Chapter Three

Sophie's eyes flickered open and she groaned as she rolled over to look at the clock on the bedside table. Three o'clock! She threw back the duvet and struggled to right herself, mentally cursing herself for not setting an alarm for earlier. Rule number one of getting over jet lag – stay awake as long as you can, then get into the sleep pattern more quickly with the sun and the dark.

Clearly, taking a half day's nap wasn't the way to go – now she knew she'd never sleep tonight.

With a mental shrug, Sophie shucked on some clothes and tumbled down the stairs, starving for a snack. Scoring a packet of crisps and some barley water, she cracked open the back door and stepped into the back garden, half in shadow from the sun on the other side of the farmhouse. She glanced across the lane at the next farmhouse – Windy Willows, she thought it was called – but saw no signs of life.

She breathed deeply, smiling at the flood of green around her – green grass, green fields, green hills beyond. The only things that weren't green were the sheep in the fields, tiny dots of white in the distance, and the roses that were growing throughout the garden, scenting the air.

Sophie leaned down to sniff one bursting with pink, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply.

She straightened, looked around again, and then twirled in place a few times, her arms swinging out from her sides.

"I'm in WALES!" She shrieked happily, slowing to a stop. She felt like dancing, like running, like flinging herself onto the ground and absorbing all the green around her. The last few years had made her feel like she was a hamster on a never ending wheel – running to classes, running to teach classes, running to the library to find dissertation research, racing to write her dissertation, only to discover she had no words left after all her years of study. She twirled again, faster this time, to rid herself of the hamster-y feeling and to leave the stress behind, focusing only on the future.

Work, sleep, write, teach, study, class, work. Her life had definitely taken on a dark pall in the last few years, and she felt like she hadn't breathed, actually BREATHED, in at least a year or two. Maybe three.

But something about the blue skies and green grass of Wales suddenly sparked her back to life, away from deadlines and work schedules and looming graduations. She could feel it warming inside her, reviving her flagging spirit.

This really was the trip of a lifetime – the chance to actually live a life, rather than saying over and over "when I get a life…"

Sophie practically skipped up and down the garden, examining flowers and tugging on fence posts before flopping down on the grass, nibbling on crisps and grinning like an idiot at the world spread out before her.

Instead of staring at a book about Elizabethan playwrights while hunched over a cubicle in the graduate library, she was staring at sheep in a field.

She just couldn't help but laugh out loud.

**

Daniel Davies straightened from his desk at the sound of a shout not far outside his window. Putting down his pen and shoving his ledger to the side, he stood and walked to the window that faced Fairfields, the house of his neighbor Barbara.

He had thought Barbara was traveling in the Far East, and wasn't sure who on earth would be shouting like a banshee from her garden.

His eyes traveled over the house, searching for signs of intruders or disturbances, and then landed in the back garden, where a girl was twirling around like a garden sprite.

She slowed to a stop with a smile that appeared to be aimed at no one, and Daniel stepped back from the window slightly, taken aback. Who was she, and what on earth was she doing zipping around in Barbara's back garden?

The girl, woman really, sat down smiling out at the fields – at his fields – while digging into a packet of Walker's crisps happily.

Her auburn hair was pulled back into a hasty bun, her face devoid of make up. She appears to be quite short, though with curves that clung to her jeans and knitted top in all the right places. She had a beautiful smile, he had to admit, but the image that the girl, well, woman, brought to mind wasn't a pleasant one for him.

That hair, that stature, reminded him too much of Rosamunde, and that was a memory he'd much rather repress.

He continued to watch the girl, well, woman, for a minute or two longer, trying to figure out exactly who she was and why she was there. She smiled again, and he could clearly hear her laughter, and the penny dropped. This had to be a relation of Barbara's. Barbara, who had the most distinctive laugh he'd ever heard, must have a relation with the same laughter gene. Upon closer inspection, he could see a vague resemblance around the eyes – this must be a niece.

The American one?

Daniel suddenly recalled a conversation he'd had with Barbara only a few weeks ago, when she had told him a niece was coming from America to take over Belletristic for a while, and to live in the house while she was traveling. Daniel had naturally assumed that the niece would be much older – especially as Barbara, while not in her dotage, was certainly on in years.

This must be a great-niece, Daniel mentally amended, though obviously American in those jeans and trainers.

He watched her back, her hair dancing in the breeze for another long moment, as images of Rosamunde began creeping into his mind, which he tried to shake away.

Whoever she was, she best stay on her side of the lane – he didn't need any more complications in his life.

And with that, Daniel snapped the curtains shut and returned to his figures.

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