Chapter One

The ominous silence that followed the unmistakeable sound of glass shattering alarmed Juliet more than the crash. She dropped the hammer she’d been holding on top of a half-unpacked tea chest, and then hurried through the kitchen to the garden.
“Charlie!” Juliet stepped onto the mossy, uneven paving stones snaking through the narrow jungle of tangled weeds and overgrown bushes that comprised her new back garden.
She looked around for any sign of her son or something he could have broken. The long grass to the side parted, and she caught sight of Charlie’s auburn hair glinting in the sunshine.
“Are you hurt? What was the crash?” He emerged from the bushes, his red shorts and white t-shirt as dirty as his face. Juliet searched for signs of injury. Thankfully, there was no blood. For a five-year-old, Charlie always seemed to get himself into an extraordinary amount of trouble.
“Sorry, Mum. It was an accident.” He scuffed the patch of flattened grass in front of him with the toe of his trainer.
“What have you done?” Juliet’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted for their first few days in their new home was a problem with the neighbours.
A tear trickled down Charlie’s dirty cheek and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “I kicked the ball to Scruffy and it went over the fence. I think it’s broken something.” He gave a doleful sniff. The dog bounced out of the undergrowth at the sound of his name and started to lick Charlie’s hand.
“We’d better take a peep at the damage. Which side did the ball go over?”
Juliet offered a silent prayer that Charlie had sent it into the garden of the family who lived in the house to the right. A family who had young children themselves might be more sympathetic to a bit of accidental damage than the bachelor who lived in the house joined to the left side. She hadn’t met him, but his house and garden looked so pristine that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if weeds were too scared to grow within his immaculate borders.
Charlie took her hand and led her to the garden on the left. Juliet groaned and tugged a ramshackle wooden bench closer to the fence. After testing the slats cautiously with one foot to see if it would take her weight, she clambered up and peered over.
Charlie’s black and white football lay inside her neighbour’s greenhouse amongst shards of broken glass. Two terracotta pots had toppled over, their soil and plants strewn on the floor. Juliet climbed down from her perch.
Charlie’s small face wore a worried frown. “Is my ball there?”
“I think you’re going to have to forgo any pocket money for a while, and we’ll have to go and apologise for the damage. Your ball’s broken the glass and ruined some of the plants in the greenhouse.” His expression woebegone at her words, Juliet struggled to resist the urge to ruffle her son’s hair in reassurance.
“I don’t think anyone is home at the moment but we’ll have to go ‘round later and explain.”
Charlie heaved a sigh. “Okay, Mum.” He wandered down the garden path, his small shoulders slumped in misery.
Juliet watched him go, her hand automatically rising to her temple to ease the prickling start of a tension headache. Poor Charlie. She hadn’t the heart to scold him for the football disaster—she knew he felt bad enough as it was.
She glanced up at the closed windows of her neighbour’s house and decided to push an explanatory note through his letterbox. Hopefully, it would pave the way for when she and Charlie ventured ‘round later.
With any luck, the plants he had damaged wouldn’t be too expensive to replace. Tomorrow she was due to start her new practice nurse job at the local surgery, and while the wages were quite good, her money wouldn’t stretch very far if Charlie kept breaking things.
After she’d delivered the note, she hurried back home. The house she’d inherited from her great-aunt Lucy needed a lot of work and there was an endless list of chores. Juliet picked up her hammer once more and finished hanging a framed photograph of Charlie. She stepped back to admire her handiwork and sighed. It would take a lot more than a few pictures to lift the years of neglect the house had suffered since Lucy had moved into a nursing home.
Juliet walked into the old-fashioned kitchen. Through the window, she could see Charlie moping around the garden with Scruffy sniffing at his heels. It really looked too nice a day to stay indoors.
Her mind made up, Juliet called Charlie and together they started to attack the patch of garden closest to the house. By teatime, they had cleared quite a respectable area. When Juliet heard the chimes of the ice cream van in the street, she picked up her purse to treat them both to a cornet.
“Could we have a barbeque this afternoon, Mum?” Charlie sat on the old bench, swinging his legs and slipping Scruffy a taste of his ice cream whenever he thought Juliet wasn’t looking.
“Well….” She felt a little nervous about trying out the barbeque. It had been a leaving present from her last practice. Juliet’s previous home had been a second-floor flat and she and Charlie had never had the luxury of a garden before. Not that Martin would have allowed us to enjoy it even if we had, she thought bitterly.
“Please, Mum?”
“Okay, I’ve got some burgers and sausages. We’ll finish moving all this stuff we’ve cleared to the bottom of the garden, and then I’ll check to see if we’ve got everything we need.”
Charlie whooped with delight, making Scruffy bark excitedly. Juliet smiled. The last few months had been so difficult, her spirits lifted to see her son happy again.
She tugged the barbeque from under the kitchen window onto the flattest part of the ground she and Charlie had cleared. Her workmates had thought of everything, for inside the big metal dome she discovered cooking tools, charcoal, lighter fluid and matches. Charlie watched from a safe distance while Juliet read the instructions and set everything up.
“Darn.” By the twelfth match, the charcoal had still failed to light.
“What’s the matter with it, Mum?”
“Nothing, I’ll get it going in a minute. Go inside and wash your hands for tea.”
Charlie trotted obediently past her and into the house and Juliet tried yet another match.
“More lighter fluid—that must be it,” she muttered. Juliet added extra charcoal and sloshed a generous measure of fluid over the top of the pile.
She held her breath as she dropped another match onto the coals, only to step back swiftly with a shriek. The coals had erupted into flames with a loud pop.
Juliet froze in horror. The barbeque had turned into a roaring bonfire. Sparks flew into the air and blazing charcoal dropped onto the dry grass. She realized too late that in her efforts to stand the barbeque on a flat piece of ground, she had inadvertently placed it too close to the fence.
Before she had time to react, the sparks ignited the dry timber of the ancient garden bench Charlie had been sitting on earlier in the afternoon. Within minutes, the fence panel behind it was ablaze too. Coming to her senses at the sight of the disaster unfolding rapidly before her, Juliet rushed to the tap on the kitchen wall and attached the hose. She attempted to turn on the water but to her dismay, the tap refused to budge. She struggled to turn the rusty metal, cursing and wrenching as the flames climbed higher. By now the fence was well alight, and Charlie stared open-mouthed from the doorstep.
A jet of water came from the other side of the fence just as Juliet managed to loosen the tap.
“Charlie, go inside!”
Her first concern was for her son’s safety. If the fire didn’t die down soon she would have to call the fire brigade. Steam and acrid smoke filled the air. She tackled the blaze with her hose and her neighbour doused the flames from his side of the garden.
“What the hell happened?”
Juliet couldn’t see the owner of the voice through the smoke, but he sounded furious.
The flames were almost out and three panels of fence were gone, leaving a smouldering wreck. The smoke began to drift away, and she could just make out a tall, masculine figure. Her eyes stinging, tears streamed down Juliet’s cheeks. She coughed to clear the toxic fumes from her throat.
“I’m so sorry. It was an accident,” she wheezed.
Her neighbour switched off his hose and kicked the charred frame of the fence out of the way to step through the newly created opening into Juliet’s garden.
“Are you all right?” He took hold of her shoulders and peered into her eyes. Juliet struggled to make the blurry outline of his face snap into focus as she continued to choke from the fumes.
“Inhaled a bit of smoke, but I’m fine.” She dashed a hand across her eyes to clear her vision.
He let go of her and patted his jacket pockets as if searching for something. Juliet blinked with surprise when he produced a stethoscope and slipped it around his neck.
“Smoke inhalation can be serious, you know.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and checked her pulse.
“Really, I’m fine. I’m a nurse, I know I’m okay.” She forced a weak smile in an attempt to reassure him. Now the flames had subsided and the air had cleared, her breathing pattern settled into something less ragged.
Apparently satisfied, her new neighbour released her hand.

* * * *

Neil frowned at the dishevelled woman standing in front of him, the grime on her face streaked with tears. From the state of her shorts and shirt, she’d managed to soak more of herself than the fire.
After reading the note on his doormat, he’d stepped out into his back garden to check out the damage to his greenhouse just in time to see smoke and flames billowing from his fence.
“I couldn’t get the barbeque started and the next thing I knew, the fence had caught fire,” the woman explained.
“Mummy, can I come out now?”
A small red-haired boy emerged from the back door. His blue eyes, so much like those of the woman in front of him, were wide with alarm.
The woman stooped to sweep her son up into her arms for a reassuring hug. “I don’t think we’ll be having burgers tonight, Charlie.” Her voice shook a little, but she still tried to inject a light-hearted tone into her words. “I suppose it’s a little late for conventional introductions, but I’m Juliet Darling and this is my son, Charlie.”
“Dr. Neil Forrest.” The woman’s name sounded familiar and he frowned. “You wouldn’t happen to be the new practice nurse at Chandler’s Gate surgery, would you?”
The mortified expression on Juliet’s face said it all. Neil’s spirits sank. It looked like he would be saddled with his new nightmare neighbour at home and at work.
“I’m so sorry,” Juliet whispered.
He thought for a moment she was about to cry.
“Let’s count ourselves lucky that the houses didn’t catch fire.” Neil forced himself to sound calmer than he felt, mainly because of the child. He couldn’t believe that Rose, the practice manager, had interviewed and appointed this woman. Anyone who could be so irresponsible as to put a barbeque so close to a fence clearly wasn’t in full possession of her marbles.
“I’ll pay for the damage,” Juliet offered.
Neil managed not to point out that since he would be paying Juliet’s wages, he would in effect be paying in the end, one way or the other.
“I’m sure we can work something out. I understand from your note that you were responsible for the damage to my greenhouse too.” He raked a hand through his hair. He winced at the sight of her sorrowful expression and the unexpected pain that seared through his fingers with the movement.
Juliet put her son down and stepped forward to take hold of Neil’s hand. “You’ve burnt yourself. You’d better come inside and I’ll get that cleaned up and dressed for you.”
Her fingers were cool and gentle against his skin as she examined the back of his hand. A large blister had already started to form and he realised that in the drama of the fire, he hadn’t even noticed the burn.
“It’s fine.” He wanted to snatch his hand free from hers but somehow couldn’t.
“I insist. You won’t be able to dress that for yourself and I feel so awful about everything that’s happened. Please let me try to do something right today.”
Reluctantly, he followed Juliet and her son into their house. It was identical in structure to his own, except that where his had been fully modernised and refitted a few years ago to incorporate every possible labour-saving device, Juliet’s home clearly needed refurbishing.
“Put your hand under the cold tap while I wash my hands and get the first aid box,” she instructed.
Neil glared at her, he wasn’t her son and he knew how to treat a burn. Juliet appeared oblivious to his annoyance, though, telling Charlie where to find the dressings while she washed her hands at the tap next to him.
She stood so close that he could smell the soft vanilla scent of her perfume mingled with the smoke from the fire. She leaned across him to get the towel to dry her hands, the curve of her body brushing against his arm as she moved.
“That’s better. Now let me look at your hand.”
Neil allowed her to guide his hand from under the running water to rest on a clean towel. He fidgeted uncomfortably while she patted dry the uninjured skin around the blister.
Charlie came panting back into the room, carrying a large white box. A small wiry-haired brown dog of indeterminate parentage trotted at his heels.
“Here you are, Mum.” He placed the box onto the battered worktop next to the sink.
“Thanks, Charlie. You are such a good boy.” Juliet flashed a warm smile, like sunshine after rain, at her son. Charlie flushed with pride and sat on one of the kitchen chairs. Neil wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of one of Juliet’s smiles.
She released his hand and took a sterile dressing pack from her box. “I found when I worked in casualty that these dressings worked best with burns.” She tore the pack open and peeled the backing from the transparent sheet before placing it over the large blistered area on the back of his hand. She smoothed and sealed the edges with a firm yet gentle touch.
“There.” She straightened up and tucked a stray lock of strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear and studied her handiwork.
Neil swallowed. What on earth was the matter with him? His pulse raced when he looked into Juliet’s startlingly blue eyes and he felt damned sure there wasn’t a rational medical explanation for it.
“Thank you.” He jerked the words out. His discomfort at the unexpected emotions Juliet’s touch had prompted made him awkward in her company.
“Is that where you were working before? In accident and emergency?”
“I worked there before I had Charlie, and then the shifts became too difficult to juggle so I moved to Heron’s Bridge medical practice.”
Neil knew Heron’s Bridge surgery. It was a large practice in the next town, and frequently held up as a shining example of pro-activity by the local health authority. Although, he had doubts about the efficacy of some of the programmes they had implemented there.
“I’m about to cook supper for Charlie—though not on the barbeque,” she added hastily. “After I put him to bed, I can make you dinner if you’d like. I know it’s a poor way of making amends after destroying half of your lovely garden but it might give me the opportunity of making a better impression on you.”
“Mummy makes nice dinners,” Charlie said.
Neil sighed. In truth, he had returned home after a difficult day, looking forward to pottering around in his garden. Now, thanks to Juliet’s flame-throwing antics with the barbeque, his plans were already disrupted. Still, the idea of his ready-meal from the supermarket didn’t exactly appeal and it might be a good idea to get to know his newest employee a little better.
“That’s very kind of you. If we’re going to be colleagues as well as neighbours it would be pleasant to be better acquainted.” He knew he almost certainly came across to Juliet like a pompous stuffed shirt, but for some reason this evening he seemed incapable of talking to her on a normal level. Maybe it was because the unexpected fire had thrown him out of his normal routine.
“I’d better go home and change first.”
Juliet’s eyes widened as she took in the extent of the damage to his clothes. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning and if it’s beyond repair, I’ll replace your suit.”
Neil glanced down at his sodden trousers and the charcoal marks on his jacket. “I’m sure it’ll clean. Please don’t worry.”
Juliet’s eyes narrowed doubtfully. “If you want to pop back in an hour or so, I’ll have cleaned up and got some supper started.”
Her clothing appeared just as ruined, with sooty streaks running from the hem of her damp shorts down the full length of her bare legs. He caught himself thinking that Juliet had very nice legs, even if they were covered in dirt, and decided he really ought to go home.
Neil took his leave of Juliet and Charlie, making his way through the newly burnt-out hole in the fence. He stepped across the charred remnants of a particularly favourite rose bush and wondered why he’d agreed to return to eat at Juliet’s. With her track record so far, he’d probably end up with gastroenteritis.

* * * *

Neil had barely disappeared from sight before Juliet sprang into action. It would be hard to imagine a worse possible beginning to her and Charlie’s new life. She had to create a better impression, otherwise their fresh start would be as big a disaster as her barbeque.
She whirled around the small kitchen, peering in the fridge and the cupboards for something she could cook for supper. Somehow, she didn’t think she would win brownie points by offering Dr. Forrest Alphabetti-spaghetti on toast.
“I’m hungry,” Charlie announced.
Juliet grinned. “I think it’ll have to be hot dogs done under the grill tonight, matey.” Charlie didn’t appear to have been too traumatised by her mishap.
“Wait till I tell them at school tomorrow about the fire! We could have called the firemen.”
Juliet took the sausages from the fridge. “I don’t know about that, but you’d better eat your supper, and then it’s a quick bath and bed for you. We’ve both got a big day tomorrow. I start my new job and you get to spend your first day at your new school, how cool is that?”
“Is that man whose fence you burnt working at your new job?” Charlie picked at the hem of his shorts, his face screwed up in thought.
“Yes, he’s one of the doctors I’ll be working with.” Juliet pulled out the grill to see if the sausages had started to brown—the cooker was old and not very reliable.
“He didn’t shout very much when his garden got all burned, did he?”
Juliet bit her lip. Charlie had been used to shouting when his father had been around. Now raised voices scared him.
“No, he didn’t.” She turned to get the tomato ketchup from the cupboard so Charlie couldn’t see her face while she regained her composure.
“Do you think he’s a nice man, Mummy?” He sounded worried.
Juliet closed the cupboard door and turned to face her son. “I’m sure he’s very nice, Charlie.” She tried to make her tone sound reassuring.
Once Charlie had finished eating, Juliet whisked him upstairs for a bath and a bedtime story. She left some jacket potatoes and breaded spicy chicken breasts cooking in the oven. A tossed salad and a bottle of wine sat in the fridge.
She said goodnight to Charlie and dived under the shower. A glance at her watch showed there wouldn’t be time to do much with her hair or make-up. Something told her Dr. Forrest was the kind of man who would be there right on time.
She didn’t know why she was so worried about her appearance, after all, he’d seen her looking like a chimney sweep only an hour earlier. And it wasn’t as if this was a date or anything. She smiled to herself at the thought of the upright Neil Forrest dating someone as disastrous as her.
Sure enough, Juliet had just finished fastening her damp hair into a knot at the nape of her neck when the doorbell rang. She spritzed perfume onto her wrists, applied a quick swipe of lip-gloss, and hurried downstairs.
“Am I too early?”
Juliet almost failed to recognise the man on her doorstep as the same one she’d tried to incinerate little more than an hour ago. The soggy dark grey business suit and tie had gone, and he looked younger and friendlier in casual, tan-coloured trousers and a bright blue short-sleeved shirt.
“I brought some wine.” He proffered a bottle of Cabernet.
“Thank you, come in. I’m afraid it’s only something simple. What with the move and everything, I hadn’t got much grocery in.” Juliet stepped to one side to allow him into the hall.
She led the way into the kitchen and placed the wine on the worktop. Neil hung back, his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets as if he were unused to socialising.
“Take a seat.”
She had set the small, pine kitchen table for two before bathing Charlie. Neil hesitated for a second before taking a seat.
“Can I get you a drink? I’ve white wine in the fridge unless you’d prefer the red?” She indicated the wine he’d brought with him. “We’re having chicken,” she added, praying he wasn’t a vegetarian.
“White would be nice, thank you.”
Juliet passed him the bottle and the corkscrew. “Could you open and pour while I check on supper?” She hoped the wine might loosen his tongue a little, otherwise it would be a long and boring evening. Neil didn’t appear to be much of a conversationalist.
She fetched the dishes from the oven and served up the chicken and potatoes. He was quite nice-looking, Juliet decided. She placed the salad bowl on the table and watched him wrestle with her ancient corkscrew. Nice eyes and quite muscular arms and shoulders, she thought, and sat down. Pity she’d sworn off men since her disastrous marriage to Charlie’s father and, she had to work with the man. Work combined with romance nearly always proved a recipe for disaster—something she was all too adept at.
He poured her a glass of wine and she noticed the dressing she had applied earlier. “How does your hand feel? I can put something more protective on top of that if you like, to stop you from knocking it?”
“It’s fine. I’m sure I’ll live.”
“I didn’t expect my first patient to be a member of the staff.” Guilt pangs made her stomach clench—his hand had to hurt.
“I didn’t expect my new practice nurse to be an accomplished arsonist.”
Juliet blushed at the dry note in his voice. “Could we start over and just for this evening pretend I didn’t try to cremate you?”
“Only if you promise never to try it again.” He filled his own glass with wine.
“Look on the bright side. You’ll be able to dine out on this story for months.”
“Maybe, but rest assured, I wouldn’t dream of embarrassing you, Juliet.”
His smile was so unexpected that it made Juliet a little dizzy. She set her glass down. Perhaps she’d chugged that first mouthful a bit too fast.
“Tell me a little about the practice. At my interview, Rose and Dr. Thomas said that your previous full-time nurse had recently retired.” Juliet speared a piece of lettuce with her fork.
Neil paused to consider her question. “You already know that we’re a small surgery, but the village is growing quite quickly and Chris—that’s Dr. Thomas—is keen to expand and offer a wider range of services.” He took a sip of wine.
“He sounded very enthusiastic at the interview. I must admit it was one of the things that attracted me to the job,” Juliet said.
Much to her surprise, Neil didn’t respond.
“I’m looking forward to trying some new ideas, get some preventative work going.” Juliet waved her fork with airy eagerness.
He frowned at her. “I think it’s only fair to warn you, Juliet, that Chris tends to be a little overzealous about things. He wants to run before he can walk. There are a lot of changes afoot at the moment in general practice. Some are led by the government and some forced upon us by the local trust policies.”
Juliet swapped her fork for her glass and took a sip. “I take it you hold a more cautious view?”
Why wasn’t she surprised by his pessimistic outlook? Everything she’d seen of him so far, admittedly under unusual circumstances, had indicated that he wasn’t the type of man to embrace new things easily. When she thought about it, the practice manager and Dr. Thomas had hinted as much at her interview.
“It’s been my experience that not everything that’s done in the name of progress is for the best.”
“But you do agree that we should be looking for better ways of doing things?” Juliet persisted. “For the patients?”
“I’m not saying I’m against change, just change for the sake of change. I’ve seen too many people jump into things full of enthusiasm then become disillusioned and leave the projects and patients high and dry halfway through.”
“I see.” Juliet endeavoured to keep her tone light. Inside, though, she steamed. His choice of words inferred that she might be exactly the sort of person he’d just described. Someone who’d breeze into the surgery full of bright ideas, and then disappear.
It looked like her new job wasn’t going to be quite what she’d hoped. Whilst Rose and Dr. Thomas had been enthusiastic about her ideas, she might have more of a struggle on her hands to convert Dr. Forrest to her way of thinking.