Starting Over by Sue Moorcroft

what might have been approval. ‘I see you’ve got the Freelander back?’
    She nodded.
    He winked. ‘Try and keep it under control.’
     
    The drizzly period had taken most of February to clear.
    But what a day, now that it had! Tess gazed up at a china blue sky heralding glorious, fresh, sudden early spring when, after the winter of long jumpers and short days, it became briefly warm enough for shirtsleeves. Her first winter at Honeybun had been good, the months passing quickly with the joy of work that was going well, with walks in wild weather, which sometimes suited her mood.
    But it was great to see the sun.
    By the rockery, on the crazy paving where the thyme grew through the cracks and smelt peppery, she turned her face to the welcome warmth, breathed in, sighed out. Daffodils, forsythia, busy birds singing to the breeze. She hitched up her jeans.
    Her clothes were no longer tight. Away from her mother’s sugar-based love she’d returned easily to her natural weight. She pulled the waistband away from her skin, marvelling at the gap that appeared. She could find her other jeans and –
    ‘Need any help down there?’
    Whipping her hands away and spinning guiltily, she found Ratty leaning on her gate. Wicked grin. Wicked eyes. Curls lifting gently from his forehead. Tattoos over the cords of his arms exposed to the sunshine.
    His grin widened as she coloured.
    Her hair sailed about her shoulders in the spring breeze. ‘I didn’t realise you were there.’
    ‘Guessed not. Coming for a drink?’
    ‘ Me ?’
    ‘You said you’d come, “another day”.’
    ‘But that was only …’ When Angel had been longing to join the grown-ups for an hour in the pub, and Tess had sought something to say that would persuade her.
    Straightening, Ratty shook back his hair. ‘I’m going to visit Lucasta. Call for you about twelve thirty?’
    ‘Um, right. Yeah, OK.’ She answered his parting nod with a flushed one of her own. So it was true, as Angel held out. He could be nice. Amazing.
    Still more amazing, when he called at Honeybun to walk her briskly up Main Road to The Three Fishes, past the run of closed doors at MAR Motors, through the Cross, past Great End and finally into the pub opposite the ford, and, in the burbling beery warmth of a village pub on a Sunday afternoon, she found herself having a good time.
    Who was this stranger, buying her wine, slouching on the velvet settle, making sure the brass table was a comfortable distance from her, being good company? After their first meeting being so prickly, he had progressed to civility as her relationship with Angel grew and their paths therefore crossed. But today he was warm, he was dry and funny, interesting and interested.
    And he really seemed to be interested in her work, firing questions, eyes like seawater in sunshine. ‘So how do you know what a dragon looks like?’
    Used to Olly’s condescension, she began warily. ‘I studied form from dinosaur and lizard books, sketched some exhibits in the Natural History Museum and even a fed-up lizard in a pet shop. Then a lot of character development sketches, dragons from the front, the side, lying, flying, smiling, laughing, snorting, roaring. I experimented and read the manuscript. The end of the commission’s in sight now but I’m still struggling with one character. He’s an enemy to both dragons and villagers, half lizard, half man. I haven’t “got” him yet.’
    He seemed intrigued. ‘But how do you get into something like that? How does the industry work?’
    Relaxing with another glass of wine she told him about her agent and friend, Kitty, her workroom, painted blue, her training at the University of East Anglia, the wolf cards.
    Halfway through Sunday afternoon she was still rambling over glasses of wine and ploughman’s lunch. And laughing. Apparently making him smile. Oh God, a drink or five always convinced her she was the most captivating person in the room, witty, interesting, lazy yet