Evie rubbed her neck and stretched it a little to relieve the tension.

‘Hard week?’ asked a voice from the door. It was Debra, Deputy Head of the school, and the friend who’d asked her to help out for a term.

‘Yup,’ she replied. ‘Mind you, I’m not complaining. They’re good kids.’

‘Do you have time for a drink?’

‘Lead me to it.’

Later, as they sat on a pleasant terrace by the river, feeding scraps to the swans, Debra said in a carefully casual voice, ‘You really like those youngsters, don’t you?’

‘Mm, some of them are smart, especially Mark Dane. He’s got a true feel for languages. By the way, I didn’t see him today.’

Debra groaned. ‘That means he slipped away again. His truancy is getting serious.’

‘Have you told his parents?’

‘I’ve spoken to his father, who said very grimly that he’d ‘deal with it’.’

Evie made a face. ‘I don’t like the sound of him.’

‘No, I didn’t take to him either. Too much assurance. I gather he’s a big man in industry, built it up himself, finger on a dozen pulses, everything under control.’

‘And that includes his son?’ Evie said sympathetically.

‘I think it includes everything-you, me, Mark-’

‘And the little mouse in the corner,’ Evie said whimsically.

‘Justin Dane wouldn’t have a mouse,’ Debra said at once. ‘He’d hire a tiger to catch it. But enough of him.’ She took a deep breath and said with an air of someone taking the plunge, ‘Look, Evie, I had an ulterior motive in asking you out.’

‘I was afraid you might,’ Evie murmured. ‘But don’t spoil the moment. Seize it. Relish it.’

She leaned back on the wooden seat, one elegantly booted ankle crossed over the other knee. Her eyes were closed and she threw her head back, letting the late afternoon sun play on her face, where there was a blissful smile. With her boots and jeans, her slim figure and dark cropped hair, she might have been a boy. Or an urchin. Or anything but a twenty-nine-year-old schoolteacher.