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enough to take her mind off her problems, but today her mind was caught in a trap elsewhere, filled with images of James Dalgleish and the kiss he had forced upon her as fair retribution for her having slapped his face.
    He would never have had his face slapped by a woman in his life before, she thought as she sat in the cosy snug with the television providing muted sound in the background. That arrogant, devastatingly attractive face would not have inspired anger in any woman he might have been out with. It would have inspired craving because everything about him, from the way he looked to the way he moved, was sexually mesmerising.
    He had touched her and her body had shot up in flames, hot flames that licked every part of her. It would almost have been better if she could have put her response down to the needs of a woman who had been celibate for the past five years.
    And they would be talking about her in the town. Their kiss hadn’t exactly been conducted in the privacy of four walls.
    But there were still some things that needed doing. Someone to come and install an extra phone line for her so that she could use the internet on her computer. Someone to come and link up her computer for goodness’ sake, get it up and running. She had never had to bother with the nuts and bolts of the thing, but then in London she had had a secretary to do all that for her, to get the appropriate software technicians in when it was playing up. Even if she only intended to stay put for a limited period of time, she would still have to buy a book on computers, at least so that she could learn some of the rudiments herself.
    After all the effort she had made to get here, though, the thought of running back down south now seemed exhausting. More change for Simon. And if she returned south, then how long before the headhunters began? Life was frantic down there.
    She shook her head wearily and decided that she had better check out schools, get Simon registered, just in case.
    That, too, would need a visit to the town. Balking at the prospect of meeting yet another set of people who knew her business was not going to do her any good.
    But, as it turned out, her trip in on the Thursday was less of an ordeal than she had imagined. And she found out, really without asking, that James had left to return to London. This piece of information came from a girl in her twenties whose young boy ended up playing with Simon in a little park on the edge of the town where Sara had taken him to see some ducks. She herself had ended up sitting on the bench with the girl, to discover that her mother was one of the dreaded six and that she, Fiona, was the local vet’s assistant.
    â€˜You won’t be over-popular with some of our girls who think that James Dalgleish is up for grabs,’ Sara was told with a laugh, ‘but you’ll be very popular with the rest of us who find that little lot extremely annoying. That kiss has been the most exciting thing to have happened here in months!’
    That kiss was not going to happen again, at any rate, Sara thought on the Friday as she nervously contemplated going to the village hall, an invitation which had been thrust upon her and one which she was morally obliged to meet.
    Fiona, at least, would be there, she consoled herself. She would have an ally should she need one. And James Dalgleish was safely tucked hundreds of miles away.
    On her last trip to the town he had been nowhere in sight, and his absence made sense. Powerful businessmen like him were incapable of staying away from their offices for too long. It would almost be easier for their bodies to defy gravity than it would for their minds to defy the pull of the top-level business meeting.
    She got dressed, and by seven she was ready.
    Lord, but it felt alien to be in proper clothes, after her daily uniform of jeans and T-shirts. She looked at the reflection staring back at her and remembered that this was the image that had been her only