Reach for the Stars

1

‘Oh God!’

The man at my feet looked up at me with tornado-grey eyes set in features so chiselled, they made Michelangelo look like an amateur. I say looked. Glared would be a more accurate description and the sculpted jaw was so tight, I reckoned there was every chance it might crack at any moment. A thin trail of blood began trickling down from his brow.

‘What the…’ he paused momentarily, took in the audience of assorted ages now gawping at him on the floor and chose to swap out a word ‘…hell are you doing?’

I jolted out of my shock. ‘Sorry! I didn’t see you! I’m really, really sorry. Are you all right?’ I put out a hand to help him up although, as I would be trying to haul up what appeared to be six feet five of solid muscle, it was more an apologetic gesture than to offer any real help.

He gave me another glare and got to his feet, unaided.

‘You’re, um… you’re…’ I touched my hand to my temple and then reached up, almost automatically, to do the same to his. He backed up and I snatched my hand down. I cleared my throat. ‘You’re bleeding.’

The man briefly put his fingers to where I’d been aiming for and brought them back, now covered with a little blood. He rolled his eyes. ‘Great.’

‘Do you want me to take you to the hospital?’

He’d begun to turn away from me but at this, he snapped his head back. ‘Thanks, but that’s a definite no. You can’t even steer a two-by-four! Christ knows I’m not going to get in a vehicle with you.’ With that, he turned away and began striding down the aisle of the DIY shop. A few muffled sniggers rippled through the onlookers as they began to disperse and within a few moments, I was left standing there on my own, still holding the plank of wood I’d knocked the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen flat on his arse with. This was not supposed to be my life!

Not that I had ever planned to knock anybody on their arse, but if the same scenario had happened in one of the romcom movies I loved to watch, the results would have been very different. It would have been the perfect meet-cute. For a start, I’d have been dressed in some sexy cut-off shorts showing off my toned legs and a fitted T-shirt, or maybe a checked shirt, knotted at the waist. There’d be some barely there, but just-enough, make-up on and I’d have salon-perfect hair tied back in a perky ponytail, sunglasses perched on top of my head. The guy would have sat up, made some funny remark, smiled at me and next thing you know, he’d be helping me do my house up, with several accidental touches, a steadying hand around my waist as a ladder wobbled until, finally, that first kiss would happen…

Except this wasn’t a film. It was my life. And my life wasn’t remotely like a romcom. In fact, if pushed to categorise it by genre, right now it would be closer to disaster movie. I was not dressed in a way that anyone would describe as cute. Having already ruined several ridiculously expensive outfits, I’d finally succumbed to adopting protective clothing. However, not having the first idea what I needed and, at the time, being far too tired to be in charge of a credit card, I’d ordered something more suited to entering a crime scene. The one thing the universe had got right was that the guy was gorgeous. But after that, it had all gone a bit off-piste.

‘Shit,’ I mumbled to myself as I grabbed another plank off the pile, checking three times that no one was around me as I did so, and made my way to the tills. Having paid, I lugged the wood out to my car. The sun of earlier had, at some point during the melee inside, decided to take a nap and hand the baton over to a large, ominously grey rain cloud. As I slid the planks into my car, the raindrops got heavier until it felt as if I were standing in a cold, exposed shower. The coveralls begin to stick to me, each plop of rain turning them more and more transparent.

‘Come on!’ I growled through gritted teeth. My car was not meant for jobs like this. When I’d bought said car, the thought of ever putting items from a DIY store into it had never, and would never have, crossed my mind. Even the thought of me entering a DIY store was laughable. But I had not had the last laugh. That honour appeared to about to be awarded to the man from earlier. I gave the wood one last shove, hoping it would stay in position, then slammed the boot lid closed. The wood did stay in position. The glass in my rear window did not. I stared as the glass shattered then neatly fell inside my car.

‘Perfect.’ I swallowed hard, squelching down the tears of frustration that threatened to spring with alacrity from my eyes to join the rain now pouring down my face.

It was then I noticed my paper hazmat suit disintegrating around me, the greying bra and oversize pants I’d worn underneath beginning to show. I pulled my keys from my pocket – the material of which proceeded to stick to said keys, leaving a gaping hole by my hip. ‘Bloody hell!’

That was when I saw him. Looking at me from the truck parked opposite me, windscreen wipers sloshing side to side. The threatening frown was long gone, replaced now with a bloody great smile. I turned away and grabbed the car door handle. As I did so, I caught sight of myself in the window. I looked like a papier-mâché school project that had gone terribly, terribly, wrong. Bits of paper were now stuck all over me and with each move another bit of my suit parted company with the rest of it. Yanking open the door, I slid inside, rammed the key into the ignition and burst into tears. This was so not supposed to be my life!

Isn’t it funny how your best ever, absolutely bloody fantastic ideas come along when you’re three sheets to the wind? Except usually you wake up the next morning with a raging hangover that feels as if the entire population of South America is doing the tango in your skull and decide, after a little more sober consideration, that the idea is not quite so stellar after all. Well, that is how it is supposed to happen but here I refer you back to the disaster movie that is my life. Unfortunately, I did not take that vital sober reconsideration time. Instead, I got exceedingly drunk, came up with a fantastic idea and, never one for hanging around, and having a reputation for getting the job done, I acted upon it.

Which was why I was here. Now. Crying in an old bra and the enormous pants I’d once bought in error. It was only when I’d got them back from the laundry service that I realised they weren’t my usual thong style. Of course, by that point, I’d had them washed so I couldn’t take them back. They’d got shoved to the back of the drawer and forgotten about. But today was huge pants day because a), I’d run out of clean thongs and b), I have to say, despite the fact they were now stuck to my wet body, they actually were far more comfortable than having dental floss between your bum cheeks. I mean, it wasn’t as if I had needed to worry about VPL in this get-up. Until now. I glanced down at myself through my teary eyes. I hadn’t banked on the rain or the disintegration of both my clothes and my dignity in front of a handsome stranger I’d just brained with a plank of wood. The truth was I hadn’t banked on any of this. I was so out of my depth, I’d need a helicopter to winch me to safety. But I’d made the decision and now I was stuck with it.

It was the social media post that pushed me over the edge. There was my ex-fiancé with a woman a good ten to fifteen years my junior on a far-flung white-sand beach getting married. That would have been bad enough, considering it was less than three months since we’d split up after over ten years together, but the best bit – you’ll love this – is that they were having my wedding. I paid for that exact wedding. I knew it was non-refundable when we booked it but I didn’t pay much attention to that. After all, we’d been together ten years and I was finally getting the dream wedding I’d always wanted but had had to pretend not to want because that’s not the done thing these days. Not if you’re a successful career woman.

It’s all very confusing. One minute, you’re told you can have it all and then you can’t. Then you’re supposed to not want it all but by that point, you’re doing it all anyway. Either way, I had dreamed of this wedding. My Sindy doll had had this wedding and I was supposed to have it too. But I didn’t. Because, as it turned out, when my fiancé was away on business trips to secure a very important client for his law firm, he was also securing the owner’s heiress daughter as a new fiancée. And I, the old model, was out. So last season.

To add insult to injury, he then took the wedding – the wedding I had saved for since I left university. The wedding I’d dreamed about. The wedding I’d paid every damn penny for because Adrian was going to put the same amount down as a deposit on a new house together. The wedding that was non-refundable but still named him as the groom so he’d just changed the bride’s name and gone through with it. He looked so damn happy I actually punched him in the face. Or rather I punched the photo, which meant I then had to use my phone to order a new laptop and now have a scar on my knuckle where a piece of the glass got stuck and I had to pull it out with my eyebrow tweezers.

Luckily, I didn’t notice the pain too much for that – or any of it really because, as luck would have it, the wine subscription box had arrived the same day and over the next four days, I proceeded to drink the entire contents. I rang work and told them I was sick, but illness is no excuse when you have important meetings, and my presence was ‘requested’, which was code for ‘demanded’, at a conference on the Monday morning. I was granted permission to attend online instead. And that was my downfall.

Used to messaging with a friend using the chat function in the app, I did so now. Thanks to getting pally with Bacchus, what I didn’t realise was that it was set to ‘All’. Therefore my comment turned out not to be the confidential exchange I’d thought it was.

I can’t believe we’re all bowing and scraping over this dick.

In itself, typing this was a harder task than it usually was, then I looked up at the screen to watch my friend try and cover his giggles. But there was no such reaction. As I scanned each of the little squares on the screen, expressions ranged from shock, embarrassment, confusion and, in the case of my boss, outright, purple-faced rage. Kind of like the girl in the old Willy Wonka film. My brain scuttled off to find her name. It never did come back. I think it passed out on the way there.

Even through the pleasantly soft-edged wine haze, I realised something was amiss.

There was another, very short meeting after that with fewer people involved. I remember something about ‘conduct unbecoming’ and ‘utterly unforgivable’ coming up but the rest was pretty fuzzy. I got the gist though and that gist was that I was most definitely fired.

Now that would have been bad enough. But, oh, no, I wasn’t done yet. I was on a roll! When all the bottles were empty a few days later, I came to with the mother of all hangovers and discovered that not only was I unemployed but that I had, during my mind’s hiatus from sensible decision making, agreed to a sale on my apartment and bought a Victorian farmhouse in need of renovation and several acres of land with the proceeds. And a flock of sheep. Apparently, they were yet to arrive. I felt a fresh wave of nausea as my mind helpfully played out my life implosion in full technicolour for me. What the flock was I going to do with a flock of sheep?

Surely there should be a sensor built into all digital devices that assesses your blood alcohol level and bans you from doing anything monumentally stupid until it registers that you are sober. Unfortunately, there isn’t. So I did. And here I was.

And now I had a new humiliation to add to the ever-growing pile. The image of Hot Plank Man looking at me and grinning as he drove off replayed in my head and I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I turned into the driveway that led to the farmhouse. What the hell had happened to my life?

2

As much as I would like to say that I had embraced this new life and was now a whizz with a power tool, I don’t think there’s any need for me to disavow you of that belief. I was not. I had never done an iota of DIY in my life. Not once. And now I had a ruddy farmhouse to renovate. My last few days had been spent trying to block up a gap in the fence where some random chickens kept wandering through into the garden and pecking at the French windows. Well, they would be if there were any French windows there. Currently they were pecking at the plastic that was covering the gap. God knew who they belonged to but the way it was going, one might end up in the oven! OK, that was a lie. There was no way on God’s green earth (and to be fair, it was exceptionally green around here. Probably because it hadn’t stopped raining) that I would ever cook anything I’d spoken to.

I dashed out of the car in my huge knickers and third-rate bra and fiddled with the lock, pushing myself into the hall, and grabbed a coat off the hook before running back out and wrangling the wood out of the car while trying to avoid the remaining bits of glass that used to be my rear window.

‘Come on!’ I yelled. Yelling at inanimate objects was another of my more recent hobbies. After I’d been so keen to get the wood into the car, the planks had now got wedged in. I gave them another good heave to release them, which did the trick perfectly. It also released me from my standing position and I ended up flat on my back in one of the many, many muddy puddles that surrounded this ‘idyllically situated residence’.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ I screamed out the words to the leaden sky and lay there, freezing my arse and every other exposed part of me off as tears of frustration flowed down the side of my face. A tap on my shoe made me lift my head the tiniest amount to see a chicken pecking at my now-pretty-much-ruined three-hundred-quid trainers.

‘Go for it. Just carry on and eat me alive. I don’t care any more. Bring your friends.’ I plopped my head back down in the mud. The only sounds were the rain and this persistent sodding chicken clucking softly. In another situation, that might be quite soothing but right now, I’d give anything for the sounds I’d grown up with. The ones I was used to. The ones that suited me. Traffic, sirens and the general hubbub of London. Even the birds were quiet here, sheltering from this infernal rain.

‘If you don’t feed them, there’s every chance of that happening.’

My eyes flew open and, with horror, I found the handsome face of the man I’d clobbered earlier looking down at me. The planks I’d bought were lying next to me.

‘Need a hand?’

I pushed myself up, hands sliding madly in the mud as I did so. He reached down, hooked one hand under my armpit and hoisted me to my feet.

‘Thanks,’ I replied, immediately wrapping my Barbour around me in an attempt to cover as much as possible. Although I was aware he’d already had an eyeful earlier this afternoon. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you get here and what do you want?’

‘There’s a bloody great gap in your fence line the other side of the paddock.’ His voice was deep with that hint of gravel that normally made my insides do a little sexy dance. Unfortunately, my insides were currently frozen solid and dancing was the last thing on their mind. Raindrops dripped off the brim of his eminently sensible waxed hat as the grey eyes considered me with a blank expression before he dropped his gaze momentarily to look at the wood that was getting wetter by the moment. ‘Is that what that lot’s for?’ He pointed at my purchases.

‘No.’

‘Good, because it’s completely wrong.’

I swallowed the lump I felt forming in my throat. ‘Thanks for that,’ I snapped back. ‘Did you actually have a reason for trespassing or are you just testing out illegal ways onto my property in order to critique my buying habits?’

He held out a packet of nails. ‘You dropped these earlier while you were fighting to get the wood in your car.’

‘Oh. Right.’ I reached out to take them with one hand while making sure my coat was still tight around me. ‘Thanks. Um… how did you know where I lived?’ I was suddenly aware that I was in the middle of nowhere with a strange bloke twice my size. I shoved the packet of nails in my pocket and wrapped the coat even tighter.

‘Don’t worry. I didn’t follow you. It’s a small village. Everyone knows a buyer from London purchased this place recently and you’re a strange face, so I just put two and two together.’ He took a step back. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

‘You didn’t.’ The words fired out automatically. I’d been fiercely independent for long enough now that this had become my natural response.

He nodded but it was obvious from his expression he didn’t believe a word.

‘Might be an idea to get some sort of security system fitted. The village isn’t far but you are still out on your own here.’

‘I’ll add it to the list,’ I replied and even I could hear the despondency in my voice.

The man did a tiny squint before holding out his hand. ‘Jesse Woods.’

‘Felicity DeVere.’ I took the shovel-sized hand and shook it. I’d seen his brow twitch as I rolled out my name but he kept any comment to himself. I was sure it would be part of an ‘amusing story’ at the local pub later. Right now, I didn’t care.

Squaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuk!

Both of us looked down at the persistent chicken.

‘You really do need to feed them. They should probably be in the coop in this weather anyway.’

‘Then their owners need to take care of that. I’ve got more than enough on my plate!’

Jesse did that squint again. ‘You are their owner.’

‘What?’ My head snapped up from looking down at the sodden and apparently hungry chicken.

‘The chickens came with the property.’

‘No.’ I held up a hand. ‘No. No, they didn’t.’ I felt the panic rising as my voice did the same. ‘There was absolutely no mention of chickens. I know about the impending sheep, which I haven’t figured out what the hell to do with, but I’m not getting fobbed off with a load of bloody chickens too!’

He gave a shrug. ‘Definitely yours. And it was on the property details.’

‘How come you’re so well informed about all this?’

‘Because my family were the previous owners. My cousin, to be accurate. I saw the details. The chickens were specifically mentioned.’

I stared at Jesse, looked down at the chicken, who looked back up at me, before I returned my gaze to Jesse.

‘I take it you didn’t read the details too well.’

I remained silent. What was I going to say? No, I didn’t actually because I was on a massive bender, busily throwing away everything I’d worked for so that I could end up in the arse end of nowhere, soaked, freezing cold in a dilapidated house wrapped in a Barbour and little else, being judged by a beady-eyed hen.

‘You should really get inside before you freeze to death.’

‘It’s not like it’s any warmer in there,’ I blurted with a shrug, dislodging a small pool of raindrops off my shoulders. I’d begun to forget what hot water actually felt like and, should I ever get the luxury of experiencing it once more, I would never again take it for granted.

Jesse frowned. ‘The heating was working when I checked it over for my cousin. It was left on frost setting to stop the pipes freezing. Have you changed it from that?’

Changed it? I thought these things just all worked automatically…

He tilted his head, water running off the waxed hat in rivulets. ‘Would you like me to pop in and go over it with you?’

I hesitated.

‘Here.’ He pulled a wallet out of the back pocket of his cargo trousers. ‘Do you have a friend or someone you can send this to?’ He held out his driving licence.

I nodded. ‘My phone’s in the car.’ I backed up and opened the door, sitting down carefully, aware that if I’d bent in to grab it I’d have shown him my arse. Not that a man who looked like he did would have taken much notice, bearing in my mind the granny pants and the fact I’d already brained him earlier in the day. I hadn’t missed the butterfly stitch now holding the cut above his eye together.

‘Oh!’ I said, standing up again and pushing the door closed behind me.

‘Problem?’

‘No,’ I said, snapping a picture of his licence. How did he manage to even look good in that? Most people looked like a wanted poster in theirs. I bet his passport photo was good too. Git.

‘I was just remembering… erm, earlier. Sorry again about whacking you with the wood.’

‘No harm done.’ He touched his head under the brim of his hat. ‘Well, not too much anyway. There are those who’d argue I could do with some sense knocking into me.’

‘Sorry. Again.’

There was the briefest flash of a smile. So quick that I wondered if the cold was making me hallucinate. It was such a great smile, I might well have done as by this time, I felt I was pretty susceptible to hallucinations. I tapped on my phone and, with lack of anyone else to contact, sent the photo to myself and shut it off.

‘Done?’

‘Yep.’ I nodded.

‘Good. Come on. You need to get dry and I’ll get the heating on for you.’

‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Yes. I assumed the agent would do all that, but I guess not.’

‘I asked if there was anything I should know but the estate agent just handed me the key and said it was all pretty self-explanatory.’

The grey eyes momentarily turned stormy once more. ‘OK. I’ll show you some basics.’

An hour later, I was dry, dressed – including yet another pair of enormous pants – and my house was warm. Well, kind of. There was still plastic sheeting covering several of the window gaps, a