Wild Oats Read Free Page A

slave wages to maintain the place? Because if so, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
    But the voice that answered her was unmistakably English. A laconic, lazy drawl with the insouciance that only public school could provide.
    ‘I could ask you the same question.’ He tipped back in his chair, revealing cut-off jeans and long, bare legs. He’d clearly been doing some sort of menial task: Jamie noticed his hands were filthy, and as he pushedhis fringe back from his forehead with the back of his hand he left a streak of dirt across his skin. Then he took a drag from a Disque Bleu smouldering in the ashtray, surveying her through laughing eyes. Jamie scowled.
    ‘For your information –’ she began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
    ‘I know. It’s obvious. You’re Jamie.’ He grinned. ‘My, how you’ve grown.’
    Jamie stared at him, a memory battling its way into her consciousness, like a poor swimmer struggling to the surface of the sea. In her mind’s eye was a boy – well, a youth, perhaps sixteen or seventeen – with the same laughing eyes as the man before her now, but with shorter hair and a lighter physique, sitting on a floating pontoon in red bathing trunks, confident in the knowledge that every female over fifteen and under fifty was gazing at him with longing. Everyone except her, of course.
    ‘Olivier?’
    She was rewarded with a smile of acknowledgement as Olivier stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet. He was going to hug her, Jamie realized, and she dropped her rucksack just in time to reciprocate. His embrace was easy, familiar, and despite herself Jamie relaxed; it could have been yesterday that they last met, instead of fifteen years ago.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he was saying. ‘I shouldn’t have teased you like that, but I couldn’t resist.’
    ‘You never could,’ countered Jamie, wonderingif perhaps lack of sleep and food was making her hallucinate. Olivier Templeton, here, in their kitchen?
    Their fathers had been best friends – inseparable soulmates, until they’d fallen out all those years ago. Yet here was Olivier, holding court as if he owned the place. Even Parsnip and Gumdrop had settled themselves under his chair, clearly quite comfortable with his presence.
    Jamie composed herself as best she could, wriggled out of Olivier’s grasp and smiled.
    ‘So… what are you doing here?’
    ‘I came to give your father my condolences. He… wasn’t in very good shape. I stayed around for a while to make sure he was all right.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘I keep forgetting to leave.’
    Jamie blinked. This was certainly a turn-up for the books. How on earth had the hatchet come to be buried between the Wildings and the Templetons? She didn’t want to ask, as she wasn’t sure she was ready for the answers. And she had a feeling, judging by the lightness of his tone, that Olivier didn’t really want her to probe. They both shared a history that was forbidden territory, for the time being at least.
    ‘Let me make you a cup of tea. You must be shattered.’ Olivier moved over to the sink, grabbing the kettle en route. Jamie felt totally bemused – he was offering her tea in her own house, as if she was a visitor and he the host. She accepted, despite herself, and watched in amazement as he filled the kettle, produced two clean cups from the cupboard and emptiedthe pot of its last brew in preparation for the next.
    ‘Your father will be pleased to see you,’ remarked Olivier easily. ‘He’s missed you.’
    He made it a statement, not a reproach, but nevertheless Jamie felt on the defensive. Had they talked about her? What had been said? Paranoia crept up and tickled the back of her neck.
    ‘Where is he?’
    ‘At the races.’
    That figured. Some things didn’t change. Olivier handed her a cup of steaming tea.
    ‘So. How was South America?’
    ‘Amazing.’
    He raised an amused eyebrow.
    ‘That’s it? Just… amazing?’
    Jamie managed a smile despite