THE VILLAGE MYSTERIES four cozy murder mystery box set by MAYHEW MARGARET

Author:MAYHEW, MARGARET
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thrillers and cosy mystery
Published: 2022-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

Ruth was busy sewing seeds in one of the greenhouses when Tom Harvey appeared. There was no chance of doing a bunk because he was standing firmly between her and the door and he didn’t do any beating about the bushes either.

‘I’ve come for your answer, Ruth.’

She straightened up, pushing her hair off her face. ‘I can’t give you one yet, Tom. I’m awfully sorry.’

‘And I can’t wait much longer.’

‘You mean you’ll leave Frog End?’

‘If you turn me down – yes. I don’t want to hang about if you’re still in love with somebody else.’

She flushed. ‘I’m not . . . not any more.’

‘But you’re not in love with me?’

‘Well, no . . .’

‘Why not give it a try?’

‘I’ve got a lot on my mind, just at the moment.’ She waved a hand around the greenhouse – at the seed trays, the cuttings, the young plants. ‘Getting going with all this. I can’t think about anything else. I need time.’

‘How much do you need?’

‘I don’t know. Whatever it takes.’

‘That’s no good, Ruth. You can’t keep me dangling on the end of a string indefinitely.’

‘I won’t. Anyway, after my mother died you said you’d be around. Like the song says.’

‘I can’t stay around for ever. Not unless you marry me.’

‘You mean you’ll go off to America?’

‘Or maybe Australia. I’ve always had a hankering to see what it’s like living upside down.’

‘They’re both a very long way away.’

‘Yes, they are. That’s the whole point.’

She looked at him unhappily, not knowing what to say. She had come to depend on him much more than she had realized: used him as a sort of prop, while keeping him at arm’s length – which hadn’t been fair, of course. He’d every right to issue a sort of ultimatum. But Frog End would miss him badly. He was a wonderful doctor – marvellous with children and the elderly, marvellous with everybody, in fact. She’d seen him in action, crouching down to talk to a child at its own level, putting a steadying hand on the shoulder of a young man condemned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, making a sick old man roar with laugher. It would be dreadful if he left. And it would be her fault.

‘I’ll think harder about it, I promise.’

‘That’s the spirit.’ He turned to open the greenhouse door. ‘By the way, you’ve got dirt all over your forehead.’

She rubbed at it with her hand. ‘I always get filthy working.’

He smiled. ‘You’ve made it worse now.’

He was worth ten of Ralph, she thought, staring after him through the greenhouse glass. No, not ten – twenty. No – thirty, forty, fifty at least, and probably a great deal more.

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