He's Talking Secrets - Taylor Rose Page 0,6
with this information. “But school is important too. And much more fun, what with the book reading, the singing and I bet you get to do dancing as well and then there‘s lunchtime all those friends who will miss you in the playground, how will they enjoy their day without a Lilly there?” Lilly nodded her head in complete agreement throughout this. She hopped down and proceeded to run after the dogs again. She called back over her shoulder “OK Mummy, I’ll go to school…...”
Sophia was just staring at him. Did he say something wrong? As he stood up she just said “Thank you, I usually have a battle on my hands to get her to go but today might be different.” She turned and started to walk down a path. “Why 11 am?” Brandon enquired. One of the men who were walking past spoke, “Mrs. Jackson has a doctor’s appointment this morning.” Brandon frowned. The workers were all older men, too old to have children in primary school. He looked up. He opened his mouth to ask how they would know when the last of the men walked past and could see the confused look on Brandon’s face and said “Mrs. Jackson is Lilly’s school teacher. There are no secrets in our part of the world son; everyone knows everyone else’s business around here. We think she might be expecting again”, he said and patted Brandon on the shoulder as he passed. This was so foreign from Brandon’s world which was full of predictable small talk and impersonal relationships and friendships which were aloof at best. How interesting to live here.
Whilst walking down the path Brandon recalled that Sophia had called Lilly her little girl, not our little girl, which was strange, Brandon assessed the men walking down the path and eliminated them as her husband, which, he conceded, wasn’t too hard to do seeing as they had bowed at her earlier. None of them “fitted” and they seemed to defer to her. She really was rather nice to look at, even in her boots, but of course not his type.
Chapter Three
Sometime later, Sophia went back to the Manor house. She returned with the master plans for the gardens. Another fifteen minutes saw the two of them alone touring the grounds, or at least a small part of the grounds. Brandon acknowledged that this place was huge. He turned to Sophia with a rather cheeky look on his face. He did an exaggerated look around them and turned to her “You know I don’t see anyone else here, are you going to take your top off again?” Then he burst into laughter. She tried not to laugh back but couldn’t help the giggle that rose from within. He put up both hands in a defensive manner as she took a swipe at him with the maps. He took a step back when she put both hands on the bottom of her shirt and said with a shrug, “I’m game if you are” Her bemused look changed instantly into one of terror when he shrugged his shoulders and lifted his shirt to show an amazing set of abs. Dear Heaven, He’s taking me seriously she thought. Only to have him falter, looking into her eyes and stating seriously “We can only do this if you’re wearing that incredibly sexy bra from yesterday, that was a highlight for me, you know. In fact I think that vision will flash before my eyes as I lay dying” He could no longer maintain a straight face and turned to continue walking down the pathway laughing heartily as he went. She had no choice but to follow him thinking that his demise might not be too far away if he wasn’t careful…..that made her laugh.
Sophia had to begrudgingly admit that he knew what he was talking about, thus far. They discussed differing periods of landscape design and the plant stock used during those times and throughout their discussions something rather unexpected happened which, if she was honest with herself it had rather rattled her. Whilst looking at the plans for the next garden their hands had bumped together in the briefest of touches. It was like an electric shock had hit her. She hoped that she didn’t show her surprise that the slightest touch of a man had her jumping. It really was ridiculous as she knew what he was up to with the Mr. Charming act. Eventually there would be cracks in his