Just Say Yes. Caroline Anderson

marshalled her hysterical and somewhat crazy brain, and peered down into—nothing.

      A walled garden, almost square, with an area of flat and tatty grass interrupted by molehills and thistles, and around the edges the straggling remains of a rose garden almost totally submerged in weeds.

      ‘That,’ he said deadpan, ‘is a formal parterre.’

      She lost it. The giggle fought its way up, battling all the way, and erupted in a shower of sound that echoed round the room and left her feeling silly.

      Until she saw his smile. ‘You see my problem? You see why I needed you? Especially when I found out that the restoration of historic gardens was your forte.’

      Georgia looked again, and in her mind’s eye she could see the outline of an old knot garden, neat little hedges arranged in complicated and stylised knots with spaces filled with scented herbs. Designed to be viewed from above, the intricate and lovely garden had been long stripped out and destroyed.

      She stared again at the unkempt grass. ‘Restoration?’ she said weakly.

      He shrugged and smiled. ‘Perhaps recreation would be a more appropriate word. Come on—I’m going to take you a bit higher, so you get a better look.’

      And he turned and retraced his steps.

      ‘You’re going down,’ she said, confused.

      He threw a grin back over his shoulder. ‘Only for a moment. Then we go right up.’

      Even more confused, she followed him. He went via the kitchen, putting his mug down on the draining board. There was no sign of the children or Mrs Hodges or the dog, she thought absently, trailing after him into the sunshine and across a courtyard to a cluster of farm buildings.

      Perhaps they were going to climb a grain hopper, she thought, but there wasn’t one, and he was heading for a barn—just an ordinary, big black Suffolk barn. She was more puzzled than ever. Whatever was he doing?

      Then he flicked a catch, dropped his shoulder against the edge of a huge sliding door in the side of the barn and pushed, and Georgia, who absolutely definitely didn’t like heights, felt suddenly terribly uneasy…

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘WHAT’S that?’ she asked, her voice a reedy squeak.

      ‘A microlight.’ He threw a grin over his shoulder. ‘I said we’d go right up!’

      Georgia could only stare, frozen, at the gleaming little toy in front of her.

      Admittedly it was a heck of a toy—a rich boy’s toy, the sort of thing her late husband would have loved had he ever been sober long enough to take his pilot’s licence. She wasn’t afraid. There was no need to be afraid, there was no way she was going anywhere near it with the engine running.

      It looked like a tiny, gleaming little plane from the front, its shiny, smoothly curved nose pointing up into the air, a wheel dangling underneath it. There was a little tube sticking out of the nose, and she pointed to it. ‘What’s that?’

      ‘Measures the air speed,’ he told her over his shoulder. He was looking at something behind the wings. She followed him round and continued her inspection. A curvy canopy, perspex or somesuch, arched over the cockpit, if that wasn’t too grand a word, and inside it bristled with all sorts of dials and switches and sticks with padded grips on—joysticks?

      Joy? Ha-ha. And where on earth were you supposed to put your legs, even supposing you were fool enough to get in it? She carried on round, and came to a grinding halt.

      ‘Where’s the back?’ she asked, and he chuckled, ducking back under the wing and lolling, ankles crossed, against the fuselage.

      Fuselage? Far too big a word for this little torpedo-sized coffin.

      ‘It doesn’t have a back,’ he told her confidently. ‘That’s it.’

      ‘That tiny pod, two wings and a bit sticking out the back with a waggly thing on it—that’s it?’ she said incredulously. ‘Where’s the engine?’

      ‘Here.’

      He ducked under the wing again and led her round to the back. There, bolted onto the rear of the cockpit and looking for all the world like an optional extra, was an engine, exposed to the elements, no cover, no cowling or anything like that, just the engine sitting there with a propeller hanging off the back of it, too flimsy for words.

      ‘Why isn’t it covered?’ she asked in amazement.

      ‘No need. And anyway,’ he said with a cheeky grin, ‘it’s sort of sexy to have your engine on the outside. Hunkier. More macho.’

      She snorted. Sexy, indeed. ‘What’s it all made of?’ she asked, tapping experimentally on a wing.

      ‘Styrofoam, thin ply, aluminium and fabric, mostly.’

      She closed her eyes. Those nasty foam cups you bought tea in at shows were Styrofoam. It was made of plastic cups and bits of material, for heaven’s sake, held together with a bit of flimsy aluminium and a veneer of wood to give it the appearance of solidity!

      Great.

      ‘And you go up in this thing?’ she asked in amazement.

      He laughed. ‘It’s brilliant—it’s really fun. You’ll love it.’

      Fear clawed at her, and she shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, no, I won’t love it. No way. Not a chance.’

      ‘It’s very safe—trust me. There have been no crashes due to manufacturing or equipment failure in the whole history of its production. It can’t stall, either—it just won’t do it.’