Page 4 of A Very Happy Easter

“Your mum’s asking where you are.”

“Dammit.”

“You want me to go and talk to her about racehorses?”

A giggle bubbled out of me. A slightly hysterical giggle, if I was honest, and it was the first time I could recall laughing around a man who wasn’t a close family member in years.

“My mother hasn’t been a fan of equines since my childhood pony shat on her favourite handbag when I was eight.”

“I…” Heath screwed up his face. “It’s true I know next to nothing about ponies, but I can’t even work out how that could happen.”

“She put it on the mounting block while she wiped dirt off my face with a handkerchief, and I was so busy protesting, I didn’t notice Bimbo had reversed into position and…splat.”

“Wait, your pony was called Bimbo?”

“His full name was Billington Master Boris. Billington Place was the stud where he was bred. He was a Welsh Section B, chestnut with four white socks. Four. One, buy him. Two, try him. Three, suspect him. Four, reject him. That’s how the old rhyme goes, but someone still thought he’d be suitable for a seven-year-old child, and I fell off him more times than I could count. He was quite the lunatic, but— But you don’t need to hear about my childhood.” Why was I rambling? I needed to remember my own golden rule: say as little as possible, smile, and move on. But I was curious. “Who told you about Dennis’s racehorses?”

“He did.”

“You’ve met him before?”

“No, but when I saw you getting uncomfortable, I looked up the table plan on the portal”—yes, the Kennedy-Renner/Taylor wedding had its own website—“and then googled each name. There’s only one Dennis Markham-Purkiss.”

“Technically, there are three of them.”

“Huh?”

“He’s actually Dennis Markham-Purkiss III.”

“Okay, there’s only one Dennis Markham-Purkiss who posts racehorse updates on BuzzHub every week and has no idea what privacy settings are.”

“That’s true. But why were you watching me?”

“I watch everyone. A bad habit, but it’s my job, and I find switching off a challenge.”

“You’re a spy?”

Heath chuckled. “No, a private investigator.”

“Since when?”

“Since last December.”

“But I thought you were going travelling? When we spoke in October, that’s what you said.”

The Far East, South America, and the Caribbean—that’s where he’d wanted to go. I distinctly remembered because he’d mentioned skin diving, and I’d had several highly inappropriate thoughts about the skin part.

“Yeah, well, my plans changed. Owen—Serena’s fiancé—works with a guy who’s married to one of the head honchos at Blackwood Security, and he got me an interview. There was no way I could pass up that chance.”

Serena was his sister. And her other brother was engaged to Marissa, Janie’s sister, so when everyone finally got around to getting married, Heath and I would be distantly related, but not by blood. Liam had popped the question first, but Marissa didn’t seem in any hurry to have a ring on her finger, and their wedding date wasn’t until next year. Ditto for Serena herself.

“It’s a good company to work for?”

“If I’d had to make a list of dream jobs, working there would have been at the top.”

“Then congratulations are in order. You don’t regret missing out on the beach?”

“I spent a few weeks in South America before I started training, and Blackwood has a sabbatical program. Once I’ve got my feet under the table, I’m planning to take three months off and finish what I started.”