Maximum Exposure (23 page)

‘I’ve been thinking about Russia,’ he said, pulling her back down into her chair. She could feel the wicker digging roughly into the backs of her knees.

‘Russia?’

‘I’ve been offered another commission. More food, more farmers, more real people. I was going to turn it down, but I guess if I could persuade a photographer to come with me, I might consider it.’

‘A photographer?’

‘Well not any photographer, obviously. I’d pick a ditsy, adorable, infuriating one who is maybe just beginning to understand that loving someone doesn’t have to be serfdom.’

The dimness inside her skull cleared slowly and her lips began to curl into a soft smile. ‘Are you asking?’

‘I’m asking.’

They were two naked souls, soft, vulnerable, loving. The smile turned into a little laugh and she realised that her heart was pounding.

‘Then I’m coming to Russia with you.’

The kiss went on for ever. She felt his lips on hers, softly at first, then more warmly, more passionately, and so familiar that it felt as though this moment had happened a hundred sweet times before and would happen a thousand times more.

There was more applause, but it seemed closer. She drew her head away from Ben’s, just an inch, the furthest she could bear to be apart from him, and out of the corner of her eye she saw that Lizzie and Dave were standing there, clapping.

‘Four weddings?’ Lizzie was saying, laughing.

She looked at Ben. He gazed back.

‘No more weddings,’ they groaned in unison.

Daisy felt Ben’s hand curling round hers, warm and familiar. It was a grasp that asked for strength as well as lent it. She smiled at him and she smiled at Lizzie. She was replete with hot pies and love.

Giving is a gift to yourself also.

Face the Wind and Fly

She builds wind farms, he detests them. Can they ever generate love?

After fifteen happy years of marriage, Kate Courtenay discovers that her charismatic novelist husband is spending more and more of his time with a young fan. She throws herself into her work, a controversial wind farm that’s stirring up tempers in the local community. Sparks fly when she goes head to head against its most outspoken opponent, local gardener Ibsen Brown – a man with a past of his own. But a scheme for a local community garden brings the sparring-partners together, producing the sort of electricity that threatens to short-circuit the whole system.

Loving Susie

She thought she knew her husband, but he’s been keeping a secret … about her.

Scottish politician Susie Wallace is under pressure. She risks censure from her Party for her passionate and outspoken views on arts funding. A charity she’s involved with runs into difficulties. And a certain journalist seems to have it in for her.

Susie stumbles across some information that rocks her world but not, apparently, her husband’s – Archie has been in on this particular secret for thirty years. Now Susie wonders if she can trust him at all. Soon, unemployed son Jonathan and successful daughter Mannie begin to feel the fallout too, fracturing the family and leaving Susie increasingly isolated.

The Heartlands Series
Jenny Harper

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Published by Accent Press Ltd 2014

ISBN: 9781783753352

Copyright © Jenny Harper 2014

The right of Jenny Harper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN

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