Free This Is Your Life by Susie Martyn Page A

at least before Mick turns up with the jeep.  Just do it!  It’s not as though it will stop you going to Cornwall…’
    Lizzie had to admit she was tempted.  And with any luck, she’d be on the road again by next week.  As Katie said, she’d finish the boys’ garden in a couple of days and be leaving Littleton for good.
    What a day this was turning out to be , thought Lizzie, with new-found fragile optimism. Full of the strangest coincidences… bumping into Katie’s friends like that, here of all places.
    As more cosmic jigsaw-pieces slotted into place, Lizzie was just adjusting to the idea when out of nowhere, came a thunderbolt. 
    ‘Excuse me a moment … I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch, but it’s just that I think we know each other... ’
    A nother of Katie’s amours? Through a mouthful of the locally grown arugula and baby spinach leaves, Lizzie looked and looked again, realising with a shock that he was talking to her .  Her heart did a hop and a skip - he was gorgeous. That tousled fair hair, faded jeans, the worn shirt... Her kind of man, most definitely.  She gazed back shyly, trying not to choke as the last of the salad caught in her throat and made her eyes water.
    Taking a sip of water she swallowed.  ‘Um, have we?’ There was something familiar about him.  She’d seen him before – somewhere - but for the life of her she couldn’t remember.
    As she wracked her brain, the hubbub of voices in the background seemed to fade and the strangest feeing creep over her. It was like she knew him – yet she didn’t.  But on another level altogether, they recognised each other.  Like soul-mates, she pondered.  Twin flames .  Matching halves ....
    ‘I know it sounds like a really dodgy chat up line,’ he continued earnestly, which in all reality it did. ‘But I’m sure we’ve met.’  He looked at her intently.  ‘I just can’t remember where.’
    For a moment it was tangible as the goat’s cheese on Lizzie’s plate, this connection between them. But as they gazed at each other, just as quickly it vanished, leaving them wondering if they’d imagined it.
    ‘ Hey, look, I’m sorry I disturbed you! Actually I better catch my friends up.  Um, have a good lunch.’  He smiled uncertainly, his eyes crinkled at the edges as he turned away. Lizzie’s stomach did a backflip.  Katie looked equally as gobsmacked.
    ‘ Wow Lizzie!  Wow!  How could you not remember him ?  As chat up lines go, that was good …’
    But it hadn’t been a chat up line, she knew that.  It didn’t occur to Lizzie for one second that he wasn’t telling the truth.

Chapter 7
     
     
    By the time Katie had departed for London on Sunday, Darius had already called round to see Lizzie, desperate for her to start work. He’d found them eating breakfast and been most concerned as he looked around the Star.
    ‘Really, sweetie, you could have stayed with us if we’d known… It’s so awfully, well, agricultural… don’t you think?’
    He arranged to pick Lizzie up the following morning first thing.
    ‘ You’d never find it on your own, sweetie!  It’s out in the boondocks!  The back of beyond, darling!’ he’d added, seeing her look of bewilderment.
     
    It would be a good experiment, Lizzie had decided.  To see if garden design and her were a match.  It was only one garden after all.  She’d cut the grass and weed the flower beds – it would take two days, three at the most.  And if it were a total disaster, well.  She was leaving anyway, wasn’t she…
        With nothing better to do with the rest of the afternoon, she decided to do some more exploring.  As she passed Antonia’s, she paused to watch a dumpy woman bumping around the sand school on a rather stocky horse.  The woman’s face was red with exertion and the horse looked as though it was about to collapse.   Antonia herself was standing in the middle, screeching like a sergeant major, as the horse broke into a rather lumpy