Free The Way to a Woman's Heart by Christina Jones Page B

always craved. But the house,no. Hideaway Farm is all mine. I paid for it outright – Dennis had no claim on it at all. Dennis kept his corporate businessman’s flat in town. He came down here at weekends or whenever he was in England after we got married, but he loathed it. It was never his home; Hideaway has always been mine.’
    Oh, blimey… Ella pushed toast round her plate, how wrong had she got this?
    ‘If you cry I’ll join you, so don’t.’ Poll laughed. ‘Please don’t look so sad. It’s all OK now. It’s worked out so well. My parents might have been hard and austere, but they were also very astute with their money. No, OK – let’s be honest here – they were as tight as a duck’s thingamabob. They never spent a penny they didn’t have to. I had no new clothes, very few toys, no treats, no holidays – and neither did they.’
    ‘That still sounds like a pretty gruesome life to me. Far from OK.’
    ‘Well, maybe, but it all worked out brilliantly. I was so lucky. You see, when they died, the mausoleum I grew up in sold for a small fortune, and as the only child of only children I inherited everything. I didn’t, don’t, and never will, need a penny from Dennis.’
    ‘Oh, right.’ Another assumption bit the dust.
    ‘Living on a farm was the dream that kept me going throughout my growing-up years and beyond,’ Poll said. ‘All through my isolated childhood unhappiness, I read all the time, and simply adored Enid Blyton. I wanted to escape to the sort of life her fictional children had. I wanted to live ona farm. In the country. It was the most wonderful thing I could imagine – all that peace and quiet and happiness and lots of animals, and cosiness and blissful freedom, and being surrounded by kind people who actually liked me. All the things I’d never had.’
    Ella, who had had all those things all her life without question, albeit without the idyllic rural setting, bit her lip. ‘Yes, I can imagine – and I’m so sorry – but so pleased that things have worked out for you now.’ She leaned across the table, picked up a random crayon and helped George colour the Fat Controller in lime green. ‘And that’s why you want to help others in a similar position?’
    ‘Exactly.’ Poll beamed. ‘I know what it’s like to be so far down that you can’t see any way up and would give your eye teeth for a –’
    ‘Fairy godmother? Like Trixie Pepper?’ Ella giggled.
    ‘Well, perhaps not quite a fairy godmother,’ Poll chuckled, ‘but yes, something like that… Anyway, that’s my story. What about yours?’
    ‘Mine? You know all about mine.’
    Poll ran her hands through her wild hair. ‘Phew – I’m baking already. This is going to be a real humdinger of a day, I reckon. And no, I don’t. I know nothing at all about the, um, boyfriend. Of course you don’t have to tell me…’
    Mark… Ella sighed. What could she possibly say about Mark? She played for time by helping George, bored with colouring-in, scramble from the table and watched him as he trotted happily across to his dirt pit again.
    ‘OK… Mark’s funny and lively and sort of cute-looking.We’ve been going out for two years…’ She stopped and stared up at the cloudless blue sky. ‘And we’ve reached a sort of impasse in our relationship.’
    ‘Oh dear.’ Poll pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Has he met someone else?’
    ‘Nooo, nothing so simple.’ Ella sighed. ‘It was just after two years we were going nowhere. He – Mark – was just happy to let things drift on in their usual routine – you know, some time spent together, other time spent apart – so he still had his football and nights out with his mates and I did girly stuff with my friends, but…’
    ‘It wasn’t going any further along the commitment route? And you wanted it to?’
    ‘Yes… No – I honestly don’t know, but it couldn’t just stay like it was for ever and he’d never discuss it.’
    ‘Do you love him?’
    Ella stared