LIZ FIELDING

A TINY PROBLEM

Hi, I'm Adam Wavell.

Liz is up to her eyes in what she describes as "stuff" at the moment. Putting her house on the market, packing for a delayed holiday, writing a book. Oh, and she has a cold. You get the picture.

She's rushed off her feet so she's asked me to drop by and tell you my story. Well, not just mine - it's May's story, too. May Coleridge.

May and I met at High School. I was the geeky kid living on a sink estate on the rough side of town with the family from hell and nothing but brains to commend me. She was the short, tubby girl from the big house who talked with a plum in her mouth and wore the school uniform in regulation style - you can imagine how that went down with the cool girls. Two outsiders living a world apart. Except she was always getting into trouble and I always seemed to be the one yanking her out of it - and getting yelled at for my pains.

Even so, I sort of liked her. She was a gutsy kid, and in the stables where she kept her waifs and strays she had her own kettle, a jar of instant coffee and a cake tin with the kind of cake that you couldn't buy in a supermarket. She was prepared to share in return for a hand with the animals, so we hung out there. Nothing heavy. She wasn't the kind of girl even a geek like me wanted to be seen out with.

I know what you're thinking. It was going to end in tears and you're right. It did. These days she crosses the street if she sees me coming and the only time we'd spoken in years was at town functions. May's family are big in the town. Charity, that sort of stuff. Of course these days, so am I, so that happens more often than she'd like. Tough. Suck it up, Miss Coleridge...

But, when my sister threw me for a loop by leaving her baby in my office, May Coleridge was the first person I thought of. Waifs and strays were right up her street. And true to form, I found her up a tree, rescuing one.

And also true to form, she fell out of it, right into my lap, so to speak. In more ways than one. (You can read how here)

It was one of those days when everything seems to be going wrong and then suddenly the sun breaks through and you have a chance to wipe out a memory of pain and humiliation that has haunted you for years.

Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. There was just one problem with that. I seem to have left the pilot light on.

SOS: CONVENIENT HUSBAND REQUIRED is on sale now in paper and eBook form at eHarlequin and will be available retail in July. UK readers will have to wait until August, Australia and New Zealand, September.