Read Chapter 1: — THE PHONE CALL

At half past five on a wet Thursday in Bristol, Emma Hayes was still staring at a spreadsheet when Sophie from reception called the wrong extension.

“Emma? Sorry. I meant Claire. Her parcel’s here.”

“She’s six feet from me.”

“You’re an angel.”

Emma leaned over the partition. “Claire. Parcel.”

Claire came back with two expensive jars of “raw mountain honey,” presented in black cardboard like perfume.

“Forty-eight pounds,” she announced.

“For honey?”

“For authentic wilderness honey.”

Emma turned the jar slowly in her hand. She had grown up around bees. Her grandfather had kept hives behind the stone shed; her uncle still collected honey from feral colonies in rock cracks and abandoned walls.

The honey in Claire’s jar looked perfectly decent.

It did not look wild.

“You’ve been robbed,” Emma said.

Claire gasped.

“I said probably. Bring me a spoon tomorrow.”

Before Claire could argue, Emma’s mobile rang.

Mum.

The call changed everything.

Her grandmother was ill. Very ill. Breathing badly. Maybe hospital.

Emma booked the last train west, then a bus, then paid a neighbour to drive her the final miles up the valley.

By the time she reached Cwm Afon the next morning, rain had turned the hills dark green and silver.

Her mother met her outside the house with a smile far too bright for a family emergency.

“Where’s Gran?”

“Visiting Mair.”

Emma stopped.

“What?”

“She felt better.”

A black Range Rover stood beside the old barn.

Inside the kitchen sat Emma’s father, her uncle Peter, two neighbours—and a man Emma had never seen before.

He rose when she entered.

Gavin Price.

Thirty, expensively dressed, watch bright under the kitchen light.

Peter beamed.

“There she is. Our university girl.”

Emma looked at her mother.

Then at Gavin.

Then back at her mother.

Nobody needed to explain.

There had never been an emergency.

There was only a date waiting for her.