CHAPTER 1

Nadine Marie Waters is stronger than any difficulty that can be imagined, even grizzly old men," the redheaded, green eyed girl repeated to herself for the umpteenth time. Maybe if she said it out loud enough, she could wish it to existence. But she wasn't feeling the least bit strong as she fought the nausea rising up in her throat and at the same time willed herself to knock on the door in her face.

In all her twenty six years, bravery never belonged in her diminutive world and stature. She was all of five feet and three inches. But she possessed all the curves a woman could ever wish for and more. Her voluptuous figure testified to her healthy appetite. Not that her diet had anything to do with her weight anyways. God knows she inherited it all from her mother. And she did enough physical activities to burn off the extra fat.

"Well, let's get this over with," she said in a shaky whisper and knocked on the door.

The door opened a fraction to admit a round old face with a balding head. The beady eyes did nothing for her shaky bravado. Old Will was her nearest neighbour with his old cottage bordering her inn. And he was one of her greatest nemesis.

She ran an inn and she simply just called it My Inn. Not for lack of a better name or she was stupid not to be able to come up with a good name but she just had a really deep and personal attachment for the house and land itself, hence the freaking cliche name of the inn.

It was a storey building with a large lawn and plenty of flowers. It wasn't much but it was the only thing left to her from her parents. It meant the world to her to be live in a place where they made their memories together before their demise.

Here goes nothing, Nadine thought to herself.

"Morning Will. How are you?," Nadine said nervously. Something about the old wily man just never made her comfortable around him.

"Hi Nadine. I've been good," he said looking at her with his beady roving eyes.

"I just wanted to know if you were the one that brushed my truck. I parked out and went in for a while to get something inside and I noticed it wasn't there before I went in and it was there when I came out...." She went on and on without even registering what she was saying to the old man.

She wouldn't admit it ever, but he really made her nervous and she just rambled on around him.

She knew it could only be Will. It was definitely Will. His Volvo wasn't parked in his yard before she went back in to pick up her forgotten shopping list and it was when she came out. She would admit she had a share in the blame because she didn't park well. But at the same time, he could have avoided brushing her truck.

"Well, I don't know nothing about no truck but you can ask your lil 'fatherless' chit about it. She sure knows how to destroy things she touches," he commented snidely.

She felt the old hurt bloom in her chest, threatening to swallow her and render her speechless. She would never get used to this. Ever.

Even if it was seven years already.

She would never get over the shame of having an unwanted pregnancy and birthing an unwanted child. The rude comments and never ending sidelong looks and whispers of over seven years still haunted her in her dreams. She could never get used to them but she could take them. She was strong, or so she liked to say to herself everyday.

It was the twenty first century alright, but people in Folks Virginia, her hometown still frowned on how one chose to live their sexual lives and they know next to nothing about minding their own business to boot.

That puts her and Nichole, her daughter, in a very contemptuous environment. Very few people were unkind to her and her kid. She knew her daughter was being treated differently in school but she couldn't do anything about that.

Everyone in town knew who the father of her child was but no one had ever had the gut to say it to her face. She knew her daughter was being called 'the Cole bastard' and Nichole was beginning to understand all that was going on around her. The poor girl already suffered daily knowing she doesn't have a daddy. But it was no less hurtul to watch her daughter come home and recount tales of how her mates tell her the reason she doesn't have one was because her daddy didn't want anything to do with her and her mother.

But she would never take her kid being insulted by the likes of Will who doesn't know a good thing even if it smacks him in the face. He could do it behind her back, but not to her face.

"Hey Will, you don't need to go all bitchy and churlish about my little girl. I know she had nothing to do with my truck. I don't even know why I'm wasting my time with a rickety old man like you," she turned on her heels and marched angrily out of his place. She heard his guffaws follow her departure.

Defending her kid was the only thing in the world she never felt nervous about. Defending her didn't make her nervous or speak nervously, that's coming from the fact that she even feels nervous running her everyday life.

That was because Nichole was her breath of fresh air. She saved her from the tunnel of despair and self loathing she was tumbling into. From the very first moment she held her wrinkly grey eyed baby in her arms over six years ago, she realized life was worth fighting for after all that happened between her and Nicholas.

She shuddered, thinking about him still had that effect on her.

Nicholas Cole didn't fall into the category of an enemy neither did he fall into the category of a friend. He was not even an acquaintance. She just valued herself that much not to waste any strong emotions on him. Hating him wouldn't begin to cover for all he had done in her life. She was just indifferent about him.

She had met Nicholas for the first time when she was seventeen and he was twenty two. Their dance had lasted for all of two years.

Her little heart fell irrevocably in love. He was the perfect man to fit her perfect seventeen year old fantasies. With his raven black hair and grey eyes, he was her dream come true. Throw in his lanky build and his ever present mischievous smile, she knew her heart never stood a chance to resist him.

He moved to the town from the city to stay with his maternal grandparents after a ghastly road accident claimed the lives of both his parents. Despite this disaster, he was still a guy with a cheerful personality. Maybe that was one of the reasons she fell in love with him

He was her hero, her lover, until he crumbled all her fantasies like a stack of cards.

.................

Nicholas Cole stared out the floor to roof glass window of his office on the thirty eighth floor of the main building of his company into the busy night of New York city. He really was staring at nothing as his thoughts were far away from all the street lights and people milling around minding their business.

He was a successful businessman, the CEO of Coles Construction Ltd. He dealt primarily with the erection of buildings and his company was involved in marketing of building materials. That was just a part he really gets to express all his passion, all other aspects of his company were delegated to people he trusted. He loved buildings. For him, nothing was more satisfying than building a house from nothing.

Maybe the company of a great woman who was ready to have great sex with no strings attached could rival his satisfaction for buildings.

It actually did.

He was one of the most eligible bachelors in the city, available and ripe for the picking in the eye of gold digging women. His remarkable good looks and loads of money made him a target for the marriage altar. His charisma and the mysterious look in his eyes that said 'my soul is lost and in need of redemption' was just an icing on the cake, making women want to change and redeem his life. Women flocked around him like bees to honey and he wasn't one not to take advantage of that.

He had his pick of any woman he wanted. Tall, short, slim, curvy....as long as she was ready to satisfy his sexual cravings. He kept up with just one at a time until he tires and the woman becomes clingy and starts dreaming of rings and wedding bells and children. He cringed thinking about his narrow escape from his most recent lover, Katrina.

He wanted none of those and he didn't hesitate to move on to the next available woman that catches his fancy. He broke hearts in his wake and he didn't care.

That had been the life he lived for as long as he could remember.

Apart from a blurry two years of his life precisely.

Years that involved a conniving raven haired beauty he didn't want to think about.

Now, his live just felt empty after all the years of business deals, company takeovers and skirt chasing.

He was tired of the hustle and bustle of city life. He knew he needed a change. He had been feeling that way since God knows when.

He needed a breath of fresh air, a bit of the countryside maybe.

He was the only relative his grandparents had before their demise so he was left with their huge old Victorian house. He never had a chance to do anything about the property because he left after his grandma's burial who died months after his grandfather. He never stepped foot in Folks since seven years ago after her funeral.

To him, his grandparents were the only true relatives he ever had. They were the only ones who truly cared about him. His parents were snobbish socialites who were so selfish that they had no place for their only son in their lives.

His father was a rich spoilt brat who came from old money and had everything he needed in life handed to him on a platter of gold. He never had to work for a single thing in his lifetime, not even winning his mother's hand in marriage. His mother was a country chick who fell hopelessly in lust with his father when she met him. She was a beauty and she used all her feminine wiles to snare him into marriage the old fashioned way, she became pregnant, with him.

No woman was ever going to do that to him. He was forever conscious to take precautions in that department. He didn't want a child to feel the way his father made him feel his whole life, like a trap, which he actually was.

His parents' marriage was a very chaotic one until they led each other to their own demise.

He sighed heavily as he heard a knock on his door, followed by the door opening and the light steps of his personal assistant.

"Yes Emma?," he asked, turning from the window to face her.

Emma was in her mid forties with an oval pretty face. Her blond hair was mostly grey at the temples. She looked so strict and severe with her hair caught up in a tight bun with not a single strand out of place. But he knew she was a softie beneath it all. Apart from being his personal assistant, she was the closest thing to a sister he never had.

" I wanted to leave some documents for you to sign. I'm leaving for the day. I've dinner with my daughter tonight," she said, she smiled fondly.

"Oh..OK. I'll see to that. Have fun with your daughter, tell her I send my regards," he said returning her smile.

"Will do," she replied as she turned to go then turned back to face him all of a sudden with a knowing look on her face.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just wanted to tell you not to laze around here for the night pretending to work," she said with a twinkle in her eyes, " You should go home and get a good night rest. Knowing you, you won't be sleeping anyway," she said and turned to leave before he could give a reply.

He laughed as she departed. She was the only one who could tease him that way, apart from his long time friend and head of operations, Philip.

To his staff and males of his acquaintances, he was a cold and unfeeling jerk who only cared about work and women. He loved it that way because it made him to be respected and revered in the business world. Nothing made him think twice about a takeover. He was ruthless.

Watching as the door closed in Emma's wake, that was when he decided.

The country it is his much needed and overdue change of scenery.

If he had thoughts of encountering a redheaded woman during his stay in Folks, it was only fleeting.