She hadn't changed one bit, simply matured like a fine wine.

Harrison was still reeling from the shock of seeing Juliet, which had affected him far more than he expected. He knew seeing her again might unsettle him a little, but this. This was ridiculous. When he had realised that it was Juliet's car that Luke had hit last night, he wanted to kill his little brother. Which was an insane reaction, even for a Bow. His ancestors were known for doing some pretty crazy things when riled, but on the whole, Harrison was mellow and fairly laid back. At least he thought he was. That woman certainly brought out strong emotions in him.

It had been the same the first time he'd lain eyes on her, twenty years ago. It was a freezing February morning; a grey and cloudy day and his grandfather had taken him to The Grange. Rufus told him he had some business to do with his friend, Bernard Bell and that Harrison should go and entertain himself for an hour and then return to the car. One look at the grounds, and Harrison was in his element.

He walked around, taking in every tree, every nook and cranny of the beautiful gardens, the hedges and paths covered in frost, ornate lead pots filled with winter blooms, life-sized statues standing high on tall, stone plinths, a row of conifers leading to a wood. He would love to live somewhere with grounds like these.

He was a sensitive teenager, according to his grandfather, happy to spend hours outdoors doing nothing in particular, simply enjoying his surroundings, reading a book or sitting in a chair beside a window. Not the usual pastimes for an eighteen-year-old. But he was happy. At least, as happy as you could be when you've just lost your parents within six months of each other. His mum to cancer, his dad to a massive heart attack.

Rufus had taken him and Luke in. They had nowhere else to go. But Luke was away at boarding school and Harrison would soon be off to university, so they wouldn't be spending much time with their grandfather. Prior to his parents' passing, they hadn't seen much of Rufus. There had been some sort of falling out, but Harrison didn't know the details and his parents never talked of it. Neither did Rufus. The old man had been nothing like Harrison's dad though, that much was clear, and Harrison missed his parents every day.

On that particular day, he walked through the woods in the grounds of The Grange and saw the lake. The clouds parted and the sun filtered through the trees until he left the wood and walked out into the open, and felt the full force of it. Not so much the warmth – it was February after all – but the power of the light, and for a moment it had blinded him and he raised his hand to shield his eyes.

Through half-closed lids, he saw her. She looked ethereal as she glided across the ice, small shards flying into the air as her skates cut into it, sparkling in the sunlight. Her hair was the colour of summer, like ripening strawberries. She was dressed from head to toe in white and he wondered if one of the statues had come to life and taken to the ice. He was positively mesmerised, and she was completely unaware that he had walked to the lake and sat on a wooden bench which was covered in frost. He wasn't sure how long he sat and watched her until her skates carved into the ice with a grating sound a short distance away and she stared directly at him.

'Hello,' she said, the look of surprise on her lovely, freckled face replaced by a wondrous smile.

She wasn't exactly beautiful but she took his breath away. It took him a moment or two to reply and then all he said was, 'Hi.'

'What are you doing here?' She moved towards him, her body swaying gracefully as she covered the ice between them.

'Watching you.' He took his hands out of his pockets. Perhaps she would skate right into his arms. But she had stopped a metre or so away from him. 'You should be in the Olympics.'

'Thank you. But I'm not that good.'

'You're perfect. I mean. You look really good to me. On the ice. Skating, I mean. You looked good skating. Not that you don't look good now. You do. Um.' He ran a hand through his hair. 'I'm making a bit of a mess of this. Hi. I'm Harrison. Harrison Bow.' He smiled at her. Could she hear his heart thumping or see the perspiration on his forehead? He didn't reach out his hand; clammy palms were definitely not cool. His mouth was dry. He was having trouble swallowing.

'I'm Juliet. It's lovely to meet you.'

'Juliet? Wow. That's a pretty name.'

'Please don't ask me where my Romeo is. I get that all the time from Mrs D.'

'Mrs D?'

'Oh. Mrs Dobbie. She owns Dobbie's Convenience Store on Mistletoe Row.'

'Mistletoe Row?'

She laughed and it sounded more like angel song. Not that he knew exactly what that sounded like, but her laugh was the most mellifluous sound he'd ever heard.

'You're not from around here, are you?'

'Are you?'

Her brows furrowed a little. 'Are you going to repeat everything I say?'

'Sorry. I mean, do you live near here?'

'Oh. Yes. I live here, actually.'

'The Lady of the Lake?' He raised his brows and performed a dramatic bow. 'It's an honour. May I be your knight in shining armour?'

She laughed again and then hesitated. 'Are you making fun of me?'

'No! Absolutely not.'

She smiled. 'Well okay then.' She gave a delicate curtsy. 'You may.' She skated towards him but one of her blades hit a stone at the edge of the lake and as she fell forwards, he caught her in his arms. 'You are,' she said, looking up into his eyes. 'Thank you for saving me.'

'Anytime, Juliet.'

He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that; his arms around her, her hands on his arms, but he wanted it to be forever.

'Shall we sit?' She pointed hesitantly at the bench.

'I'd like that. Have you lived here all your life? It's so beautiful. I'd love to live in a place like this. Well, to have these grounds. And this lake. You're very lucky.'

She seemed sad, suddenly, and she shook her head. 'It's not all bliss. I think my dad's got money worries. I heard him arguing with my mum.' She looked surprised, as if she hadn't meant to open up to him. 'Sorry. You don't want to hear about my problems.'

'I do, Juliet,' he coaxed, reaching out his hands and taking hers in his. 'I want to hear anything you want to tell me.'

'You'd be bored to tears.'

'No, I wouldn't. Nothing you could say would bore me. Please, Juliet. I'm a good listener.'

And she'd told him quite a lot. She had poured out her heart and soul to him and he had listened. So much so that he'd lost all track of time.

'I've got to go,' he said, 'but I wish I didn't have to.'

'So do I,' she replied.

Reluctantly he eased himself away, her hands sliding from his until only their fingers were touching. He curled his fingers tightly round hers. 'Will you go on a date with me? Today? I've just got to go and tell someone where I'll be and then I'll come back.'

She nodded vigorously. 'Yes. Shall I wait here?'

'Yes. I won't be long.'

Without another word, he ran along a different path which he could tell led to the park he and his grandfather had seen as they drove up to the front of the house. He'd never run so fast and when he reached the car, he was out of breath, but his grandfather was nowhere in sight. He could go inside and ask to see him, but that would waste time. Instead, he pulled out the small notepad and pen he always carried around with him and scribbled a note which he pinned under the windscreen wiper. “I'll see you later. I'm spending the day with someone. I've got cash. Will make my own way home. Harrison.” He ran back to Juliet as fast as he could.

She was still sitting on the bench, staring at the lake, her skates hanging from her hands resting in her lap. She looked deep in thought. She was now wearing black boots. Black leather boots which came to a point at her knees. She was the sexiest girl he had ever seen and once again, she took his breath away.

'Juliet!' he called out and waved to her.

She seemed startled, but when she turned to face him, sadness drained from her face and was replaced by an excited smile. She looked so beautiful, and even a little vulnerable.

'Harrison! You came back.'

'I said I would. Are you okay?'

She nodded. 'Yes. I'm fine.' Then she sighed as if all the troubles in the world had been lifted from her shoulders. 'That's not true. I'm not. But now that you're back, I feel as if I could be. Does that sound crazy?'

'It doesn't sound crazy at all.'

At some point, he now realised, it must have occurred to him that he should've told her his grandfather was at The Grange with her dad. It also must've occurred to him, deep down, the reason why. But he hadn't said a word. He merely listened. And when, eventually, they had talked of other things, and she had asked what he was doing by the lake that morning, he should've said more than, 'Just admiring the view.' But she hadn't pressed him. She was so caught up in her own troubles that she couldn't really think of anything else, or so it seemed to him.

They had walked, talked, laughed. By the afternoon, they were holding hands as if they were in love. By the evening, they were arm in arm. And when he walked her to the door of The Grange, he had kissed her on the lips.

He could still remember that kiss. Twenty years, and God alone knew how many kisses with other women since, but that kiss was the one that stayed with him. Talk about crazy. He lost his heart to a sixteen-year-old girl that day, and he never got it back.

No. That wasn't exactly true. He had got it back. Later that night, as he stood waiting for a bus to take him to the station in Mistletythe, so that he could get a train home to his grandfather's, she had thrown it back at him, but in tiny little smashed up pieces. She had called him a bloodsucking pariah, and his grandfather too. And she'd told him that she never, ever wanted to see him again for as long as they both lived and that she wished that he were dead.

She had said a few other unpleasant things too, but having only recently lost his parents, being told by the girl he believed could make his future bright and perfect and blissfully happy, that she wished him dead, was really the last thing he had heard.

And later, when he asked his grandfather what happened at the house, and was told that Rufus had been trying to buy the place for a year, but that Bernard Bell had held out until that very day, he felt even more annoyed that Juliet had taken out her frustration on him – an innocent party. Once he'd calmed down, he could see it from her point of view.

'I've got to go back and explain,' he told his grandfather the following day.

'To her? To that Bell girl? To a sixteen-year-old with no money. Don't be ridiculous, Harrison. You have a bright future ahead of you. And so does Luke. Don't throw that away on some silly little girl. You can have any girl you want.'

'She's not a silly little girl, Grandfather. And she's the girl I want. I simply need to make her understand what happened.'

Rufus curled his upper lip and sneered at him. 'The Bows don't go grovelling to the Bells, my boy. They never have and they never will. I did them a favour by paying more than I needed to, to get The Grange. But our family has wanted that place for years and now, we've finally got it. It'll be yours one day, Harrison. Come your thirtieth birthday, you'll inherit the place. We can be the grand family we always should've been. You need to marry someone who can add to our wealth, not some girl who'll waste it like her foolish father has.'

Harrison laughed mirthlessly. 'I don't want to be a grand family. And when I marry, it'll be for love, not money. This is 1998, Grandfather, not 1798. Stuff like that doesn't matter these days. It hasn't done for decades.'

'It matters to families like ours, my boy. And believe me, it matters to the Bells, too. That girl would like nothing more than to get the house back, and what better way than to make the man who'll eventually own it, fall head over heels in love with her. Did it even occur to you that she knew exactly who you were? Good God, boy. Have you no sense whatsoever? Apart from the fact you only met the girl yesterday, can't you see what she's doing?'

Harrison was thrown off balance for a second. 'No. She hadn't a clue who I was. That's why she was so mad with me. I'm going to see her, Grandfather, whether you like it or not. And, yes, I've only known her for one day, but Mum once told me that when you meet your soulmate, you know. You feel it in every part of you. I felt it when I saw Juliet. And I believe she felt it too.'

Rufus thumped his fist on the desk and leapt to his feet. 'Your mother was an idiot, Harrison. She lived in the land of fairy tales. My son should never have married her, but like you, he wouldn't listen. Well, there was nothing I could do to stop him throwing his life away over a silly girl. But there is something I can do to stop you from making the same mistake.'

 Harrison clenched his fists and glowered. 'Don't ever call my mother that again. She and Dad were deeply in love until the day they died. They were happy, unlike you. I'm sorry to have to break this to you, Grandfather, but just like with my dad, there's nothing you can say or do to make me change my mind.'

'Oh, isn't there?' Rufus said as Harrison turned to leave the room. 'Do you want to ruin your little brother's life too? Because that's exactly what you'll do if you go back to that girl. Today, or any day from now. Who do you think's paying for him to be at that posh school of his, eh? Who provides him – and you for that matter – with a roof over your heads? Stay away from that girl or believe me, things will change around here. And not for the better as far as Luke's concerned. I hope I have made myself clear.'

Harrison sucked in a breath but he didn't turn around.

'Even if it means I'll hate you for the rest of your life?'

Rufus gave a snort of derision. 'You won't hate me. I'm blood. But yes. Even then.'

Harrison had no choice. He could never do anything to jeopardize Luke's future; the ten-year-old had gone through enough.

So they had moved into The Grange and Harrison spent the little time he was there, walking around the grounds, or locked in his room with a book and when he'd left a few weeks later to do some volunteer work abroad before starting university, he vowed he would never set foot inside The Grange again, nor drive along Mistletoe Row, the scene of one of the unhappiest times of his life.

And until last night, he hadn't.