Art crouched on the front steps of the bow-top Romany caravan, scratching the label on the beer he’d pulled out of the van’s icebox, and watched the merriment in the farmyard below.
They’d been at it most of the day and evening, clearing the years and years worth of junk out of the back barn. And now they were reaping their reward, tucking into the feast Dee had spent hours preparing. George Michael belted out some golden oldie from the eighties, the lyrics bouncing over the coppice woods in the muggy evening towards Art’s perch at the top of the rise. It wasn’t full dark yet, but the fairy lights Dee and the kids had strung across the yard twinkled in the half-light adding a festive flavour to the occasion as everyone settled onto the bench seats, filling their plates from the bowls and platters Dee had laid out on a side table.
While he sat up on the hill alone, having somehow morphed into Shrek.
They were planning another whole day of it tomorrow to get the building ready for the concrete mixer arriving on Monday. The heavy construction needed was minimal – replacing the ground slab and sandblasting and then repointing the brickwork was all that was necessary. He knew because he’d assessed the structure five years ago for Pam’s planning application. The barn itself was solid and already fit for purpose – give or take twenty years of accumulated crap. The bulk of the work to convert it into commercial premises would be in the fit-out. They’d need to add a customer toilet, sort out the plumbing and electrics, build in the shelving and cabinets and the kitchen units. And then he guessed Dee would supervise the decorating. But if they were going for a rustic look, which made sense, he doubted she’d go overboard on fancy design stuff.
Five weeks in total according to the business plan Ellie had done, which he’d spent the last week deciphering. The schedule would be tight. Very tight. To make it work, they’d need a good project manager. However much of an admin ninja Ellie was, he would bet his left nut she knew sod all about construction.
He did. He’d run the project to convert the dairy barn with Rob. And even though he had found the reading and writing part hard, he was certified as both a plumber and electrician.
He’d been mulling it over for the last week, ever since the original planning meeting and his argument with Ellie in the workshop. Maybe he’d underestimated her. The passion and determination in her eyes surprised him. And did it really matter what her motives were? He still had reservations about the whole thing, but when he’d heard about the bank loan being approved yesterday, his last chance of talking sense into everyone had been shot. Pam’s farm shop was happening, whether he wanted it to or not.
As he’d sat in the deserted kitchen last night, eating alone for the sixth night in a row, he’d been considering speaking to Ellie the next morning and offering his services. If for no other reason than to make sure she and the rest of the amateurs didn’t screw it up. If they were going to do this thing, they needed to do it right.
But that was before Ellie had stumbled into the kitchen at midnight, half-cut and far too cute in her tight jeans and mad hair, and challenged him to a drinking contest. The sloe gin and his reckless libido had done the rest.
She’d tasted nothing like the way he’d once imagined she would. Not that he’d imagined kissing her back then, if he could help it. She’d been a kid. A pushy, smart-arsed, pampered kid who thought she was better than him, so why the bloody hell would he want to kiss her? But the day before she’d left the commune, there had been one moment when he had not been completely immune.
That insane split second urge had come back to torture him ever since Ellie had returned. But it wasn’t until last night that the enormity of the problem had surfaced.
She’d been squinting at him, listening to some rubbish he was spouting off the top of his head about human sexuality – where had that come from? Her eyes had been all squiffy and unfocused, but sheened with something that his trashed brain had taken to be admiration, and the only coherent thought running through his head had been the same as the one from that day nineteen years ago.
I want to taste you.
But this time, he’d been unable to resist acting on it. And instead of being sweet and proper and stuck up, Ellie’s taste had been raw, needy and real enough to make him moan.
Even at fourteen, Ellie Preston had not been good for his mental health. Now she was a disaster zone.
He lifted the lid on the icebox at his feet and dumped the unopened bottle of beer back inside. Booze had got him into this pickle.
Kissing Ellie would have been bad back in the nineties, when she’d been young and annoying and he’d been monumentally screwed up, but kissing her now felt worse. Not only was Ellie married, she was also heading up a project that could mess up all their lives if it failed, and she was the prodigal daughter Dee had been desperate to welcome back ever since Pam’s death.
What if Ellie told Dee what she’d told him a week ago, about why she’d left that summer? Would Dee think he was nothing more than a big fat cuckoo who had kicked her own child out of the nest, to move in himself? It hadn’t been like that, he hadn’t meant it to be like that, but that’s what it would look like.
And then Dee would have to choose between him and Ellie, and she wasn’t going to choose him. Because no one ever had, not even his own mother.
How could he offer to be the project manager now? It would only make him look more guilty. More desperate for an affection he wasn’t even sure he deserved any more.
Maybe he could give Rob some pointers and persuade him to take on the job. It would save the expense of getting an outside contractor. And keep him well out of Ellie’s orbit for the rest of the summer, which was clearly where he needed to be before he gave in to any more suicidal urges.
Of course, he’d have to offer to take over Rob’s early morning milking schedule. But having to get up at 4 a.m. each day for a month to commune with a load of cows ought to teach him to keep his stupid mouth away from Ellie’s.
He listened to the indistinguishable murmur of conversation drifting up from the farmyard now that Dee had turned down George. Josh and Toto shouted and laughed, getting chased round the yard by one of the Jackson twins, while the adults sat jammed together finishing their meal in the twilight.
His gaze tracked instinctively to Ellie, who was tucked in between Jacob and Rob, her blonde hair shining in the glimmer of the fairy lights. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the perfumed echo of the gin. His pulse spiked at the memory of her soft sob of breath. The darting licks of her tongue as she explored his mouth.
He adjusted his jeans, feeling the pressure as the blood flowed into his lap.
He definitely needed to stay away from her.
‘I thought I’d find you up here.’
He jolted at the sound of Dee’s voice as her figure separated from the shadow of the trees.
‘I brought you some supper.’ She lifted the plate of food she held. ‘No need for you to go hungry while you sulk.’ She breathed deeply as she made her way to the top of the small hill.
‘I’m not sulking.’ If only it were that simple.
Dee sent him a sceptical side eye as she handed him the plate then produced a knife and fork wrapped in a napkin from the back pocket of her jeans.
‘Then why didn’t you come down to have supper with the rest of us?’
He perched the plate on his knees, and picked up a kebab. Tearing a cube of lamb off with his teeth, he took his time chewing the spicy, succulent meat.
She waited for him to swallow.
As they sat together in the gathering darkness, the fairy lights from the farmyard illuminating the scene below, the guilt felt as if it might choke him.
Who was he kidding? Maybe he hadn’t deliberately tried to make Ellie leave that summer, but he had been a total shit to her most of the time. And the reason for that, it seemed so obvious now, was jealousy. She’d had Dee and he hadn’t. What would he do if he lost Dee’s friendship? If she stopped caring about him sitting up here on his own? If she stopped worrying about whether he’d eaten or not? He’d always hated being fussed over, but what if Dee never fussed over him again? He was so used to it now he would miss it.
‘I had some stuff to finish up in the workshop,’ he said, in answer to her question – an answer that was almost true.
‘Then why are you sitting all the way up here on your own instead of finishing up that stuff in the workshop?’
She had him there.
‘Because I finished and I wanted some quiet.’ That was better, more convincing. ‘I wasn’t in the mood for company.’ Which was actually true. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for a particular person’s company.
‘So is this a problem with the project still, or is it Ellie?’
The fork he’d been using to shovel up a mouthful of Dee’s salad selection clattered onto the plate. ‘What?’
Dee sighed. ‘Are you still sulking about the project going ahead, or is this an issue with Ellie? Because she spoke to me this morning, in the grips of a terrible hangover, and told me you two had come to an accord.’
An accord? Is that what they were calling it?
‘We had a few drinks, that was all.’ Panic skittered up his spine. What else had Ellie told her mother? ‘And I told you I’m not sulking.’ Much.
‘She also told me what you accused her of after our initial project meeting.’
Oh hell. The guilt hissed and twisted inside him like a snake. ‘I’ve got legitimate concerns about the project.’
‘Which have been duly noted,’ Dee said, patiently. She didn’t sound angry, just resigned. He wasn’t sure what was worse. ‘And, as I told you then, you don’t have to protect me, to protect any of us. Ellie didn’t come up with this idea all on her own. We came up with it together. So you need to stop being so hostile towards her.’
She knew. He could hear it in her voice. The disappointment. The distance. Ellie had told her everything. All the stupid, nasty things he’d done as a teenager to push her away, to make her feel like dirt, and now Dee was here to cut him loose. And, the worst of it was, he knew on some level he deserved it.
He ducked his head, staring at the plate half full of the colourful salads she’d brought up to him, not hungry any more. ‘I’m sorry, I never meant to make her go,’ he said, resigned too now.
His relationship with Dee would never be the same again. But whose fault was that? Ever since Ellie had returned, it had been bound to come out. What an arse wipe he’d been as a kid. He’d been hostile towards Ellie as soon as she had reappeared, because he’d been scared. Maybe if he’d managed to stay away from Ellie, managed not to let all those self-destructive urges come out of hiding last night, he wouldn’t have exposed himself to this. But he hadn’t and now Dee knew. That she’d spent nineteen years without a daughter, because of him.
‘Could you be more specific about what you’re apologising for?’ Dee said.
‘I didn’t mean to make her leave that summer. I actually liked her,’ he said in his defence, trying to explain the unexplainable. ‘But I didn’t really figure that out until she’d gone and by then it was too late.’ He was talking nonsense, like a politician trying to cover his tracks.
Dee pressed a hand to his thigh. ‘Art, look at me.’
He turned, steeling himself for the contempt he expected, but all she did was smile. The kind, caring smile he had come to rely on without even realising it.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she said.
She didn’t know. For a moment, relief surged. Ellie hadn’t said anything. Why hadn’t Ellie said anything? Had it been the kiss? Maybe she hadn’t been as freaked out about it as he had? Was that a good thing? But, as Dee continued to smile at him, her brows furrowed, waiting for a coherent answer, the relief fizzled out. Maybe she didn’t know yet, but he was going to have to tell her. And take the risk, because he could not live with this hanging over him.
‘I thought Ellie told you,’ he said.
‘Told me what?’
‘That the reason she left that day with her dad was because of me. She came to see me the afternoon before, and I made her cry.’
She sighed, but the smile didn’t falter. ‘Oh, Art, don’t be an idiot.’
OK, that wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. He guessed it had to be better than what he had been expecting, but the smile seemed almost pitying now, which couldn’t be good. ‘Why does that make me an idiot?’
‘Ellie didn’t leave because of you.’
‘Yes, she did, she told me she did, a week ago.’ He wasn’t sure why he was arguing the point, but it seemed important to come clean about it all.
‘She left for a whole host of reasons,’ Dee said. ‘I’m sure your behaviour towards her didn’t help, and she may even have persuaded herself it was the cause, but the truth was she was vulnerable then, and so were you. And I was the one who didn’t recognise that. It was my job to make her feel secure and loved, not yours.’
‘But you don’t know all the things I–’
‘And I don’t want to know.’ Dee pressed a finger to his lips, halting the confession he was about to make. ‘You were a child back then, unloved and broken, nothing you did then would change my opinion of you now.’
‘Thanks.’ He ducked his head, embarrassed by how much that meant to him.
She touched his cheek, forcing his gaze back to hers. ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that once Ellie left, I needed you, too?’
‘I guess not.’
‘I’ll admit my affection for you at first was probably transference. When Laura ran off with Rupert, I knew I could be useful to you and being useful helped me deal with losing Ellie.’ Moisture collected at the corners of her eyes.
Panic gripped him again. ‘Jesus, Dee, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to remind you of all that.’
She sniffed and wiped a thumb under her eyelid to collect the drop. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m not sad. Ellie’s back now and we’re going to rebuild our relationship. We’ve already made a good start.’
‘Then why are you crying?’
‘I’m sad that you still don’t realise how important you are, to me and Toto and everyone else here.’
‘Not that important,’ he said. ‘I managed to totally screw up the farm’s management.’
However badly he’d treated Ellie way back when, and however stupid the decision to kiss her last night while she was pissed, he could have done without her pointing out to the whole co-op what a loser he was as a manager.
‘Stop it,’ Dee said, impatiently. ‘You took on a job you hated, because I asked you to, and you never once complained. And the farm’s financial situation is not your fault. You need to stop blaming yourself all the time. You did the same with Alicia and it drove me mad.’
His stomach plummeted. Please God, they were not going to talk about Alicia now. How had a simple apology turned into his worst nightmare?
‘Alicia was fragile,’ he said. ‘I screwed her, got her pregnant and then kicked her out. Toto doesn’t have a mother because I made a mess of things.’
‘Alicia was a twenty-six-year-old woman and you were seventeen when you first started screwing each other on a regular basis, so I think you’re kidding yourself if you think you seduced her.’
Dee’s crude assessment of his affair with Alicia was a slap to his pride, but the revelation that Dee had known about them from the start added a nice thick layer of humiliation.
‘You didn’t mess up Alicia,’ Dee stressed. ‘She had serious addiction issues, which she made no effort to solve. You did the right thing kicking her out and Toto is better off because of it.’
Was she? There was something Ellie had shouted at him her first day on the farm that had been torturing him ever since. And he couldn’t hold on to his guilt about that a moment longer.
‘Toto wants to be a boy,’ he said. ‘How is that better off?’ His daughter had gender identity issues for Chrissake.
‘Toto doesn’t want to be a boy,’ Dee said, dismissing his fears with an impatient flick of her wrist. ‘She wants to be like you. But, even if she did want to be a boy, why would that be a bad thing?’
‘Because she’s not one?’ Wasn’t it obvious? What exactly were they talking about now? This was precisely why he didn’t get involved in these sorts of conversations. They never made any sense.
‘Does Toto strike you as a child who is unhappy in her own skin?’ Dee asked him sternly.
‘No… I… I guess not.’
‘Then stop talking nonsense.’ She glanced at his plate. ‘Are you going to finish that?’
He scooped another forkful of salad, grateful that they weren’t talking about his failings as a father any more. Or about Ellie. Because even if Dee was OK with what had happened nineteen years ago, he didn’t think she would be OK with what had happened last night.
He ate in silence. His appetite returned as he shovelled the cacophony of salad flavours into his mouth, chewed off another bite of the lamb.
Everyone was packing the tables and chairs away in the farmyard. He scanned the shadows for Ellie, but couldn’t find her. His stomach dipped as a light turned on in the farmhouse kitchen. He scraped the plate.
Dee stood and took it from him. ‘Can I ask you a favour?’
‘Sure,’ he said, hoping it wasn’t going to involve any more in-depth discussions about his past screw ups.
‘We need you to be project manager.’
‘Rob can do it. I can offer to handle the milking. I don’t have time to…’
‘Can’t you make time?’ Dee cut through the excuse with a smile of encouragement. ‘Ellie’s under a huge amount of pressure with this project. She’s handling all the permits and licences, trying to sort out a grant with the Rural Enterprise Advisor, liaising with the FARMA rep, speaking to the council about getting all the certificates we need to confirm the planning situation, working out produce rotas and me, her and Tess are going to be spending two days in Somerset next week at an intensive farm-shop management course. On top of all that, she’s emotionally fragile, she’s come here while in the middle of divorcing her husband.’
She’s what? A shot of adrenaline had his just-eaten meal dancing in time with his pulse.
‘Now that you’re speaking to each other again–’ Dee was still talking while his mind reeled from the news ‘–there’s nothing stopping you from working together. Rob hasn’t got anywhere near as much experience as you. So you’re the best one to take on the project manager’s role.’
What could he say? He’d just got through acknowledging how much Dee meant to him. He’d never be able to repay her for all the support she’d shown him over the years. And she was right, on paper he looked like the perfect fit for the job.
But the next five weeks would be hell. Not only would he have to pull eighteen-hour days to keep the project on schedule and make sure he didn’t slip up with this, the way he’d slipped up with the farm’s financials, but Ellie would be there with him, every step of the way. Ellie and her lips promising that tart, sexy taste that he had not been able to resist last night. How would he stand it?
But then Dee said: ‘Please, Art, do this for me.’ And he knew he couldn’t refuse.
‘OK.’
‘Thank you.’ Dee leant down and kissed his forehead. ‘Do you want to come down and tell Ellie now? She’ll be so pleased.’
He shook his head. He doubted that. And, if by some miracle she was, she might get out the sloe gin again to celebrate and then where would they be?
‘You tell her. I can go over the logistics tomorrow while we finish clearing out the barn.’ And when he’d be guaranteed to have an audience of at least twelve people.
‘We? So you’re joining us for the rest of the clear-out?’ Dee sounded so pleased, he felt like even more of a fraud.
‘If I’m going to be project manager, I need to get acquainted with my crew.’ And keep busy enough to forget about one of them. ‘I think I’ll stay in the van tonight,’ he added.
Dee nodded. She was used to him sleeping up here on his own when he needed a people break and he certainly needed one now. He’d originally built the thing for Toto’s sixth birthday, so they could have some father–daughter bonding time away from everyone. They’d roast marshmallows, get tucked up in their sleeping bags, and he’d usually nod off while he listened to Toto’s motormouth commentary on her latest favourite book or TV show, because with Toto there was rarely a gap in the conversation. But they hadn’t used it much in the last few years, and they hadn’t been up here at all this summer, not since Josh had arrived.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Dee brushed a hand over his hair. The familiar touch – which he’d taken for granted so often – made his chest hurt.
She lit the lantern to lead herself back through the darkness, but turned as she reached the treeline. ‘By the way, don’t mention the divorce to Josh, or Toto. Josh doesn’t know about it yet. Ellie’s waiting to find the right time to discuss it with him. So she doesn’t ruin his summer with the news.’
Lucky Josh.
He wished someone could have kept the news from him too.
Dee disappeared into the trees, and then reappeared down below, the lantern bobbing as she came out of the woods and headed into the farmhouse.
He reached back into the icebox.
Even without Jacob and Maddy within earshot breaking the sound barrier, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to be getting a lot of sleep tonight. The damage to his peace of mind had already been done.
He was having a bloody beer.