Two days later, Ellie sat in the kitchen and chewed at a ragged thumbnail after a morning spent picking strawberries with Josh for Dee’s latest batch of shortbread.
Nicole at Nails R Us on the corner of Main and Fifth in Orchard Harbor would have a fit if she could see the state of Ellie’s manicure.
‘Why don’t I show you how to use the bread maker this afternoon?’ her mother said, as she slid a plate of fennel and endive salad in front of her with a bowl of freshly baked bread rolls. ‘We’ve got a batch to make for tomorrow’s market in Swindon and it’s a lot less hard on the hands.’
Ellie breathed in the yeasty aroma and picked up her fork. ‘I’d certainly be quite happy never to see another strawberry again in this lifetime.’
But, as she tucked into her lunch, she recalled the hushed conversations and hidden looks directed at her during her visits to Nicole, as she pretended she didn’t know her husband had flirted with most of the women there and probably slept with a few of them too. Chipped polish and fruit stains suddenly seemed a small price to pay not to have to do the walk of shame each week at the local beauty parlour.
And running herself ragged with Tess on Sunday afternoon on the farm’s market stall had been an even better distraction than picking strawberries until her manicure died. Chatting to customers, wrapping what felt like a million cakes and loaves in paper until her fingers ached, and ringing the mounting sales up on the stall’s antique till had been so much more exhilarating than all the small talk she’d had to endure with her fair-weather friends in Orchard Harbor.
As she and Tess had packed up the empty trays, swept the debris, folded away the farm’s tables and gazebo and loaded everything into Tess’s car, the sense of achievement and camaraderie had been immense – so much more rewarding than attempting to ingratiate herself with women who she suspected had viewed her with pity or contempt.
‘Rob’s wife Annie does a mean manicure.’ Dee put a plate in front of Josh and took his DS out of his hands to replace it with a fork. ‘You, Tess, Maddy and Annie should arrange a girls’ night in soon so you can get your nails fixed.’
‘I’d love that,’ Ellie said as she split open a roll and slathered it with butter. She’d met Annie yesterday, and had warmed to her instantly. A petite woman with the will of a Trojan and a broad Northern accent, Annie Jackson had been busy corralling her twin toddlers, Jamie and Freddie, while she dropped off some of her husband’s home-made elderflower fizz for the weekend’s stall. Of course, the two of them had been forced to sample some of it with a slice of Dee’s banana nut bread. By the time they’d moved on to coffee, they’d discussed everything from the current state of US politics to the pee hazards involved when changing the nappies of baby boys. Ellie had conceded that Josh’s aim was nowhere near as hazardous as Annie’s two boys.
‘I’ll suggest it to Annie, then, so you guys can all get together soon,’ said her mother.
‘Won’t you be joining us?’ Ellie asked, surprised that the thought didn’t feel as uncomfortable as it probably would have three days ago, when she’d arrived.
Her mother picked up her fork. ‘I’m afraid manicures are totally wasted on me.’ The wistful tone told Ellie that there was more to the refusal, but she didn’t push. Maybe her mother was just being diplomatic, and wanted to let Ellie get to know the other co-op women on her own terms.
As Ellie finished her lunch, she watched Josh plough through his salad. While he’d never been a fussy eater, he wasn’t a particularly adventurous one either, but the last three days of exercise and fresh air had turned that around. As soon as Toto got home from school, the two of them headed off on another adventure and stayed out until supper.
In an attempt not to freak out when he returned each evening either covered in mud or with some unexplained raw spot on his elbow or chin, Ellie had kept busy, helping her mother with the cooking and KP duties. Dee had given her endless assurances that Toto knew how to stay safe on the farm, but even so Ellie had set some ground rules – such as no climbing on the combine harvester, or playing handsy with Art’s rotary blade.
And here was her reward. Not only had Josh spent very little time on his DS in the last few days, she suspected he’d never eaten so many fresh vegetables in his life. He was a little boy. A boisterous little boy, who had been overcautious for too long.
His nutritionist back home would be ecstatic.
‘When will Toto be back from school?’ Josh asked, around a mouthful of bread roll.
‘Not till four,’ Ellie replied. She’d learnt the bus schedule off by heart, because Josh asked the same question every lunchtime.
‘But that’s hours away and I’m bored,’ he said. ‘Toto says she’s got weeks and weeks of school left and I won’t have anything to do all day when she’s gone.’
‘You liked helping with the strawberries, didn’t you?’ Ellie asked. Why hadn’t she considered how bored Josh was likely to be with Toto at school most of the day?
‘But we’ve finished that,’ Josh said. ‘And it’s not as good as building a hideout with Toto.’
‘Maybe you could go and hang out with Melody until Toto gets back?’ Ellie said. Her mother looked after Tess’s daughter each morning while Tess was at work in Gratesbury, and Ellie knew Josh had helped to entertain her the day before.
‘Melody’s OK, but she’s only four,’ Josh said, exasperated. ‘And she’s a girl. All she wants to do is play with her doll. And sing dumb songs, really loud.’
Ellie didn’t think it would help to point out Toto was a girl too.
‘I tell you what, Josh,’ Dee cut in. ‘Why don’t I ring up the head teacher at Toto’s school this afternoon? Maybe you could go for a visit tomorrow? Would you like that?’
Josh chewed his lip – a sure sign of the nervousness and trepidation that had dogged his time in Charles Hamilton Middle School. Ellie was about to intervene, and explain to her mother that school was a problematic environment for Josh, when her son surprised her.
‘I could go to Toto’s school with her?’ He actually sounded curious.
‘I can’t promise anything,’ Dee said. ‘But if you’d like to go in with Toto for the day tomorrow, and try it out, I could certainly ask her head teacher. Marjorie’s a friend of mine and a lovely lady and I’m sure if I explained everything there might be a way to make it work. They have exchange visits with children from France all the time. I don’t see why this should be any different.’
‘Yes!’ Josh punched the air and bounced out of his seat. ‘Just wait till I tell Toto. I’m going to go get my stuff ready.’ He shot out of the room and Ellie heard him racing up the stairs.
‘Do you really think the head teacher will go for the idea?’ she asked her mother. ‘I don’t want to get his hopes up.’ Especially as she’d never seen Josh this enthusiastic about the thought of attending school.
‘Toto’s school is a new school, so they have places to fill at the moment. And Marjorie is the local organiser for the Women’s Institute – if there’s a way to make it happen, she’ll find it.’
‘I’m sure she will but what if…’
‘We’ll find something else for Josh to do,’ her mother interrupted gently. ‘There’s a million and one chores round here. Maybe he could help Art out in the workshop?’
‘And risk getting his hand chopped off? I don’t think so.’
Plus, she couldn’t see Art going for that idea. Art had taken his trademark sullenness to a whole new level in the last few days, skulking at the opposite end of the table during supper time as he picked at his food with his uninjured hand, his beard growth starting to make him look like a particularly disreputable pirate. Only last night, he’d chastised Toto for giggling too much at one of Jacob’s jokes. Toto had taken the harsh comment in her stride, obviously used to her father’s moods, but Josh had looked terrified. Her son tended to get anxious around men at the best of times, probably because he’d spent so much of his childhood trying and failing to attract Dan’s attention. And Art, with his no-frills parenting, was a great deal more intimidating than Dan.
‘It may surprise you to know that Art is actually great with kids,’ Dee said. ‘And he’s never usually clumsy. I still can’t imagine how he cut himself so badly.’
Ellie was reserving judgement on Art’s way with children. Toto and Melody might adore him, and Josh was clearly in awe of him, plus she could remember how he’d managed to hypnotise the other children at the commune when they’d been teenagers together, but that did not mean she was going to expose a child as sensitive as Josh to Art’s moods.
And she didn’t trust Dee’s opinion on Art, because it was fairly obvious she was a founder member of the Art Dalton Appreciation Society.
Ellie carried their used dishes to the sink and rinsed them off. ‘Here’s hoping the school visit pans out, so we never have to consider the nuclear option.’
‘I’ll go ring Marjorie now and see what she says,’ her mother announced as she placed the rest of the dishes in the sink. ‘Could you do me a favour while I’m handling that?’
‘Sure,’ Ellie said, placing a rinsed plate on the draining board.
‘Would you take some salad and bread into Art in the study?’ Dee opened a drawer and rummaged around. ‘And check up on him while you’re at it. I’m worried that hand may have got infected, he’s been so grumpy the last couple of days.’
Ellie dried her hands. ‘Isn’t that his natural state?’
What exactly did her mother mean by ‘check up on him’? She’d already done her shift as Art’s keeper.
‘I’m worried about him.’ Dee pulled a thin pencil-sized leather case from the drawer then held it towards Ellie.
‘What’s that?’ Ellie stared at the case as if it contained an unexploded nuclear warhead.
Please don’t let this be what I think it is.
‘A thermometer,’ Dee replied, shattering Ellie’s hopes. ‘All you need to do is take his temperature. It won’t take you a minute and it will put my mind at rest.’
Yeah, but it’s liable to make my mind explode.
‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking his temperature.’ Like, at all.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I hardly know the guy.’ And what I do know is only going to make this situation more supremely uncomfortable.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Dee lifted Ellie’s hand and slapped the thermometer into her palm. ‘Just get him to hold it under his tongue for two minutes. He’s more likely to do it for you than me.’
‘Why on earth would you think that?’ Ellie asked. Was her mother delusional?
‘Because he let you drive him to the hospital,’ Dee said, as if that made any sense at all. ‘And he hates hospitals.’
So saying, Dee rushed off, leaving Ellie holding the nuclear warhead.
Shoving the thermometer into her back pocket, she trooped down the hallway towards the office at the back of the house and rapped on the door.
‘Go away. I’m busy.’
Apparently, Mr Grumpy had gone from cranky to super cranky since yesterday evening.
With the nuclear warhead branding her bottom through her jeans, Ellie opened the door, certain that no superpower on earth was liable to stop this situation blowing up in her face.
She braced herself as she stepped into the cramped room. Art sat crouched over some papers, his hair swept back in untidy rows as if he’d spent the day running agitated fingers through it. An ancient desktop computer hummed in the corner like a demented bumble bee. The once white bandage was now an unhealthy shade of grey where his hand rested on the table.
‘Hi.’
He swung round, looking surprised for a moment. And then pissed off.
Quelle surprise.
‘What do you want?’
She whipped the thermometer out of her back pocket like Harry Potter preparing to do the Expelliarmus Spell.
If only.
‘I’ve got good news and bad news,’ she said. Time to go on the offensive. There was no point being a wimp around Art, because he would stomp all over her. So he was having his temperature taken now even if she had to shove her wand right up his bum.
He eyeballed the thermometer. ‘What’s the bad news?’
‘The bad news is I’m here on a mission from my mother to take your temperature.’
‘So, what’s the good news?’
‘You’re going to hate this even more than I do.’
*
I do not believe it!
Art stared at the thermometer – and wanted to punch a wall. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, because one hand was throbbing like a rotten tooth and damaging the other one would leave him helpless.
Damn Dee for siccing her daughter on him. And damn Ellie for looking like she was enjoying this. ‘I don’t have a temperature.’
‘Tell that to my mum, she’s worried about you.’
‘Go back and tell her yourself.’
She stepped into the room and closed the door, making the space feel even more claustrophobic than usual. He could smell her, that fresh spicy scent that had enveloped him while he’d dozed off in the car on the way back from the clinic.
‘Unfortunately for both of us –’ she propped her bottom on the desk ‘– that’s not going to wash when you haven’t eaten a full meal in days.’
‘I’m not hungry.’ Like he was going to tell her the real reason he wasn’t eating. She’d probably crack a rib laughing.
She shook her head. ‘Nope, that won’t work either. Unless you’ve suddenly become a closet anorexic. And I’m afraid if you have that’s only going to make Dee worry more.’
‘She’s not my keeper and neither are you.’
‘Yes, I believe you said that already.’
‘So why aren’t you listening?’
She opened the leather case and dropped the glass tube into her palm. ‘What exactly is so terrifying about having your temperature taken?’
‘I don’t have a temperature.’ He grabbed her other hand and slapped it onto his forehead, to prove the point.
The feel of her palm, cool and soft, pressed to his skin didn’t help with the tugging sensation deep in his abdomen. He dropped her hand.
‘Satisfied?’ He cleared his throat, because the word had come out on a husky rumble.
Ellie pressed her palm into her jeans, and scrubbed it down her thigh.
‘I am. Dee won’t be.’ She wielded the thermometer like a lightsaber. ‘Unless I hand her conclusive proof, she’ll only harass you herself. So stop being a pain in the arse and stick this under your tongue for two minutes.’
He was debating whether to do it, just to get this over with and her and her subtle sexy scent the hell out of his office, when his stomach growled like a marauding mountain lion that hadn’t been properly fed for two days – probably because it hadn’t.
Ellie glanced pointedly at his belly. ‘Not hungry, huh?’
‘Bloody hell.’ He grabbed the thermometer – with the wrong hand.
Lightning lanced through his palm and shot up his arm. He swore viciously, jerking his hand back and cradling it against his midriff as the burning pain kicked up several thousand degrees.
‘Did that hurt?’
‘Of course it hurt, I’ve got about a hundred stitches in it. Now go away.’ He rocked, waiting for the lancing pain to subside, not caring that he was being an arsehole. He hadn’t asked her to come in here and harass him. His head felt like someone was trying to hook out his eyeballs with a coat hanger, his stomach was so empty it was practically inside out and now his hand was about to drop off altogether. The only thing that could make his misery any more complete was having Ellie Preston leaning over him with a worried look on her face.
Bingo.
‘I’ve got work to do,’ he added, the pain finally dulling to just about manageable.
Work that gave him a headache at the best of times. And which had transported him into a whole new level of purgatory since Sunday.
‘Dr Grant gave you some heavy duty painkillers, why aren’t you using them?’
Because they made him feel woozy and gave him nightmares. He’d woken up the first night sweating and swearing and thrashing about like a madman in the grip of a dream that had felt far too real. He hadn’t taken the painkillers since.
‘Bugger off.’
‘No.’ She pushed away from the desk and lifted his wrist.
He flinched. ‘Don’t.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to take the bandage off.’
‘What for?’
‘Because look at it.’ She cradled his hand, holding it up. ‘It’s filthy.’
She had a point. He’d done his best but it had been next to impossible to wash and dress himself one-handed, let alone eat and write and attend to all the other chores he had piling up around him. Keeping the bandage dry and clean, as the doctor had recommended, had been the least of his worries.
‘You try keeping a bandage clean in a farmyard,’ he said, but the truth was, the fight had drained out of him.
He flinched as she peeled off the surgical tape around his wrist.
‘It’s OK, I’ll be gentle,’ she murmured, her blonde hair close to his nose as she bent over his hand and unwound the grubby bandage.
She eased off the gauze and he sucked in a breath.
Big mistake. His lungs filled with the scent of her shampoo. Spice and musk and summer flowers all overlaid with the scent of her.
He shifted in his seat, disturbed by the liquid tug in his groin.
‘Yikes,’ she whispered and then raised her head.
He winced as he got a look at the raw, reddened skin. The stitches sat like thin black slugs stapled into the swollen flesh.
‘No wonder it hurts.’ Her eyes met his, the concern in them disturbing and captivating at one and the same time. ‘Stay there, I’m going to ring the clinic.’
‘I’m not going back there,’ he said, trying to sound demonstrative, even though he knew he might have to. He wasn’t such an idiot that he’d risk losing his hand. But anything less than that and he was prepared to fight like hell to stay put. He hadn’t had one of those nightmares in years. He did not want them becoming a regular occurrence again.
She nodded slowly, the knowledge in her eyes somehow more disturbing than the argument he’d been expecting. ‘Duly noted, but don’t panic. It might not be necessary.’
She headed for the door. ‘As long as you do exactly what I say.’ She smiled, the twist of her lips decidedly smug. ‘I hope you realise, you’re now entirely at my mercy, Dalton.’
*
‘I sneaked all this stuff past Dee and called the clinic from my mobile so she wouldn’t hear me on the house phone. Which meant trekking all the way to the far corner of the vegetable garden, because that’s the only sodding place I can get a signal.’ Ellie dabbed at the angry swelling with the antiseptic wipes, keeping a tight grip on Art’s wrist in case he flinched. Although, as usual, he was the picture of stoicism.
Frankly a little less stoicism and a lot more common sense would have gone a long way in the last couple of days. Who the heck was so flipping stoic they let their hand rot off? She tore open another of the wipes she’d filched from Dee’s first aid supplies.
‘Why did you have to sneak them past her?’ he asked, as if he honestly didn’t know.
She dabbed at the stitches again, making sure they were clean, before ripping open the packet of sterile gauze with her teeth.
‘If she’d seen me carting this lot in here, she would have been fussing over you for the next decade.’
Holding the gauze in place, she began wrapping his hand with the bandage.
Once she was satisfied it was suitably covered, she tore the ends and tied it.
She placed his hand back on the desk. ‘So you totally owe me one.’
He nodded. And his lips twitched. The almost smile had her heart knocking against her ribs.
She’d genuinely panicked he was going to have to get his hand amputated when she’d seen what he’d managed to do to the wound. Thank God, the clinic nurse had been a lot less worried once Ellie had finally got her on the line.
The instructions had been simple. Check his temperature. Clean and re-dress the hand. Dose him up with painkillers. Get him to his GP’s for a course of antibiotics. Tell him to stop being an idiot.
His temperature had been in the normal range. He’d refused the heavy duty painkillers but agreed to take Nurofen and paracetamol, she’d changed the bandage, and made an appointment for him at the GP in Gratesbury for this afternoon, so the first four directives had already been covered. All that remained now was to impress upon him what an idiot he was being. And re-check the wound every day, reapplying new dressings if necessary, the stitches could come out in a week’s time and as long as he didn’t get it infected again all should be well.
‘What did the clinic say?’ he asked.
‘The nurse basically said if you don’t have a temperature, it’s probably just a localised infection. But you need to keep an eye on it and get a course of antibiotics.’ She began packing the contraband supplies back into the box. ‘Which means you can go to the GP’s this afternoon and I’m keeping an eye on it from now on, because you’re obviously incapable of doing that.’ She scooped up the empty wipe packets and dumped them into the bin under his desk.
The crisis had been averted. Art wasn’t going to lose his hand just yet. And Dee hadn’t discovered what a twerp he was.
‘So why don’t you tell me now exactly why you haven’t been eating your food?’ Ellie asked, still irritated by his cavalier attitude. ‘And don’t give me any bullshit, because I can still rat you out to Dee.’
He watched her, his eyes narrowing, but he didn’t look away when he said: ‘I’m left-handed.’
‘So what?’
‘So I can’t eat with my right hand, it goes all over the place.’
‘Let me get this straight, you’ve been starving yourself because you’re worried about making a mess? Are you kidding me?’
He looked at his injured hand, cradled in his lap, the tips of his ears turning an interesting shade of red.
‘Why didn’t you ask for help, Art?’ she asked, not quite ready to give him a break. He might be a man, but that did not mean he got to be a total moron. ‘I could have cut up your food for you, or Dee, or even Toto.’
He tapped the fingers of his good hand on the desk. ‘No one’s cutting up my food.’
‘It’s better than starving to death.’
He shrugged, the stubborn expression suggesting she hadn’t won that argument. ‘It’s not that bad, I managed to find some finger food from the pantry after Dee had gone to bed to keep me going.’
So he’d been raiding the pantry in the middle of the night, simply to avoid having to ask Dee to give him food he could eat with his fingers?
‘Very clever,’ she said. ‘Except Dee now thinks you’re about to die of malnutrition.’
‘She doesn’t have to worry. I’ve been looking after myself for years.’
‘Of course she has to worry, she loves you.’
He frowned. Apparently this was news to him.
‘And whether or not you can look after yourself is debatable, frankly.’
‘It feels good now.’ He lifted his bandaged hand off the table and cradled it back in his lap.
‘That’s only because the Nurofen is kicking in.’ She took the rest of the packet out of the first aid box and placed it on top of the paperwork he’d been doing when she walked in. Whatever he’d been writing, it looked a mess. The spidery scrawl barely legible. ‘Make sure you keep dosed up on them until the antibiotics kick in. You’re sure you don’t want to take the other stuff the doctor gave you tonight? It should help you sleep.’
He glanced away. ‘Yeah, maybe, if it’s still sore I’ll take some tonight.’
Hmm, no he wouldn’t. She wondered if he had a phobia of painkillers as well as hospitals.
Luckily, getting to the bottom of Art Dalton’s bizarre behaviour was not her concern.
‘And talk to Mum about the food situation. Or I will.’
He considered the request. The pulse in her neck throbbed as she waited for a response.
It suddenly seemed vitally important she make him understand he needed to keep her mum informed. Or she’d worry. Which was fairly ironic.
What right did she have to insist he be a better surrogate son to Dee, when she’d been an absentee daughter for nineteen years?
‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said at last.
‘Good.’ She wiped her hands on her jeans, nervous and not sure why.
She closed the first aid box, tucked it under her arm. ‘I should get these back to the pantry.’
Art caught her wrist in his good hand. ‘Listen, thanks, Ellie.’
She looked down, the feel of the rough calluses against delicate skin triggering a memory she didn’t want.
He let her go.
Had he remembered it too? Because that would be mortifying.
‘I owe you one,’ he said.
‘Too right you do,’ she replied. ‘But there’s no need to thank me, because I plan to collect, when you’re least expecting it.’
A smile touched the corner of his mouth. ‘Why am I getting the feeling I’m going to live to regret this?’
‘Probably because you are.’