A Family of His Own

‘You prefer coffee?’ She didn’t make the mistake of offering to make him some, but said, ‘I’ll remember that for next time. In the meantime, if you need anything you know where to find me.’ And without waiting for him to respond, to tell her to get lost, stay away, she walked back out into the garden.

Back to the witch hazel she’d been rescuing when he’d kissed her.

Her head told her to keep going, but she refused to leave a job half done and she knelt down to finish her rescue mission. Only when she attempted to unravel the tightly coiled stem of the bindweed did she discover that her hands were shaking so much that she was forced to tuck them beneath her arms to hold them still.

Dom picked up the toast and, tight-lipped, he tossed it in the bin. Then he picked up his bags and carried them upstairs to the bedroom he’d shared for one sweet, perfect year with Sara.

Last night the only scent he’d been aware of was the lingering ghost of her perfume clinging to her clothes.

He dropped his suitcase and strained to find it again, to cling to that last lingering essence of the woman he loved.

But it evaded him. Today, the only smell was that of a house locked up and unlived-in for too long. And he opened a window.

CHAPTER THREE

“Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins

DOM LINGERED at the window to breathe in the fresh, green scent of the garden, of newly turned earth, and looked beyond the walls to where the picture-perfect village was laid out before him.

Nothing had changed.

Not the carefully mown section of the village green where cricket was played every weekend in the summer before the teams retired to the pub to continue their rivalries on the dart board. Not the rougher grassland of the common, where willows dipped over the stream-fed pond that teemed with tadpoles in the spring, moorhens nested and a donkey was, even now, cropping grass on the end of a long tether.

It could even be the same donkey.

It was exactly the right place to bring up a family, Sara had said, utterly charmed from the moment they’d set eyes on the place. It was so safe.

But nothing was that perfect and every Eden had its serpent. Hidden, insidious dangers. He looked down into the wreck of the garden. It had taken everything from him. To look at its beauty had been an agony and he’d run from it. But Sara had loved it and to see it like this, neglected, overgrown, was somehow worse.

A movement on the green caught his attention and he looked away, grateful for the distraction. At least he was until he realised that it was Kay Lovell heading for the village-shop-cum-post-office-cum-everything, to fetch a pint of milk, or the Sunday newspaper.

The warmth of her smile reached his window as she stopped to speak to someone, exchange the time of day. No prizes for guessing the subject of their conversation. The news that the house was on the market would be the hot subject of gossip this morning. By tomorrow, he had no doubt, everyone in the village would know that he was back, courtesy of his blackberry-raiding neighbour. Back home and losing his mind.

He watched her continue on her errand, long-limbed and lithe, striding across the green, and wondered again how he could ever have mistaken her for Sara. They were not in the least bit alike.

It had been just a trick of the imagination, tiredness perhaps, that had fooled him. Or maybe just that she was there, in Sara’s place, doing the things that she would have been doing…

He wrenched his gaze away from her and looked back at the garden. From above, he could clearly see the peach tree freed from its bramble prison, the fresh, clear patch of earth around the shrub where she’d been weeding, and, furious with himself—with her—he clattered down the stairs, raced down the garden, sliding the bolt into place on the gate before turning and leaning with his back to it, eyes closed, while he regained his breath. He didn’t want her, or any more sightseers, invading the privacy of the garden. It wasn’t fit to be seen. And with a roar of anguish he grabbed the agent’s For Sale sign and wrenched the post out of the ground.

Kay dropped her newspaper on the dresser. With a rare morning to herself, she’d planned a lazy hour with her feet up with the colour supplement and the gardening pages, but now she was home she was all of a twitch and there was no way she could sit still.

Never mind. She’d work off her nervous energy doing something practical. She had pastry to make, harvest pies to fill and freeze, and there was no time like the present.

Forget Dominic Ravenscar, she told herself as she washed her hands and got out the scales. Forget the way he’d kissed her. It wasn’t her he’d been kissing, she reminded herself as she shovelled flour from the bin onto the scales with hands that weren’t altogether steady.

He’d thought she was his wife. A ghost, for pity’s sake.

And she’d been tempted to play amateur psychologist? She should be grateful that he’d made it absolutely clear that he never wanted to set eyes on her again.

She took a deep, steadying breath, then dumped another scoop into the scales.

What the devil did she think she could do in ten minutes with a cup of tea and a slice of toast, anyway? She wasn’t Amy Hallam with her gift for seeing through to the heart of the matter. For making you see it too.

She stared blankly at the pile of flour and tried to recall what she was doing.

Pastry.

She was making pastry.

Right.

‘He couldn’t have made it plainer that he didn’t want me anywhere near him or his garden,’ she said. Asleep on top of the boiler, Mog wasn’t taking any notice, but talking to the cat had to be better than talking to herself. Marginally.

‘He didn’t actually tell me what I could do with my “tea and sympathy”,’ she continued, despite the lack of feline encouragement. ‘Not in so many words. But then why would he bother, when his actions spoke for him? Loud and clear.’

The cat opened one eye, sighed and closed it again.

‘OK, so you had to be there.’

And what exactly was she complaining about, anyway? So he’d poured away the tea she’d made him. That was rude by anyone’s standards, but, to be fair, he hadn’t asked her to make it. Hadn’t asked for her concern, either. She’d foisted herself on him and he’d made no bones about unfoisting her in double-quick time.

She should be relieved. She’d got momentarily carried away with noble aspirations that were not in the least bit appreciated. She was the one who was out of line. Luckily, he had made it easy to walk away with a clear conscience.

‘I should be relieved,’ she said. She was relieved.

‘It isn’t as if I don’t have anything better to do.’ She fetched the butter and lard from the fridge and began to chop it up into small pieces with rather more vigour than was actually called for. ‘I’m a single mother with a child to raise. A cat to support. I don’t need any more complications in my life.’

Chop, chop, chop.

Not that Polly was anything other than a joy. But still. Parenthood, even with a complete set of parents, required absolute concentration. Alone it was…

Chop, chop. The snap of the heavy blade against the board happily cut short this train of thought.

One kiss and suddenly she felt lonely? When did she have time to get lonely?

‘I’m a single mother with a child to raise and a business that’s going nowhere,’ she informed the cat briskly.

Chop.

The cat yawned.

‘And let’s not forget the part-time job in the village shop. That’s more than enough work for one woman. I don’t need Dominic Ravenscar and his problems complicating my life any further.’

Chop, chop, chop, chop.

‘As for his garden—’