Page 21 of The Inheritance At Bourton

She headed upstairs, pausing at the landing window and looking out over the walled garden. The whole place needed work she couldn't even fully imagine yet.

It was hers. It had always been hers, but now it felt real. It felt permanent.

She went downstairs and picked up the notebook with the list she and Rowan had started. Some things needed to be done sooner rather than later. He assured her the house would hold up through winter. She wasn’t going to freeze to death, but it would be drafty.

She was still writing when Rowan knocked and let himself in, carrying a paper bag that smelled like the bakery. He’d had to drive into the city to get some things to help winterize the house.

“Whitfield called,” Leah blurted out.

He stopped. “And?”

“It’s over,” she said. “Withdrawn. Done.”

He smirked. “She’ll say she changed her mind or spin it that she was being magnanimous.”

"She went to Devon for her health, apparently.”

He scoffed. “I’m not surprised. What about Gerald?”

“I don’t know.”

He hung his coat on the back of the chair and looked at her for a moment. "How do you feel?"

"Weird," she said honestly. "I was ready for a fight. I have been thinking about all the things she might say or do. I fancied myself a prize fighter, gearing up to go in the ring against some title holder. And then it was just over.”

He smiled at that and came around the table and kissed the top of her head, like he'd been doing it for years. Then he picked up the notebook.

She watched him read. His eyebrows went up somewhere around the gutters and stayed up through the bulbs. He turned the page over, read the back, and set it down on the table between them.

"What is on this list is ambitious," he said.

"You said the garden wouldn't take as much work as I thought."

"The garden, perhaps, but you appear to have listed the entire estate."

"I'm staying," she said. "I'm staying, so all of it gets fixed. Not tomorrow, but that’s the wish list."

"We're going to have a very busy winter," he said.

"I'm looking forward to it," she said. “I don’t want to sit around in this big house and think.”

“You’ve got a lot to think about,” he said gently.

She sighed. “I think the best thing to do is not think. I can’t change the past. I can’t change all the bad decisions others made. It happened. I’ll carry the scars of their poor choices for the rest of my days. But I don’t have to let it bring me down. The last few months have taken me to my knees, but here I am—still standing.”

He smiled. “Yes, you are.”

“Thank you for sticking by me,” she said. “I swear I’m not a crier. I think I got it all out of my system.”

“You’ve had a lot to cry about,” he said. “I don’t think anyone would blame you.”

“Thank you. But I’m done. I can’t dwell. I’ve got an estate to restore. And a business to start.”

He smiled. “I can’t wait to help you. I have always dreamed of witnessing this place regain its former glory. It’s been a long time coming.”

Chapter Ten

Leah was out in the walled garden before seven most mornings now with a pair of scissors in her pocket and a basket in her hand. Somewhere in the hedgerow, a blackbird was going absolutely berserk, and in the field beyond the gate, Edith's lambs were doing the sideways bouncing thing that made Leah laugh every single time. If the destructive little monsters weren’t such a handful, she almost thought about getting some of her own.