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She switched off the kitchen light, and closed the door on the memory. As well as the idea of interfering any more than was strictly necessary in The Ellie and Art Show.
Ellie and she had problems that didn’t involve Art. Problems that Dee had been too much of a coward in the last two weeks to discuss with her daughter. But it was good to know Ellie was now a successful independent career woman – the wobble earlier in the evening could only have been performance anxiety. She certainly wasn’t the vulnerable, lonely, insecure girl who’d been torn between two parents who had both shoved her needs aside to make themselves happy.
Stop beating yourself up about that, Dee. You did what you had to do, we both did. One day Ellie will understand.
Pammy’s words pushed the guilt back, a little.
Her daughter was keeping a lot of secrets, secrets that she didn’t trust Dee enough to share. She still hadn’t mentioned her husband. And Josh hardly ever mentioned his dad either. And how had Ellie been able to leave her event-planning business for a whole summer, when surely that was the most lucrative time for such a business?
These were all questions Dee wanted to ask, but still didn’t feel she had the right to ask. The farm shop wasn’t just a terrific initiative to solve the farm’s financial problems and a wonderful way to honour the woman she’d loved, it also had the potential to give Dee the thing she’d yearned for – to reforge the relationship with her daughter. To make it strong and true again. The way it had been before that difficult summer. She didn’t want to jinx this chance. Which meant Art was on his own if he continued to behave like a dick.
For all his lack of communication skills, Art was not that angry, reckless boy any more. He was a strong, capable and caring man, who, against all the odds, had lived up to the responsibility of parenting a child solo. And Dee had formed a strong bond with him in the last nineteen years.
But he could also be a moody bugger.
Mounting the stairs to her room, Dee could hear Ellie further down the hallway laying down bedtime law to Josh.
‘Ten past ten on a school night is ten minutes past lights out, so you need to get in that bathroom now or you’re going to be brushing your teeth in the dark.’
Josh’s answering plea was way too tired to gain a reprieve.
Dee entered her room, rubbing the tight muscles in her neck.
She heard Ellie’s shower go on in the bathroom down the hall as she went in to start her own night-time ritual, the flicker of concern turning into admiration.
Her daughter was certainly no pushover any more. Time to step back and watch The Ellie and Art Show from the sidelines.
Dee removed her make-up and waited to hear Ellie’s shower switch off before she stepped into hers. The boiler hadn’t been able to cope with two showers at once for over a decade, no matter how often Art overhauled it.
Art would be in his workshop putting his carpentry skills to good use, burying any wayward emotions under a pile of sawdust and lumber. The way he always did when he had stuff to process. The way he’d been doing almost every night until the early hours ever since Ellie had arrived.
Dee shifted her head to one side, letting the heating jets pummel the tight muscles.
Stupid of her not to realise the significance of that until now.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Art snapped on the protective goggles and yanked the cord to kick-start the saw’s reconditioned motor. The blade chugged to life, rotating with blurring speed as the cord snapped back.
Taking a piece of walnut wood out of the pile he’d marked up earlier, he took a deep breath into his nose. The scent of sawdust and turpentine snagged on his tonsils, making him cough.
He needed to calm down. Operating power tools when you wanted to punch something could be hazardous. And letting Ellie Preston mess with his head had nearly cost him his left hand a fortnight ago.
He scrubbed a sweaty palm against his jeans, let go of the breath about to explode in his lungs.
Threading the board against the blade, he shaved off the excess two centimetres. He had forty boards to plane, ready for tomorrow morning, when he was due to get stuck into the second phase of the commission he’d started a month ago.
It was hot, tiresome, and dangerous work, if you didn’t know what you were doing, or weren’t paying attention. And Ellie Preston had distracted him enough already for one night. Make that one fortnight. If she was really planning to stay the whole summer, he needed to find better ways to avoid her – that actually involved avoiding her – because every single second spent in her company was seared on his consciousness.
Letting her handle the project’s admin should have been the perfect solution. Not only did it mean he no longer had to do a job that he wasn’t qualified for and would happily have sacrificed his left nut to be shot of, it also meant he had the perfect excuse to stay locked in his workshop for the daylight hours and well away from the house and her. But the nights had been another matter. Yesterday evening he’d come out of the bathroom and all but tripped over her in the hallway.
Her lips had issued a shocked gasp, her eyes focusing on his naked chest. The long slow glide over wet flesh had burned off the condensation left from his power shower in two seconds flat. Then she’d edged back against the wall as he sent her a mumbled apology and trotted off down the corridor to his room feeling her eyes on his backside every step of the way.
The sibilant buzz of the saw didn’t do much to downgrade his temper.
Ellie’s presentation had been coherent and articulate and, if he had been able to read her printout, he had no doubt she would have made a convincing argument on paper for going ahead with Pam’s scheme. She certainly seemed to have convinced everyone else it was a great idea. But it wasn’t, for the simple reason that Ellie didn’t live here, she didn’t belong here and she wasn’t going to stay.
The door crashed against the frame, making his fingers jerk on the saw. Thrusting up the googles, he squinted through the fog of sawdust at the vision in pyjamas – were those dancing pink elephants? – that stood in the doorway of his workshop. She mouthed something and he flicked the switch on the saw.
