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As she helped her mother with the bread making, the painkillers finally kicked in. She felt lighter, more in control, less fragile, the gut-wrenching feeling of anxiety – that had haunted her ever since the day she’d been eviscerated by Caroline Myerson over a crust-less crab salad sandwich when the woman had sacked her over afternoon tea in the Myerson Memorial Golf Club – was gone for the first time in a month.
She didn’t feel so alone any more. Her father’s infidelity had given her a connection with her mum she had not expected, and she had her new friends – Tess, Annie and Maddy – to do silly girly things with. And she had a ton of challenging exciting work to keep herself busy…
Which ought to prevent her from doing any more silly girly things with Art.
And thankfully Art was still refusing to get involved with the project, so once they got stuck into the construction, she’d be unlikely to see him much. Plus, she was embarking on a lifetime sloe gin ban.
All good.
And she was totally not interested in finding out about Alicia.
Not. At. All.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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.
