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When the approaching car stopped behind Corey, Lettie picked up her suitcase.
‘Look, thank you for apologising but I do need to catch the next train.’
Only when she stepped past Corey and looked at the car properly, she realised that it wasn’t a taxi at all. The battered black car belonged to Florence, who was sliding out of the driving seat.
‘For goodness’ sake, why did you bring your grandmother with you?’
‘What?’ Corey spun around. ‘What the hell are you doing here, Gran?’
‘I’m trying to stop history repeating itself,’ replied Florence tartly, leaving the engine running and the car parked at an odd angle across the road. ‘There have been far too many misunderstandings between Starcrosses and Allfords over the years.’
‘How did you know where I’d be?’ demanded Corey.
‘It was pretty obvious after I’d rung to tell you what Bert mentioned about the ruckus between that property development man and Lettie in his shop. By the time I’d driven home, you were gone.’
‘It was still a stretch to know I’d have come here.’
‘Hardly. You were happier than I’d seen you for ages planning your afternoon out with Miss Starcross, and like a bear with a sore head since your fight with her.’ She turned to Lettie. ‘Are you still leaving with no plans to return?’
Lettie nodded, thrown by the Allfords turning up en masse, out of the blue.
Florence frowned and addressed Corey. ‘Then you need to tell Miss Starcross the truth about Grace.’
Corey winced and stared at the ground. No one said anything for what seemed like an age, the calling of birds overhead filling the silence, until he spoke. ‘Will… will you take a walk with me, Lettie? Gran will look after your case.’
‘Like I said, I have a train—’
‘Please.’
And he looked so flustered, so pained, Lettie followed when he started walking along the lane. What was the truth about his ex-wife? she wondered. What had happened to hurt him so much?
‘Where are we going?’ she asked after a while.
Corey shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I just need to talk to you, alone.’
He led the way along the narrow lane. Bees droned lazily in the high hedges that edged the empty road, and the air was heavy with heat that settled on top of Lettie like a blanket. After a while, he turned off the road and climbed over a stile. Lettie followed and they walked through a field, dotted with sheep, which rose towards the top of a hill.
‘What is this all about, Corey?’ asked Lettie, coming to a halt. ‘I’m sure Bert told your gran that I turned down Simon’s offer of buying the land. I’m not going to sell it and I’m not even going to accept it. The headland was left to Iris, not to me. I don’t have a proper claim on it and I don’t want to have one.’
‘Even though it could help you change your life.’
‘I’m not going to change my life at the expense of someone else’s.’
‘I know. I think I’ve always known.’ Corey shook his head. ‘You’re a decent person, Lettie. I just find it so hard to trust people after Grace…’
‘I’m not Grace.’
‘No, you’re not.’
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and scuffed his feet in the grass, as sheep nearby raised their heads and stared.
‘What did your wife do to make you so distrustful? I know your marriage broke up and that’s sad, but marriages end all the time.’
Corey breathed out slowly. ‘If you want the whole sorry tale, we went to London for Grace’s career. I told you that, but what I didn’t say was that Grace fell pregnant a year after we moved there. She wasn’t too pleased but I thought it was anxiety at such a big change, and I was so excited at the thought of being a dad. Far more excited than I’d ever have imagined. We were happy, or at least I thought we were, and I thought we’d be a happy family of three.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Grace settled into her pregnancy and I couldn’t wait to meet my son or daughter for the first time.’ He cleared his throat and closed his eyes. ‘But when she was almost eight months pregnant, I discovered that she was cheating on me. With an entrepreneurial businessman, a dickhead very like Simon.’
