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Jas shrugged her shoulders as he looked up.
‘Just dinner, you know…’ she said. And, since she was eleven-going-on-seventeen, he supposed that was as verbose as she was going to get.
‘Have you done your homework?’
‘Mostly.’
This was quality conversation, this was. But he was better off sticking to neutral subjects while he was feeling like this. In the last couple of years as a single dad, he’d learned that transitions—picking up and dropping off times—were difficult, and it was his job to smooth the ripples, create stability. Being steady, normal, was what was required.
‘Define mostly,’ he said, smoothing the paper closed and standing up.
Jas dropped the envelope of assorted junk she was clutching to her chest on to the table and threw her coat over the back of a chair. ‘Two more maths questions—and before you say anything—’
Ben closed his mouth.
‘—it doesn’t have to be in until Thursday. Can I just do it tomorrow? Please, Dad?’
She stared at him with those big brown eyes and blinked, just once. She looked so cute with her wavy blonde hair not quite sitting right in its shoulder-length style. His memory rewound a handful of years and he could hear her begging for just one more push on the swing.
‘Okay. Tomorrow it is.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ Jas skirted the table and gave him a hug by just throwing her arms around him and squeezing, then she lifted a brightly coloured magazine out of the pile of junk on the table. ‘Recreational reading,’ she said, brandishing it and attempting to escape before he could inspect it more closely.
He wasn’t so old that his reflexes had gone into retirement. The magazine was out of her fingers and in front of his face before she’d fully disentangled herself from the hug.
‘What’s this trash?’
Jas made a feeble attempt at snatching it back. ‘It was Mum’s. She’d finished it and she said I could have it.’
Ben frowned. Buzz magazine. He’d never read it himself, but he knew enough from the bright slogans on the cover that it was the lowest form of celebrity gossip rag. The lead story seemed to be ‘Celebrity Cellulite’. Nice. What was Megan thinking of giving Jasmine a publication like this? Didn’t his ex know how impressionable young girls were at Jas’s age?
‘I don’t think this is appropriate.’
Jas rolled her eyes. ‘It’s interesting. All my friends read it.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘All of them?’
The nod that followed couldn’t have convinced even Jas herself.
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘I mean, there’s no substance in here. It’s just rubbish…’ He flicked through the pages, hoping his daughter would see what he saw. ‘It’s the worst kind of gossip. I—’
But then he stopped flicking idly through the pages, his whole frame frozen. His mouth worked while his brain searched for an appropriate sound. Getting a grip on himself, he carefully placed the magazine down on the table and stood, arms braced either side of it, as he stared again at the grainy photographs.
‘Told you it was interesting,’ Jas said with a smirk.
‘But that’s…’
Jas turned so she was side by side with him and leaned against his bunched-up arm muscles, looking down at the magazine too. ‘Louise Thornton,’ she informed him in an astoundingly matter-of-fact voice. ‘Mum thinks she’s a waste of space. Most people do.’
‘Louise who?’ he whispered hoarsely.
Jas punched him on the arm. ‘Da-ad! You’re stuck in the Stone Age! You know… She married Tobias Thornton—the actor.’
Who?
‘We watched him in that action movie last weekend. The one with the bomb on the private jet?’
Oh. Him.
The picture was dull and not very clear—the product of a telephoto lens the size of a space shuttle, no doubt. But there was no doubting the fierce glare in those eyes as she squared up to the paparazzo, her son clutched protectively to her, his face hidden. He’d been on the receiving end of that very same look just a few hours ago and it still gave him the shivers thinking about it.
‘And she’s famous?’ he asked Jas, trying to sound as uninvolved as he actually was, but less involved than he felt.
Jas nodded. ‘Well, famous for being married to somebody famous. That’s all.’
Married. He should shut the magazine right now and condemn it to the recycling bin. Only…she’d said she was divorced. And, in the few moments that she’d let her icy guard down, he’d known she was telling the truth. The gaudy headline splashed across the top of the feature seemed to confirm his gut instinct: ‘Louise’s private hell since split!’
He took one last look at her image and felt a twinge of sympathy. Going through a divorce was bad enough, but having every spat reported for the world to see? More like a public execution than a private hell. No wonder she’d freaked out when she’d found some strange man in her greenhouse.
He closed the magazine and looked at Jas. ‘Sorry, Jas. I think these sorts of magazines are a gross invasion of privacy. I’d rather you didn’t read it.’
She chewed her lip and her fingers twitched. He could tell she was torn between doing the right thing and insatiable curiosity. Thankfully, when she gave him a rueful smile and a one-shouldered shrug he knew he’d been doing an okay job of counteracting all the psycho-babble her mother had been subjecting her to since their separation.
He grinned. ‘Good girl.’
Jas’s smile grew and changed. ‘Since I’ve earned a gold star, can I have fifteen pounds for a trip to the theatre with school?’
Ben looked heavenward. What was it with women and money? Any good deed seemed to need a reward—preferably in the form of shoes. Perhaps he should be glad that at least this was something educational. The shoes would come later. Oh, he had no doubt the shoes would come later. ‘Give me a second while I find my wallet. What are you going to see, again?’
‘The Taming of the Shrew.’
Ben nodded approvingly while he searched the kitchen worktops for his battered leather wallet. He hunted through the junk drawer. Where had he put the darn thing when he’d come in this evening? ‘Jas, I’ll come and give you the cash when I’ve found my wallet, okay?’ he said, slamming the drawer in an effort to get it to close in spite of the disturbed odds and ends inside.
‘Cool.’
‘And Jas…?’
She turned at the doorway to the lounge.
‘This Louise Thornton woman. Do you think she’s a waste of space?’
She looked up at the corner of the ceiling and then back at him. ‘Mum says any woman who puts up with that kind of…rubbish…and puts a man’s happiness before her own is TSTL.’
TSTL.
‘Too stupid to live,’ Jas elaborated, knowing, as she always seemed to, when he needed a bit of help with her strange pre-teen speak.
The sounds of the television in the adjoining room accompanied his search for the wallet for the next ten minutes. He checked his coat, the car, the kitchen again… Just as he was racking his brain and replaying the day in his head, it struck him. He knew exactly where he’d left his wallet. He could see it so clearly in his mind’s eye, he could almost reach out and touch it.
A rough wooden bench, long rays of the afternoon sun slanting through uneven Victorian glass. A black, soft leather square with cards and ancient till receipts poking out of it sitting next to a plant pot containing a rather spectacular nepenthes.
He sat back down on a chair and frowned. His wallet had been too bulky in the back pocket of his jeans and he’d taken it out and put it on one of the shelves in the greenhouse this afternoon. And then, with all the scowling and marching back down to the boat, he’d forgotten it.
He blew out a breath. If it had been just the cards and the few notes that were in there, he might have just left it. There was no way his face was going to be welcome back at Whitehaven any time this century. But the wallet contained one of his favourite photos of Jas and him together, taken in a time when she’d had ringlets and no front teeth and when he didn’t seem to have permanent frown lines etched on his forehead.
There was nothing for it. He was going to have to go back.
Ben knocked on the door twice. Hard enough to be heard, but not so forcefully that he seemed impatient. And then he waited. The clear, pale skies of yesterday were gone and a foggy dampness dulled every colour on the riverbank. He turned his collar up as the mist rallied and became drizzle.
He raised his fist to knock again, but was distracted by a hint of movement in his peripheral vision. He turned quickly and stared at the study window, just to the right of the porch. Everything was still.
He grimaced and shoved his hands in his pockets. At least he and Louise Thornton were both singing from the same hymn sheet. Neither of them were pleased he was here.
Knowing she was probably hovering in the hallway, he knocked again, just loud enough to make a dull noise against the glossy wooden doors.
‘Hello? I’m sorry for the intrusion—’ He’d been going to say Mrs Thornton, but it seemed odd to use her name when she hadn’t revealed it to him herself.
‘I really didn’t want to disturb you again,’ he called out as he pressed his ear to the door, trying to detect a hint of movement inside, ‘but I left something behind and I—’
There was a soft click as the door opened enough for him to see half of her face. She didn’t have the heels on today—not that he ever noticed women’s shoes—and, instead of being almost level with him, she was looking up at him, her face hard and unreadable.
‘I left my wallet in the greenhouse,’ he said with an attempt at a self-deprecating smile.
She just stared.
He should have looked away, ended the awkwardness, but she had the most amazing eyes. Well, eye—he could only see one at present. It wasn’t the make-up, because this morning there was none of that black stuff. It wasn’t even the hazel and olive-green of her irises, which reminded him of the changing colours of autumn leaves. No, it was the sense that, even though she seemed to be doing her best to shield herself, he recognised something in them. Not a familiarity or a similarity to anybody else. More like a reflection of something inside himself.
He shook his head and stared at his boots. This was not the time to descend into poetry. He had come here for one reason and one reason only.
‘If you give me permission to retrieve it, I’ll be out of your hair as soon as possible. I promise.’
She looked him up and down and then the door inched wider. ‘Wait here and I’ll get the key.’
A couple of minutes passed and Ben stepped out of the porch and on to the gravel drive, the crunch underneath his boots deafening in the still of the autumn morning. Louise Thornton reappeared just as he’d managed to find himself a spot where the pebbles didn’t shift underneath him. Her long dark hair was scooped back into a ponytail, but the ever-present fringe left her face half-hidden. In her jeans and a pullover she should have looked like any other of the young mothers who stood outside the school gates.
He followed her up the hill, round the house to the top lawn. When she moved, her actions were small, precise, as if she didn’t want to be accused of taking up too much space. Megan and all her friends had reached an age where their body language spoke of a certain confidence, a certain comfort in their own skin. This woman lacked that, despite her high-gloss lifestyle and multi-million-pound bank account.
Once again he felt an unwelcome twinge. He fought the urge to catch up with her, to tell her that it would get better one day, that there was life after divorce. But, since he wasn’t exactly a glowing example of a man with an active social life, he thought it was better if he kept his mouth shut.
She unlocked the greenhouse door, then stood well back, giving him plenty of room to pass through. She didn’t stay outside, though. He heard her footsteps on the tiled floor of the greenhouse behind him and, when he looked over his shoulder, she was watching him suspiciously.
The wallet was right where he’d remembered it was, tucked slightly out of sight next to a glossy carnivorous plant, groaning under the weight of its purple and green pitchers. He picked it up, jammed it into his jacket pocket, then stooped to pick up the saracenia that had been a casualty of yesterday’s meeting. He’d forgotten all about it after Louise Thornton had appeared.
Carefully, he placed it back on the shelf and pressed the soggy compost down with his fingertips. Despite his ministrations, the slender pitchers pointed at an odd angle. He would have to bring a cane from home and…
No. There would be no canes from home. Not any more.
He stepped back and indicated the listing plant. ‘This needs a cane. There might be one around here somewhere—’ Down the other end was a likely place. He started to walk in that direction, checking behind pots and peering under the bench as he went.
‘Why should you care?’
That kind of question didn’t even warrant turning round to answer it. He carried on searching. ‘It’s a beautiful plant. It would be a shame to leave it to die.’
Once again he heard footsteps. Just a handful, enough for her to have stepped further into the greenhouse. He found what he was looking for—a small green cane—hidden between the windowsill and a row of pots. He picked it up, careful not to send anything else flying, and turned to find her fingering the delicate cream and purple foliage of the ailing saracenia.
‘Then you really are a gardener?’
He moved past her, retrieved a roll of garden wire from a hook near the door and returned to the plant, unwinding a length as he walked. ‘You think I like to play in the dirt for fun?’
She remained silent, watching him fashion a loop of wire wide enough to help the plant stand up without pinching it to the cane. When he’d finished, and the little plant was straining heavenwards once again, she took a few steps backwards.
‘In my experience, most men are like big kids, anyway. So, yes, you may well be playing in the dirt for fun.’ There was a dry humour behind her words that took the edge off them.
His lips didn’t actually curve but there was a hint of a smile in his voice when he answered. ‘It is fun. The earth feels good beneath my fingertips.’ She raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. He’d bet she’d never had dirt underneath her fingernails in her life. And he’d bet her life was poorer for it.
‘Gardening gives you a sense of achievement.’ He fiddled with the stake and wire loop around the sara-cenia until it was just so. ‘You can’t control the plants. You just tend them, give them what they need until they become what they should.’
She broke eye contact and let her gaze wander over the plants nearest to her. ‘These don’t look like they’re becoming much. Aren’t you a very good gardener?’
He fought back the urge to laugh out loud. ‘They’re in their dormant phase. They’ll perk up again, when the conditions are right.’ He stood looking at her for a few seconds as she stared out into the gardens. ‘Well, I’ve got what I came for. I’ll be out of your hair now—as promised. I did say I was one not to break a promise, didn’t I?’
He took a few long strides past her, breathed out and opened the greenhouse door. He was halfway across the lawn before she shouted after him.
‘Then promise to come again.’
CHAPTER THREE
BEN didn’t want to turn round. He’d told himself he wouldn’t respond this time. After all, he’d had enough of high-maintenance women. But…
She stood on the lawn, watching him, her hair whipped across her face by another surly gust of wind. Once again, her eyes held him captive. Not for their dark perfection, but because something deep inside them seemed to be pleading with him. His friends had told him he was a sucker for a lady in distress, and he’d always denied it, but he had the awful feeling they might just be right.
She tugged a strand of chocolate-brown hair out of her mouth. ‘The garden. It does need looking after. You’re right. It would be a shame to…’
Once again, the eyes pleaded. He should have a sign made, reading ‘sucker,’ and just slap it on his forehead.
He’d do it. But not for her—for Laura. Just until he was sure this new owner was going to care for the place properly. And then he’d pass it on to one of his landscaping teams and charge her handsomely for the privilege. After all, he reminded himself, life was complicated enough already without looking after somebody else’s garden.
Louise watched him go. She kept watching until long after his tall frame disappeared round the side of the house into a tangle of grass and shrubs and trees that were now, technically, her back garden. Not that she’d had the courage to explore it fully yet.
She forced herself to turn away and look back at the greenhouse.
Was she mad? Quite possibly.
In all seriousness, she’d just given a man she knew nothing about permission to invade her territory on a regular basis. Yet…there’d been something so preposterously truthful about his story and so refreshingly straightforward about his manner that she’d swallowed it whole. Next time she’d have to frisk him for a long-lens camera and a dictaphone, just in case.
She’d left the greenhouse door open. Slowly, she closed the distance to the heavy Victorian glazed door, with its beautiful brass handle and peeling off-white paint. On a whim, she stepped inside before she closed the door and stood for a few moments in the warm dampness. It smelled good in here, of earth and still air, but very real. She liked real.
The assorted plants lining the shelves by the windows really were quite exquisite. She’d never seen anything like them. Venus fly-traps sat next to frilly, sticky-looking things in shades of pink and purple. Then there were ones with large waxy leaves and bulbous pitchers the colour of ripe bruises. She walked over to the little plant that the gardener—Ben?—was that his name?—had saved. A thin green flute rose vertically, widening at the top with a frilly bit on top that looked a bit like a lid.
