Eleanor Jones - The Little Dale Remedy

“Just a matter of weeks,” Cass told her dreamily, touching her stomach. “Look, she’s kicking.”

When Maddie hurried over, Cass grabbed her hand and placed it next to hers. “See?”

“And it’s definite...that it’s a girl, I mean?”

Cass nodded, puckering her brow. “To be honest, I didn’t really want to know, and neither did Jake, but...”

“But what?”

“Well...” Cass let out a big sigh. “Robbie’s twin sister was killed in a road accident, along with his grandma. It was before I even came here, but obviously it’s had a huge effect on Rob. We wanted him to know what to expect...no surprises.”

“And was he pleased to find out it was a girl?”

“He was—is—over the moon about having a sister again.”

“And do you have a name for her yet?”

Cass nodded. “We’re going to call her Gwen, after Jake’s mum.”

As the unborn baby’s frantic movement slowed, Maddie withdrew her hand. “That’s lovely,” she said. “Like a brand-new start.”

“A brand-new start,” Cass echoed, her eyes gently drooping.

Maddie moved quietly away, not wanting to disturb her. There was so much love in this house where once there must have been so much pain. Jake Munro had gotten past his heartache, and that was what she wanted to do. Learn to live with the past and forge a new future. Would hers hold a family one day? She couldn’t help but wonder. It might, she decided, but not for a long time yet. She had to straighten herself out before she could include anyone else in her life...and anyway, look what happened the last time she started to dream of a future...with Alex. No, it was definitely just her and her demons, for the next few years at least.

CHAPTER FIVE

ROSS CLICKED OFF his phone with a heavy heart. So Maddie had been telling the truth after all; she had paid for the cottage. Seemingly the solicitors hadn’t informed the rental agency of Anne Maddox’s death, and they’d rented it out, not knowing... So now what?

He’d felt so positive, coming back here to Little Dale, more positive than he had been since Jenny died. In those early years after her death, dealing with the weight of his own guilt and his mother-in-law’s accusations, the only thing that had kept him going was Meg.

He should have noticed how ill Jenny was, he realized that now, and he would have if she’d shown physical symptoms, but depression was way beyond his experience. It had been foaling time on the stud where he worked, too, but that was no excuse for all the hours he spent there...hours he should have spent trying to help his young wife overcome her illness and deal with their baby girl.

Later—way too much later—he had read up on postpartum depression and finally begun to understand just how real and painful the condition could be. He continued to keep reading about it to this day, again and again, as if for the first time, asking himself why. That couldn’t bring Jenny back, though, couldn’t get rid of the guilt that haunted him.

She had taken her own life because he was too selfish to put her before his work. Her mother had known it; Anne Maddox had blackened his name in their community so convincingly that some people had shunned him in the street. That was when he’d decided to take Meg and leave, go back to his native Scotland. And to his surprise, Jenny’s mother hadn’t even kicked up a fuss when he’d told her he was taking her only granddaughter so very far away. It seemed as if there was nothing left inside her but hatred and blame, and she hated him so much she would rather lose Meg than have him around. She’d done the right thing by her granddaughter in the end though, by leaving her the cottage. He would always be grateful to her for that.

He and Meg had been relatively happy in Scotland, even though he’d known that they would need to settle down somewhere eventually. He’d found plenty of part-time work on farms and studs, even working in forestry for a while. He and Meg had traveled wherever he was needed, though never so far away that he couldn’t get Meg to Tinytots in Kelso.

He’d tried a few different nurseries, but Tinytots, run by a warmhearted, middle-aged woman named Clare, was the only one that he really trusted with his daughter. When she wasn’t there, he looked after her himself, waking with her in the night, caring for her when she was ill or teething, playing with her and introducing her to the countryside he loved...wanting her to love it, too. He’d had no social life of any kind for years, to such an extent that some people nicknamed him the Recluse, but he didn’t care. He didn’t believe he deserved a social life. His lot in life, he had long ago decided, was to make it up to Jenny by giving their daughter the best that he could.

When Anne Maddox died, leaving her granddaughter the cottage where he and Jenny had lived for the short time they were together, he knew that giving Meg the best meant bringing her home to Little Dale to claim her heritage.

The last thing he’d expected was to find someone living there; he’d been so angry, truly believing the woman was lying. So now what? Dealing with people had never been one of his best skills, and the lonely years in Scotland had left him even more awkward with strangers, especially those of the opposite sex. There would never be anyone in his life again after Jenny—he was sure of that. He’d failed his wife, and he didn’t deserve another chance at that kind of happiness. What right did he have to destroy yet another woman’s life?

He wasn’t going back to Scotland, though, wasn’t going to give up and give in. This Maddie person would just have to put up with them for the next three months; he had no money to give her, even if he wanted to.

Having settled on his course of action, Ross decided to spend the day putting down roots. He laid a row of paving stones up to the trailer door to keep their feet out of the mud. He went to town with Meg and bought a plastic storage container from the local DIY store to put their dirty boots in, and he passed the afternoon building a barbecue area out of bricks just under the shelter of the trees. When their unwanted tenant came back, she would see that he had no intention of moving on. Maybe that would persuade her to move on herself...sooner than she’d planned, at least. It was obvious that she was uncomfortable with his presence, maybe even a little threatened, and he didn’t have any intention of trying to change her mind about that. All he wanted was to be settled with Meg in the cottage...and to land a decent job, of course.

That was another thing he packed into his busy day: traveling around to some local farms in the hopes of finding part-time work, at least. Unfortunately, he had no luck, but tomorrow he had an appointment with the principal of Little Dale Primary School. Once Meg was settled in there, he’d have more free time to pursue his job prospects.

Putting on the kettle, he called for Meg, who was sitting at the table drawing. She loved to draw. “You might be going to proper school soon,” he told her.

“Will there be lots of kids to play with?” she asked, pencil poised above the paper.

“I guess so,” he said.

“Will they be nice?”

For a moment he just stared at her, his small, innocent, beautiful daughter, and the weight of responsibility made him shudder. He’d tried to bring her up to be independent and strong in a hard, tough world, but he knew she could never be tough enough. She had her mother’s sweet, soft personality, and that would never change. It was Jenny’s own personality that had let her down at the end, the inability to stand up to pressure. She’d needed looking after, and he hadn’t seen that.

That was one thing that drew him to Maddie, he supposed. Despite his determination to dislike her, she had that same vulnerability...and yet she’d stood up to him so bravely, holding her ground. That was what he wanted Meg to be able to do.