Shirley Jump - A Forever Family - Falling For You

‘Then just come yourself. He gets lonely.’

‘What about you, Hal? This is a big place to live in on your own.’

‘Two apples, a Victoria sandwich,’ he said, ‘and you can send me the name of a rose specialist. Just in case I change my mind.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

HAL stood at the open French windows, listening to a blackbird sing, trying to blot out the image of Claire Thackeray.

Her concerns for an old donkey, a neglected garden, for Gary were beginning to eat away at his armour, undermine his determination to visit the sins of the father on her head.

Bea was right. He should have left this to the professionals.

* * *

Claire walked home, her head in a whirl, scarcely noticing where she put her feet. Talk about the good news and the bad news…

All she’d wanted to do was reassure herself that Archie was okay. Job done. But walking into the courtyard and seeing Hal on his back with a motorcycle in bits around him had been a heart-leap moment, a flashback to the boy in leathers astride his own bike. Today, though, she hadn’t been an outsider. She’d been there, working alongside him and for a while had felt like a kid herself.

It couldn’t last.

On some subconscious level, she’d always known that her father must have been involved in Hal’s banishment. He’d been the estate manager, he ran Cranbrook Park. He engaged and dismissed staff, dealt with maintenance, arranged shoots and fishing parties.

Keeping order had been his responsibility.

She might be reduced to jelly-bones by Hal, but she could well understand why he’d been so peppery when they’d met. It hadn’t just been the crash. She was a Thackeray and in his shoes she wouldn’t have wanted to have anything to do with her, either.

She was amazed that he answered her phone calls. He could easily have left them to Penny, or let them go to voice mail. And he’d listened to her on the rose garden. That was good news. It would mean he was invested in Cranbrook Park, in the Hall.

As for that moment when he’d challenged her commitment to her job, being a journalist was what she did.

It put food on the table, kept Ally safe. It was what she’d always been going to do. She might not be working for the BBC, or be a high-flying correspondent for one of the broadsheets, but she was doing her best to fulfil the ambitions of her parents. Speaking of which—

She sat on a grassy bank, took out her phone and called Brian.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ he demanded.

‘It’s a big estate, Brian, but I haven’t seen any sign of surveying so far.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’ Which was true. ‘But I have heard a whisper that Mr North is thinking about restoring the rose garden.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a famous garden. Bags of history.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’ll be a waste of time coming back to the office. I’ll do some research at home and maybe we can run something tomorrow?’

‘We’re running the Teddy Bear’s Picnic story tomorrow.’

‘I haven’t finished it.’

‘I have. Mr Mean Targets Teddies. The garden story can go in the home supplement on Saturday.’

She muttered an expletive she wouldn’t have used at home and dialled again.

‘North.’

‘Hal…’

‘Claire… Twice in one day.’

‘Sorry, but I need to talk you out of cancelling the Teddy Bears Picnic.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Not a chance?’

‘No.’

‘That’s a shame. The news editor’s wife is the treasurer of the animal-rescue charity that benefits from the event.’

‘Then I’ll brace myself for tomorrow’s edition.’

‘Don’t buy it unless you want to see a really sweet photograph of you, aged six, dressed as one of the three bears in a primary-school play on the front page,’ she said,

‘I take back everything I said. You are ruthless.’

‘Absolutely,’ she said, heart sinking.

‘Why don’t they hold it at Memorial Park?’ he suggested.

‘You’re not getting it. We need woods. If you go down to the woods today…?’ She sang a snatch of the song.

‘You are not doing your case any favours.’

‘You’ve got until the paper goes to press to reconsider.’

‘Don’t hold your breath.’

‘No. Right. Breathing in and out.’ She didn’t want to hang up. ‘I forgot to ask Gary when my bike will be ready.’

‘Apparently they don’t make wheels like that any more but he’s doing his best to find a second-hand replacement. I’d buy you a new bike, but I’m sure you’d just tell the world I’m trying to buy your silence.’

‘Not the world,’ she assured him, saying goodbye to any chance of that. ‘Just Maybridge.’

‘Shame. I saw one on the Net that would have been perfect. Pink and white. Just like the one you had when you were a little girl.’

‘I’m all grown up now, Hal.’

‘Goodbye, Claire.

* * *

Hal picked the newspaper out of the bin, looked again at the fairy lookalike. Claire’s hair was still the colour of rich cream with a tendency to escape the tortoiseshell clip she used to hold it back and curl in soft tendrils around her face. It was the kind of clip that gave a man ideas. Which was, no doubt, its purpose.

Not that he needed any help.

At a distance, he could be rational about her. Remember that she was the daughter of his enemy.

Close up, with her scent—a combination of shampoo, soap, the memory of bluebells—blanking out the smell of motor oil, her eyes smiling even when her mouth was trying not to, her mouth smiling because she forgot to keep it in line, he’d wanted a re-run of a kiss that should never have happened. To feel her body soften in response to him the way it had that morning on the path.

Taking Claire Thackeray in a ditch… Against one of the estate’s ancient oaks… In the Queen’s bed…

All grown up and he knew that he’d dream about letting loose her lovely hair to fall over pale, naked shoulders.

Daydream when he should be concentrating on the ballroom ceiling.

Night dream about doing things with raspberry jam that would put it on the Women’s Institute banned list but, more to the point, what was she going to do about him?

So far, she’d stuck strictly to the facts, although that first piece might have raised a wry smile amongst those who remembered him.

He’d anticipated some comeback to his crack about her not fulfilling her mother’s inflated expectations. It had hurt her. It had been his intention to hurt her.

She had been the estate’s little princess while he’d been the frog who was supposed to live under a stone.

So why hadn’t she struck back hard? She knew that he’d been thrown off the estate and that was the story any real journalist would have told.

But then no real journalist would have warned him about what was going to be on tomorrow’s front page.

He called up the Observer’s website and clicked on the link to the editorial staff. She was about halfway down the list, a cool blonde looking out at the world with a confident smile, very different from the mud-spattered creature, hair tumbled about her face that he’d picked out of the ditch. Full of sass and spirit one minute, flapping her eyelashes at him the next, when she thought he might be useful to her.

Still the estate princess despite her fall from grace. She might have been bright, but not bright enough to avoid the obvious trap.

Knowing her mother, he’d have thought an unwanted pregnancy would have involved a quick trip to the nearest clinic. But maybe it hadn’t been an unwanted pregnancy. After all, she’d told him herself, she’d been in love.

Not wanting to think about it, he swept the paper up, but as he was about to drop it where it belonged, in the waste-basket, his attention was caught once again by the fairy perched on the masthead.