Kate Hewitt - The Lone Wolfe

‘What …?’ Mollie exclaimed in an outraged squeak. ‘Who told you that?’

‘I dunno … someone there who picks up the phone, at any rate. Sorry.’

And Mollie knew who that would be. There were only two of them here after all. And she wasn’t supposed to feel vulnerable . Well, she didn’t. She felt bloody cross. She’d wasted a whole day waiting for someone who had no intention of coming, and Jacob had not even had the courtesy to inform her he’d cancelled her arrangements. She was operating on a tight schedule already, and she certainly didn’t need his interference.

After rearranging a time with the tree surgeon, she stalked to the manor. If Jacob Wolfe was going to interfere with her job, she wanted to know why. And she’d also tell him to butt out. She looked forward to the sense of vindication. Yet when she knocked on the manor’s front doors so hard her knuckles ached she received no response. She peeked in the windows and rattled the doorknob, uselessly, for the house was locked up. Above her the sky was heavy and dank, and she felt as if its weight were pressing on her. It looked ready to pour, and she was too annoyed and out of sorts to head back to the gardens in this weather.

Mollie decided to return to the cottage. She’d take the opportunity to start sorting through her father’s things, something she’d put off for far too long already. As she headed down the twisting path through the woods, the first fat drops began to fall.

An hour later, freshly showered and dressed in comfortable trackie bottoms and a T-shirt, Mollie started through her father’s things. She’d picked the least emotional of his possessions: boxes of old bills and paperwork that had never managed to be filed. Yet even these held their own poignancy; Mollie gazed at her father’s crabbed handwriting on one of the papers. He’d been jotting notes about a new rose hybrid on the back of a warning that the electricity would be turned off if a payment wasn’t made. She thought of the crumpled notes William Wolfe had thrown at her father, and how he’d picked them up. Her heart twisted inside her.

As if on cue, the lights flickered and then went out, and Mollie was once again left in darkness. She sat there in disbelief, the notice still in her hand. Then anger—unreasonable, unrelenting fury—took over. First the tree surgeon was cancelled. Now the electricity was turned off—again! If Jacob Wolfe had changed his mind about having her stay here, he could have just said.

Without even thinking about what she was doing, Mollie yanked on her wellies. She reached for her torch and her parka and slammed out into the night.

It had been pouring all afternoon, and the deluge from the heavens had not stopped. Despite her rain gear, Mollie was soaked in seconds. She didn’t care. Righteous indignation spurred her onwards, stalking through the trees, all the way up to the manor house steps. She knocked on the door as hard as she could, but the sound was lost in the wind and the rain. She knocked again, and again, sensing, knowing , that Jacob was home, despite the darkened windows. And even if he wasn’t, she refused to slink back to her servant quarters yet again. She wouldn’t be stopped by a closed door. Not this time. With a satisfying loud thwack, Mollie kicked the door.

‘Ow!’ The door swung open, and hobbling on one foot, she practically fell into Jacob’s arms.

‘Are you all right?’ Unruffled as ever, he righted her, his hands running down her arms, pausing on her waist and then examining her calves and feet. Even in her outrage and pain, Mollie registered a curious tingle as he touched her, so lightly, so impersonally, yet with obvious concern, his fingers deft and sure. ‘Did you break a bone?’ She thought she detected the tiniest trace of amusement in his voice, yet she had to be mistaken. His touch and his expression were both impersonal, emotionless.

‘No, I just stubbed my toe,’ she snapped. She stepped away from him and those light, capable hands. He reached behind her to close the door.

‘Is something the matter?’ Jacob inquired, and Mollie let out a sharp laugh.

‘I’ll say something’s the matter! Why did you cancel the tree surgeon I’d arranged? He’s booked solid through June, and I only got the appointment by calling in a favour. And if you had to cancel, you could have at least told me—’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jacob replied coolly. ‘I’m afraid it was an oversight. I was in London for the day on business and I had all my calls routed through my office. My assistant must have cancelled the appointment.’

‘Oh.’ Mollie didn’t know what to say after that. She found herself imagining the assistant, some sexy, polished city girl in red lipstick and kitten heels. ‘Well, why did you turn off the electricity?’ she finally demanded, blustering once again. ‘If you’d changed your mind about me, you could just—’

‘ I turned off the electricity?’ Now Jacob looked truly amused. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have that much authority. The wind and the waves do not obey me.’ He glanced around the foyer, and suddenly Mollie saw just how dark the manor was. She noticed the torch in Jacob’s hand, and understood, far too late, that the electricity must be off in the manor as well.

It was a storm , for heaven’s sake. Even though she was shivering with cold, her cheeks reddened. She was a complete idiot, coming in here full of fury, and for what? Jacob had a reason for everything.

‘Oh.’ She shifted, and muddy water leaked out of a ripped seam in her boot. She stared at the spreading stain on the rug, and saw that Jacob was looking at it too. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, feeling both foolish and stupid. ‘I jumped to some awful conclusions.’

‘So it would appear.’ Jacob let the silence tick on rather uncomfortably as he gazed at her for a moment, and Mollie suffered through it. Perhaps this would be her penance. ‘Well, I can hardly send you out in that storm the way you are now,’ he said, sounding resigned. ‘Fortunately the plumbing has already been repaired. Why don’t you dry off upstairs? Have a bath if you like. You can change into something of Annabelle’s.’

Mollie’s eyes widened as an array of images cart-wheeled across her brain. ‘I couldn’t—’

‘Why not?’ Jacob challenged blandly. ‘Surely there’s nothing waiting for you back at your cottage? I was just making myself some dinner. I only got back from London an hour ago. You are free to join me.’

Free, not welcome. Mollie was under no illusion that Jacob actually wanted her company. She was an obligation; perhaps she always had been. Perhaps that was what lay behind the cheque she still hadn’t cashed, as well as the commission he’d given her. Just his wretched sense of duty.

Yet he obviously hadn’t felt any sense of duty to his family; why should he feel it for her? Confused by her own thoughts, Mollie found herself nodding.

‘All right, I will. Thank you,’ she said, and heard the challenge in her voice. Maybe now was the time for the clarity and closure she wanted. Maybe now she’d get some answers.

‘Good. You know the way?’

Mollie nodded again, and Jacob turned from here. ‘Take all the time you need. I’ll meet you in the kitchen when you’re done. Don’t forget your torch.’

Without waiting for her to respond, he walked away, swallowed by the darkness.

As he stalked down the hall back to the kitchen, Jacob wondered why he’d just invited Mollie Parker to share his dinner. He wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want any company, and certainly not hers. She gazed at him with an unsettling mix of judgement and compassion, and he needed neither. He refused to explain himself to her, yet he couldn’t stand the thought of her jumping to more asinine conclusions.