Chapter Three
Pippa spun around to face Gil, dressed now in the clothes she’d seen on his bedroom floor. Lola wandered over to the bowls by the back door and sat down, staring up at him expectantly.
His coffee? ‘Whoever was preparing the house for us was meant to be leaving some basics as well,’ she said stiffly. She was so far on the back foot with him now she might as well be in the yard.
‘Preparing the house?’ He laughed as he shook out some dog food from a biscuit barrel on the worktop and Lola had inhaled it before Pippa had barely even blinked. ‘I made the beds, I’m afraid I don’t have time to run around with a duster or go shopping for a couple of vegetarians as well. Sorry, Lola, that’s your lot.’ He patted the dog gently before replacing the lid on the barrel. Lola sighed as he opened the backdoor and she trotted through it. Gil leaned outside, bending to pick something up and when he turned back, Pippa saw that it was milk. ‘You’re not bloody vegans as well, are you?’
‘I don’t see that it would matter to you either way seeing as you haven’t been shopping for us. The solicitor said…’
‘I’m not interested in what the solicitor said.’ He was in her space now, reaching past her to stand the two bottles on the worktop. He refilled the kettle and set it back down with a clatter.
‘You should be,’ Pippa told him coolly. She’d taken a step out of his way but that was all. She wasn’t going to be cowed by his antagonism; until an hour ago she hadn’t even known he existed, much less lived in this house. But not for much longer, thankfully. She wouldn’t be pushing the point about the solicitor though, seeing as she’d only skimmed the email she’d received about the house. ‘I’ll replace your coffee when I go shopping.’
‘I’m not that mean. I can run to a cup of coffee.’ Gil flashed her a glance and her pulse caught at that same awareness from before. ‘But yeah, if you don’t mind. I’m not great without coffee first thing so I’d appreciate not running out. Not that you look like the kind of person who drinks instant.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Pippa banged her empty mug onto the worktop. ‘You don’t seem like the kind of person who’d be any nicer when they’ve had coffee.’
‘I guess I deserved that. Sorry.’
This time she couldn’t read anything more than indifference in his look. She straightened up and he yawned as he turned away. She’d have thought he’d done it on purpose if he didn’t look so wiped out. She must have been more exhausted than she’d realised seeing as she’d missed his arrival in the early hours.
‘So you’ve noticed the kettle doesn’t turn off by itself. You need to listen for it boiling and then do it.’
‘Is there anything else dangerous you ought to warn me about before you leave?’ She wanted to make certain he knew she hadn’t forgotten.
‘I think that’s it.’ Lola returned, helping herself to a noisy drink and sloshing water onto the worn lino before flopping into a cosy bed. Pippa pulled a face. Another good reason why she’d never wanted pets. Mess everywhere.
Gil’s phone was ringing again, and he propped himself against the blue range with his coffee, listening to what she presumed was a voicemail when he didn’t pick up in time. He swiped the message away and looked up. ‘I’ve got to go to work. Would it inconvenience you terribly if I moved out when I get back?’
He raised that brow again and the politeness he was pretending made her decide to retaliate in kind. She just needed him gone and quickly, suspecting that the more impatient she appeared, the longer he’d draw out the process. She was quite certain he didn’t want to share the house with her either and it was likely to be that which got him through the door. ‘Not at all. I have to find an estate agent and go shopping so I won’t be here all day anyway.’
He scowled again and a glimmer of triumph followed. She’d meant that comment to hit home. So, he wasn’t happy about her plans to sell the house. Why? How long had he been living here and how was he connected to her dad? Or was he? These were questions Pippa wasn’t prepared to ask him directly, imagining his scorn if she tried, so she’d have to find answers another way.
‘Where do you work?’ She could at least ask that; praying it wasn’t from home and he was planning to perch at that rickety kitchen table all day. Surely not, not without Wi-Fi?
‘There.’ He jerked his head towards the yard and her startled gaze followed his to the window.
‘You’re a farmer?’ That would at least take him outside and away from her.
‘No. I’m a vet.’
‘A vet? Oh, that’s so cool.’ Harriet had wandered barefoot into the kitchen, still in her pyjamas, and Lola jumped up to greet her. She bent down, giving the dog the kind of smile that made Pippa wish her daughter was still a toddler. She used to get those cuddles, too, and a wave of sadness rushed through her. ‘Is Lola a Labrador? I love her colour.’
‘She is a Labrador, a very hungry one, so I wouldn’t leave anything around that you don’t want her to eat. Making food disappear without me noticing is her superpower, one I’m still trying to train her out of.’
‘How old is she?’ Harriet was still cuddling, and Lola’s tail was thumping happily against her thigh in response to all this attention.
‘She’s eighteen months, still a baby, really.’
‘So you’ve had her since she was a puppy then?’ Harriet shot Pippa another glare; the lack of their own dog something else that was Pippa’s fault. She opened her mouth to repeat her objections to pets and why they couldn’t have a puppy at home, but Gil was quicker.
‘Not quite, she was five months old when I got her, so still very young.’
‘You rescued her? Wow, that’s amazing. Could I take her for a walk sometime?’
‘I don’t think so, Harriet, seeing as Lola will be moving out with Gil later today.’ Pippa wanted to make sure that was clear. There was absolutely no point in letting Harriet get attached. Pippa had experienced that once in her life with a pet and she certainly wasn’t going there again, nor would she allow Harriet to be exposed to those same feelings. ‘Mind where you’re putting your feet, she’s spilled water all over the floor.’
‘So? I’m not bothered.’ Harriet scowled before returning her curiosity to Gil. ‘So, you like, save sick animals and stuff?’
‘When I can.’ His smile for her was weary, tinged with something Pippa thought might be sadness. He was slightly less guarded, not as resentful, when he was speaking with her daughter. He yawned again, covering his mouth with a hand. ‘Sorry, very late night. I was called out. Sadly not every animal I treat gets a happy ending, it goes with the job.’
‘But still, you make a difference, right?’
‘I guess I do. It’s worth trying, anyway.’
‘Where are you going to live?’ Harriet had left Lola snuggling down again and opened the fridge door. She shut it again and shot Pippa another look, one which Pippa understood all too well. A look that implied she could magic up whatever food it was that Harriet wanted right now. In London, where there was every kind of shop, she usually could. She made sure to keep all Harriet’s favourites well stocked at home; her daughter played a lot of sport and was always hungry. Harriet came and went as she pleased between Pippa’s house and her dad’s, but there was no doubt who was the better cook, and it wasn’t her father. Pippa often wondered if that was the real reason why Harriet still lived with her; she always seemed to be angry with her these days.
‘Well, I—’
‘That’s none of our business, Harriet,’ Pippa said coolly. Partly because it wasn’t and partly because she didn’t care, as long as Gil was out of her sight. Her mind was still tugging her back to that first glimpse she’d had of him in bed earlier; that bare chest, the tousled blond hair…
‘Mum, stop it! I can hear you grinding your teeth again, it’s disgusting. You always do that when you’re stressed.’
Oh, she was stressed all right! Faced with an angry vet who couldn’t stand the sight of her and a grumpy daughter who’d already made friends with a dog who wasn’t staying. And that was before she’d even got to the bottom of her dad’s connection to this house and what exactly Gil was doing in it.
‘Mum hates Hartfell,’ Harriet offered Gil helpfully, folding her arms. ‘She didn’t want to come here.’
‘She didn’t?’ Gil had apparently honed the ability to ask a question whilst conveying absolutely no interest in the answer.
‘Harriet, that’s not fair. I know nothing about the place, and we’ve only been here ten hours.’ Pippa was doing her best to unclench the tension in her jaw and decided a change of subject was needed. ‘So, what are your plans for today?’ She’d learned a while ago to let Harriet come to her, not to make her own suggestions anymore.
‘Eat, obviously, when you’ve done the shopping. And if you want me to do some homework then I’m going to need the Wi-Fi network and a password.’
‘Wi-Fi network? Sorry, Harriet, we don’t have one of those in the house.’ Gil laughed and Pippa really didn’t like how he directed his amusement at her as she braced herself for battle. He raised a disdainful hand to the kitchen. ‘You can see the state of the place, it’s barely even habitable. I’m afraid Wi-Fi isn’t going to find its way in here anytime soon.’
‘ NO WI-FI! ’ Harriet screeched, her face turning pink with fury. ‘Did you know about this, Mum?’
‘I didn’t have time to do much research before we arrived and now we’re here, I’ve realised the house is even more outdated than I’d expected.’ Pippa settled on a version of the truth, wondering why Harriet thought doing homework was more for Pippa’s benefit rather than her own.
‘ Outdated? ’ Harriet jabbed her phone furiously in Pippa’s direction. ‘Do you even actually understand what this means? Just because you don’t care about Wi-Fi and need it like I do doesn’t mean it’s not important! How am I supposed to stay in touch with Isla and my own life now you’ve dragged me up here and dumped us in the middle of nowhere?’
Pippa was feeling guilty that Harriet wouldn’t easily be able to reach her best friend. And neither would she, seeing as Isla’s mum Cassie was Pippa’s closest friend. ‘That’s not what you said last night. You said it would be an adventure. It’ll be fun, Harriet, like living off-grid for a bit. A digital detox.’ She took a calming breath, reminding herself who was actually the parent in this relationship and trying to quell the knots that had erupted in her stomach. Harriet’s face was red now and she flounced from the kitchen, offering a parting stab over one shoulder.
‘ Off-grid? Without Wi-Fi you can forget me doing homework, Mum. I’m going to look up trains back to London. Oh that’s right, I can’t. Because we’re now living in the dark ages and trains probably don’t even run up here.’
Pippa’s fingers were trembling, and she took another breath as the door shook in its frame after the slam. She’d need to talk to Harriet, but she knew from experience it would be best done when her daughter had eaten and for that she’d have to go shopping first, delaying the conversation required after that outburst. A wave of misery washed through her and she wished with all her heart they were still in London. At least there Harriet was familiar with home and all they both loved about the city. Gil was staring through the window, and he slowly turned around.
‘Thanks for that! You obviously enjoyed letting Harriet know about the Wi-Fi, probably because you knew she’d be angry and would blame me.’
‘Well, she’s right.’
‘It’s not my fault!’
‘Not having Wi-Fi in the house isn’t your fault but maybe you should have told her because then she would have known the facts before she came and made an informed decision, not one based on assumptions.’ He raised that brow again and Pippa wanted to swipe it from his face. ‘Or were you afraid that she wouldn’t come, and the lack of Wi-Fi would’ve sealed the deal?’
Pippa thought wildly her teeth were grinding so hard now it was a wonder she wasn’t spitting dust, and she could feel her face heating up, her hands clenched into fists. ‘How dare you,’ she roared, tempted to grab her empty mug, and hurl it at him. ‘We’ve barely met and you think to mansplain to me about how I parent my daughter. You clearly know nothing about teenagers!’
‘Funny, considering I’ve raised two of my own.’
‘Sorry, is this a bad moment?’ A head appeared around the back door and Pippa spun around in shock at the disturbance. ‘I did knock but I don’t think you heard me.’ The woman offered her an apologetic smile before her look went to Gil, standing impassively at the sink. ‘It’s an emergency, Gil. That heifer up at Roland’s place has taken a turn for the worse and he wants you to come as soon as possible.’
‘On my way, I’ve just picked up his voicemail. How’s the rest of the list looking?’
‘Full. Wendy will be in soon.’
‘Right. Come on, Lola, time to go.’ He stuffed his phone in a pocket and strode past Pippa, who was still trembling. Lola jumped up, sensing an adventure.
‘You must be Pippa.’ The woman was hovering just inside the room, as though she didn’t quite dare come any further. ‘I’m Elaine, Gil’s receptionist. Welcome to Hartfell.’
‘Thank you.’ Pippa let out a shaky breath, offering a smile of her own. Elaine stepped aside to let Gil through the door, and he disappeared, Lola at his heels. ‘I don’t think I’ve got off to the best start.’
‘Don’t mind Gil, he can be a bit sharp when he’s upset. Doesn’t happen often.’
‘Upset?’ Pippa was just about holding onto furious tears, and she wondered if he hadn’t washed up his mug just to annoy her. She was fighting the desire to do it herself and looked away; she’d leave it for him to deal with when he returned for his things. ‘I don’t understand why he’s so angry with me.’
‘You’re a threat to him, that’s why.’ Elaine shook her head. ‘He loves this place and he’s convinced you’ve come here just to sell it from under him.’
Pippa firmly quashed the flare of guilt. That was her plan, and she wasn’t about to share it with his receptionist. Best to say no more about estate agents for now and find out how the land lay first, as it were. Maybe she’d look further afield for an agent as well. In the next county, maybe, not someone who knew all the locals and would make her plan public before she was ready. Then she’d have them stick up a For Sale board and hotfoot it back home at the same time, hopefully within the week.
‘He’ll calm down, don’t worry. Why don’t you pop over to the practice for a coffee when you have a minute? I’ll fill you in on some of the history.’
‘Where is that, the practice?’ Not far enough, probably. Through the kitchen window Pippa caught sight of a Land Rover racing down the drive, a stony-faced Gil behind the wheel.
‘The main branch is in town, but the original surgery is just across the yard. I’d better run, we’ve got a locum doing consultations this morning and clients will be arriving soon. See you later, Pippa.’
‘Bye. And thank you.’ Pippa walked over to the table and sank onto one of the plastic chairs, head in her hands. This adventure, as Harriet had optimistically called it last night, had rapidly become a nightmare. Gil Haworth didn’t even know her and already he hated her. And now Harriet was sulking in her room and probably scheming to get her grandad to stage a rescue, which would put her beyond Pippa’s reach whilst she was marooned in Hartfell.
She’d left her phone upstairs so she couldn’t check if her own message to her dad had sent out. And even if it had, she didn’t expect a reply anytime soon. Given the situation, he must’ve known all about Gil and had landed her in it on purpose. Yet again, she was battling her inability to say no to her family and worse, she knew deep down that some of what Gil had said about Harriet was true. She had been worried about the Wi-Fi, because if Harriet knew it was non-existent or even unreliable, why else would she have come? Not for Pippa’s sake and a bit of mother and daughter bonding, of that, she was sure.
From experience she knew that Harriet was best left to cool down for a while. She would go in search of shopping, so she could at least feed her daughter. Perhaps when Harriet had had an hour or so to think about her predicament with the Wi-Fi, she might – and Pippa knew it was a long shot – just might come around to the idea of being on an adventure again. She desperately needed to uncover what was bothering Harriet, if her moodiness was due to more than teenage hormones.
She was hungry too and not for anything was she going to touch a single scrap of food that belonged to Gil, especially as none of it was the promised provisions he was supposed to have bought. She had no idea how the hot water system in this house worked and when she went upstairs and saw the rough contraption attached to the wall above the turquoise bath, she decided to leave having a shower for later. She sent Harriet a text to let her know she was going out in search of the shop.
She locked the back door and set off at her usual brisk pace, braced for avoiding strangers in her path. In daylight, the house wasn’t as ugly as she’d expected given the state of the inside. It was rather gorgeous, built of a stone that appeared golden, dozing in the early morning sun.
The driveway was separated from the yard by a row of overgrown hedging, curving around to the barns she’d seen from the kitchen earlier, bordered by trees, a paddock one side and a front garden on the other, wide grassy verges laden with wildflowers. The whole effect was very pretty, and her eye caught on a clump of cow parsley. She thought of sketching it, capturing those faded, flat flower heads before they fell. She shook the idea firmly away; she didn’t have time for that.
The small paddock was almost devoid of grass, a stubby little brown-and-white pony grazing between thin lines of white tape fencing off one corner, a thick tail almost reaching the ground shaking away flies. It raised a head to stare as Pippa marched past, and she smiled. Its face was half hidden by long white hair, and the pony soon returned to the more important business of snatching at grass through a muzzle attached to the headcollar.
The scent of freshly mown grass was on the air, and she breathed it in, trying to think back to the last time she’d noticed it. Not in her own garden, certainly, which was a courtyard filled with pots and plants she wasn’t always diligent about taking care of. She paused where the drive met the lane, checking for traffic, of which there was none, unless she counted a group of five middle-aged people all striding purposefully past with rucksacks and walking poles. Every one of them offered a greeting along with curious looks and she muttered a distracted hello back.
A glance to her right revealed the high square tower of a sturdy, solid church and she turned towards it, glimpsing more rooftops through the trees. The lane sloped gently down as she headed towards the village, realising that Home Farm wasn’t as far away from it as she’d imagined. She passed a primary school next to the church, the playground silent on a Saturday, unlike her phone, which had picked up some signal and was busy pinging notifications. She glanced at it, too distracted by the view right now to open the messages from the family, who probably all wanted to know about the house and why their dad had never told them about it.
Pippa slowed her pace as she crossed a neat bridge in the same golden stone as the house, matching some of the cottages she saw up ahead. Others were painted white with black windows, doors opening directly onto the cobbled lane. One or two houses were larger, smart front doors tucked behind railings and rows of low hedging. Beneath her feet, the shallow and burbling river spilled busily over rocks and she took a moment to enjoy it, feeling a little more of her tension slip away as she tilted her face to the sun. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her to continue in search of shopping, and she paused again when she reached a T-junction.
To her right sat the village green, the far side bordering the river and edged with bright planting, her eye picking out pleasing shades of lemon, cream and apricot. In the centre, a stone cross stood at the top of three wide and crumbling steps, the remains of a wooden stocks fastened between posts smudged with moss perched nearby.
On her left she spotted a pub; creamy stone walls smothered in ivy clambering above huge wooden planters on the cobbles. Each was filled with plants, and evergreen topiary had been pruned into upright columns between softer pastel hues. Opposite was a disused youth hostel, its dull rendered walls and tatty white windows making the building plain. A couple carrying cases were leaving the pub, heading for a car parked beneath the dappled shade of a horse chestnut tree.
It was all so much prettier than Pippa had expected, imagining the village to be some windswept moorland wilderness. Her visits to Yorkshire were long in the past and from what she remembered, her memories were of towns and busy streets, not this glorious cluster of buildings perched amongst a rolling green landscape dotted with farms. She took a few pictures for the family and swiftly decided not to send them yet; love them all though she did and very much, she didn’t want any of them descending on Hartfell for a nosy.
There had been just the three of them when her mum had died, not the five siblings they became after her dad eventually met someone else. Phoebe and Freddie, her youngest sister and brother, had arrived during Jonny’s most meaningful relationship after becoming a widower, with his publicist Vanessa. Even now he would still say fondly that she was very good at her job, and he’d never had publicity like it. Pippa wasn’t sure that he’d ever grasped the irony of the headlines he’d garnered by fathering two children with Vanessa, who was still very much a part of their lives and also excellent at the job she continued to do for Jonny and the band.
Another growl in her stomach reminded Pippa of Harriet, sulking back at the house. They both needed a good meal, and soon. Thinking about her daughter and lulled from her usual city senses as she went to cross the lane, she very nearly stepped straight into the path of a quad bike.
It jerked out of her way with an angry blast of the horn, and she caught the irate glare of the elderly woman driving it. A terrier was perched on her lap, a lurcher clinging on behind. A trailer was attached to the bike and Pippa did a double take, heart still fluttering, wondering if she really had just seen a sheep riding shotgun with a pair of alpacas.