Finding Home in Hartfell (Hartfell Village #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Dad! You’re an absolute nightmare, you know that, don’t you? Packing me off to Hartfell at a moment’s notice to do your dirty work.’ Pippa felt a rush of love for Jonny as he grinned back via her iPad screen. She’d messaged earlier and told him not to worry but she needed to speak with him urgently. Thankfully, Harriet was at Alfie’s and Gil out seeing farm patients, so she was alone in the practice. Jonny looked wonderful: suntanned and relaxed, a terrace and infinity pool behind him falling away to a blue ocean glittering in the distance. His grey hair was short and tousled, a brightly patterned shirt half undone.

‘Come on, Pips, you know you’re the light of my life, all of you. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think it would be for the best.’

‘Best for you, you mean,’ she retorted, still touched by his words all the same. Jonny wasn’t given to emotional confessions and her frustration was already easing. She hadn’t seen him in person for months, but he was still her dad and she missed him.

‘So you’ve sorted the place out then, found the right solution?’

‘Right for whom?’

‘You and Harriet.’ He crossed one ankle over the other knee, looking slightly smug. Pippa knew from Raf that the band weren’t rehearsing the final leg of the tour yet, and she was struck once again by the weird combination of having someone so famous and often out of reach for a dad, and yet one who was so normal and down to earth in person. He looked fit and well, and she was sure he’d be practising yoga every day and keeping up with the work required to expend so much energy and adrenaline on stage whenever the band performed.

‘What about Gil?’

‘What about him?’ Jonny’s eyes darted away, as they always did when he had an ulterior motive or preferred to avoid a confrontation.

‘I take it that my “sorting out” the house didn’t exactly include turfing out your best friend’s son with nowhere to go.’ Pippa used her fingers to put quotes around those two words.

‘No.’ Jonny raised a shoulder, back with her. ‘But he’s a stubborn bugger and I had to do something to force his hand.’

‘So you refused an extension to his lease?’

‘Yeah. He kept insisting he’d pay market value for the whole place, but he was never going to raise the full amount and I needed him to see that. Part of the plan.’

‘So you sent me to help him see it?’ She shook her head, caught between exasperation with her dad, and sadness for Gil. ‘You don’t think a solicitor would have been the best person for the job? Someone who actually understands leases and land registry, all that stuff.’

‘Sometimes these things need a woman’s touch.’

‘It shouldn’t surprise you to know that women are solicitors too, Dad.’

‘I know, I had one once, but she gave up to write thrillers. Put me in one of her books and killed me off.’ Jonny roared, reaching for a large glass of water nearby. ‘Said I was her favourite client too.’ He leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. ‘So what do you want to do with the place? You know it’s yours, don’t you? The house?’

‘Mine?’ The air shot out of her lungs and her hand skittered across the iPad, blanking her dad from her sight until she clicked on the app again. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Deadly. You know I never joke about money.’ Jonny took a long drink and put the glass down. This time the merriment and mischief in his gaze was gone. ‘There’s some legal stuff to sign once the land registry is sorted, but it’s your inheritance. You’ve always known the plan. One property for each of you and that’s your lot. The rest is going to charity, to the school. Nothing was ever handed to me or your mum on a plate, and you’ll all have to make your own way eventually.’

‘I know.’ Pippa was still trying to take in the reality of this news about Home Farm. Jonny had always been vehement that each of his children worked and earned their own money. He’d see them all right, more than that, but he wasn’t a bottomless pit of privilege and the new performing arts school he was funding was his way of putting something significant back into his old community.

‘So what’s the plan?’ He nodded at someone off camera, and Pippa saw her youngest brother and sister leaping into the pool with exuberant yells. She hadn’t seen them for ages either; they really did need to arrange a proper family get together once the never-ending retirement tour had played its final date. ‘You have got one, I take it?’

‘Of course.’ She let out a shaky breath. She’d sat up for hours thinking this over and hadn’t breathed a word to anyone other than Harriet, not until she’d had this conversation with Jonny and made sure everything was properly lined up. ‘I’ve put the house up for sale.’

‘You haven’t! But what about Gil, what’s he—’

‘Not Home Farm,’ she replied, very much enjoying that she’d managed to alarm her dad for once. ‘Mine, in London. I don’t want to hang about, so it’s priced to sell, and I’ve made an offer on something here.’

‘In Hartfell?’ Jonny’s brows drew together, and he uncrossed his legs to rest his elbows on his knees. ‘What are you talking about? You’ve already got a house there.’

‘Well, I didn’t know that, not for certain.’ Maud got up from her bed in the office and trotted over to Pippa, who picked her up, snuggling the puppy on her knee. ‘This is Maud, by the way, she’s the newest member of the family. I’m hoping there might be some more to add soon. Hopefully another three. Not dogs, though. People. Plus Lola, who is a dog.’

‘I see. Sounds good, there’s always room for more.’ Jonny grinned again. ‘Looks like you’ve found your feet there, Pips.’

‘I really have, Dad. Harriet has too, she’s loving life here. And wait until I tell you about Ivy, my great-grandmother. That’s a whole other story and you’re going to love it. I’ve learned so much about her family since I’ve been here. Can I ask you a question, though?’

‘Ask me anything. Fire away.’

‘Why did you buy the farm in the first place? Why not just let Gil have it then?’

‘Because I didn’t want it going to someone else. He’d already approached the estate to take on the lease and his cousin turned him down. I got wind of his divorce, and kept quiet. I didn’t want it forming part of a settlement to someone who wasn’t in his life anymore.’ Jonny huffed out a laugh and Pippa couldn’t be certain, but it looked very much like tears were shining in his eyes.

‘I made a promise to Bryan a long time ago, when the first album did all right. He and Carolyn had it rough from her lot when they got together, and I promised him I’d see his family right. Bryan was my best mate, Pips. We grew up together, we always had each other’s backs, and I loved him.’

‘So you did it for Gil? Bought the farm for him?’ Tears were caught in Pippa’s eyes too and she sniffed, holding them back. The relief was immense, and she was so glad she’d taken her time with the house and hadn’t rushed into selling it. Not that her dad would’ve let her, by the sound of things.

‘Yep. Him and his dad, or at least the memory of his dad. Now I know what you want to do, the solicitor can get on with separating the house from the farm.’ Jonny’s look was suddenly wicked as his eyes gleamed. ‘So you’ll have to find a way to get on together, won’t you, seeing as you’ll be neighbours. Or maybe you’re already getting along?’

‘I’m not telling you that!’

‘You don’t have to. I know you, Pippa.’ Jonny winked. ‘Reckon you can make him accept it?’

‘I’ll certainly try.’ And this time she really would chain Gil up somewhere until he said yes. Thoughts of a future in Hartfell were so new, she still wasn’t used to them. The plan she’d set in motion, how swiftly she and Harriet had come to think of the house and the village as home.

‘What about your job?’

‘I’ve already handed in my notice, and they were good enough to let me leave without having to stay until half term. I can’t be in London if Harriet’s at school here. I’ve already had a look at supply jobs locally and I’m pretty sure I’ll find something temporary to see me through for now.’ Pippa took a deep breath. ‘And I’ve listed my paintings, the old ones I had at home. It’s time and I want to let them go, even if they’re not worth a lot.’

‘I think that’s wonderful,’ Jonny said softly. ‘They deserve to be seen.’

‘Thank you.’ The plan still made her stomach churn, but she was ready, now. ‘So once my house is sold, I might need to use your apartment now and then to tie up a few loose ends. Is that all right?’

‘Course it is. Don’t think I’ll be coming straight back after the tour anyway. I like it out here, it’s beautiful, even in the winter. Got my eye on a place, too.’

‘I’m glad you’re happy.’ Pippa meant it. Wherever in the world her dad might be, she knew he loved them all and kept an eye on them from afar.

‘And you, Pips. Means the world. So tell me about this house you’ve made an offer on in Hartfell.’

‘Later. And it’s not a house, not exactly.’ She laughed at the confusion on Jonny’s face. ‘There’s someone else I need to tell first. Not Harriet. She already knows and she thinks it’s brilliant.’

‘You mean Gil?’

‘Maybe. You’ll see.’

‘Last time I spoke to Harriet she said that she thought you’d fallen in love, and it had made you all weird, and did I not think you were too old for all that?’ Jonny roared a laugh, and slapped his knee, bared by board shorts. ‘I pointed out that people can fall in love at any age, and she’d better make the best of it because you’re way too young to spend your life alone. And don’t you worry about Harriet, either. She’s a very smart girl and she’ll be all right, you’ll see. It’s you I was worried about.’

‘Don’t be. I’m fine now too, or very nearly.’ She just needed to speak with Gil and share her news, hoping and praying he felt the same way she did about the future. One in Hartfell, together.

‘That’s brilliant. You were stuck in London, you needed something to get you out of there.’

‘And you had the very solution, did you?’ she questioned dryly. ‘Dad, you’re a menace sometimes but I love you.’

‘I love you too, Pippa, you and Harriet,’ he said softly. ‘You get on and do whatever you need to there, make it right for all of you. The solicitor will sort it out, don’t you worry. Just remember that our memories go everywhere with us, we don’t leave them behind in bricks and mortar. Your mum, she’s still with us, wherever we are.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ Pippa swallowed and she recognised that crafty glint in his eye.

‘I might have something to tell you too. Me and Vanessa, we’ve been spending a fair bit of time together and we’ve decided to give things another go.’

‘Oh, Dad, I’m so pleased.’ Vanessa was the one person in Jonny’s life who’d never tried to change him but had simply loved him the way he was. She was family too, and she’d always tried her best to take care of his three eldest children, even though they were all but grown up when she’d met Jonny. ‘What about Dana?’

‘Well, that ended in Bali. We had different ideas about life, and she’s found a nice young yoga instructor who’s a lot more flexible than I am.’

‘Eww, Dad, too much information!’ Pippa mimed sticking a finger down her throat and Jonny laughed.

‘I didn’t mean it that way, but now I come to think about it…’ He winked and she shook her head. There was no one in the world like her dad, and it wasn’t his fault, not entirely, that his fans loved him being a rock star and touring the world rather than staying home with his family. His success had brought them as much stability as it had distance, and he was never going to change. At least they were all on this ride together, as a family. Excitement was bubbling in her stomach, and she couldn’t wait to share her news with Gil.

‘I’d better go, Maud’s getting impatient to go out and she’ll pee on me if I leave her much longer.’ Pippa snuggled the puppy close for a kiss. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’

‘She is, something else that was just what you needed. Go on then, you go. I’ve got a meeting to get to anyway. Did you know someone’s asked if they could write my biography?’

‘No. Could be interesting, Dad, I might learn a few things.’

‘Yep, and you might learn a few things you’d rather not as well.’ He winked again and she shook her head.

‘Love you, you incorrigible old rocker.’

‘Ay, less of the old.’ Jonny grinned as he wagged a finger and stood up. ‘I’ll take incorrigible though. Love you too.’

After the enlightening conversation with Jonny, Pippa was kept busy dealing with various agents, including Miles, and solicitors, regarding the next steps with the youth hostel now that her offer of the asking price had been accepted. She’d taken Harriet to see it and had sworn her to absolute secrecy for now. Pippa wanted everything legally in place before she spoke to Gil. For all his passion and desire to keep the practice at the heart of its rural community, she didn’t imagine he’d take easily to the idea of it being a gift from her dad.

Seeing him every day made it difficult to pretend, and they’d given up trying to hide their relationship from Harriet, who was suitably disgusted if she happened upon them sharing a kiss or curled up together in the evenings. She and Harriet had talked about school and a future here before Pippa had made the offer on the youth hostel, and had decided it was worth taking a chance on the move.

The decision didn’t prevent her waking in the night sometimes and worrying, though. A life in Hartfell needed to be on terms that worked for both of them; it couldn’t hinge on Pippa’s feelings for Gil or how their own relationship might evolve. However much she’d fallen in love with him, her life couldn’t turn on simply that, not with Harriet’s own future to think about too.

So a few days later, when she’d accepted an offer for their house in London and had met with Miles to view the hostel again, an email arrived which had her rushing over to the practice for Wi-Fi to open it. She wasn’t expecting Elaine behind the counter as there were no consultations today.

‘Hi Elaine. I didn’t realise you were here. How’s your dad?’ Pippa caught sight of her face. ‘What’s the matter? He’s not had another fall?’

‘What?’ Elaine looked up, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. ‘No, he’s fine. It’s not that. Don’t mind me, I’m just upset at the news, that’s all. It’s such a shock, even though we were all kind of expecting it.’

‘What news?’ Pippa realised Elaine was packing a few belongings into a bag and alarm had her pulse spiking. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ Elaine sank down onto a chair, twisting the tissue together.

‘Nothing. Please can you tell me?’

‘It’s the practice, here. We all got an email an hour ago to say that it’s closing with immediate effect.’

‘But why?’ Pippa gripped the counter. She couldn’t find a reason in her mind, not yet. ‘Has something changed?’

‘Gil hasn’t told you?’ Elaine’s face had lost some of the upset in her surprise. ‘That he’s leaving?’

‘Leaving?’ Pippa’s stomach swooped into a dive. ‘Elaine, are you sure? I saw him this morning and he didn’t say a word.’

‘Certain, it’s all in the email. He’s accepted the offer of another job. He told the other partners first thing after the new practice requested a reference, and they didn’t waste any time. They’ve been looking for an opportunity to close this place down and now he’s given it to them. Pippa, are you all right? You’ve gone white.’

‘I’m fine,’ she muttered, trying to organise the words into ones that made sense. But none of them did, and she desperately needed to speak with Gil. ‘Elaine, can you find out exactly where he is now, please?’

She waited impatiently whilst Elaine went through the diary, thanking her blankly when Elaine passed on the details of his calls. She sprinted to the house for her car keys, and promised Maud she’d be back soon. Harriet was at Dorothy’s and then Alfie and Rose were coming for dinner tonight. Every day they seemed to have extra people in the house and Pippa loved it. She and Rose met regularly for coffee and a chat, and the younger woman had become a friend, someone else Pippa would miss if she left.

She barely noticed the drizzle as she set out in her car, forgetting to fetch a coat in her haste. Her future in Hartfell was no longer in the balance, but Gil’s was, and she couldn’t waste another minute in trying to find out why. She knew him now, she understood his character and expressions. A glance was enough for her to recognise his feelings, ones he’d tried to deny and keep hidden, just like her, afraid to make himself vulnerable again after he’d overcome so much in his life.

Out here she couldn’t rely on her phone for directions, and she’d gone wrong twice before she bumped up a rutted track to a farm high on the fell. She tore into the yard so fast that a few free-range chickens leapt for their lives, and she saw Gil’s Land Rover parked up. She shot out of her car, straight into a puddle of thick mud and couldn’t care less. All that mattered was finding him and learning the truth. Elaine had informed her that he was dehorning cattle, and a clatter joined by a low bellow had her guessing exactly where. She followed the buildings until she emerged in another yard, a young cow held securely in a metal crush as Gil prepared to inject it, a farmer holding firmly on to a rope halter to keep its head still.

She’d rehearsed what she wanted to say on the drive here and all those words flew away into the wind. ‘Why didn’t you tell me,’ she yelled, arms wrapped around her body to ward off the chill. ‘About your new job?’

‘Bloody hell, Pippa!’ Gil’s head snapped up and he swore again as he dropped the needle into a puddle. ‘I nearly anaesthetised my own hand.’

‘Serves you right,’ she screeched, glancing at the bemused farmer still clinging on the cow objecting to the situation with a wildly swishing tail. ‘If you’d like to come here, I’ll do it for you. Quite happy to stick a needle in you right now.’

‘Oh, are you?’ Gil straightened up. His waterproofs were covered in mud and worse, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Why don’t you come over here then?’

‘No way,’ she shouted, eyeing the stout ginger cow and its stubby horns. ‘I’m not coming near that.’

‘Would you excuse me for a minute, please?’ Gil said politely to the farmer. The older man nodded gleefully and let go of the rope to lean against the wall, settling in to enjoy the additional source of amusement in his day. Gil crossed the pen to face her over the metal bars. ‘Why don’t you explain what you’re doing here?’

‘No, you’ve got some explaining to do!’ It might be summer but at this height the wind was catching at her hair and whipping it into her eyes, making them smart, and she pulled it from her face impatiently. ‘You’ve accepted another job, and the practice is closing down! Elaine told me an hour ago. I thought we meant something to each other. I thought we were making plans, thinking about a future.’

‘Well, one of us was. It just wasn’t me, until I realised I had to.’

‘Can you please stop talking in riddles and tell me what’s going on? Or I really will grab one of those needles and jab you until I find out! Is it true?’

‘That I’ve accepted a new job. Yes.’ Gil wiped a hand smeared with a splash of blood on his waterproof top.

‘But why?’ She wanted to add more but couldn’t find the words. Wanted to tell him again what his hanging her sketches in the gallery had meant and how much strength his confidence in her had produced. But she couldn’t, not now that her heart was shattering because he was leaving, and she was staying.

‘What did you expect,’ he said roughly. ‘That I’d stay here forever, getting called out at crazy o’clock to deliver a calf or a lamb? Spend weekends working when I could actually be having a life?’

‘But you love that life. Why would you give it up?’ she asked hollowly.

‘Why do you think I’m giving it up,’ he shouted. ‘Why do you think I’m moving to another practice? In London, of all the bloody places? Why, Pippa?’

‘London?’ She took a step back, straight into another metal hurdle, and righted herself hastily before she face planted in the yard. That wasn’t the look she was aiming for here, but then neither was hollering windswept mad-woman. ‘But why would you move to London? You hate the city. Is it because the farm isn’t yours? I’ve got news about that, I just needed—’

‘It’s got nothing to do with the house, or the practice. Sell it, turn the farm into a petting zoo, do what you want with it. Even if it is the only real home I ever had here, I don’t care anymore. Shall I tell you why I’m moving to London? Even though I loathe feeling vulnerable or showing how I really feel?’

‘I think you’d better,’ she said shakily. ‘Because none of this is making any sense.’

‘For you, Pippa Douglas. Entirely for you. You’re the reason I’m moving to London. Because that’s where you’ll be.’ He huffed out a laugh and she was astonished to see tears hovering in his eyes. ‘It’s utter madness. I’ll be spending my days clipping claws and spaying cats, and I don’t even know if you’ll have me.’

‘As what,’ she whispered.

‘As the man in your life who loves you so much that he’s prepared to follow you anywhere. Even to bloody London and I hate the city.’

‘You love me?’

‘Just a bit.’

‘But you hate the city.’

‘Loathe it. With a passion.’

‘But you’ll never be happy there.’

‘I will,’ he said simply. ‘If you’re there. There are some benefits, I might even get a full night’s sleep now and again. But there won’t be any cows, sadly. I’ll miss my bovine patients. And the farmers, obviously.’ He glanced at the farmer, who grinned back and tipped him a wink.

‘Gil?’

‘What?’

Pippa was beaming and she grabbed a handful of his waterproof top to haul him close over the hurdle. ‘I love you too. And seeing as we’ve already got three kids, two dogs and one grumpy pony, you need to know I’m not leaving. I’m staying in Hartfell, so you can cancel your new job.’

‘Seriously?’ Relief was rushing into his eyes, and he touched his forehead to hers. ‘But that snake Miles was there the other day, looking for you and asking when you were available to sign contracts.’

‘And you assumed the worst?’

‘I did.’

‘You’re an idiot.’ Pippa laughed, keeping him close. ‘That snake Miles, who isn’t a snake at all, by the way, he’s lovely—’

‘Debatable,’ Gil muttered.

‘Will you shut up and let me carry on.’ She planted a kiss on his mouth to see if that worked and he grinned.

‘Miles was there to discuss exchanging contracts on the youth hostel. I’ve bought it,’ she finished triumphantly. ‘Or at least I will have done, when the sale of my house is complete.’

‘The youth hostel?’ Gil pulled back to stare at her. ‘What are you planning to do with that? Not live in it, surely?’

‘Definitely not.’ These were the words that warmed her heart, made her light up with excitement every single time she thought of them, ‘I’m turning it into a gallery. The Ivy Walker Gallery, to be precise. It’s going to be a place where new artists can show their work and find an audience, assuming I get planning permission for change of use. Ivy might never have shown or sold her work, but I can make sure her name is known.’

‘Pippa, that’s a wonderful idea.’ Gil swallowed and given the job he’d been doing when she interrupted him, she was quite glad he wiped his hand again before he cupped her face. ‘What about you?’

‘Maybe one day.’ She knew exactly what he was asking, but she wasn’t ready, not yet. ‘Thanks to you.’ She hesitated. ‘But there is something else you’re not going to like, and you just need to say yes. It’s totally for your own good and it’s to fulfil a promise my dad made to yours.’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean it? You don’t even know what it is yet!’

Pippa would’ve explained about the house and the practice there and then, but her mind was too full of the kiss she and Gil were sharing to make him any crosser right now. ‘Can I just say,’ she said breathlessly, pulling back to stare at him with eyes lit up by love. ‘You’re pretty good at showing your feelings when it comes to shouting and kissing.’

‘I’m giving up the shouting,’ he said softly, ignoring the commotion the cow was making as it became impatient at being kept hanging around.

‘Promise me not the kissing?’

‘Never.’ He looked down at her feet, soaked in mud. ‘Pippa, when are you ever going to remember to bring your wellies onto a farm?’

‘Well, you know what they say. You can take the girl out of the city,’ she murmured, the rest of her sentence lost as he laughed and kissed her again.