Chapter 3
Max
Ilean forward. ‘What kind of gig?’
Angus leans into Evelyn and whispers in her ear. He even cups his hand between their faces, so I can’t pick up what he’s saying. Don’t only little kids do that?
Her eyes widen, and her brows shoot up. She sits bolt upright on the sofa.
What the fuck?
She gives my brother a tight little shake of her head. ‘No. I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.’
‘What’s not a good idea?’ I ask, eyes flitting between the two conspirators. ‘What’s that pea-brain of yours hatching this time, mate?’
‘Nothing,’ Evelyn says. ‘It’s an awful idea. Horrible. You can’t do that to her.’
‘Who the hell is her?’
My brother drags himself away from her and leans forward, hands clasped on his knees. ‘You know Molly’s working here, correct?’
I blink at the sound of that name. At the power it holds over me, even now.
‘Molly? As in Molly Carter?’
‘She’s been Molly Stafford for quite some time now,’ he reminds me smoothly, and I roll my eyes. Of course she has. But she’ll always be Molly Carter to me. More importantly—
‘She’s working here? Nope. That you did not mention.’
‘Seriously?’ Evelyn gapes at him. ‘She’s been here, like, ten or eleven months. Do you guys actually communicate?’
‘We email,’ he says defensively. ‘But we usually stick to, you know. Farming practices. How the crops are doing. The bee count. We don’t gossip.’
‘I’m right there with you, pal,’ I say, ‘but even I think it would have been worth you mentioning how the fuck my ex ended up working here, of all places. I thought she was in London, or somewhere?’
‘She was. But her husband left her at the start of the year. She was in a bad spot. You know we kept in touch, at least?’
I did know that she still spoke to my brother, or at least was Facebook friends with him. I usually try not to think about her, to be honest. She wanted a clean break, so I did her the courtesy of giving her one. I let her go, and I left her alone. No point in raking up old pain.
I nod. ‘Yeah. But I didn’t know her husband left her. What happened?’
Angus twists his mouth as if he’s considering how much to tell me.
‘He’s a successful painter. As in, incredibly successful.
He started to be in more and more demand for overseas commissions, and he wanted to take the kids out of school and live more of a nomadic life.
Molly dug her heels in and he fucked off anyway.
Said she was holding him back. Served her with divorce papers and sold the house. ’
The sheer intensity of the pain in my chest takes me by surprise.
I may, at one point in my life, when I was young and clueless and far too fucking stupid, have uttered a similar sentiment to her.
A sentiment that was the death knell to our relationship.
But at least I was honest about it up front.
At least I didn’t pretend to be a family man.
At least I didn’t give her the fucking children she wanted so badly and then walk away from them all.
Good God. The poor woman.
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ I mutter. ‘He sounds like a total twat.’
‘He definitely is,’ Angus agrees.
‘Is she doing all right?’
‘She is now. She’s got back on her feet. She and Toby and Daisy are living in my old cottage, and she’s the pastry chef here at the farm—she’s doing the most incredible job.’
I stare at Angus in disbelief. That sneaky motherfucker. He set my ex up in his own property and most likely hooked her up with a job here, and he didn’t mention a word of it to me.
Not a fucking word.
‘That was decent of you,’ I say gruffly. My head’s swimming, both with emotion and with the shock of having someone who I’ve tried to keep very firmly in my past show up in my present like this.
Mol is here. She has kids, which I knew but have consciously tried not to dwell on, and they’re here, at the farm.
Life is too fucking weird sometimes.
He shrugs. ‘It was nothing. She’s a real find.
Zoe’s thrilled to have her on board. But here’s the thing.
’ He leans forward. ‘Evelyn had drinks with her last night, and she’s in a real pickle.
Her au pair is leaving at the end of the week, and she’s got no childcare, and she really needs some help first thing in the mornings because she’s in the kitchen at the crack of dawn.
She needs another adult body, basically.
Someone to just get the kids out the door and off to school. That’s right, isn’t it, sweetheart?’
He turns to Evelyn, who presses her lips together, unimpressed. She hasn’t taken her eyes off me. ‘That’s right,’ she says quietly.
‘And there’s plenty of space at the cottage. There’s Alastair’s old room over the kitchen. It’s got its own stairs and everything. It’s completely separate from the rest of the bedrooms.’
It all clicks.
What he’s saying.
What he’s proposing.
He wants me to go stay with Molly? And look after her children?
Is he fucking insane?
I’m so horrified I shoot straight to my feet.
‘There’s no bloody way.’
‘If you just calm down—’
‘I will not calm down.’
‘I think it’s a pretty elegant solution all round,’ my dickhead brother says mildly.
‘Er, it's an elegant solution’—I make quote marks with my fingers—‘if you ignore the fact that she fucking hates me.’
He sighs. ‘She doesn’t hate you. It was a long time ago.’
‘Angus. I went out with her for four years. I lived with her, for God’s sake.’ I rake my hand through my hair in frustration. ‘She was—’ I pause, my voice weirdly strangled. ‘She wasn’t just some girl I dated back in the day. She was Molly. Jesus. You, of all people, should understand that.’
It was Angus who got tasked with the shitty job of picking up the pieces of my heart after she walked. Which is why I can’t quite believe that he’s operating with such a selective memory. He knows the pain Molly and I caused each other.
He knows she’s best off staying firmly in my rearview mirror.
I pace towards the kitchen area, my hands going to the island where I lean over and hang my head. My back is stiff as fuck after that flight.
‘I do understand.’ His voice is quieter. ‘I get it. I know what you two had. Which is why I thought you might want to help her out. Look, you both ended up getting what you wanted, all right? She got kids. You got to wander the globe with a backpack. So I’m sure there are no hard feelings.
‘But right now she’s in a tight spot, and I know she won’t leave her kids with just anyone. Who better than someone she’s known for half a lifetime? Whatever went down between you guys at the end, I’m sure she’d trust you with her life. And her kids. She’ll always be family to us.’
His words hit a spot far too close to home to be comfortable.
Molly Carter was my family. My home. My everything.
I’d still happily punch any fucker who hurt her (and that includes her twat of an ex-husband).
But my particular brand of nostalgic protectiveness is light years away from bedding down in her spare room and looking after her flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood she wanted to create with me, at one point.
‘Evelyn, please explain to your obtuse arse of a husband why this is an idea of epically disastrous proportions,’ I say instead, turning to face them and resting my weary ass against the island.
She looks from me to Angus and back again, but the little I know of my sister-in-law tells me she’s not one to beat about the bush when clarity is needed.
‘This isn’t just a simple hypothetical puzzle to solve, darling.’ She pats his hand. ‘Max isn’t just a manny-bot with plug-and-play functionality. There are feelings involved, and, I’m guessing, years and years of baggage. A spare room and a childcare need don’t equal a solution in this case.’
‘Thank you,’ I say pointedly. ‘Exactly.’ Though what the hell a manny-bot is, I’m better off not knowing.
‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘there’s no way Molly would go for it. I mean, look at him.’
‘Look at me how?’ I demand.
Evelyn waves her hand dismissively in my direction. ‘The guy’s a walking nightmare. He’d shoot her that sexy, I-can-make-it-all-better-baby grin, and next thing you know, he’s shagged the poor woman, and all hell’s broken loose.’
‘Excuse me?’ my brother and I say in tandem.
Evelyn grins and rubs Angus’ thigh suggestively. ‘Come on, darling. I only have eyes for you. But, objectively speaking, you Rutherford men are a special breed. Prime Derbyshire beef, if you like, and—’
I narrow my eyes. This conversation is going in a direction that I don’t like. I don’t like it at all. I’m being objectified and accused of being a sleazebag all in a single verbal slingshot. ‘And what?’
‘Well… I didn’t know Molly when she was younger.
But she’s … beautiful. Stunning. There’s no other way to say it.
Most of my straight male staff and a worrying amount of my straight female staff have an obsession with her.
Especially with that hair of hers, but, really, with all of her.
She’s gorgeous.’ She shoots me a look that would wither a lesser man’s balls.
‘And I’m not sure I trust you to behave yourself if you’re under the same roof as her. ’
Dammit. Of course she has fans. Of course they’re swarming like fucking flies. It was the same story back when we were together, except somehow I was the only lucky bastard she had eyes for.
I swallow. ‘What about her hair, exactly?’ I turn to my brother. ‘Has she cut it?’ Please let her have cut it. Please let her have cut it.
He shakes his head. ‘If anything, it’s even longer. Not that I can tell, because I’ve never seen it down.’
Shit.
‘Her hair practically has its own Instagram account,’ Evelyn interjects helpfully. ‘The girls were teasing her about it last night. She wears it plaited and then coiled up in a big bun. Our colleague Nora was begging her to wear it down, but she says she only wears it loose for—’
‘Yeah, I know exactly who she wears it loose for.’ I flare my nostrils as I exhale, my hands fisting at my sides. She wears it loose for the lucky bastard she lets into her bed.
Him and only him.
I used to be the only guy on the planet who got to see her hair loose.
I remember that golden curtain glinting in the firelight. Candlelight. Remember washing it in the shower. Lathering it up in the bath. Wrapping it around my hand like she was fucking Rapunzel and I could find salvation if I just kept pulling myself up, up, up.
I remember I used to joke I’d lose all my strength if she cut it.
So the hair is still long.
Only, this time, I wouldn’t get to unravel that long plait.
To run it through my fingers like liquid gold.
To bury my nose in it till I’d quite happily suffocate.
Molly.
Jesus, the brain is a messed-up organ. Memories seem long-buried, but it’s just an illusion. They’re lurking right below the surface like a lethal fucking tripwire, ready to upend you when you’re least expecting it.
‘She’s always been beautiful,’ I tell Evelyn now. ‘Didn’t do us any good, though.’
‘I know it must seem like a bizarre idea,’ Angus says, his voice softer now.
‘But the timing is too good to be true, you blowing into town like this, just when she needs another pair of hands. Think about it. Help her out for a few days, and if it doesn’t work out, you can book yourself a room here, at the hotel. ’
I sigh. ‘Look. Even if I was up for this, which I’m not, I don’t know the first thing about kids. Remember how I was with the boys? There’s no way I could look after Molly’s kids.’
Angus’ grown-up sons from his first marriage, Alastair and Hector, were good kids. I’d be happy to take them for a beer now, but I avoided them like the plague when they were little.
‘While I have extreme reservations about this for the reasons I just mentioned,’ Evelyn says, ‘I think you could manage the childcare part of it. It’s not rocket science.
They’re eight and four now. It would just be a case of getting them up and dressed, sticking some breakfast down them, and driving them to school, which is about fifteen minutes away from the cottage. ’
Spoken with the complacency of a woman who has a full-time nanny.
‘I don’t have a car,’ I say triumphantly. Take that, my meddling toad of a brother.
Evelyn shrugs. ‘We have a spare Landrover you can use. We don’t need all our cars while we’re based at the farm.’
Of course they have a spare Landrover. Bugger.
‘I mean, Evelyn could be right.’ My brother squeezes her hand on his thigh, and I experience a sudden pang for their clear affection. ‘If you don’t think you can keep it in your pants, then you shouldn’t do it. Molly doesn’t deserve your particular brand of shit. She has enough on her plate.’
There are few things more irritating than being knowingly served up a helping of reverse psychology and finding yourself compelled to put the server of said bullshit in his place. I treat Angus to my most contemptuous eye-roll.
‘Jesus Christ. I’m thirty-nine. I think I can abstain from acting on my baser instincts for the good of everyone involved, even if I was attracted to her, which I won’t be. Single mums have never been my thing.’
For obvious reasons.
Reasons known as grimy little offspring.
I prowl back to the sofa and sit heavily, my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands, one foot tapping out an agitated morse code for help me while I clutch at my hair like it holds all the answers.
What would this look like? Could I really shack up with the woman I once thought was The One, look after her kids, and avoid a total shit-show?
Oh, and actually keep said kids alive on my watch? Presumably the survival of her children would be a key indicator of my success in Molly’s eyes.
‘You’re overthinking this,’ my smug arse of a brother offers.
‘You sleep there, you deal with the kids first thing, you get out of the house the rest of the time. There’s tonnes to do here on the farm, and my team has a pretty active social life.
You’ll find a good gang of blokes to keep you busy.
Molly goes to bed early and gets up early. You’ll be like ships in the night.’
I raise my head to look at him, and he must read my exhausted resignation as outright capitulation, because he gives me a perky grin.
‘I’ll go and talk to her, okay? Test the waters.’