Chapter 35 #2
‘Hey!’ She smiled at him, it was impossible not to, he was one of those people whose eyes always crinkled as he spoke, making you feel as if you were bringing out the best in him, without even trying.
‘You’re eager, fancy doing a bit of clearing back around the willows down at Wilson’s Banks?
’ She was joking him, but there was no point having hard feelings, even though she’d bawled like a baby when she heard he’d gotten the job of her dreams.
‘No, I’m really not that eager,’ he said and he drifted towards the edge of the kitchen table, leaning against it. ‘No goat?’
‘No, I’m afraid George didn’t make it.’
‘Ah, well, that’s the way. I wouldn’t have expected him to anyway, but sweet that you did your best for him,’ he said and he looked around the cottage as if taking in an inventory of his own. ‘Packing already? I’m not due here for another week.’
‘I don’t have much to pack, but I just thought…’ There was no point putting it off.
‘I suppose I’ll be left with all this junk.
’ He looked around again, his eyes moving from the well-thumbed periodicals that had been Max Toolis’s to the enormous old throw that Ros had made from old blanket ends she’d found in the back of the hot press.
It was another of her winter projects and she thought it had turned out quite well, considering it was her first attempt at anything like that.
‘No, some of it belongs to Max, I’m going to ask him if he wants me to bring it over to him and…
’ she said, looking around the room. It was full of bits and pieces left behind by rangers and their families who had lived here over the years.
‘Actually, yes, you probably will end up with quite a bit of junk, but it’s homely, don’t you think? ’
‘I’m a lot more minimalist in my tastes, I’m afraid. I’ll be looking at a good-size skip for most of it.’
‘Oh,’ she said and somehow the idea made her a little sad, which of course was ridiculous; every dog had its day, after all. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you?’
She assumed he’d come to get the measure of the place. God, would he be replacing the old double-lined plaid curtains with Cape Cod–style shutter blinds? She shivered at the notion; maybe it was just as well she wouldn’t be here to see that.
‘No, not a thing, it’s more what I can do for you…
’ he said and he headed out to the porch and brought in a medium-sized shopping bag.
‘I thought, maybe we could have dinner and…’ His eyes crinkled again and, in spite of herself, Ros felt her knees almost buckle with a sort of nervy excitement she hadn’t felt in quite a while.
‘So, you came all the way over here just to cook me dinner?’ She wanted to ask him if he’d checked the tides for his return journey, but she supposed he would stay here. After all, this cottage was halfway between being her old home and his new home.
‘I did, but not just any dinner.’ He placed the bag on the table and proceeded to empty it.
‘Steak, red onion, a very nice merlot, a frozen – well, it was when I was leaving Ballycove – chocolate pudding… and…’ He reached into the bottom of the bag, which seemed to be empty at last. ‘What’s this…
?’ He made a face as if surprised. ‘Oh my, it’s another bottle of merlot! ’ And again, that irresistible smile.
‘You really shouldn’t have gone to all that bother.
’ And a little part of her wondered at his supreme confidence; what if she’d had other plans?
What if she had a boyfriend already? What if…
but of course, she didn’t have anything else to do and nowhere else she really had to be this evening and it niggled her a little that perhaps he already took that for granted.
‘It’s no bother, I’ve been tidying up work contracts all week, not that there were many.
Between us, it’s not the most lucrative of locations for an environmental engineer, which is why I needed to apply for something with an actual weekly wage, but anyway…
I’ve pretty much closed everything up and I thought, I definitely deserve a little downtime and where better to spend it? ’
‘Ahh?’ So, Ros couldn’t help but think, not who better to spend it with? ‘Well, the frying pan is under the sink, if you want to get started…’
‘Do you fancy a glass of wine first of all and maybe we could sit outside, enjoy the view…’ He reached out, pulled her to him and started to kiss her.
Oh, God, but he was a great kisser. So much so that when she became aware of the sound of an engine roaring into the back yard, she pulled back from him and only then realised he’d begun to unbutton her shirt.
‘Hey. Ros, are you about…?’ Jonah’s familiar deep growl filled up the porch.
‘Yeah, I’m here, in the kitchen,’ she said hastily, putting herself back together again. She turned to see Jonah standing in the doorway, filling up the frame, his expression inscrutable.
‘Oh, I see you’re…’ He stood there for a moment and went to turn, but she spotted a bottle of wine in his hand. Had he been about to pay her a social call, too? And for a moment, they all stood there in an uncomfortable silence.
‘Come in, come in, Jonah, I think you’ve met Shane before.’ She nodded towards Shane, who was suddenly standing too close for comfort, although he’d been a whole lot closer thirty seconds earlier.
‘No, no, I can see it’s a bad time, I…’ Jonah edged backwards, turned, stood for a moment.
‘I thought…’ Then he turned to face her, his eyes searching hers for a moment, as if trying to convey something that his voice would never manage.
‘Anyway.’ He walked to the table, placed a bottle of white wine on it.
‘I just called in to give you this. Mai Boland was in touch with me this morning. I told her I’d be on board with that other project you were thinking you might get off the ground, of course… I can see it’s not the time, but…’
‘This is so nice of you.’ Ros moved forward, placing her hand on the bottle, brushing against his as she did so, but he pulled back, as if shocked by her very touch.
‘It’s only a token, I had it in the fridge and I’m not much of a wine person,’ he said gruffly, and she imagined him, maybe with a great big pint of Guinness in his hand, but the idea of him holding a long-stemmed glass just seemed all wrong.
‘Well, I must be off, I’ve left a…’ he nodded towards the porch, ‘something to mark where George is a…’ And then he turned and in two long strides he was out of the kitchen and stalking across the yard to his jeep.
‘Well, he’s a bit of a Farmer Fred, isn’t he?
’ Shane picked up the bottle of white from the table.
‘Although, he’s certainly able to produce a decent bottle of wine for an occasion.
’ He held up the bottle. ‘This thing must have cost the guts of forty quid, he’s got expensive taste for a man who doesn’t much like wine. ’
With that, Shane’s phone rang. He’d left it in the porch and Ros had not meant to look at the image of the person calling him.
But she did. Izzy , her name appeared at the top of the screen.
She was a blonde beach babe wearing little more than a flimsy bikini and Shane’s arms wrapped around her.
Ros didn’t have to be a genius to work out that Izzy wasn’t his sister from the way his hands were hovering across those huge boobs.
‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll ring them back later,’ Shane said lazily from the kitchen, obviously not realising that Ros had seen the image.
She couldn’t un-see it. She stood for a moment, looking out at the yard at the back of Jonah’s retreating jeep.
In the kitchen, Shane was going about taking down glasses and mansplaining the fact that more expensive wine did not actually mean a better bottle.
Ros was only half listening to him. She walked to the corner of the porch.
Jonah had left a black refuse bag there.
She bent down and peered inside. It was a small rose bush, lavender in colour, absolutely exquisite.
The scent was grapefruity and she wondered for a moment at where he could have picked it up.
Blue Moon. She was pretty sure that was what it was called, not something he’d cut from a wild climber on his farm, that was for sure.
It was so thoughtful, just for George, and suddenly, she felt a little overcome with the kindness of the gesture.
‘He’s…’ Ros suddenly felt as if her appetite had deserted her.
‘Actually, do you know, I completely forgot, I was meant to go visit my friend Constance this evening, sorry…’ she said, grabbing her coat and stumbling out the door.
‘Make yourself at home, help yourself to anything you want,’ she called back but already she had decided, whatever else happened, the last thing she needed now was to find herself falling for someone she couldn’t trust. She had far too many other things to sort out in her life.