Chapter 25
Zack was exhausted by the end of his first day in Willowell, so I left him getting ready to go up to his room in the pub and headed back to Fernside.
James called just as I walked through the garden gate, so I quickly walked down to the river to talk to him, but it was only a brief conversation because he was still in the office.
‘It’s gone nine, James,’ I pointed out when he told me where he was.
‘I know,’ he yawned. ‘Buddy’s staying with his sitter overnight.’
I was beginning to feel sorry for that dog. He currently spent far more time with his sitter than his owner. I didn’t voice that opinion though because I was certain it must have crossed James’s mind, too.
‘And I daresay he’ll be in bed long before you,’ I said instead. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be able to keep this up long-term? Not,’ I then quickly added, ‘that I’m saying that to try and make you change your mind about going along with selling the woods.’
‘It won’t be for ever,’ he said, and I thought he sounded more hopeful than sure. ‘As soon as I’m back in my boss’s good books, things will settle down, and I’ll get some balance back again.’
‘Well, that’s something to look forward to,’ I attempted to enthuse. ‘And in the meantime, what are we going to do about your aunt? Do you want me to tell her I’m pulling out of the sale?’
‘Oh, crikey,’ he sighed. ‘I still don’t know. The last thing I want is for the pair of you to fall out, but if you do say something, that’s going to be inevitable, isn’t it? What do you think?’
He sounded as though he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
‘I think,’ I said carefully, ‘that if I tell her I’m not buying and why, then she will be cross with me, but she might also take your reasons for not wanting to sell more seriously.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. It’s not that she doesn’t care about your feelings, James. Far from it. The whole reason she wants to sell is to give you the opportunity to do the work you love, but if she—’
‘That reminds me,’ he cut in. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘No, go on.’
‘I’ve had an email from my former boss. He says he really needs an answer from me about whether I’m going back.’
‘It is a long time since he offered you the job again, isn’t it? And he must be really keen if he’s still hanging on.’
‘I know. And if it wasn’t for the money and the memories…’
‘The money your aunt hasn’t spent according to you,’ I reminded him. ‘Again, not that I’m saying that to make you reconsider, but does she really need it?’
‘I still can’t believe she hasn’t touched a penny of it. It’s just sitting there in a joint account.’
‘But if she can manage without it…’
‘You know she can’t,’ James said. He was beginning to sound frustrated.
‘You said yourself she hadn’t been eating properly when you moved in, and when the autumn comes she’ll need to run the heating.
Fernside is like a fridge at the best of times, but in the winter it can be glacial, and oil doesn’t come cheap. ’
That was a reasonable comment. I’d only been around for the hottest weeks of the summer and even then, the kitchen could be on the cool side. Come the first frost, the inside temperature in the whole house would doubtless plummet.
‘So,’ I surmised, ‘you need the money, and you definitely want to keep the woods, so the only thing I can do now is go ahead and tell her I’m not buying. If she knows she’s got to start all over again and find another buyer, it might put her off for a while, and you can work on her in the interim.’
James mulled that over. Given that his aunt had his best interests at heart, I wasn’t sure it would put her off completely, but I felt he needed some hopeful thought to cling to.
‘Don’t say anything yet,’ he said eventually, and I let out a long breath. ‘Give me a tiny bit longer.’
‘All right,’ I agreed, though I wasn’t sure I should. ‘I won’t say a word. Now, you’d better get back to work.’
‘Yes, I suppose so, but Tilly, before I go…’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’ve been thinking it over and I’m even more sorry about that kiss. I know things between us are already difficult enough and—’
‘Well, I’m not sorry,’ I interrupted and cut the call off before he could respond.
My hands were shaking as I walked back up the lawn. Why did it feel like I was still falling for the guy who was going to deny me the perfect future I’d started to invest so much in?
My phone pinged with an incoming message as I reached the apartment door. Just four words – I’m not sorry either. Given the circumstances, I perhaps shouldn’t have been pleased about that, but I was.
Knowing that, no matter what aunt and nephew decided, my halcyon time in Willowell wasn’t going to last and that I still couldn’t let anyone – besides Rick and Zack – know about it in case word got back to Constance, I decided to throw myself full tilt into what was left of the summer.
I wasn’t going to let James drag it out for too much longer, because I felt bad for Carter who was still enthusing about helping, but for the time being, I vowed to keep my promise and hoped a compromise could be reached.
Having Zack back in the country proved to be a wonderful distraction from my worries and his desire to look through my old holiday journals and relive our childhood memories helped, too.
‘This house,’ he said dreamily, early one morning after I’d driven to the pub to pick him up and we stood on the jetty looking back towards Fernside. ‘And this river,’ he added, as he turned around. ‘I bet you still can’t really believe you’re here, Tilly, can you?’
‘Not really,’ I smiled, as I stripped down to my swimming costume. ‘It’s wonderful to be back in Suffolk, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely,’ he agreed wholeheartedly. ‘And the opportunity to stay for ever is totally worth fighting for, you know.’
‘Please, let’s not start the day talking about that,’ I sighed, as I piled up my clothes. ‘Tell me how your date with Kaya went last night?’
‘It wasn’t a date,’ he protested feebly, then gave the game away because he couldn’t suppress the smile which went from ear to ear.
It was tempting to tease him when I saw him blushing beneath the deep tan that his many years working outside overseas had given him, but I resisted.
He hadn’t pursued the topic of my feelings for James after all and given that I snuck away to take calls from him and was often spotted staring into space after them, he had ample ammunition.
‘What did you and Kaya talk about?’ I asked, as I moved my towel closer to the edge of the jetty.
‘Our travels, mostly.’ Zack carried on smiling. ‘And the deeper we got into it, the more we came to realise that we’d not just sometimes been in the same country, but the exact same area, literally a stone’s throw from one another on at least half a dozen occasions.’
‘No way,’ I gasped, sounding as amazed as he did. ‘What are the odds of that?’
‘I know right?’
‘And it took a trip to Willowell for your paths to finally cross.’ I sighed dreamily.
‘It’s serendipity,’ he said soppily.
‘It’s certainly something.’ I nudged him and he shoved me back so hard I almost lost my footing and fell in.
‘Don’t be messing about near the river!’ Constance called from her view in the sunroom the moment she heard me squeal. ‘It’s running quite fast today and the last thing we need is for one or both of you to get carried off.’
We both waved in response, shouted an apology and soon realised she was right.
Neither of us had been swimming long, when we decided to cut the time short.
It was tiring swimming against the strength of the flow and had I been on my own, I probably wouldn’t have gone in at all.
Once we’d climbed out again, we sat, wrapped in our towels and with our feet dangling over the edge of the jetty, our toes skimming the water as we watched the flotsam float by.
‘Do you think he’s still here?’ Zack asked wistfully, with a nod to the bank on the other side. ‘Dad, I mean.’
I had previously shown him the spot where I’d scattered Dad’s ashes, and he had agreed that it was the perfect place.
‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘I had been taking comfort in the thought that he was before, but now I know I’m going to have to leave in the not-too-distant future, I’m trying to change my feelings about it, so it won’t feel like I’m leaving him behind when I do head off.’
‘Nothing’s been decided yet,’ Zack tried to say softly, but I shook my head and felt rather cross that I’d unguardedly broached the topic again.
‘This is one story that isn’t going to have a happy ending,’ I told him firmly. ‘But before I try and find somewhere else to set my business up, there are a few more places I’d like us to revisit around here.’
I might have been certain that I wasn’t going to start working in Willowell Woods, but I was still trying to keep faith in the plan that I’d come up with.
The odds of me finding somewhere to make it come to fruition were slim to nothing given that I’d been scouring the internet and nothing currently for sale came close, but I was determined to keep searching.
‘Where did you have in mind for us to go?’ Zack asked, thankfully not suggesting I introduced him to the woods.
We took great delight in taking familiar walks and wasting some time watching the river, playing Poohsticks, eating food cooked over the campfire Constance had given us permission to safely light at the end of the garden and staying out late to stargaze.
I had wondered if Zack might have perhaps had his fill of constellation spotting, but he insisted the sky in Suffolk was as magical as any in the world and, given our location, which was completely free of light pollution, every bit as clear.