Chapter 8
NICK
His pulse was racing. It must be adrenaline. That last interaction had totally got his back up. She was just so… infuriating. This was not going as he had planned. Nothing was going as he had planned, or as Theo had planned, or as it had been meant to go. It was a disaster.
But when had anything in his life gone to plan?
Nick stalked along the perimeter fence of the estate, ostensibly checking for any damage but in reality…
just walking, furious, marking the boundary as best he could.
It was an old tradition, one which drew the lines, strengthened the edge so that nothing could slip through that shouldn’t, as well as simply checking for damage and the like. It was part of his job.
Theo had given him purpose. Theo had been here for him when his world fell apart and helped him piece some semblance of it back together. Even if part of that loss, a very large part of it, was Theo’s fault. But Theo had never meant harm and Nick didn’t think Alex did either.
Perhaps she just reminded him too much of Theo. The man who had helped and comforted him when he’d needed it most. When all that was meant to be his, all he had dreamed of, had somehow slipped through his fingers. The man whose secrets he had promised to keep.
Alex was… like nothing he had expected. She was beautiful, all that fire and intelligence, that fierce mind, those eyes…
What was he thinking?
It was supposed to be easy. He’d be here when she arrived, would show her around the estate, and wow her with the work he and Theo had put in. She would have to understand. She was a de Wilde, part of it all.
Tied here, Theo had said. Well, Nick knew all about being tied here too, didn’t he?
The estate itself still made a fair income.
Not a huge amount, possibly not as much as he had tried to make Alex believe and probably never quite enough overall, but still, it was something.
It paid for him, for repairs, for the running of the place.
It paid enough to keep the rewilding going.
Theo had made him promise. And Sally had wanted it, so he didn’t have a choice there, did he?
Her legacy, her dream. Preserve the woods, keep them strong…
He was failing. Failing both of them. Which made him so angry with himself it just spilled out.
No, Nick decided. He had to keep things together.
Keep himself together. He had offered to go over the books with Alex and he would.
Tomorrow. He would lay out the financing and the business plans he had agonised over with her brother, which he had continued to work on in the meantime.
He’d make their point. Hell, the plan would make the point for him.
And Wildewood could survive as it was, as it always had been.
He looked from the edge of the woodland, across the wildflower meadow that had once been a lawn, back towards the house. It was beautiful here now. It needed to stay that way.
Not become some bland hotel and golf course or whatever else those lawyers who had latched themselves onto her wanted to make of it.
He could sense a charlatan when he saw one and, if the various dealings he’d had with them so far was anything to go by, this was an entire rookery of cheats.
He’d been sure once he explained things to her, she’d see it too.
That the estate was worth so much more in the long term if it was kept intact and preserved.
Not sold off to investors and vulture funds or whatever else they had in store for it.
They’d try to pull it apart, and that would only end in disaster for everyone and everything.
Through ignorance and little else. No one ought to want that.
His job, his only job, was to hold it all together, the estate, the house and the woods.
He had promised them, Sally, and then Theo.
Both of them. It was a sacred vow. It was his whole purpose.
Instead… well, Alex had made it clear she didn’t want him here, didn’t need his help or his labour. She couldn’t wait to offload the estate, could she? It was just a means to an end. She clearly hated the place.
Frustrating, foolish, determined woman. She didn’t know what it meant. She’d never come here since their father died so how could she? She’d only been a teenager then. All she wanted was the money it would bring her. She didn’t care that it would be destroyed.
And why would she? It had taken her father from her. Theo had told him all about that. How they had visited and how one night, during a storm, their father had wandered out into the woods. Alex had found his body.
And now it had taken Theo too. From both of them.
He swallowed hard. He couldn’t let her look too closely into what had happened to Theo. She would never understand. And he could already see that she had questions, bubbling under the surface. Sooner or later, she wouldn’t be able to force them down anymore. She’d ask. And he’d have to lie.
Nick knew all about loss and the scars it could leave. He bore them himself, understood them intimately.
He made his way back into the kitchen but there was no sign of Alex. Nick sat down heavily on the wooden chair, and let his head drop into his hands.
‘Damn it, Sal,’ he murmured. ‘I tried. I’m no good at this. I never was. Theo was the charmer, just like you always said. Not me. Why did you ever make me promise?’
But Sally didn’t answer. He closed his eyes, and felt something touch his shoulders, his back, like a caress, like when she had rubbed away all the stress and frustration. A soft murmur of comfort echoed through the house and he shivered.
Sally was not going to come back. Dreaming and wishing about Sally always led down a dark and desolate path from which it was hard to claw his way back and he couldn’t let that happen, not again.
It was just that here in Wildewood Hall he still felt like she might just walk around a corner, like he could hear her humming to herself, or singing along with him, or follow the echo of her laughter drifting down the corridors, to find her.
God, how he wished he could find her again. Just for a moment.
This had been her place, long before it was his. Not the house, not really, but the woods. The wild wood. She’d been born in Kilfayne. She knew its ways better than anyone else. And when he’d promised himself to her, he’d promised himself to everything she loved as well.
The house had echoed with her laughter when they had both lived and worked here. The three of them – Nick, Sally and Theo. Now he only heard it in his imagination, in his memories. All he could recognise of it was the absence.
He sighed. ‘I’ll try, love. I promise I’ll try.’
He checked the phone but there were no more messages. All quiet on that front then. One blessing.
He decided to go through his emails, getting out the laptop and booting it up right there on the kitchen table.
He wasn’t the kind of person to use an office anyway.
Never had been. And the only office here was the study.
He’d left that to Theo, and now to Alex.
It was a de Wilde domain ever since the professor’s time. Probably long before that as well.
He rubbed his hand over his beard as he waited. He hadn’t meant to let it grow. But he’d had so much on lately, and no one to actually make himself presentable for. It scratched against his hand and he imagined the face Sally would have made. She hated beards.
Instead he looked like – what had Alex’s friends said on the video call? He couldn’t help but overhear.
Sasquatch.
Bigfoot.
Yes, well, he was definitely putting his giant feet in it ever since she had arrived here. And they weren’t wrong about the hair either. No wonder he kept upsetting Alex.
He sighed, trying to focus on the glowing screen of the laptop.
It’ll be okay, Nick. I promise.
That sounded like Theo, he thought, absently. He was always the optimist. And where had that landed him?
You promised, Nick.
Sally.
You promised me and you promised Theo. You said you’d look after the house and the woods. That was a solemn vow. We always knew the risks. You have to do it. You just have to. You have to protect it. And you have to protect her. It’s your duty, mo stór.
There he was, imagining things again. Wishful thinking. Whatever you wanted to call it.
Tears burned in his eyes. He blinked them back furiously and tried to ignore the throb of a nascent headache. His breath misted in front of his eyes and he winced, rubbing his suddenly freezing hands together.
The battery light on the laptop began to blink.
He thought he’d charged it. He sighed, digging the cable out of the bag and plugging it in.
He needed to get it looked at. The thing was holding no charge at all these days.
But he didn’t have the time or the money for that either.
It worked well enough most of the time. And then, bam, no battery.
He imagined Sally’s touch on his back again, that single point of cold comfort. Whenever he was stressed or worried, she’d always be there for him. And vice versa of course. Until she wasn’t.
Right on cue, the phone rang.
‘Nick?’ said his mother-in-law. ‘Sorry to ring again, love. I know you’re busy. Could you pop down for lunch?’
Nick winced, grateful that Patricia couldn’t see him. He needed all the help he could get and didn’t want to irritate the formidable woman. But he’d been so focused on Alex… ‘Of course. It’s no problem. How’s she been?’
‘Ah, you know. Fretful. She does so hate not being with you. Here, I’ll put you on.’