Читать книгу One Hot Summer: A heartwarming summer read from the author of One Day in December - Kat French, Kat French - Страница 10

Alice swung the door of the Airstream open to inspect the post-storm evening. The blustery weather had finally blown through, leaving behind it a still calm and the hopeful smell of damp spring grass and cherry blossom trees laden with sodden, velvety flower heads.

It was a little after ten, and through the trees she could see the kitchen lights of the manor, indicating that Robinson was home. Not that it came as a surprise; from what he’d said earlier he wasn’t planning on throwing wild parties any more than she was. Picking her way down the caravan steps in her bare feet, Alice tip-toed across the wet grass to flick on the fairy lights she’d threaded around the edge of the awning in a moment of kitsch overload the previous week. They winked into life, candy pink, apple green and lavender blue interspersed with creamy yellow, all reflecting prettily off the shiny silver sides of the Airstream. She hopped and skipped her way back inside the caravan and pulled on her red wellingtons, then slung a woollen shawl around her shoulders as she reached for her rescued garden bottle of rum and a tumbler.

Sitting on the caravan step, her hands wrapped around her glass, Alice did something she rarely allowed herself to do. She let herself remember. She remembered the first time she and Brad had viewed the manor, the way her throat had unexpectedly tightened with tears as she’d looked out of the windows at the lush, rolling gardens. She let herself feel all of the things she’d felt back then. The swooping joy. The nervous excitement. The anticipation of forever. It was as if the place had wrapped its arms around her and welcomed her in, welcomed her home almost. It had kept her safe over the turmoil of the last weeks and months, and even now, living as she was only in the gardens, she felt under its protection. Borne Manor was her home, her beloved place, and her sanctuary. Drinking deeply, Alice’s eyelids closed as she let the heat of the alcohol slide down her throat, warming her from the inside out. Sanctuary. If she had to sum up Borne Manor in one word, she’d choose sanctuary. And that was precisely the moment when the big idea floated into her mind like the blown seeds of a dandelion clock.

‘Any left in that bottle?’

Startled from her thoughts, Alice opened her eyes and found Robinson standing just outside the cover of the awning. He looked like a man who could use a drink; tired eyed and crumpled around the edges, from his faded jeans to his creased, straight out of the suitcase checked shirt that followed closely against the cut of his body. Made from the kind of worn, brushed cotton that Alice knew would be peach soft underneath her fingers, it hugged the breadth of his shoulders and defined the curves of his biceps as he shoved his hands in his jean pockets and tipped his head to one side, waiting for her to answer. God, yes, she needed to answer. Clearing her throat, she shot him a small smile.

‘You’re in luck.’ Pulling herself up, she stepped inside the Airstream and took down a second glass, sloshing a decent measure of rum into it. ‘There’s a deckchair leaning against the caravan, if you want it,’ she called out, watching him casually through the window over the sink. He was quite alien; exotic and out of place, not at all English. She saw him frown at the chair for a second and then pass it over in favour of perching on her cool box as a makeshift stool, his elbows on his spread knees as he rubbed both hands over his face and then scrubbed them through his hair.

‘Jetlag?’ she said, stepping down out of the caravan to hand him his glass.

‘I’m just about caught up, I reckon,’ he said, looking up and accepting the rum, taking a drink before cradling the glass in his big, tanned hands.

Alice settled back onto the step and pulled the shawl around her shoulders, aware that she looked mildly eccentric in her frilled white cotton slip and red wellies, her pale knees poking out under the hem. His eyes moved along the tree line towards the house beyond.

‘It’s quite the place.’

‘It is,’ she said after a moment’s pause. ‘You’ll find it’s a great place to relax.’

He looked at her steadily. ‘Is that what you think I’m doing here?’

The directness of his question took her by surprise, although the mild tone of his voice took any sting from his words.

She studied him for a second. ‘Sorry. That sounded like I was prying and I really wasn’t.’

‘You weren’t all that far from the truth,’ he conceded, rolling his glass between his palms, his eyes fixed on the swirling liquid. ‘Not to my mind, anyway. My sister on the other hand called it escaping, my record label called it reckless, and my ex-wife called it running away. Take your pick.’

Wow. So that was an unexpected information dump. An opinionated sister and an annoyed ex-wife, not to mention a record company chasing his tail. No wonder he looked ragged around the edges. She should have given him a bigger measure of rum.

‘That’s quite a list,’ she said, keeping it simple.

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

Uh oh. That sounded ominous.

‘I’m not going to have to beat them all off with a big stick, am I?’ Alice remembered back to the days of being hounded by paparazzi around Brad’s affair, of how much more difficult they’d made her life just when it was falling to pieces anyway. She looked back now and wished she’d been strong enough at the time to get rid of them, trampling her gardens and invading her privacy. She wouldn’t let that sort of thing ever happen here again, even if it wasn’t strictly her own privacy that she’d be protecting this time around.

He shook his head, a complicated look in his eyes as he huffed softly. ‘I don’t suppose this place has a drawbridge hidden around somewhere to pull up in case of emergency?’

‘’Fraid not, cowboy. No moat, either.’ Alice silently questioned her own words. Cowboy? Just because she called him that in her head, it didn’t mean she should have ever let it out of her mouth. If it surprised him, he didn’t say.

‘Figures. We could always dig one?’

Something in the way he said we rather than I unsettled her, bringing with it an image of being holed up against the world with Robinson in Borne Manor.

‘There’s a trowel around somewhere if you get desperate.’ God knew she’d reached the point of desperation herself a few times recently. ‘There’s one or two people I’d like to throw in it,’ she muttered, unguarded.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ll buy another spade, in that case.’

Alice traced the frilled edge of her slip with her finger against her skin. ‘Deal,’ she said, softly.

They sat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes, an owl hooting somewhere in the trees ahead.

‘Cowboy?’ he said eventually, favouring her with a speculative sideways look that said her nickname hadn’t passed him by.

‘Am I wrong?’

He raised one shoulder, a half shrug, an acknowledgement. ‘I own a ranch and I sang country, so I guess you could call that cowboy.’

She noticed the way he’d used past tense to refer to singing.

‘You don’t sing any more?’

The pretty glow of the fairy lights picked out his profile, pastel hues illuminating the unmistakable twist of his mouth. He looked as if he’d swallowed something bitter. Was it pain, or distaste? It was hard to tell.

‘I kind of lost my love for it.’

For the second time that evening Alice felt as if she’d spoken out of turn. It was clearly not a subject he wanted to get into.

‘I’m prying again. Ignore me.’

He drained his glass. ‘I’ll make you a deal, Goldilocks. You don’t mention my singing and I won’t mention your absent husband. How does that sound?’

Ah. So she hadn’t got away with her borderline nutcase behaviour up at the manor that afternoon, then.

‘Goldilocks?’ she said, picking him up for his nickname as he had with her earlier.

He smiled then, his eyes glittering in the darkness of the evening. It was the first time since he’d arrived that Alice had seen him look genuinely amused, and his slightly crooked grin warmed her unexpectedly.

‘This place,’ he gestured around with his empty glass. ‘It’s all just a little bit fairytale, isn’t it? Or it seems that way to my eyes, anyhow.’

Alice couldn’t argue with that.

‘And then there’s you, all blonde hair and rosy cheeks, living in my garden like a pixie.’

‘My garden,’ she countered, half laughing at his fanciful description.

He rolled his eyes and then corrected himself. ‘Fine. Your garden. Either way it’s all a bit fuckin’ Alice in Wonderland.’

Alice looked at him. ‘You know you’re mixing up your fairy stories, right?’

His eyes met hers straight on, and for a second they connected, amusement sliding into seriousness, each recognising a kindred broken spirit in the other. And then he shook his head a little, breaking the moment, and Alice looked down then back up again and held out her hand to take his empty glass for something to do. She stepped back up into the doorway of the Airstream as he stood to leave, touching his hand against his forehead in the smallest of goodbye salutes.

‘Thanks for the rum.’

She watched him push his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, a gesture that was fast becoming familiarly his, his broad shoulders bunched beneath the cotton of his shirt as he sauntered away.

‘Watch out for the three bears in the woods, cowboy,’ she called out, crossing her arms over her chest.

He spun slowly, still walking away. ‘I’m a crack shot,’ he said, flashing her that smile again as he turned away and disappeared into the darkness of the tree line.

Alice considered him for a moment as she pulled the Airstream door closed and knocked back the last of her rum. All of those mixed up fairy tales and unexpected revelations had left her confused by Robinson Duff and his wolfish smile. Worryingly, if she were to liken herself to any storybook heroine right at that very moment, it would most probably have been Red Riding Hood.

‘Morning, mine chatelaine!’ Stewie boomed, doffing his shaggy blond wig at Alice as they passed each other the following morning by Niamh’s garden gate. Alice grinned in reply as he marched on by, the tails of his silk smoking jacket swishing beneath the hem of his rain jacket. Newly returned from his beloved Benidorm, his tan rivalled the orange juice nestled alongside his newspaper in the crook of his arm and his Turkish slippers provided scant protection against the damp pavement. It didn’t matter. Stewie’s penchant for all things colourful and over the top was part of his larger than life charm; he wasn’t a man who you’d ever catch buying a sensible cardigan in Marks and Spencer.

Niamh’s front door opened and Pluto scampered down the path, his claws clattering on the old cobbles.

‘Salutations, Pluto!’ Stewie shouted, not breaking his stride until he reached his own gate further down the lane.

‘Morning, Stewie,’ Niamh called, sticking her head out of the front door, still in her PJs. ‘Loving the blond!’

‘In homage to the divine Marilyn, darling.’ He stroked his spare hand over his wig, his voice carrying easily over the cottage gardens as he opened his own door. He disappeared inside, and then just his hand poked back out holding the blond wig to give it a good shake.

‘Plus it’s long enough to keep the rain out of my eyes,’ he called, and then whipped it back inside and closed the door with a flourish.

Alice followed Niamh back into the cottage trailed by Pluto, who despondently nosed his wet ball balefully back into the house and glared at her with his good eye as he curled up on his rug by the fire.

’Sorry, bud. Next time.’ Alice fussed him behind the ears and he closed his eyes and deliberately ignored her, having heard her lines before. She straightened again, fidgeting around on the edge of the chair.

‘Out with it then.’

Alice looked up at Niamh’s words.

‘You’ve got news. I can tell by the way you’re bouncing around like an over-excited kid.’

For a moment she considered denying Niamh’s assumption, and then cracked under her friend’s expectant gaze.

‘I know how I can keep the manor. It came to me last night.’

Niamh nodded for her to go on.

‘I was sitting looking at the gardens of the manor, at the tree house, and then beyond that there’s the old boathouse down by the lake, right?’

A frown of concentration creased Niamh’s brow. ‘Well, yes, but I don’t see …’

‘I’m going to turn the gardens of the manor into a glampsite.’

Niamh studied her intently. ‘In the tree house, and the boathouse? Alice, that place is rotten through. I know, I paint there sometimes.’

Alice waved her hand, undeterred. ‘Picture it, Niamh. The tree house, expanded to be big enough for a love nest for two. The boathouse, shored up, a perfectly secluded honeymoon spot to watch the sun go down over the lake. A tee-pee somewhere, or a yurt, even. There’s so many quirky places you can stay in now, I could have all sorts.’ She watched her friend’s perplexed expression closely, waiting for it to clear. It didn’t. ‘I know it seems impossible, but nothing ever is really, is it? You just have to want it hard enough.’ Reaching into her bag she pulled out her laptop. The Airstream was too distant from the manor to get reliable net reception. ‘Let me steal your Wi-Fi and I’ll show you what I mean.’

An hour later and Niamh’s printer had worked overtime to provide the images that now filled a red file Niamh had dug out of the cupboard beside the fireplace.

‘I love this,’ Alice said, tapping her fingers against a shot of a converted vintage grain lorry. ‘Where could I get a lorry from?’

‘Let’s not run before you can walk,’ Niamh cautioned, but her eyes shone with excitement that mirrored Alice’s as she closed the file. ‘Let’s start with the tree house and see how it goes.’

Alice knew it was sage advice and went to close the laptop lid, and then had second thoughts and flipped it open again.

‘Alice …’

‘Shh. I’m not going to search for wooden igloo’s again, promise.’ Her fingers flew over the keys and pressed enter.

‘What are you looking for then?’

Alice clicked on the first link that came up. ‘Robinson Duff.’

‘The country music star?’

It was hard to decide between looking at the screen and looking back up at Niamh. She chose the latter.

‘You’ve heard of him?’

Niamh blew her dark fringe out of her eyes. ‘Heard of him? Jesus, yes. Hasn’t everyone?’

Alice scanned the screen, her eyes slowly widening. ‘Everyone but me, it seems.’ Image after image of Robinson filled her screen; publicity shots, paparazzi shots, and fan pictures of him on stage playing to packed stadiums. Wow. Her mouth formed the word, even though no sound came out. ‘He’s pretty famous, isn’t he?’

‘I have his latest stuff on Spotify.’ Niamh reached for the TV remote and clicked through the on screen apps. ‘Just a sec …’

Music filled the room, followed by a voice that Alice recognised easily as that of the man she’d drunk rum with last night. It was a song she was vaguely familiar with from the radio, just as she’d been vaguely familiar with his name when he’d first said it. He must think her totally clueless to have not known precisely who he was from the get go. She certainly felt it now.

‘He’s the cowboy.’

Niamh nodded, humming along to the track. ‘Cowboy through and through.’

‘No, Niamh. He’s THE cowboy. The one who’s living in my house.’

To say Niamh looked shocked would be an understatement. She stopped humming abruptly, her brown eyes rounding to at least twice the size they usually were. ‘Robinson Duff is living in Borne Manor?’

Alice nodded. ‘Right this very minute, and for the foreseeable future.’

‘Have you heard him sing yet?’ Niamh’s fingers curled around Alice’s forearm. It was difficult to tell if she was actually breathing.

‘Not a dickie bird.’ It felt somehow disloyal to tell anyone, even Niamh, what Robinson had said about his career. She hadn’t realised last night quite how big a deal it was for him to give up on singing.

‘What the hell is Robinson Duff doing here in Borne?’ Niamh whispered, shaking her head in childlike wonder.

‘Beats me, but I’m pretty sure he wants to fly under the radar, so don’t tell anyone else, okay?’

Niamh drew a dainty cross on her red polka dot PJ top with her fingertip. ‘Cross my heart.’