Читать книгу Weddings Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 14

WILLOW climbed the spiral staircase to the upper floor knowing that the apartment would be special. Nothing could have prepared her for the elegance, the simplicity, the economy of the home that Mike had fashioned from the old hayloft.

‘It’s lovely, Mike.’ It was more than that. It was all she had ever wanted. Small, everything within reach just about, uncluttered, a place to live in rather than live up to. A total contrast to the vast, demanding house in Melchester that had been waiting to suck her up, absorb her, turn her into its slave.

The floor was a wide expanse of pale, polished wood, the fittings all clean lines and function, the soft furnishings a rich dark red that she recognised instantly from the towels he’d brought to the cottages.

Willow knew he was watching her as she walked slowly through the place he’d made with his own hands. Her hand trailed along the rounded edge of the simple screen dividing the living area from a raised sleeping space. She took two steps up the ladder to where a thick mattress was installed on a platform beneath a huge, angled skylight.

‘This is…cosy.’ Her mouth was dry but she had to say something.

‘It was the only way I could fit in the shower room. It’s quite something lying under the skylight on a frosty night.’

There was a pause that seemed to go on for ever while Mike wondered what she’d say if he invited her to stay and try it out. While Willow wondered what she’d say if he asked her.

‘It must be like sleeping beneath the sky,’ she said finally. She glanced down at him.

‘Better. No matter how cold it is outside, it’s warm beneath the covers.’ He smiled briefly. ‘And when it rains you don’t get wet.’

Right now she could think of nothing she’d like better than to climb up there, burrow down beneath the quilt with Mike and stay there for a week. Pure self-indulgence.

A week or a month, their problems would still be waiting.

She backed down the steps and followed the smooth, curved transition from the white and steel shower room and on into the kind of galley kitchen that featured in lifestyle magazines. Her fingers recognised the work. He’d made all this. Mike had made this and it was beautiful.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked again.

‘That I was a carpenter by inclination, a managing director only by duty? The truth?’

She thought his description of himself as a carpenter was disingenuous. A carpenter was a craftsman, a man who made windows, doors, a thousand artefacts for everyday living. Mike was an artist. She turned to him. ‘The whole truth, Mike,’ she warned. ‘I’m not interested in the edited highlights.’

‘You won’t like it.’

‘I don’t expect to. That’s why you didn’t tell me about any of this before. But if you don’t want me to walk out of here right now, you don’t have any choice.’

She waited, breathing on hold, until he nodded. Then she dropped her bag, curled up on a huge sofa, her legs tucked beneath her, and waited.

Mike glanced at the space beside her and, choosing the wiser option, took the armchair facing her, stretching out his long legs, scraping his fingers through hair that immediately flopped back over his forehead. Putting off the moment.

At last, he said, ‘I didn’t tell you because I knew Willow Blake wouldn’t be interested in a man who made his living with his hands.’

‘You’re right.’ He stilled, paled as he met her steady gaze. That encouraged her a little. Her reaction was important to him. ‘I don’t like it. Not one bit. Where do you get off judging me like that?’ Then, when he didn’t immediately answer, she realised her optimism was misplaced. It was worse, much worse than that. ‘It wasn’t just that, was it? You didn’t bother to tell me because you didn’t take our relationship seriously. Here today, gone tomorrow. Thanks for the memories.’ Willow was shaking, trembling, and she drew her knees up beneath her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs.

He didn’t defend himself. There was no real defence. She was basically right on both counts. ‘It started like that,’ he admitted. ‘Isn’t that how all relationships start? Chase and kiss. Kiss and chase.’

‘Ours ended like that too. Tell me about the middle.’

‘You mean the part where I took myself by surprise and fell in love with you—’

‘Don’t say that! You don’t love me! You lied to me. You lied about who you were!’

‘The part where I realised I couldn’t live without you.’

‘Skip to the part where you suddenly realised you could live without me,’ she said bitterly. ‘Did you mean it when you asked me to marry you?’

‘Yes, damn it, of course I meant it.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, his fingers still raking restlessly through his hair. Then, because he hadn’t been the only one with doubts, he looked up. ‘You said yes. Did you mean that?’

Willow wanted to fling herself at him, shake him for being so stupid, but there was only one way that could end and one of them being stupid at a time was more than enough. ‘I think I’d like a drink,’ she said, her voice shaking from the emotional turmoil she was putting herself through. But she needed answers. All of them.

‘Tea, coffee? It’ll have to be black—’

‘I think this situation calls for something stronger than tea.’

Mike didn’t argue. They were both driving, but a drink would mean she would have to stay, give him precious time to try and explain. He opened a cupboard, took out a couple of glasses and a bottle and poured out two large measures of brandy. As he pressed a glass into her hand, she fumbled it and he realised that her fingers were icy despite the heat.

He took her hands and wrapped them carefully around the glass and held them there for a moment until he was sure she was in control. Because touching her was what he wanted to do most in the world. Touch her, hold her, tell her he loved her.

That would be self-indulgence of the worst kind. He’d told her that he loved her. Now he had to show her. So he let go of her fingers and sat down beside her, lifted her feet onto his lap. ‘You’re cold.’

‘Yes.’ She sipped the brandy and shivered. And didn’t actually object when he sat beside her, took her feet onto his lap and began kneading some warmth into them.

It was easier, talking without having to confront a pair of blue eyes that demanded his soul on a plate. ‘You’re right of course. At first I didn’t think our relationship would matter. I didn’t plan on hanging around long enough for it to matter.’

‘That is honest—to the point of brutality.’

‘And since being managing director, even just an acting one, gave me a totally unfair advantage over the opposition within the company—’

‘You really are a—’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. But it backfired on me. Big time. You had this image of me, this expectation. What was I to say? Hey, big surprise, Willow, you thought you were getting the CEO of a seriously profitable company…now come and see what I really do.’

‘I wish you had.’ Her voice wavered and she took another tiny sip of brandy.

‘I’m sorry, Willow. I made a mess of it and I’m truly sorry.’

‘So am I,’ she said. ‘I was ready to trust you with the rest of my life…’

Truth. She demanded it, but so did he. ‘Only until you had a better offer,’ he said, but very gently.

‘It wasn’t that simple.’

‘No, my love, it never is.’

‘I wish you’d told me. Right at the beginning. Brought me here.’

Mike thought about how it would have been with Willow in his arms and nothing between them and the stars but a sheet of glass. ‘So do I.’

‘You should have trusted me.’ And she pulled her feet away.

He felt utterly sickened by the mess he’d made of her life and of his. ‘I made assumptions about you that were wrong. Totally wrong. Cal warned me. He saw…but I thought you were just marking time at your job until you found the right man to marry.’ She looked up from the pale golden spirit pooled in the bottom of her glass and stared at him. ‘Someone with the right name, or the right background. Someone from your own circle.’

‘Oh, right.’ She was seriously offended. ‘And I was busy congratulating myself only yesterday that you weren’t interested in airheads. It never occurred to me that you saw me as one.’

‘I don’t. You aren’t. Except…’

Her eyebrows rose a notch. ‘Except?’ The slow, quiet manner in which she repeated the word did not leave him with the impression that she was calm about any exception. Far from it. ‘You’ve started, Mike. Please finish. I can’t wait to find out exactly how I’ve convinced you that I have nothing between my ears but sawdust.’

He hadn’t said that. He didn’t think it. They both knew it. But there was no retreat. ‘Whenever I came looking for you in the office, you always seemed to be covering some charity fashion show, or the ladies’ lunch club, or the local point-to-point meeting…’ he was remembering exactly how he’d found her at a point-to-point meeting, champagne in one hand, a bunch of Hooray Henrys hanging on her every word ‘…all that social, county stuff. It’s your world.’

‘What if it is? I got sent to cover those events because people knew me, or least they knew my mother, they trust me, they talk to me because they’ve known me since I was in my cradle. I’ve also spent time out on the street with runaway kids, covered life in a woman’s refuge, Saturday night in casualty. Maybe you were busy those days?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘I don’t just do fluff.’

‘Valentine’s Day wasn’t fluff?’

She flushed angrily. ‘Damn it, Mike, that’s seasonal fun. I didn’t believe you when you said you never read the paper. Clearly I should have taken that statement seriously.’

‘It wasn’t… I didn’t… I thought if I stuck to administration, distanced myself, I wouldn’t get drawn in…’ It was hopeless. How could she begin to understand? ‘I wouldn’t be the first to fall for the siren song of family tradition. It’s hard to resist when everyone thinks you’re just being stubborn. That you’ll come round. When your mother calls and says, “Please…I need you to do this for me…”’ He looked at her, hoping that she could read his sincerity in his eyes. ‘When there’s no one else.’

‘Dear God, Mike, you were going to be running the thing for the rest of your life if you’d married me. That is what you’re saying? You were going to sacrifice the life you wanted—not for family tradition, or your mother, but for me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Idiot!’

‘Cal didn’t think so. He—’

‘I’m not interested in what your best man thinks! I want to know why you didn’t tell me!’

‘I was working on it. I was going to bring you here, put the whole thing on the line, tell you everything. Then my father gave us the house and I could see how much you loved it, how much you wanted it—’ Her explosive interjection suggested otherwise. ‘Except for the taps,’ he said.

‘This just gets worse.’

He found a wry smile from somewhere. ‘I didn’t believe that was possible.’

‘Trust me, it is. I hated that house, Mike.’

‘Oh, come on, you don’t have to pretend. I remember every moment of that day. You were over the moon with excitement. You said, “I can’t believe it. This is more than I can take in. I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed.”’ He wickedly imitated the thrilled voice that she’d used to cover her anguish. ‘Every one of your words, believe me, is indelibly imprinted on my mind.’

‘Then maybe you should have spent a little less time working on your impersonation of me and a little more time thinking about what the words were actually telling you.’

‘I saw you, Willow. And let’s face it, you’d have changed the taps in a second—’

‘The taps. That dear little niche in the hall. The reproduction Adam fireplace, the carriage lamps outside… You’re missing the point here. These are details. It wasn’t you I was running away from. It was that house and everything it stood for. I am not a domesticated woman, and that house…well, it was right out of a 1950s Doris Day movie.’

‘You were pretending? But why?’

She put down her glass. She didn’t need brandy, she needed Mike to see where she was coming from.

‘Your father had just given us half-a-million-pounds-worth of house, Mike. Was I supposed to say, Actually, Mr Armstrong, I know you mean well but you’ve got lousy taste and I wouldn’t live in this house if you paid me? I was brought up to be polite. To say thank you when someone gives you anything, even a lousy rotten juicer that makes you feel as if you’ve surrendered the life you dreamed of and are beginning to live your worst nightmare.’

He stared at her, for a moment totally lost for words. ‘The juicer, too?’ He wanted to laugh. Fortunately, he didn’t.

‘How could you have done that to me? Put that burden on me? No wonder you’ve seemed distant. You were distant. You were a million miles from me.’ She struggled out of the soft embrace of the sofa, stuffing her feet into her shoes. She had to get out of there, go somewhere she could have the howling, miserable weeping fit that she’d been putting off since Saturday. ‘I don’t blame you for taking off the way you did. You must have hated me…’ Her voice broke and he caught her, wrapped his arms around her, pulled her back to hold her close.

‘Sweetheart, please. I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.’

She wouldn’t surrender, but remained stiff and unyielding, her back to him. ‘You didn’t trust me. You don’t know me at all.’

‘I loved you. I just wanted you to be happy.’

Loved. He said loved. Willow’s heart seemed to crumple inside her as she turned and pushed him away. Despite everything, if he’d said ‘love’—present tense—they might still have been able to rescue their relationship from the rubbish cart before it got hauled off to the tip. But ‘loved’—well, that told her exactly where she existed in the scale of his priorities.

‘Happiness requires security. For that I need a man I can trust, a man I can believe in—whatever job he does. I’m sorry to have to report that you’ve failed. In all departments.’ She headed for the stairs.

‘All departments?’

She caught her breath. How dared he reduce what they had to that! ‘Marriage isn’t just sex. Marriage is for better, for worse. Richer and poorer, the whole works. Marriage is like diamonds. For ever.’ She pulled the zip on her bag and took out the ring he’d given her. She put it down on the shelf beside her. ‘Learn the lesson, Mike. Next time make sure you’re honest—’

‘There won’t be a next time. I just wish—’ She had her hand on the door. ‘I just wish I’d told you about all this. You were right, we could have had it all. We still could. Don’t go.’

She turned slowly. He was an arm’s length away. All the temptation a girl could want. It felt exactly like that moment when he’d asked her to stay, asked her to live with him, asked her to marry him.

‘I was wrong about that, Mike. No one can ever have it all. There are always sacrifices to be made. Sharing someone else’s life takes all the heart you have and then some. You have to be prepared to give more than you get back. Maybe that’s why Crysse, despite everything, is still with Sean. She loves him enough.’

‘Then, Sean’s a bigger fool than I took him for.’ Willow refused to comment on who was the fool. ‘If I asked you now, what would you say?’

‘Asked me what?’

‘Asked you to marry me, Willow. Just the two of us, with a couple of witnesses, no fuss, no frills. No cake.’

No, ‘I love you’? No, ‘I’m sorry I made such a mess of the whole thing.’? No compromise?

The sun was slanting in through the high windows highlighting tiny dust motes, sparking rainbows off the heavy glasses with the barely touched brandy. There was the indentation of their bodies on the sofa. The scent of wood.

And there was Mike. Tall, strong, golden haired. He was everything she’d ever wanted and she knew that if she lost him, her heart would shatter irretrievably. She’d been so certain that he was the man she was destined to spend her life with. Somewhere inside her a tiny spark of hope told her that it was still possible. But if she’d learned one thing from the first time he proposed, it was that wanting to say ‘yes’ was not necessarily a great reason for saying it. That their relationship had been built on sand and needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. On the rock of truth.

‘No thanks,’ she said.

Maybe she’d taken too long making up her mind because he didn’t seem entirely convinced. ‘Is that a permanent no thanks? Or an “I’ll think about it” no thanks? Or even a “Don’t be cheap” no thanks?’

‘It’s a “We’ve got two lives that don’t converge” no thanks,’ she replied.

‘You mean, I’ve got some more work to do?’

She wanted a big career in journalism. He wanted to make beautiful furniture in Maybridge. Each of them knew what they wanted for themselves. They had to work out whether they were strong enough to fit those two ambitions into one shared life. It wasn’t going to be easy. It was probably a recipe for disaster. It would undoubtedly be wiser to leave things as they were.

‘It means,’ she said slowly, acknowledging that they had both made mistakes, ‘that we both have.’

‘We have to work out what we can’t live without? And what we’re prepared to let go so that we can be together?’ he persisted.

He’d got it. And now they could both see why it was impossible. ‘I really do have to go and buy something to wear for my meeting with Toby Townsend tomorrow.’

‘The London job is not up for negotiation, then?’

‘Is Maybridge?’ Even as she said it she knew it wasn’t the same. She didn’t want him to give up Maybridge whereas he found the idea of her working in London…difficult. If the sacrifice wasn’t equal, would one of them feel cheated? She wished Crysse was home so that she could talk to her. She’d cried, but she hadn’t been ready to give up on Sean. Then, pausing in the doorway, something else snagged at the back of her mind and she turned back. ‘What, exactly, have you got against black leather?’

‘Black leather?’ He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

‘Yes, black leather.’

‘I really hoped you’d have forgotten I said that.’ Which just made her all the more curious. ‘I thought you were coming out to meet Jacob Hallam,’ he said when she stood there waiting for him to answer her question. Willow considered what he’d said for a moment, but before she could react he reached out, his hand stopping a millimetre from her arm. ‘It’s why I followed you.’

Jealous.

She suddenly felt a rush of warmth for this big, lovely man who had tried so hard to change his life for her. How could she have doubted that he loved her? That wasn’t sand. That was rock through and through.

Not that she was letting him off. Jealousy was bad. Following her was bad. She could scarcely stop herself from grinning.

‘To save me from making a “big mistake”?’ She emphasised the words by making little quotation marks with her fingers. ‘What were you going to do? Snatch me from the jaws of temptation? Hit him?’ She knew it was unfair to ask. Yes, or no, he couldn’t win.

‘All of the above.’

She was wrong. That did it for her. ‘How did you work out where I was going?’ she asked; she had to do something to stop herself from flinging herself at him, dragging him up that ladder and restarting the honeymoon without the benefit of church.

‘I didn’t. I stopped by the village shop to see if Hallam was there. Hoping that he was there.’ He couldn’t quite meet her gaze, she noticed. Embarrassed. It just got better and better. ‘Maybe you should take him up on his offer of a date. According to Aunt Lucy he was at a board meeting in London—a lot more your style than this.’ He gestured around him.

‘You leave me to worry about my style,’ she said, ignoring the slightly off note in his voice. Jake was no competition for him but if he didn’t know that now, she wasn’t going to put him right. Laid back, she loved him. Protective and jealous, he made her feel… ‘Date?’ she queried. ‘What date?’

‘Didn’t he ask you out on a date when he turned up at the pub? I heard him ask you to call him,’ he prompted.

‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘Yes, he did, and I meant to—’ His head snapped back as if she’d hit him. Enough. ‘It was to arrange a time to talk to Aunt Lucy. I wanted to interview her, talk about her life in the village, the shop. The countryside is hot news right now.’

‘Oh. I seem to be the one making “big mistakes”.’ He repeated her quotes gesture. ‘Wholesale.’

‘There’s a lot of it about,’ she conceded. Then she said, ‘You haven’t answered my question, Mike. How did you know where I was going?’

‘It wasn’t difficult. You left a pen mark by my entry in the directory.’

‘Michael Armstrong, Private Investigator.’ She pulled in her lips as she tried not to smile. Pumping Aunt Lucy for information wouldn’t have been difficult. His big problem would have been getting her to stop so that he could get away and use it. She cleared her throat. ‘I really do have to go…shopping… Are you going back to the cottages?’

‘I have to. The shelves. You?’

She nodded. ‘See you later, then. Do you want me to bring food?’

‘No. I’ll cook.’ He led the way down the stairs. ‘Or we could go out. We haven’t had a date since…’ his eyes darkened ‘…since I gave you that table.’

She flushed. ‘It’s okay. You can cook,’ she said, rather more crisply than she was feeling. She was feeling that another moment under those grey eyes and she’d melt.

He was smiling slightly as he opened the door for her, as if he knew it. He probably did. ‘You’re sure you don’t need any help with the hooks and eyes?’

‘I’m a big girl, Mike,’ she said, stepping through into the courtyard, glad of the shade to cool her down. ‘I’ve been dressing myself since I was four years old.’

‘So? You learn to do it yourself and you get this terrific sense of accomplishment, which is just great. Then you learn that it’s fun to let someone help. Which is a whole lot better.’

‘Just as long as it’s not Jake?’

‘You’ve got it.’ He stepped out after her. ‘Come on, I’ll take you over to meet Sarah. She makes exciting clothes. I wanted to bring you here…’ He let that go. ‘I’ll bet she’d even be able to find you a suede purple miniskirt if you’re still feeling reckless.’

‘But no black leather,’ she said, refusing to admit how she was feeling at that moment. The sudden charge of desire was making all that sensible, let’s-get-this-right determination dissolve, melt away under the jump-start flash of his hot grey eyes.

‘Purple leather would be okay.’ He grinned. ‘With matching knee-high boots.’

Willow thought that if Sarah had anything remotely resembling that particular combination in her boutique, she might just toss her good intentions to the four winds and let herself be recklessly, irredeemably tempted.

Amaryllis stopped them as they passed the door of her tiny emporium, and handed Willow a small carrier. ‘They’re candles. You’ll need them tonight.’

‘Will we? How do you know?’

‘Trust me. I’m an aromatherapist.’

Willow glanced uncertainly at Mike. ‘That’s what she says. Actually, she’s a witch,’ he said, almost believing it. There was something about Amy that always made Mike vaguely uneasy. He had the feeling that she knew it and that it amused her. ‘But she’s right. You can trust her. She knows everything.’

He took the bag, opened it. There were a dozen or so candles made to float in a dish, or a pond. Willow peered over his shoulder and sniffed appreciatively.

‘What is that?’

‘Palmarosa,’ Amy told her. ‘To alleviate emotional disharmony. And Rose otto, to soothe negative feelings.’

‘If the electricity goes out we’ll need all of that,’ Mike said. ‘Any suggestions regarding food?’ he asked drily. He glanced at Willow. ‘Or we could still eat out?’

‘Smoked salmon,’ Amy suggested. ‘Avocado. Peaches.’ She never took her eyes off Willow and, after a slight pause, she smiled and added, ‘Dark chocolate.’

Willow sighed with pleasure. ‘I’m not arguing with that.’

Maybe it was the scent of the candles, or Willow’s eager anticipation of her favourite foods, picked with unerring accuracy by his unsettling tenant, but Mike found himself smiling, too. ‘If we have a power cut tonight, Amy, I’ll look out for you flying home on your broomstick.’

‘Actually, Mike, I usually take the bus.’ Her brows twitched mischievously in Willow’s direction, then she bent to pick up a small black cat that appeared at her feet.

Mike left Willow with Sarah and, after a visit to the nearest supermarket, he headed back to the cottages. His slightly euphoric mood was dashed by the discovery that Jacob Hallam had returned from London and was now upstairs with Emily, keeping his promise to help with the decorating.

‘Hello, Mike. Willow not with you?’ he asked casually, as he paused to recharge his roller. Casual wasn’t fooling Mike. The man had one reason and one reason only for giving up his time this way.

‘She’s shopping. I didn’t expect you today. Aunt Lucy said you were up in town.’

‘I was. Turn your back for a minute and someone starts a takeover rumour.’ Mike stared at him. He was that Jake Hallam? Software magnate at twenty-five… ‘But, hey, what’s a rumour when kids need a place like this.’

‘You didn’t have to rush back, we’d have managed.’

‘Really? You don’t appear to have been doing that well according to the Evening Post.’

‘Oh, great. What are they saying? No. Don’t tell me—’

‘I thought I’d better fill him in on the details,’ Emily said, adding pointedly, ‘that you and Willow have holed up here while you sort things out.’

‘Are you sorting things out?’

‘We’re getting there. Which is why I know you’ll understand why I’d be grateful if both of you were somewhere else when the sun goes down.’

Jake lifted the roller from the tray, but paused before applying it to the wall. ‘You’ve got it. In fact if you get it right I’ll stand as godfather to your first-born.’

There was an element of challenge in that statement that Mike couldn’t let pass. ‘And if I get it wrong?’

He grinned. ‘Maybe I’ll ask you to return the favour.’ Mike didn’t think, he reacted, slamming Jake back against the wall. ‘Hey, mind the paint—’

‘You mind your own damned paint. And I’ll mind Willow.’

Pinned against the wall, Jake just grinned. ‘Good reflexes. It’s a pity your brain isn’t working at the same speed.’

‘What?’ The red haze cleared and Mike took in with horror the way his hands were bunched around the man’s shirt front. The mess he’d made of the newly painted wall.

‘I was just kidding, Mike. Anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m not the settling-down type.’

He released the man. ‘Emily…Jake…I’m so sorry.’

But Emily was grinning, too. He couldn’t understand why they found it so funny. ‘Don’t be. I love it when a man isn’t afraid to show exactly how he feels about a woman.’

‘Just don’t forget to let Willow know, too,’ Jake said. ‘And save me a place at the font. I might not be into marriage but, I promise you, I’m a great godfather.’

Mike’s reaction to the thought of Willow with his baby in her arms was so utterly overwhelming that he couldn’t answer. Instead he retreated to the kitchen and spent what was left of the afternoon installing the shelves and thinking about what Willow had said. Trying to think of some way that they could both have what they wanted and still be together. Wondering how she felt about having a baby. She’d need a year or two to establish herself first.

He could wait.

The hell he could.