Читать книгу The Butterfly Cove Collection - Sarah Bennett, Sarah Bennett - Страница 24

Mia turned her back on the three men at the table as they threw ideas back and forth, discussing the correct level of light for each of the studio areas, colour schemes and textures for the floors and walls. The discussion was dizzyingly fast and the noise was something she was just not used to. She found it quite unsettling to be in such a masculine atmosphere again. Jamie had been one of four brothers and when they got together it was like they spoke their own language, often leaving Mia a little alienated.

It was so different from being one of three girls. Largely ignored by their mother, they had been left to their own devices unless they managed to draw the ire of their father. They had basically raised each other and had dwelled in a fantasy world of lost maidens rescued from fearsome beasts by handsome, but very politely spoken and entirely harmless, heroes. The reality of boys, in all their awful smelly, wonderful, disgusting glory was a shock from which Mia was never sure she had quite recovered.

The boisterous exchanges behind her now were a bit of an intrusion on the quiet solitude of the house, and Mia felt equal parts annoyed at them and guilty with herself for wanting to deny Daniel the time with his friends. He had a beautiful laugh—a deep rich baritone, which rolled through her and curled her toes. It was nice to hear him so positive and excited about the potential for the new venture of fixing up the barn. She just wished they could be positive in a slightly quieter fashion.

Mia rolled her eyes at herself and set about making tea and coffee for everyone. She stared towards the window. The black night was impenetrable and the window reflected the room behind her. Fifteen minutes had turned into three hours and dusk fell quickly this time of year. She watched the men talking and teasing each other until Daniel raised his gaze as though conscious of her eyes on him. She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner but she obviously missed her mark because Daniel frowned and rose from his seat to cross the room and stand behind her.

He placed a warm hand on her shoulder and met her gaze in the reflection of the glass. Mia smiled more warmly, feeling more settled and secure under his touch, and she raised her hand to cover his.

‘All right, pet?’ Daniel was still frowning a little and Mia couldn’t stand that she was putting a dampener on his mood.

‘Really all right, Daniel,’ she whispered and patted the back of his hand. ‘It sounds amazing already. Aaron and Luke seem to be full of good ideas.’

Daniel snorted and squeezed her shoulder. ‘They’re certainly full of something,’ he muttered then laughed out loud as a balled-up tea towel struck him on the back of the head.

‘Cheeky sod, we dropped everything to rush down here and help you, worried half to death about what sort of state we would find you in and look at you! Shacked up with the most gorgeous girl, who not only looks beautiful, but also cooks like a dream and is the nicest person I think I have met. We had visions of you with your hair turned grey and bones poking out, but you’re fit as a fiddle and happier than I’ve seen you in at least five years.’ Aaron’s words were spoken in jest but there was a trace of the worry and stress he must have felt when his best friend had all but vanished off the face of the earth for weeks.

‘Shacked up?’ Mia raised an eyebrow at Daniel’s reflection in the window.

He held his hands up in protest. ‘Nothing I’ve said. The lads have put two and two together and made five.’

‘You sent her flowers, roses even. What the hell are we supposed to think?’ Luke pointed out, not unreasonably.

She caught Daniel’s eye again. ‘I love them,’ she mouthed and his lips quirked up in a shy grin.

His face became serious as he turned back to his friends. ‘I’m sorry, Aaron. I don’t know what else to say to you other than that. I had to get away from London—you’re right, it was killing me.’ The bleak expression on his face made Mia want to hug him, but that would only add to the speculation from the others about their relationship.

Aaron stood and slung his arm around Daniel’s shoulders. ‘Don’t worry about it. Seriously, mate, you look better than you have in a long time and I’m just pleased to see you getting back to yourself. If you do feel the need to redeem yourself then you could tell me some good news. Something along the lines of Mia having a sister—as glorious as she is.’

‘Two sisters,’ Luke interjected.

Mia laughed, turning towards the kettle to finish making the drinks. ‘I do have two sisters actually and they are the ones who got the looks in our family.’ Mia glanced fondly towards the pinboard on the wall where her favourite picture of the three of them was displayed.

‘The bad news is one is married and the other is living it up in New York. Although knowing her, she’s probably starving in some garret trying to capture that authentic artist vibe.’

She thought it best not to mention that Kiki’s husband Neil was an enormous arsehole who physically abused her sister in addition to a constant barrage of emotional bullying. She’d tried to talk to her so many times about it, but Kiki refused to acknowledge it, to the point of threatening to cut all contact with Mia if she raised the subject again.

After losing Jamie, the thought of her sister—almost her twin having been born less than a year apart—cutting her out of her life was too much for her to bear. Mia had maintained a reluctant silence on the matter and hoped that Kiki would one day find the strength to face the problem and deal with it.

Nee’s answer to their difficult childhood had been to fly the nest as soon as she possibly could to go to art school. She produced some incredibly dark pieces that Mia knew were her way of funnelling the frustration and upset of her childhood experiences. They were powerful and terrible in their beauty and they broke Mia’s heart every time she saw one of them. Nee had gained a bit of a cult reputation, which had led to the offer to study in America. She had been gone like a shot, seemingly needing as much physical distance from the past as she did emotionally.

Mia thought back to the period before Nee had left for the States; Kiki had just had her second child, Charlie, and Mia and Jamie had travelled back to their home town to stay with his parents and see Kiki and her new baby. Their mother had turned up at the hospital, clearly drunk at ten in the morning. She had become hysterical when Mia had refused to let her anywhere near the baby. Jamie had ended up calling Mia’s father, who had arrived at the hospital with the family doctor. Vivian had been swiftly interred in a clinic for a couple of months whilst her ‘nervous condition’ was treated.

Mia had cried on the phone to Nee about how awful it had been. Mia and Jamie had extended their stay by a couple of weeks, taking Kiki’s older child, Matthew, to stay with them at Jamie’s parents’. The new baby was sick and Kiki had struggled to cope with her and a lively two-year-old. Matty had wanted to play with his new baby sister and couldn’t understand why she and their mummy kept crying all the time. Neil had been worse than useless, refusing to take any time off work to help his wife, insisting that as she did nothing else, the least she could do was manage to look after the children.

It had been a difficult and chaotic time and now that Mia thought about it, she realised that she had not listened to Nee during the fraught conversations they had over what to do about their mother, their sister, their niece and nephew. Mia and Nee had sadly reached the conclusion that they were powerless to do anything about any of it. Nee had been working on an exhibition for her finals and Mia had insisted that she stay in town and focus on that, determined to protect her baby sister from as much of the horror that was going on at home.

Then Jamie had died and she hadn’t had time for anything or anyone else. She’d let Nee drift away. Now Mia needed to talk to Kiki, find out what she knew of their little sister’s new life in New York and then track her down. She’d neglected her sisters for far too long.

***

‘The weather looks promising so I might try and distract them with some hard labour in the garden.’ They’d been rained in for twenty-four hours and Daniel was starting to regret inviting his friends to stay. It was foolish to be jealous, but Mia and Luke had been holed up in the far wing, running through the various design concepts the architect had drawn up. Every laugh from that direction had distracted him from the endless task of painting the first-floor landing. Aaron had smirked at every huff and sigh he’d made so he’d got his own back by making him paint the skirting boards.

Mia glanced up from her notebook. ‘Better wait until Madeline arrives. She’s my self-appointed Head Gardener. I don’t know a hydrangea from a hawthorn, but she swears there is hidden beauty somewhere under the weeds.’ She put down her notes and folded her arms. ‘According to local history, the gardens were famous in the area for attracting insects and wildlife. That’s how the beach got its nickname—Butterfly Cove. I assumed it was an act of whimsy by one of the previous owners, but apparently not.’ She didn’t sound convinced.

Daniel sat back in his chair, trying to imagine the scene. He recalled the half-buried statues hiding in the undergrowth and wondered what other treasures they might find lurking. He’d need to make sure he took his camera with him to capture some before, during, and after shots.

If Madeline was coming, then Richard was bound to join her. Quieter than his wife, he was no less enthusiastic about helping Mia transform the place and Daniel had quickly come to admire his dry wit and steady presence. Once everyone else was busy in the garden, he might try and steal him away for a few minutes to talk about the barn. His stomach gave a little nervous roll. He hoped Richard would approve of the project.

Having the older man was a blessing and a curse. His dad’s death had happened just as things had taken off for Daniel in London and the booze had helped to numb the pain. Properly sober, the hours spent doing repetitive tasks around the house allowed his mind to wander and his thoughts strayed constantly to the stern, reliable man who’d taught him so much. How his dad would have loved the idea of taking something broken down and giving it new life. Oh, Dad.

The sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs heralded the noisy arrival of Aaron and Luke. Grateful for the distraction, Daniel hurried to put the kettle on, giving his burning eyes a surreptitious rub on his sleeve as he did so.

The silence seemed to go on and on, driving Daniel’s nerves close to breaking point. Richard had listened without interruption to his ideas, and now wove his way around the piles of old furniture littering the barn, pausing now and then to flick through the scribbled sketches and notes in his hand.

Say something. Daniel opened his mouth, lost his courage and turned away. Dusty velvet caught his eye and he raised an old oilcloth to reveal an elaborately gilded chaise longue and matching footstool. It was one of the items on the list Mia had given him for the next room she planned to work on. Needing to dissipate some of the nervous energy filling him, he picked up the stool and carried it out into the yard.

He returned inside, to find Richard standing next to the chaise. His neutral expression revealed nothing of his thoughts. He nodded at the piece of furniture between them. ‘Need a hand with this?’

Was he really not going to say anything about the barn? Perhaps Daniel had been too forward in seeking his opinion, presuming on a friendship the other man might not reciprocate. He swallowed his disappointment and forced a smile. ‘Yes, please. Mia has some fancy plans for a boudoir, apparently.’

They carried the heavy chaise out to the yard and placed it next to the footstool. ‘Anything else we need to fetch?’ Richard asked. Feeling thoroughly miserable, Daniel handed him the list and trudged after him back into the barn.

Richard dragged a dust sheet off a matching pair of floral armchairs and sank down into one, nodding to the other one. ‘Before we get started, I think we should talk about your fancy plans, don’t you?’

Apprehensive at his stern tone, Daniel took a seat. ‘You don’t approve.’

‘That’s not what I said, son. Why don’t you tell me a bit about what brought you here? Madeline says I should mind my own business, but Mia is our heart and soul and I won’t have you filling her head with flights of fancy only to let her down.’

Daniel propped his elbows on his thighs and stared at the floor between his feet. What could he say? If he let Richard see everything inside him, then he would have to admit his failures to himself at the same time. He didn’t want to look back; he wanted to move forward. But if you keep hiding from the past, how will you ever get over it?

A warm hand came down on his back and Richard’s voice sounded close to his ear. ‘Talk to me, Daniel. Let me help you, son.’

The words poured out—every ugly hidden thing from the past few years. The drink, the drugs, the faceless girls and his own stupid arrogance. Like lancing a boil. He spoke of his fears. Of the bone-shaking terror that he had burnt out his gift, thrown away the God-given talent his dad had been so proud of. His dad. Oh, his dad. The tears came next, gut-wrenching sobs that shook his entire body. And through it all, that strong hand never moved from his back.

Calm at last, he moved on to his hopes for the future. ‘I want to help people like me. Give them a space to breathe, a safe place where nothing matters other than their art. I’m not the only one, I’m sure.’ Now he thought about it, he could recall the glazed and dazed expressions of at least a dozen other artists he knew. That same jaw-gritting determination to cope because it was what you needed to do to get on. To get noticed, to be a personality rather than letting the work speak for itself. How many youngsters fell by the wayside because they couldn’t hack it? How much talent was lost to the harsh competitiveness of the art world?

‘And Mia?’

He glanced up at Richard through red-raw eyes. ‘I love her. Body and soul. But in the end, it’s not up to me what happens between us. Butterfly Cove is my home now. I’ll work side by side with her and take only as much of her as she is willing to give me.’

Richard patted his shoulder. There was no censure in his eyes, just a warm, familiar twinkle. ‘That’s all I needed to hear. Come on, let’s see if we can find the rest of the stuff on the list.’

Feeling lighter than he had in months, Daniel scrubbed his face with his hands then stood up. He’d said it out loud. Admitted what he’d been feeling for a while. He was head over heels in love with Mia Sutherland. Sending up a silent prayer that she might one day return his feelings, he followed Richard’s lead and began to search through the heaps of junk to find the things she wanted.