Summer At Willow Tree Farm. Heidi Rice
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then his gaze snagged on her strappy top and the way the thin cotton stretched tight across her breasts. The firm nubs of her nipples stood out against the fabric.
He heard a cough, and lifted his gaze. A pair of grass-green eyes glared at him. The flush burned the back of his neck, at the thought that he’d just been caught checking her out before he’d even said hello. But then the intriguing tilt at the edges of her eyes went squinty and he noticed the bluish hollows of fatigue underneath.
She looked exhausted.
Her lips pursed and the puddle of pity dried up. The tight smile was as unconvincing as the one nineteen years ago.
‘Hello, Arthur,’ she said, using the name he hated except when Dee used it. ‘You’re still here then.’
It wasn’t a question, more like a declaration of war.
Bollocks on toast.
Art Dalton was still here. And still hot. And most definitely still an arsehole, if the insolent way he’d been inspecting her boobs was anything to go by.
‘Yup,’ he said, in the gruff tone that had always unnerved her when they were teenagers. As if there were a million things he could say, but wasn’t going to.
The nervous tension that had been sitting in her gut during the flight over and the drive here, snaked up Ellie’s torso to wrap around her ribs like an anaconda.
Stop freaking out, you ninny. He’ll think it’s on account of him.
She took two calming breaths, drowning out her mother’s information about sleeping arrangements, and took a moment to glance around the yard. Studiously ignoring the man in front of her.
The pungent smell of wet earth and manure hadn’t changed, but everything else had. The place didn’t look like the site of a recent zombie apocalypse any more. There were no rusting vans and trucks propped up on breeze blocks, no broken furniture lying about. Just a carefully segmented vegetable garden, laid out in rows with a section under glass. There were geese and ducks poking around, but no pack of wild dogs or wild children, just two well-dressed toddlers and a skinny little boy about Josh’s age who had taken him off somewhere.
She would check on her son in a minute, after three hours in a car he could do with a run about, but she was reserving judgement on the motives of that skinny boy.
The barn behind the two-storey stone farmhouse had a new roof, the corrugated iron gleaming silver in the sunlight. Even the mud looked industrious. And all three of the men she’d been introduced to had seemed young and ordinary, instead of old and weird. Not a nose ring or multicoloured Mohican in sight.
The anaconda released its stranglehold on her ribs. The place didn’t feel as hostile any more.
‘Exactly how long are you planning to stay?’
Art’s dry enquiry interrupted her mum’s running commentary on how pleased she was to meet Josh.
Not hostile – except for Prince Not Charming.
‘Because that’s a ton of stuff,’ he added, the rasp suggesting how much of an effort it was for him to put a whole sentence together.
In worn boots and oil-stained overalls, Art Dalton looked as intimidating as ever – the strong, silent, stroppy type. His tall, whipcord-lean build had a solid strength, accentuated by the workman’s biceps that moulded the rolled-up sleeves of his overalls. The old tattoo caught her eye, the once blood-red lines having faded to a dusky pink against sun-browned skin. She dragged her gaze away, before she got fixated. His dark messy hair matched black brows, permanently lowered over his prominent aquiline nose. Sensual lips twisted in a cynical attempt at a smile. At fifteen he’d been the ultimate rebel without a cause, the original Lord of the Flies – both terrifying and exciting.
Not a good combination for a fourteen-year-old girl in the grip of rioting hormones, who missed her friends terribly and had about as much common sense as Daffy Duck. Luckily, she’d kicked Daffy to the kerb nineteen years ago – give or take the odd ill-advised marriage – after Art had rejected her the first time. So it really didn’t matter now that he looked like the walking embodiment of ‘a bit of rough’. Or exuded the earthy eroticism of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
‘Stop interrogating her, Arthur.’ Dee threaded her arm through Ellie’s and led her towards the farmhouse, and away from Art and his surly questions.
‘How long are you planning to stay?’ Dee asked, as they approached the farmhouse.
Lavender bushes, sunflowers and fire-red foxgloves spilled out of the flowerbeds by the door, giving off a heady perfume. A wisteria vine, clinging to the stonework, wound its way around the peaked portico.
‘Because you and Josh are welcome to stay for as long as you want,’ her mother added.
From the forbidding scowl on his face, she wasn’t convinced Art Dalton agreed.
‘I don’t know. We haven’t made any concrete plans yet.’ The only concrete plan so far had involved escaping from Orchard Harbor before news of Chelsea Hamilton’s pregnancy hit the local gossip grapevine – and turned her and Josh’s lives into a soap opera worthy of Argentinian daytime TV.
Ellie would have been able to cope with all the ‘well-meant advice’ and faux sympathy once the news was out, because she’d been doing that for years, but she wasn’t sure Josh could, without eating his own weight in Oreos. The truth was she hadn’t even had the guts to tell him yet that Dan and her were separating.
‘Then I hope you’ll consider staying for a while,’ Dee said, the generosity of the gesture making Ellie feel even more uncomfortable.
Her mother had been suggesting she and Josh visit for a while now, not long after that first tentative email with the subject line ‘Merry Christmas, Ellie’ had appeared in her inbox four years ago. But, prior to that, they’d lost contact for over a decade – separated by the huge chasm that had developed once Ellie had chosen to leave the commune after that one fateful summer and go back to live with her dad. And her mother had opted to stay put with her new girlfriend.
‘But there’s no need to make a decision yet,’ Dee added quickly, obviously picking up on Ellie’s reluctance, as she walked ahead past a rack of coats and jackets positioned over a crate full of scuffed sneakers and wellington boots. ‘All you and Josh need to do today is settle in, and relax after your long journey.’
The long journey had been a picnic compared to the week that had preceded it, but Ellie allowed herself to be led.
‘I’ll be serving dinner in a couple of hours,’ Dee said. ‘But I could get you something to snack on first if you’re hungry.’
Her mum’s voice drifted over Ellie. ‘I’m fine.’
She refrained from suggesting she skip dinner and crash now as her mother opened the door to the communal kitchen. It would be an ordeal attending the communal supper tonight. She didn’t find eating with people she didn’t know particularly relaxing, but it was the penance she would have to pay for being deranged enough to accept her mum’s invitation in the first place. And at least the people who lived here now didn’t have inappropriate piercings or judgemental scowls on their faces – every one except Art.
Then again, she hadn’t seen Art’s mother yet, or her mother’s girlfriend Pam. Reunions she was not looking forward to almost as much as the one with Art.
She raised her head to ask about them both, and gasped.
She recognised the sturdy butler sink and the scarred butcher’s block table – around which numerous discussions about whether Tony Blair was really a Tory plant had been conducted in her youth – but nothing else looked familiar. The boxes of pamphlets and home-made