I couldn’t think of anything better. I nodded my assent and grabbed one of my bags from the car. The rest could wait until morning.
Harry led me back the way I’d come in the car. Down the lane and across a field. “There’s a path,” he called over his shoulder. “But when the horses are stabled for the night and the ground is dry, it’s quicker to come this way.”
“How many horses are there?”
“Around forty, I think. It varies, depending on how many rescues come in.”
“You get a lot of those?”
“Yes. Even more so since Joe expanded the stable block. When I first came here, it was half the size it is now.”
We reached the other side of the field. Harry hurdled the gate. Lacking any better ideas, I followed and found myself in a small orchard. Apple and cherry trees were beginning to blossom, and the fading sun cast a warm glow over the delicate space. I couldn’t deny its beauty and slowed to a stop, dropping my bag at my feet.
Harry shot me a knowing glance but said nothing as I nudged off my shoes—I wore no socks. Damp grass hit my feet and I curled my toes in it, centring myself for the first time in what felt like months. The sensation was fleeting, and the reality of my new life was a mere heartbeat away, but for the briefest of moments, I was earthed. “This is nice,” I said.
Harry leaned against a dry-stone wall. “I’m glad you think so, because the work on the cottage isn’t quite finished.”
“You mentioned that on the phone, but Ella was screaming so I didn’t get it all.”
“Don’t worry, it’s liveable and safe, but the plaster only went up a few days ago on the downstairs walls. When is Ella coming for her first night?”
I did a quick calculation. Somehow over the last twenty-four hours, I’d lost track of what day of the week it was. “Saturday. Gives me a few days to settle in before I start work on Monday.”
“Good. We’ll get the painting done by the end of the week, and hopefully it’ll air out by the time she gets here.”
The prospect of my daughter joining me in a house I hadn’t yet seen activated the responsible adult in my brain. I fought hard to shake the shadows of the city from my shoulders and dug my toes into the soft earth again.
It worked. I found a grin from somewhere and pasted it on. “Awesome. Wanna show me the cottage so I can figure the rest of my life out?”
“Course, mate. Follow me.”
Harry preceded me through the orchard and over another gate. On the other side was a rough path that led to a cottage with a boarded-up window next to the front door. My heart sank. But Harry nudged me. “Don’t worry. It’s only the porch, and it’s on Toby’s list after the painting.”
“Toby?”
“He does the maintenance around here, along with a thousand other things. He’ll be over in the morning to start on the walls.” Harry fished a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the cottage. He waved me in front of him, and despite trusting him as much as I’d ever trusted anyone, I stepped over the threshold with healthy trepidation. On my own, I couldn’t give two shits where I laid my head, but with Ella to consider, the world was a far scarier place than it had been eight months ago.
Inside, I took in the rose-coloured plaster in the hallway and followed it to an empty living space. To the side was a small kitchen with a washing machine and a fridge, but no cooker.
Harry gestured at the hole where it should’ve been. “Sorry. It’s coming on Monday. You can use the kitchen at the main house until then.”
“Joe’s house?”
“Well, it’s mine too, and everyone who works here uses it, so don’t be shy.”
As a rule, I wasn’t. But away from the anonymity of the city, I didn’t feel quite myself. Even Harry’s gentle presence was starting to grate on me. I wanted him to leave so I could sit on the floor of the barren cottage and contemplate what I needed to do before I brought Ella home.
Perhaps reading my mind, Harry edged towards the door. “I’m going to leave you to it. Come by the house at dinner time if you’re hungry. There’s always enough for a crowd.”
“Thanks, but I’ll sort myself out.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that, but you should know that no one gets to be lonely around here, even if they think it’s what they want.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. So get some rest, then come and get your dinner. If not, I’ll send breakfast with Toby and his paint pots in the morning.”
Harry left. I moved to the living room window and watched him cross the orchard to join Joe at the gate. I should’ve been grateful for everything he’d done for me, but as he embraced his husband and walked away, I felt nothing but bitter.
2
Toby
“How is he even your friend if you’re sending him a bacon sandwich? You never let the rest of us eat bacon sandwiches.”
Harry rolled his eyes and pressed the foil package into my hands. “Fat lot of good that does anyone. Do you think I don’t know you lot are down at KFC the moment my back is turned?”
“How do you know?”
“Because Joe leaves the wrappers in his van, his coat pockets, and just about everywhere else.”
Harry looked genuinely pained, and I felt sorry for him and his one-man mission to feed his family and friends on a diet that didn’t consist of fried chicken and bad chips. I also appreciated that he’d packed me a sandwich too. Living alone, I often forgot about breakfast until I was halfway to work. Sometimes, I forgot to go home in the first place.
I took the sandwiches and added them to the pile of stuff I had to cart over to the cottage in a wobbly wheelbarrow. The Pilates teacher had moved in the night before. Harry had said he might come to the house for dinner, but he hadn’t shown up. No one seemed surprised, especially Rhys, who seemed to know him better than Harry.
“Cole’s spiritual as fuck when you get to know him, but he’s moodier than Joe when he wants to be.”
At the time, I couldn’t work out if he was telling the truth or trying to wind Joe up. The latter was more likely, and Rhys had always been good at it. Either way, it didn’t make much difference to me. I didn’t spend a lot of time at Harry’s clinic, so once the cottage was complete, if the mysterious resident was as solitary as Rhys claimed, I’d probably never see him.
With that in mind, it left my head that he’d actually be at the cottage when I got there. I trundled into the orchard with the wheelbarrow, my concentration taken up with keeping the contents in place. It had been a few months since I’d spilt ten litres of paint somewhere impossible to clean, and I wasn’t in a hurry to piss Joe off that much again anytime soon.
So much so that I nearly ran over a human leg. “Whoa!” The wheelbarrow lurched sideways, sending brushes and rollers sliding onto the dew-damp grass. A tub of white paint followed, and I lunged for it, catching it in the nick of time.
The clumsy movement knocked me off balance. I stumbled to my knees, but instead of wet grass, I landed on squishy foam, and my shoulder collided with hot, hard flesh.
“Motherfucker.”
It took me a moment to realise the growled curse hadn’t come from me.