Authors: Kate Hewitt
‘Yes,’
he said after a long moment, his voice quiet and sad. ‘I do. But I didn’t think
you did.’
Mollie
could only imagine what kind of memories tormented Jacob. Actually, she
couldn’t
imagine. Her upbringing had had
its own sorrows, as Jacob had acknowledged, but nothing like what he must have
experienced. Her one experience of William Wolfe told her that. How could she
fault him for wanting to leave such an unhappy place? She wanted to now. She’d
wanted to years ago.
‘Mine
are different than yours,’ she said slowly. ‘My father loved me, and I loved
him, but—’ She drew a breath, made herself continue. ‘For the past five years
I’d been nursing him through dementia. I didn’t want to put him in a care
facility, because I knew he’d be happiest here, where he spent all of his life.
But … it was hard.’ She tried to smile, but felt her mouth wobble instead. She
didn’t like to talk about her lonely years with her father, and who wanted to
hear about it anyway? She saw Annabelle so rarely these days that even her
closest friend barely knew what Mollie had been enduring. ‘Really hard,’ she
continued after a pause, ‘and really lonely. I went to Italy because I needed a
change.’
‘I’m
sorry,’ Jacob said quietly. ‘I can only imagine how difficult it must have been
to stay.’ His words held
a certain
poignancy, as well
as a silent acknowledgement of the fact that he
hadn’t
stayed. He really could only imagine.
‘Anyway,’
she said, trying to inject a firm, bright note into her voice, ‘I never
intended to stay in the cottage for more than a few days. I wanted to pack up
my things—and my dad’s things—and let a place in the village, as I told you
that first night.’ Jacob made no reply, and Mollie continued, her voice finally
sounding firm, ‘And that’s what I need to do. Being here—alone—is too difficult
for me. I came back from Italy planning a fresh start, and that’s what I’m
going to do.’
Jacob
said nothing for a long moment. Mollie didn’t either; she’d said all she could.
‘How
can you start fresh,’ Jacob asked after a moment, ‘without first dealing with
the past?’ Mollie had the odd feeling he was talking as much to himself as he
was to her.
‘Is
that why you came back?’ she asked.
‘Partly.’
He took a sip of coffee. ‘The other reason was the
house was violating building codes.’ He smiled wryly, lightening the moment
just a little, and Mollie smiled back, although part of her longed to ask Jacob
more. She knew he wouldn’t give her answers. ‘Don’t go, Mollie,’ Jacob said
quietly. ‘Don’t run away. You stayed all those years, when it was far harder
than it is now. Finish the job not for me, or for your career, or the manor,
but for yourself and your father. Restore these gardens to the glory he once
knew, and walk away proud. You’ll be glad you did.’
Tears
pricked her eyes. She hadn’t expected
that
.
She’d been prepared to argue with a coolly mocking Jacob, not with this man
whose heart, for once, seemed reflected in his eyes. They weren’t endlessly
black; they held their own light coming from deep within. ‘And what about you?’
she whispered. ‘Will you walk away proud?’
Jacob
didn’t answer for a long time. Mollie saw the shadows cloud his eyes once more,
the darkness that hid a pain she couldn’t yet understand. ‘I’ll walk away,’ he
finally said, and his voice was flat enough to make Mollie not question his
words.
SHE
stayed. Mollie wondered if she’d ever really intended to leave. Certainly the
desperate impulse had been abandoned from the moment she’d heard Jacob’s
heartfelt words. All it had taken was one quiet plea and she’d melted.
And,
she was honest enough to acknowledge, there was truth in what he’d said. It was
why she’d accepted the commission in the first place; she wanted to see the
gardens restored. She wanted to do it herself. Then she’d be able to move on
with a clear conscience and a light heart.
If she survived.
Yet
she hardly needed to worry about Jacob tempting her yet again, for he kept his
distance as June bled into July. Mollie occupied herself with work. There was
so much of it, and even though she hired some men from the village to do the
heaviest jobs, she could still stay in the gardens from dawn to dusk and never
have an idle moment.
She’d
yet to consider how to redesign the parts of the estate that could not be
restored, like the Rose Garden. She walked along the octagonal pathways and
inspected the rose bushes, now dry and shrivelled, wondering how she could
replace something that had been one of the estate’s crowning glories, her
father’s proudest achievement. She’d sketched some ideas, perused catalogues of
the latest hybrids and perennials, yet anything she came up with seemed a poor
second to what had already been there. How could there not be a Rose Garden at
all?
Still,
the work of simply restoring the gardens to what they had once been was enough
to occupy
her,
both mind and body.
Almost.
Her mind—and her body—still wandered away from the
task at hand, wondered what Jacob was doing.
Thinking.
Feeling.
Wondered how it would feel if he kissed her,
if she told him she’d changed her mind and she wanted his no-strings affair
after all.
Mollie
knew she never would. Not only was such a possibility still too dangerous, it
was also terrifying to imagine Jacob’s cool rejection. What if he’d changed his
mind? What if he didn’t want her after all? What if that suggestion had been
nothing more than a mockery?
And
since he stayed away from her week after week, that seemed more than a
possibility; it was surely
a likelihood
.
And
a good thing too, Mollie told herself. She didn’t need complications. She
didn’t need Jacob Wolfe.
Even if she wanted him.
In
early July, when the country was in the grip of an unexpected heatwave so the
very air seemed to shimmer, he found her in the Rose Garden. She’d gone there,
as she often did, to pace those familiar pathways and wonder just what she was
going to do. She’d reluctantly removed the rose bushes and turned over the
earth; the beds were ready for planting. She just didn’t know what to plant.
‘You
look like you’re trying to solve a particular complicated maths problem.’
Mollie
whirled around, her heart already starting to thump at the sound of Jacob’s
voice. He stood in the entrance to the little garden, the hedges dark around
him. He wore jeans and a faded T-shirt, yet even in such casual clothes he
looked amazing. Mollie drank him in, her gaze lingering on the sinewy muscles
of his arms and chest, the way the jeans emphasised his trim hips and powerful
thighs, the loose grace of every movement.
She
realised she was staring and jerked her gaze away. ‘Something
like
that. I’m trying to decide what to plant in this
garden.’
Jacob
glanced at the empty beds. ‘This was the Rose Garden, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’
she said. ‘There have been roses here for five hundred years.’
‘Time for a change, then.’
She
laughed; she’d honestly never thought of it that way. ‘I suppose,’ she said.
‘We can’t plant roses, at any rate.’
‘Why not?’
‘The
soil is depleted. That’s what made the plants vulnerable in the first place.
After a long time, even new rose bushes will fail to thrive if they’re planted
in soil where roses have been before.’
‘Rather
difficult creatures, aren’t they?’
A
smile tugged at Mollie’s mouth, surprising her. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘they are.
Temperamental and fragile and damned hard to grow.’
‘So
it seems like something else should grow here.’
‘Every
manor house has a rose garden,’ Mollie said. Jacob arched an eyebrow.
‘All
the more reason not to have one, I’d say.’
‘You
are a contrary person, aren’t you?’ Mollie said, half teasing, half serious. He
shrugged, offering her that faint, cool smile.
‘So
some people say.’
A
silence descended, awkward and uncertain, and Mollie gazed at the empty flower
beds, trying to think of something—anything—to say. ‘What have you been doing?’
she finally blurted. ‘I haven’t seen you around.’
‘I’ve
been busy.’ His tone was cool and a bit impersonal, and Mollie knew that he was
keeping her from asking more questions. Yet somehow she just couldn’t help
herself.
‘You
mentioned before that you went to London on business. And you have an
assistant, so you’re obviously engaged in some kind of work.’ She tried to keep
her voice light, friendly. ‘What is it that you do, Jacob?’
He
hesitated, and Mollie wondered why he was so reluctant to tell her. Then he
gave a little laugh and said, ‘I don’t mean to be so much the man of mystery.
I’m an architect actually.’
‘An architect?’
Mollie remembered that he had said he was
overseeing the renovation himself. ‘J Design,’ she realised aloud, and saw
Jacob’s expression flicker before he spread his hands and smiled.
‘You
sussed me out.’
She
shook her head in disbelief. ‘J Design is an amazing company. You work for
them?’ He didn’t answer, and Mollie thought of the five hundred thousand pounds
he’d been able to give away with such ease. ‘You started it,’ she stated.
‘You’re the founder.
J
is for Jacob.’
He gave a shrug of acknowledgement, and Mollie let out a little laugh.
‘And
I told you they were quite good!’ She laughed again at the absurdity of it, and
was gladdened to see Jacob smile back. ‘But that’s fantastic. Why do you hide
it?’
‘I’ve
been a very private person for many years,’ Jacob said after a moment. ‘I
suppose it’s hard to stop.’
The
nineteen years Jacob had spent away seemed to lie between them, heavy with
memories and experiences she could neither know nor understand. And none of his
family had known either. At least Annabelle hadn’t.
Yet
Annabelle had forgiven Jacob; that much was clear in her emails to Mollie. She
simply wanted to see her family reunited and happy once more. Mollie was the
one who had wanted explanations, apologies, and she deserved neither. Not as
much as the Wolfes did anyway.
‘I
thought I should give you these,’ Jacob said, finally breaking the silence. He
held a bulky plastic bag aloft, and Mollie took it with surprise.
‘What
is it?’
‘Something
I thought you needed.’
Mollie
peeked in the bag and saw a spectacular pair of high-end rubber boots.
With purple polka dots.
She thought of the way the ripped
seam in her boot had leaked muddy water across Jacob’s rug, and she looked up,
both touched and unsettled. He noticed everything—and he did something about
it. ‘Thank you. That’s incredibly thoughtful. And I suppose I should, in kind,
give you a new entry rug.’