The Marry-Me Wish (8 page)

‘The stained glass is fabulous,' the woman added. ‘But it's all so dark. Positively medieval.'

‘It's the wood. And those dark drapes. Ugh!'

‘We could paint the window frames. And the fireplace. Cover the floor.'

‘Get rid of all this antique furniture. It's so masculine it's virtually
phallic
.'

‘White on white,' the woman said dreamily.

‘Oh…. oh, yes, darling. I'm loving it.'

‘The fireplace would be the feature.'

‘Yes.
Yes
. I'm seeing it full of… Ooh, silver spheres.'

Anne had to walk away. She definitely needed to lie down for a while. What on earth was David thinking?

 

Part of that first afternoon was taken up talking to the insurance assessor. The carpets in her cottage would be lifted tomorrow but he couldn't be sure what was happening underneath. Some of the boards felt suspiciously
spongy. Tiles in the kitchen were lifting as well. They would have to be taken up.

‘It might take a few days to get things dry enough to do anything,' he warned.

The prognosis sounded bleak enough to make being able to escape into the glorious tangle of David's garden, and not think about any of it for a while, a blessing. There was almost an acre of lawns and trees that had one of the city's small rivers as a boundary. Paths through herbaceous borders led to secret corners and there were any number of lovely nooks to sit in. Or there had been. Some of them were so overgrown only a patch of a stone or wooden bench or a sliver of a pathway flagstone could be seen.

Meeting the landscape architect David had employed negated the pleasure the lengthy ramble had provided. The young man was busy sketching on a large sheet of paper and Anne smiled at his enthusiasm.

‘Gorgeous spot, isn't it? This should be an exciting challenge for you.'

‘You bet it is. I've never had the chance to work with a house that's crying out for the kind of dramatic foil this one could have.'

‘Oh?' All it really needed was to have its original bones uncovered, surely?

‘A sweep of lawn, I think, all the way down to the river. Buxus hedging and some gorgeous standards. Bay trees, maybe.'

‘Spheres?' Anne suggested drily.

‘Exactly. And a water feature. Piped music. Dramatic lighting when we've cleared enough of that jungle from
under the trees. That gazebo will have to go, of course. Or get moved. It's completely obstructing the vista from the main entertainment area.'

 

‘The main entertainment area? What's that?'

‘I presume he meant the big living room and the terrace.'

‘And the vista?' David was popping the tab on a can of chilled lager, having found Anne at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a notepad full of scribbles.

Her tea was cold now because she'd been sitting in here for an hour, trying not to think about how things might be when David got home. What on earth they could find to talk about that would be safe? The kind of thing that friends might talk about.

She needn't have worried. Reporting back on the visitors to the property was quite enough of a topic.

‘The straight line from the terrace to the river,' she explained to David. ‘At least, it'll be a straight line once the gazebo gets shifted. Or bulldozed along with the outdated herbaceous borders.'

David put his can down on the old kauri table. He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Anne averted her gaze hurriedly but couldn't help the way it was drawn back. Just in time to see him pushing his fingers through his hair. She recognised both the action and the gesture. David was feeling trapped. Unsure. It reminded her of a lion pacing a cage but how much of that tension was to do with what she was telling him? Maybe it was due to her presence. The fact that they were together in a confined space.

‘My parents must be rolling over in their graves. The years my mother spent on making that into a prizewinning garden.' He sat down and sighed. ‘What did the decorators have to say?'

Anne didn't need to consult her notes. What she'd overheard had been echoing in her head all afternoon. By the time she finished telling David, he was staring at her in utter bemusement.

‘Balls?' he finally muttered. ‘They want to fill the fireplace with silver
balls
?'

‘Spheres,' Anne corrected. A corner of her mouth twitched.

David held her gaze. ‘Balls,' he said again.

Anne couldn't help her unladylike snort of mirth. David held out for a moment longer but then tipped his head back and laughed.

A sound Anne hadn't heard in
so
long.

It opened doors she had avoided, assuming they were locked. Avenues to happy times together. The kind of silliness that could only be engaged in when you were so closely connected to another person that it didn't matter. When you loved them so much that trust was a given.

And then David's head straightened and his gaze brushed hers and then held it. Just for an instant. Long enough to know that he felt that old connection as well. For a heartbeat, they stared at each other. And then they both looked away.

‘I'm not having any balls,' David said. ‘Inside or out. I'll be telling these people exactly what they can do with their quotes.'

‘The plumber wasn't so bad. At least he suggested
fittings that would fit the era of the house and restore a bit of its former glory.'

David was silent while he took a long mouthful of his drink.

‘That's what I had in mind, I guess. I know this place looks tired and the garden's a mess but I don't want to
change
it. I certainly don't want it to end up looking like some professional template of what's trendy in landscaping or interior design.' His tone softened and became almost wistful. ‘I wanted it to look like a home again. Like someone loves it.'

Anne's heart skipped a beat. This mattered. But why? Was David thinking of living here again? And why should that cause a frisson of excitement? She kept her nod neutral, hoping it was one of sympathy. An encouragement to keep talking, perhaps, but David wasn't looking at her. He was staring at his can of beer and shaking his head.

‘There's no point going any further if it's going to be like this. I might as well just put the place on the market as is and let someone else do the restoration.'

‘You're
selling
?' The word was a gasp. ‘But…you love this place. It's—' She had been going to say ‘it's your home' but the words had caught. It wasn't any more, was it?

David still wasn't looking at her. ‘You can't always keep the things you love, Annie.' The edges of his words were rough enough to negate the fact that he'd softened her name. They grated, like the way David's chair did as he pushed it roughly back to stand up. ‘Sometimes you have to let them go in order to move on. That's life.'

He walked to the fridge and opened the door. Anne found herself staring at his back.

Fighting tears. He hadn't been talking about the house, had he? But it hadn't been an angry statement. Sadness was swirling in her head like a mist his words had created.

And the subject was apparently closed. ‘You hungry?'

The query was polite. Friendly, even. ‘Not very.'

David looked over his shoulder. ‘You need to eat. So do I. How 'bout a steak? And…um…' he peered back into the fridge ‘…eggs.'

‘You don't need to cook for me.'

‘I'm cooking for myself. Makes no difference to cook a bit more.'

‘Maybe I could help, then. Make a salad or something.'

‘Sure. But only if you feel up to it.'

If David was making a deliberate attempt to keep the conversation impersonal while they prepared a meal together, Anne had no objection. It was safe territory and as enjoyable as selecting some of the array of fresh vegetables in the crisper bins to slice up for a salad.

‘History suggested a straightforward grand mal seizure,' he related during the second case he was telling her about. ‘But there was no history of epilepsy and no apparent triggers.'

‘On medication?'

‘Only some herbal supplements.'

‘No recent head injury?'

‘Not even an old one. So I'm thinking, poor woman, this could be the first presentation of some nasty brain lesion and I send her off for a CT and request a neu
rology consult but they're both clear. We're thinking of discharging her but I'm not happy and then she gets up to go to the loo and guess what?'

‘Another seizure?'

‘Worse.'

Anne forgot about the red onion she'd been slicing finely. Her jaw dropped. ‘She arrested?'

‘Yep.'

‘What happened?'

‘We started resus. About to shock her out of her VT when she reverted herself and woke up.' She could hear the smile in David's voice as he slid the steaks into a hot pan.

‘And?' Anne raised her voice above the sizzle.

‘And we got a cardiology consult. Looks like she had a small MI. Enough to put her electrical circuits intermittently out of whack. Could be a congenital conduction abnormality as well. She's been admitted for monitoring and further investigation.'

‘So the initial seizure was hypoxic? She'd been non-breathing for long enough?'

‘Probably. Maybe the activity of the seizure had been enough to convert the rhythm. Or maybe it was going to happen anyway. She was lucky. Gave my junior staff a good lesson in not taking things entirely at face value, as well. Right. These steaks are done. If you still like yours medium rare, that is?'

Anne nodded. ‘They smell fantastic. I think I am hungry after all.'

‘Good. Let's eat.'

Conversation ceased after they sat down at the table but
it wasn't such an uncomfortable silence this time. Talking about the house and then work had tapped into the kind of communication that had been habitual. A comfort zone. Having a meal together was in that same zone.

Anne was too tired to be really hungry and she'd had enough after only a few mouthfuls. She toyed with her food, thinking about what a different quality her weariness today had compared to last night.

It was only then that it struck her how much her mind had been occupied by things other than her present worries like her body and the babies or even past ones such as David represented. Had she been so appalled at what could be allowed to happen on a remake of this wonderful old house and garden that it had been enough to distract her this much or had her subconscious latched onto it as a means of escape? A chance to rest and heal.

Not that it mattered. The net effect had been a very welcome reprieve. What would happen in a day or two when she returned to her own home? It would be a mess but not one that required imagination to fix. Her brain might be too hormone addled to focus on something academic right now but it needed more activity than simply choosing new carpet or watching tiles being relaid.

And that was when the idea occurred to her.

‘I've got a guy who's done a lot of work on my cottage,' she told David. ‘Jim. Semi-retired, master builder but he can turn his hand to anything. He'd be perfect for the kind of repairs you need done here, like the windowsills and sticky doors. He could do a bathroom makeover or something, too.'

David was still eating heartily but he paused and
swallowed his mouthful. ‘Not much point starting if I'm not going to go the whole way.'

‘Jim has mates. There's an army of these semi-retired tradesmen out there and I reckon they all drink at the same pub or something. If I give Jim something he can't handle, he can always find someone who can. And they're always good. I had Pete in to do painting and wallpapering a while back and I had no complaints.'

‘But I'd still have to make choices about something I'm totally ignorant about. I couldn't pick a colour or a wallpaper pattern to save myself.'

‘But I could.'

David's new forkful of food hovered in mid-air. ‘Why would you want to?'

‘Distraction. My mind is mush. I'd enjoy a project that would keep me busy until I'm well enough to go back to work.'

He was frowning now.

‘I'm not suggesting I stay here for weeks, don't worry. I can spend the next day or two thinking and planning and maybe getting fabric and paper samples delivered. It's not that far to my place. I could come over while you're at work and supervise what was being done.'

David was listening now. ‘What about the garden?'

‘One of my neighbour's sons comes in to do any heavy stuff I need. He's a student and will be on summer break by now. If he hasn't got a job, I'm sure he'd jump at the opportunity.'

‘I wouldn't know where to start in telling him what to do.' David was staring at Anne now. ‘Would you?'

‘Maybe. I'd like to give it a go.'

‘But…why?' There was something dark in his gaze now. Wariness, if not mistrust.

Anne took a deep breath. She needed to choose her words carefully and she wasn't entirely sure what it was she wanted to say exactly. It had something to do with the analogy that she'd picked up on when he'd said he was planning to sell the house. That you had to let things go to move on.

‘You want someone to love this house, don't you? To make it a real home again.'

His nod was terse.

‘Right now it's not at its best. You might get someone who can't see what it has to offer. Can't see past the…damage, I guess. If you could fix it up and maybe make it even better than it ever was before, you'll find someone who will love it for what it
is
, not what it could be.'

She held her breath. There was no need to hammer the analogy. If there was anything left of that old connection, David would know exactly what she was talking about. What she was offering. A chance at friendship. To repair the damage their relationship might have left them with. Closure perhaps.