The Garden Plot

by Sara Sartagne

  The ground was stony along the lane, so he went steadily, getting a smooth rhythm and trying to keep his breathing even. He thought his chest felt a bit tight.

  Lack of exercise, he puffed. He’d been a couch potato for way too long.

  He knew where he'd be running. Jessop's Field had lovely views, and the paths went in and out of trees so he wouldn't get too hot...and Sam might be there. She'd said she went there in times of stress, and if he was stressed, wouldn't she be? And if she was stressed, she'd be walking, trying to get some peace. Like him.

  He picked up the pace a little, trying to get there faster. Once through the gates, his senses seemed to sharpen, looking for her.

  Jonas ran on, nodding to dog walkers and one or two other runners. But no Sam.

  Almost reluctantly, he turned towards the pond, keeping up his gentle pace, taking in the glorious landscape, gently rolling curves and lush green, even this late in the summer. He grimaced. He’d done as much as he could with the plans, without costing the company a fortune, but even he was starting to think it would be a crime to build here.

  The pond had attracted kids paddling and swimming, lovers, people with dogs—but no sign of Sam. He ran round it three times, but on the third lap, admitted to himself she wasn't there.

  Suddenly, he felt a constriction in his chest. His legs grew heavy, and he felt his breath coming in harsher gasps than before. He slowed his pace abruptly, feeling a sharp pain in his side and his vision blurred.

  Jonas put his hand on a tree to steady himself.

  I must get home, he thought, as the trees swam around him...

  Sam finished chewing a slice of pizza and looked askance at the remaining three-quarters of the meal. Perhaps Lisbeth would want it for lunch or a snack if she popped round this weekend.

  She was part way through a weasel excuse to Amanda’s dinner invitation when the phone in her hand rang, startling her so much she almost dropped it.

  “Hello?” she said breathlessly when she finally got the phone under control and to her ear.

  “Sam! Oh, thank God you're at home!” came Magda's panicked voice down the phone.

  “Magda?”

  “Oh Sam! It’s Dad! He’s ill, he’s—he’s—he’s—”

  “Wha—what's happened? Magda, slow down, I can barely tell what you're saying!”

  “Dad’s collapsed in his bedroom!”

  “What? Where's your grandmother?”

  “Gone to the airport to pick up Opa! And I can't reach her, she's forgotten to take her phone!”

  Sam took a deep breath.

  “Magda, I need you to calm down and call for an ambulance. Tell them what's happened as slowly and carefully as you can. Is he breathing?”

  “I think so—he's just so still! He went for a run, I didn’t think he should have... Oh, I'm so scared!”

  “I'll be round as fast I can. Call the ambulance now!”

  “Come quick!”

  “I will—now phone the ambulance!”

  Sam closed the call and grabbed her car keys. Her hands were shaking so badly, she fumbled with the lock on the cottage and swore roundly as she struggled to close the door.

  She drove automatically, her mind racing with possibilities. Had Jonas had a heart attack? Had the virus returned? Oh God, was he dying?

  She drove as fast as she dared through the country lanes, muttering to herself—“Let him be ok, let him be ok, let him be ok...”

  Sam cornered the road to Brook Lodge almost on two wheels, tumbling out of the car and cursing as she saw that the ambulance hadn't arrived.

  “What on earth—?!” she bit out under her breath. “Where the hell are they?” Strangely, the front door seemed to be wide open, and after hesitating briefly, she ran in.

  “Hello?” she called. There was no answer. “Magda? Magda!” She peered up the stairs, heard nothing and started to climb the stairs, two at a time.

  “Where are you, for God's sake!” she muttered as she ran along the corridor, opening doors to empty bedrooms until she found the room that was unmistakably Jonas' bedroom. She drew in a deep breath to her aching lungs, pushed the door and stumbled in.

  Just as Jonas walked out of the shower room.

  31

  Sam stood rooted to the floor in shock, feeling the blood drain from her face. Jonas was rubbing his hair with a towel, his shoulders glistening with water.

  He stopped abruptly.

  “Sam! What in God's name are you doing here?”

  Sam tried to speak but her throat seemed to close up and nothing happened. Jonas walked towards her and she took an instinctive step backwards as his lean figure towered over her.

  “Sam! What's happened? Are you ill?” Jonas asked, taking her by the arms and shaking her gently. Sam sagged and finally found her voice.

  “I—I—I thought you were ill. Magda called me and told me you'd collapsed.”

  Jonas narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Magda? What has that little madam been playing at? Scaring the life out of you—out of us both!” He let her go to look down the hallway. “I thought she’d gone out. Magda! Are you in the house, you bloody nuisance?” he called.

  Sam sank on to the blanket chest at the bottom of the bed in relief. He's alive. He's alive, was the thought going round and round her head. She felt close to tears and took a shuddering breath to get a hold of her emotions, and to try to slow her racing heartbeat. She watched as Jonas stormed around the bedroom, cursing his daughter, and out of sheer reaction, she giggled.

  Jonas glared at her and Sam couldn't stop her giggle from turning into a laugh.

  “What's so bloody funny?”

  “It is funny, you're shouting, wearing only a towel...” she spluttered. “Please, put something on.”

  Jonas looked down at himself and huffed in exasperation. He swung around and strode into the bathroom. He emerged two minutes later wearing a white robe.

  “That’s better,” Sam approved.

  “This isn't anything to be amused by!” he snapped. “Magda's been playing some stupid game and you looked as white as a sheet when I saw you.”

  Sam tried to sober up. “Well, I'm very pleased you’re OK,” she said. “Magda sounded frantic when she called me about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I’m fine,” he declared grimly. “While I was running I did feel very strange and dizzy at one stage, and I got a really bad stitch—but I just waited and it all passed and I walked home. Slowly. What precisely did Magda say?”

  “Just that you'd been for a run and you'd collapsed. I thought it was your illness, or that you'd had a heart attack.”

  The smile faded from Sam’s face as she remembered her terrified thoughts as she drove to Brook Lodge, dreading what she might find, and nudging her into thinking what she might have lost.

  Jonas watched her, and she saw his face soften. He took a deep breath and hesitantly held out his arms.

  “Come here.”

  After a second’s hesitation, she went into them silently, breathing in the clean scent of him as his embrace wrapped around her.

  She felt his lips brush her hair and she sighed and mumbled into his chest.

  “What?” he said.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, lifting her head.

  “I’m pleased you cared enough to come.”

  “No—I meant sorry about everything...”

  Jonas sighed.

  “So am I. I should have told you who I was.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Yes, you should.”

  “I was going to—I promise. I left it too long, I had planned to tell you on the Saturday you were coming to look at the garden. But it all blew up before that. I’m so sorry.” He hugged her. “You've lost weight,” he commented.

  “So have you.” Sam had been doing her own inventory, and thought his jaw looked sharper than she remembered.

  Jonas sighed again and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “We need to talk,” he said. S
am looked at him warily. She didn’t want another row—but he was right.

  “OK.” She made to pull away, but he drew her over to the bed and she perched uneasily on it.

  There was a silence.

  “Damn, I don’t know where to start,” he said finally, pushing his hand through his damp hair.

  “Perhaps I should tell you what I already know?” suggested Sam. “I know you’re the boss of Halcyon, I know that you’ve changed some of the plans and that now you’re building on the brownfield site. I know you’ve been ill. I’m not sure why you lied to me, and I’m not really clear how the boss of a sustainable development company comes to be building on Green Belt land...”

  He winced at that.

  “We were supposed to be silent partners—Anglo Homes do a lot more house building in the UK, we wanted to see how it was done. They wanted to learn about sustainability, they said. It seemed a good match.”

  Sam raised her eyebrows.

  “Yeah, yeah,” acknowledged Jonas. “We recognised things were not going as planned when we realised they only used our plans when the objections started coming in. They hadn’t used any of our suppliers...oh, a thousand red signals, but we missed them. Or underestimated their importance.”

  “And now you’re working alone?”

  “Yes—I like Tyler’s uncle, but not him. He’s a bit of a...”

  “Shyster?”

  Jonas grinned and Sam felt a flame in her stomach as his face lit up.

  “I couldn’t possibly comment.”

  Sam thought for a moment.

  “Are the houses going to be very expensive? I’ve seen a lot of comments in the local paper about how ‘sustainable’ means it costs more. Despite what you might think, Sherton’s not a well-off village.”

  “No, we know that. I've started a new division in Halcyon which will concentrate on affordable and sustainable housing for new owners, young families and the like. I imagine we'll take a bit of a hit financially for the first few years, but it will form part of our CSR effort.”

  “What's CSR?”

  “Corporate social responsibility,” he translated for her. “My chairman's not keen, but I'll try to make him think it was his idea...”

  “Mmm, I used to do that with my Dad. Smaller scale, obviously.”

  They smiled at one another. Sam had a sensation of falling and said hastily,

  “OK, and you’re building on Lower Edge Field.”

  To her surprise, she saw his skin tinge pink.

  “Ah. Yes, we are. I thought it would be sensible to follow it up.” He looked down.

  “But there aren’t many more houses being built, it seems to me,” she said watching him closely.

  “Not many, no.”

  Sam finally caught on. “You’re reducing the number built on Jessop’s Field?”

  He nodded. She narrowed her eyes.

  “Yes. Just good commercial sense.”

  I don’t believe you.

  “And about me—I’m a widower with one daughter. My wife drowned eight years ago. My mother’s Irish and my father’s German. I kept my mother’s maiden name because no-one could pronounce my father’s, and Mum wanted to keep her Irish heritage alive,” Jonas continued, tracing circles on the duvet.

  “Really? What’s your dad’s name?”

  “Schipzelburgen.”

  Sam laughed. “Sounds a very feminist thing to do for a man who thinks that a woman shouldn’t dig a garden!”

  Jonas went pink again and deciding not to tease him further, Sam continued.

  “I met your Mum—she came down to see me at the office.”

  Jonas looked surprised. “She did? What for?”

  “Well, she said she just wanted to tell me how much she liked the garden,” Sam said thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps she wanted to meet the first woman I’ve employed since becoming head of the company.”

  Sam was surprised. And then cross.

  “Me? I’m the first woman? I take back all I said! Jonas, that’s bloody medieval!”

  He held his hands up. “I know, I know. Magda agrees with you and so does my mother.” He stopped.

  “But how the hell did you manage to get to your advanced age—and to the position of CEO—without being prosecuted?” Sam said, aghast. “I thought you were just being a bit weird and mixing up my name with Dad’s—but you weren’t, were you? You really are that sexist, aren’t you?”

  He put up his hands in a weak protest. “You should know that when I discussed this with my deputy Neil, we agreed I was a dinosaur. I didn’t like what I’d become, and I’ve been trying to rethink my attitude ever since the day we met here.” he said. She gaped at him. Reluctantly, it seemed, he began to speak again.

  “My wife Nicole was a successful businesswoman—she was smart, elegant, beautiful and made money like no-one else I’ve ever known,” he said. “She was all that, but she didn't want to be a wife. Or a mother, much. Nicole got pregnant by mistake far too early in our marriage. I don’t think she wanted children—she was back at work within two weeks of Magda’s being born, to my mother’s horror. Nicole saw Magda as an obstacle to doing what she loved, an inconvenience. Magda would have gone through a series of nurses, governesses and boarding schools if I’d not put my foot down. I've stayed away from women like her ever since. Hence—”

  “Your Neanderthal attitude towards women in business?”

  He looked shamefaced. “Sounds a bit lame doesn’t it? But yes, I suppose that’s what prompted it and I’ve never dumped the habit,” Jonas finished a little awkwardly. “I realise my attitude is an issue. Magda forced me into thinking about it and I’m trying to change, but it might take some time.”

  Sam didn’t know what to say and she thought for a moment about it.

  “Well, I’m sure Magda will be dragging you by your ears into the twenty-first century,” she said eventually.

  “Will you?”

  Sam stared.

  “I still would like to get to know you better, Sam,” he said, looking steadily at her. “I know there’s been a lot of crap but I’d really like to take you out. I’m not one of the bad guys—and I’m trying to become the kind of father that my daughter deserves,” he mused.

  His words struck her heart. How nice that would be—having a father who aspired to be good for you as well as good to you.

  She took a breath.

  “I’m sure you will be. I’ve seen what you’ve done to the development and I think you are one of the good guys,” she said in a low voice. His green eyes zeroed in on her and he took her hand.

  “Shall we start again?” he asked.

  Sam’s pulse started doing a drum solo. She could feel his body heat, smell his fresh, clean shower gel. She could feel her skin prickle with awareness. She hadn’t felt like this for years. Well, since that moment on Jessop’s Field. With Jonas.

  “I think...I think I’d like that.” He had to bend his head to hear her.

  He raised her chin gently and kissed her. A sweet, tentative kiss. She swayed towards him. The atmosphere seemed to implode around her, and before she realised, she was leaning over him, pressing him into the bed cover. She could feel his heart thudding against her breast and his tongue stroking her lips. She groaned, pressing her suddenly rock-hard nipples against him. His robe fell open.

  Gasping, she fell away. “God, I’m so sorry! Is this a good idea? I’m not sure it is! Oh God...” she gabbled.

  He chuckled softly, his arm over his eyes.

  “You’re asking me? Frankly, I want to rip your clothes off you! So—do I think this is a good idea? If you intend for this to be a one-off, then no, it isn't. If you're happy to arrange dinner—lots of dinners—then yes, I think it's an astoundingly good idea.” She tore her eyes from his green gaze. “Sam? I want you, you know that. But I also like you. And I want to be with you, a lot. I haven't felt like this for a long time. I thought you felt the same. Do you?”

  She hesitated and felt him tense.
Incurably honest, she sighed. “When I ran through that door I was terrified you might be seriously ill, and that I might have lost you. So, yes, I do feel the same. But...”

  “You’re not the sort of girl who puts out on a first date.” He sighed. “No--” he put a finger against her lips as she made to speak. “I want whatever makes you happy. Relax. I’ll wait as long as you like.”

  Sam shook her head. He’d misunderstood. Her body felt electrocuted, acutely aware. She could feel his breath in her hair. She felt the warmth between her thighs. She heard the wails of her libido and the ache in her crotch. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Well, if you want whatever makes me happy, you’d better be damn good,” she said in a low voice, turning to him and kissed him, hard. The kiss went on and on. Sam realised he was waiting to see what she would do and she pressed her hips against him to send a clear message.

  And then she was on her back, his hands around her face. He knelt beside her, his face intent on unbuttoning her dress. She watched his face as he undid the last one and the linen dress fell apart, revealing her white cotton knickers.

  He drew the dress down her arms and threw it on a nearby chair before sinking alongside her and kissing her deeply. Her hands clenched in his hair, pressing him closer. His lips teased her, nibbling, sucking and tasting, while his hands stroked her sides, her hips and the underside of her breasts.

  She pressed her knee between his legs and drew her thigh gently against his balls, feeling his erection against her skin. He raised his lips from her mouth to gasp, and she grazed her teeth against his neck. Sam couldn’t get her hands to him, he was still wearing the robe, and she growled her frustration. They both reached for the tie of his robe.

  “No,” Sam pushed away his hand, and with deliberate slowness, she undid the knot of the robe. Sitting up, she pushed the towelling over his shoulders and stroked her hands down his chest and over his hips, finally able to touch his skin. He sucked in his breath.

  “You are beautiful,” she murmured, intent on tracing the contours of his muscles, down to his hips and his erect, satiny penis. He groaned, as if he was in pain.