‘On the cottage?’ she said, puzzled that he hadn’t finished off the house first. They were strolling along the paths between the beds, and she could see the structure of the garden, the little lavender hedges that had escaped and run wild…
‘I needed guest accommodation, but it’ll make a lovely holiday cottage eventually, so I’ve been fixing it up, but it’s just about done and then I need to turn my attention back to the house. There’s still loads that needs doing, but it’ll take a while.’
She looked up at the house and blanched at the thought of the maintenance and repair bills—never mind a major renovation.
‘The cost must be horrendous. Do you have a really good job or are you just naturally wealthy?’
He gave a hollow, slightly cynical laugh. ‘No, I’m not naturally wealthy, but I’ve worked hard. I used to buy and sell companies. I kept a few and I’ve got a steady income, but to be honest I’ve lost interest in that way of life. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be and I can’t be bothered to chase it any more.’
‘So you threw everything you had at this place and ran away to the country?’
His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, for some reason. ‘Pretty much. Not quite everything, but I’ve stepped back from the front line, as it were, and I’m taking time out and fixing the house. That’s a task and a half, but I’m enjoying the challenge. I know every nook and cranny of the house now, and it’s becoming part of me. It’s damned hard work, but you know the saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And I’m only doing what I can. There’s a specialist team waiting to come in once the planners are happy.’
Well, of course there was. It was a huge task, even her inexperienced eyes could see that, and there was no way one man could do it alone.
He paused at the gate. ‘Want to meet the chickens?’
She laughed softly, and he felt his guts curl at the musical sound. Crazy. She was pregnant! How could he want her like this?
Because it’s your baby? Or just because she’s beautiful?
‘Do they need meeting?’ And then, when he stared at her blankly, she added, ‘The chickens?’
He gave her a smile that was probably a little off kilter. ‘You might be less resentful when they wake you up at stupid o’clock.’
‘You could have a point.’ She chuckled again, and yet again his guts curled up and whimpered.
‘Come on, Daisy,’ he said, slapping his leg and trying not to think about Emelia.
‘So—why chickens?’ she asked as they walked. ‘Isn’t it easier to buy eggs from the shops?’
Sam laughed. ‘Much, especially since they hardly ever lay anything, but I inherited them with the house and in a moment of weakness I gave them names so I guess they’re with me till the fox gets them or they fall off their perches,’ he admitted ruefully, making her smile so that her nose crinkled in a scarily sexy way that just took his breath away.
She felt her smile waver as he frowned at her for some reason. Or at himself for his sentimentality? She wasn’t sure.
‘Come on, we’ll go and introduce you,’ he said, and abruptly led the way to the kitchen garden. It was separate from the house, the empty beds arranged in a grid pattern between the gravel paths.
‘I want to have a go at growing vegetables again this year,’ he told her. ‘I know it sounds like a load of old romantic nonsense, but I love it. It’s just a case of time, though—and I don’t have enough,’ he said honestly.
She watched the chickens happily scratching in the beds, and hoped the vegetables and eggs weren’t a significant contribution to the household budget. The veg didn’t stand a chance and it would take a heck of a lot of eggs to pay the builders.
She looked back at the house thoughtfully. ‘It must have been amazing in its hey-day,’ she said softly, and he nodded, his expression gentling as he looked up at it.
‘Yes. And I want to bring it back to life. I’ve got so many plans for it, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day and everything seems to take twice as long as you think, but one day I’ll get there and it’ll be a fantastic home again.’ There was a tension in him, a kind of pent-up excitement in his eyes that reminded her of James. He’d been like this—full of wild plans and crazy schemes. They’d been going to do so much, had so many plans, all now turned to dust.
And as Sam finished speaking, she saw the light go out of his eyes before he turned away, and she wondered what had happened to send him into retreat. Because that was what he was doing—pulling up the drawbridge, going into some kind of bucolic trance.
It wasn’t a good time in my life.
He walked on, and after a moment she followed him. Emily had hinted at something in his past, but she hadn’t given away any secrets. Secrets there were, though, of that Emelia was sure, and she found herself reassessing her opinion of him.
He’d always seemed so confident, so assured, so grounded on their previous meetings. And maybe he was, but it was as if some thread in his life had snapped and left him changed from the man he’d been.
I’ve lost interest in that way of life. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
What had happened? He seemed—maybe not lonely, exactly, but there was a sense of isolation that didn’t quite gel, as if he was building this wonderful family home and knew there would only ever be him in it.
It’s nothing to do with you, she told herself firmly, and followed him as he left the kitchen garden and took her on a guided tour of the rest of the house.
It was beautiful, but there was much still left to do, and as he talked about it, telling her his plans, she felt a twinge of regret that she would never be part of them, never share his dream, and from the way he was talking, neither would anyone else. He never said ‘we’, only ‘I’ or ‘me’. A loner, for whatever reason. But maybe their child would be the one to share it with him, would bring warmth and joy into his life and make him happy again.
And as for her…
He’d offered her his friendship. That was all. Grudgingly. No, not grudgingly, but reluctantly. His friendship and a safe place to stay until she’d sorted out her options. And building pipe dreams about some rosy future with him, even for a second, was completely and utterly ridiculous…
‘I ought to make a few phone calls, work out what I’m going to do, where I’m going to go,’ she said pensively.
They were back at the kitchen table, and Sam felt himself frown. One minute she’d been talking about finding work locally, the next she was talking about leaving. He frankly wasn’t sure which was worse—staying, probably, and he was beginning to think that was a generally thoroughly lousy idea. But he’d offered, so he’d thought he’d just have to shut up and cope with it. But now—now she was talking about leaving, and he suddenly felt uneasy that she might settle miles away and he’d lose sight of the baby.
That was worse. Definitely. But only because of the baby. That was all he was worried about, he told himself firmly. Well, not quite all, if he was going to be brutally honest, but it was only the baby he’d allow himself to care about.
‘Why don’t you go down into the village and find the primary school and talk to them about the possibility of doing some supply teaching?’ he said, hoping there would be something that would keep her and the baby close, because otherwise his life would get even more complicated. ‘They might need someone for the odd day, and maybe you could earn enough to tide you over till the compensation comes through.’
‘It’s an idea,’ she said slowly. ‘Maybe I could find a little cottage or something to rent close by, just until after the baby’s born. It would give us a chance to get to know each other, and if we’re going to share this baby in any meaningful way—not that I know if we are, but if we are—then we ought to know each other, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ he said, wondering if knowing her better would make it easier or just a damn sight harder. ‘And we are.’
‘We are?’
‘Going to be sharing the ba
by in a meaningful way. I meant what I said. I don’t walk away from commitment.’
‘But you didn’t want this, Sam. It was never part of the plan for you to have a child—not like this.’
He sighed softly. ‘Neither of us wanted this, Emelia, but it’s happening and we have to find a way to deal with it. And I think you living close by is a good idea, at least until after the baby’s born. So—sure, go down to the primary school and have a chat to them, and maybe they’ll have something for you, and then we’ll start to think about where you should live.’
She nodded and got slowly to her feet. ‘Do you know where it is?’
‘Out of the gates, turn left and go down to the village. It’s got road signs and things. You can’t miss it.’
They didn’t have anything.
The head was lovely and very welcoming, but they had no need for a supply teacher at the moment.
‘I’ll take your number, but I don’t expect there will be anything,’ she warned.
Defeated at the first hurdle, Emelia drove back to the house, realising as she did so just what a huge and sprawling place it was. Not the house. The house was quite neat and tidy, really, although only someone truly overindulged would describe it as small in any way, but the grounds and other buildings that went with it must be a constant drain on his resources, and not just financial.
And he was doing a lot of the work himself.
She admired him for that. He was clearly successful, and yet he’d turned his back on the high-flying world of big-city finance and was concentrating on a dream. She could see him now, driving the little lawn tractor, and she pulled over and waited for him as he changed direction and headed towards her.
‘Hi. How did you get on?’ he asked, cutting the engine and propping his arms on the steering wheel so he could see her through the car window.
‘OK. She was very nice—but they haven’t got anything at the moment.’
‘Anything in the pipeline?’
She shook her head, wishing she could give him some other news, because he was right, they needed to be near each other to sort out their relationship. If you could call it that. She supposed it was.
‘I tell you what, I’m nearly done. Why don’t you go and put the kettle on and I’ll be there in a minute or two. We can talk about it over a cup of tea. The back door’s unlocked.’
She nodded, went back to the house and gave Daisy a hug, then put the kettle on and waited. True to his word—something she was beginning to realise was typical of Sam Hunter—he was there in a very few minutes, by which time she’d discovered she couldn’t find anything in his kitchen.
‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked.
‘Coffee, please, if there’s a choice. I was going to make it but I couldn’t find it, only decaf tea.’
‘It’s in the freezer,’ he said, ‘but it’s decaf, too. That’s all I have—can you cope with that?’ he asked, and she laughed softly.
‘Decaf is fine. I don’t want the baby buzzing.’
‘No, you don’t. I had to give it up. I hardly ever have caffeine now—I put myself in hospital once, and never again. That was one of the reasons I quit the City.’
‘Caffeine?’ she asked, intrigued.
‘The way I was using it, to keep me awake and counteract jetlag and overwork. I was drinking several jugs of strong coffee a day, sleeping about three hours a night, working all over the world—at one point the companies I owned were responsible for an international workforce of over a hundred thousand. I was ridiculously busy, and I realised while I was lying in hospital on a heart monitor that I was killing myself and I wasn’t even sure why.’
‘So you looked on the internet and found this house.’
He smiled wryly. ‘Exactly,’ he murmured. ‘They’d discharged me once they realised I wasn’t having a heart attack, and I was at home in my apartment chewing the walls for caffeine and letting my system recover, and I started to look for an alternative. This was it. And now I work as hard physically as do mentally, I get at least six hours’ sleep a night and, except in extreme circumstances, I don’t drink caffeine.’
But he’d had a double espresso yesterday.
Extreme circumstances? Oh, yes…
‘Sam, why aren’t you married?’ she asked suddenly, her mouth moving without her permission, and he went utterly still, his hand poised on the kettle while she kicked herself.
‘Should I be?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said carefully. ‘You’ve got a big house that’s crying out for a family, you obviously don’t hate children or you wouldn’t have offered to help your brother have one, it’s not that you can’t have them, that’s pretty obvious, and you’re not exactly hideous—I just wondered why you weren’t married yet, that’s all. Or maybe you were. Maybe it didn’t work. I just—You’re my baby’s father. Maybe I should know?’ she suggested tentatively.
He didn’t answer at first, just poured water into the cafetière and reached for two mugs while she wished she’d kept her mouth shut, and then at last he spoke.
‘I nearly was,’ he said eventually. ‘Very nearly. But—things didn’t work out. She’d lied to me, told me she was having my baby.’
‘And she wasn’t pregnant?’
‘Oh, she was pregnant all right, but it wasn’t my child, she wasn’t what I thought she was, and I lost it all—the wife, the child, the family thing—the whole lot of it all just lies.’
She felt her eyes prickle. ‘That must have been awful,’ she said softly, and he gave a hollow laugh.
‘It wasn’t much fun. So let’s just say I’m a little more cautious now and don’t take things on trust any more. It’s better that way.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. This huge place—it just seems odd, you living in it on your own.’
‘It’s fine, I like it that way. Elbow room,’ he said, and turned round, his eyes curiously blank. ‘So—enough about me, what about you, Emelia?’ he asked as he sat down, sliding a mug towards her and straddling a chair backwards as he shifted the subject firmly back to her. ‘What are you going to do next?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly, trying to think about that instead of him being so cruelly deceived. No wonder he seemed remote sometimes. ‘I suppose I’ll have to look further away. It’s very rural here, there aren’t many schools. I might be better in a town.’
‘There isn’t a town for miles.’
‘So I’ll have to go miles. Maybe back to Cheshire—’
‘No! You were going to live around here until after the baby was born—the first year or so. Emelia, we’d agreed.’
The first year? ‘No, we hadn’t, Sam, we’d just talked about it. And if there’s no work, I’ll have to go, or I won’t be able to pay my rent.’
‘Unless you have the cottage.’
She frowned. ‘The cottage you’re doing up?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it’s your guest cottage.’
‘I think this takes priority,’ he said drily. ‘And you’ve got to live somewhere, so why not there?’
She shook her head, suddenly feeling panicky. It was too cosy, too easy, too convenient. Too claustrophobic, after Julia and Brian. ‘No. And anyway, maybe I want to be near my mother.’
‘No! I can’t see the baby if you’re living on the other side of the country. Visiting you at weekends and so on won’t work at all. It’s not fair on any of us. I want to be part of every day, pick it up from school, babysit, share all the milestones. It means a lot to me. I want to be hands on with this, Emelia. I have to be.’
‘Do you? What if I don’t want that?’ she said stubbornly, feeling the net closing. ‘What if my lifestyle and independence are more important to me than your convenience? I’m sorry you lost your dreams of a family, Sam, but I wasn’t part of that dream, and this is me we’re talking about as well as you. You’ll be taking over my life, and I’ll be taking over yours.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Sounds like it, if you have your way.’
He sighed sharply and rammed his hands through his hair. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to take over your life, and I know you aren’t trying to take over mine, but in a way the baby’s taken them both over. So let’s work with what we’ve got, and try and find a solution.’
‘Such as? Because I’m fresh out of ideas, Sam, and I have to live. And I don’t do charity. Brian and Julia kept me, and I hated it. I’m not going there again because you have some misplaced sense of responsibility.’
‘It’s not misplaced, and it’s not charity,’ he said firmly. ‘The cottage is sitting there, empty. It’s just common sense.’
‘Are you saying I don’t have any?’ she growled, and he could see she was getting angry now, working herself into a corner where there was no room for compromise.
So he stood up and put his mug in the sink. ‘Time out,’ he said flatly. ‘You look tired. Go and have a rest while I make some phone calls, and we’ll talk again later.’
‘Phone calls to who?’
He felt his eyebrow twitch. ‘You want to vet my phone calls?’
‘No. I don’t want you pulling strings for me.’
‘I wasn’t. I have a conference call booked in ten minutes, so I’ll be in the study, and I don’t want to be disturbed.’
She coloured slightly, and he could see the wind go out of her sails as if he’d punctured them. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, we need a breather. I’ll keep out of your way,’ she muttered, and disappeared towards the little sitting room.
Damn. Now he felt guilty. He detoured into the study next door, pulled out a book he’d found in the house when he’d moved in, then took it to her as a peace offering. ‘Here—the original planting plans for the rose garden and the knot garden,’ he told her. ‘I thought you might like to see them, since you seem to be interested.’
The Baby Swap Miracle Page 5