A Way Back Home: Full of warmth, laughter, tears and a wedding! (The Willow Tree Hall Series)

by Alison Sherlock

  ‘Can I have a look?’ asked Annie, gesturing at the muddy foot.

  Skye nodded, wincing as she shuffled in the seat.

  ‘Here’s a nice cup of tea,’ said Rose, placing a cup and saucer on the table. ‘You poor dear. Is it bleeding?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘I can’t see a thing under all this dirt. Will, can you wet a tea towel for me or something?’

  Will did as he was asked whilst Annie asked Skye to see if she could move her ankle at all.

  He heard Skye stifle a moan of pain as she tried.

  Annie took the moistened towel from him and Will watched as she knelt on the floor to gently wipe away the dirt. Annie’s long blonde ponytail hung forward as she worked quickly but carefully to reveal Skye’s pale skin underneath.

  Finally Annie leant back on her heels. ‘The good news is that there’s no blood, so no open wound, as far as I can see,’ she said. ‘The bad news is that it’s really swelling up.’

  ‘That’s not good,’ murmured Rose.

  Will looked down and saw that it was true. Compared to Skye’s other slender ankle, the foot was growing larger and puffier by the minute.

  ‘Is it broken, do you think?’ asked Skye, wincing in pain.

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ said Annie, shaking her head. ‘I’d ring the local doctor, but I guess they would probably send you for an X-ray anyway.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Rose, looking up at Will. ‘You’d better take her to the hospital.’

  His stomach clenched at the thought. ‘Is Sam home?’ he asked instead, feeling hopeful.

  But Annie shook her head. ‘He’s in Paris until this evening, remember? Signing that new band.’

  Will’s older brother Sam was a successful manager of some of the top artists in the world, including the global superstar, Tommy King.

  ‘Sam’s car’s here though,’ said Rose. ‘You can use that.’

  Will tried not to think about the battered Aston Martin at that moment.

  To his surprise, Skye stood up on one leg. ‘Look, I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t need to have an X-ray. Besides, I really need to get going. I’m due to meet my sister tonight.’

  But as she tried to put pressure on her foot, she fell back into the seat, moaning in agony.

  Will exchanged a concerned look with Annie and nodded his silent agreement.

  As if the day couldn’t get any worse, it looked as if he was going to have to take Skye to the hospital. And that was only his second least favourite place after Willow Tree Hall.

  And the day from hell just kept on giving, he thought, blowing out a long sigh.

  6

  Skye’s foot hurt so much that she could barely take in what everyone else in the kitchen was saying.

  Will had, thankfully, disappeared off somewhere. She was absolutely mortified that he’d had to carry her back to the house. The last thing she needed to do was become indebted to the man whose own home she had quite possibly taken part ownership of.

  At that moment, she just felt like crying. How could she stay in control of everything when she could barely walk and the pain was such agony?

  She decided she hated the countryside. She had never hurt herself like this in the city where there were proper pavements and traffic lights keeping order, instead of dangerous, muddy tracks. How did anyone live like this?

  ‘How awful for you,’ Rose was saying.

  ‘I’d get you some painkillers but we’d better not give you anything until you’ve seen a doctor,’ said Annie, who seemed very nice. She was around the same age as Skye, with long blonde hair and a slim figure and was dressed in skinny jeans and a navy jumper.

  ‘Thank you,’ managed Skye. ‘I’m so sorry about all this.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Rose. ‘These things happen all the time. Although I’d better let Arthur know. I’m sure he’ll be concerned.’

  ‘It’s really nothing for anyone to be worried about,’ said Skye quickly.

  She was used to facing whatever problems she had alone. She liked her independence and it was the best way to stay in control. But her day was running away, down into a deep ravine and she couldn’t work out how to stop it. Especially when Will reappeared at the back door and walked across the kitchen, saying, ‘Right, I’ve got Sam’s car parked up outside the back door, as near to the house as I can get.’

  Unfortunately, it really did appear that Will was going to be the person to take her to hospital. She inwardly despaired as he came to stand in front of her.

  ‘Shall we?’ he said, holding out his arms and with a faint smile touching his lips.

  She groaned. She was certainly no damsel in distress. But as she couldn’t walk, there seemed to be no other way. So, once more, she was carried across the kitchen and outside, where she was deposited in the passenger seat of a huge Range Rover.

  ‘How far’s the hospital?’ she asked, as Will slid into the driver’s side.

  ‘About twenty minutes,’ he told her, switching on the engine.

  She suddenly thought of her lifeline and perhaps way out of this embarrassment. ‘I should call my sister,’ she told him. ‘She’s a junior doctor.’

  ‘Good idea. Is she local?’ asked Will, his tone suddenly brighter as well.

  But Skye shook her head. ‘She’s in Liverpool but I’m sure she’ll know what to do’

  Nonetheless she tried to dial out, but she couldn’t get a signal.

  ‘Is the reception bad here?’ she asked, holding out the phone around her to no avail.

  ‘Terrible,’ he replied, putting the car into gear. ‘We only got Wi-Fi a year ago.’

  Skye grew more despondent as they rejoined the main roads outside Cranley. There was no way she was going to be able to drive anywhere with her foot like this. What on earth was she going to do?

  It had been a terrible mistake to go to Willow Tree Hall. Her gut instinct had been right after all. Even the inheritance had come with the added bonus of a grumpy co-owner in Will.

  She should never have gone there.

  At least she didn’t have to be carried by Will once they reached the hospital, as he found a wheelchair and was able to push her into the Accident and Emergency department in that.

  Having given the receptionist her details, they were told to wait in the seating area nearby. Once there, she glanced down at her painful foot which had swollen up to elephant proportions now. It also felt filthy, despite Annie’s best efforts to wipe away the mud.

  At least she had painted her toenails earlier that week, she thought, looking at the hot pink on her big toe amongst the traces of dirt. Of course, the shoe was long gone. Presumably it was somewhere back in the woods where it had come off her foot.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Will, as soon as they were settled in the Accident and Emergency area.

  ‘Just a water, please,’ she said.

  ‘Something to eat?’

  But Skye shook her head. The pain was horrendous and was making her feel a bit nauseous. Besides, she didn’t want to eat anything in case the doctors recommended some sort of painkiller that needed an empty stomach. At least, that was what she was hoping for.

  After he had gone to fetch their drinks, Skye pulled out her mobile and was tearily grateful to see that she finally had a signal. But when she called her sister, it went straight to voicemail. Presumably Summer was still at work.

  ‘Hey, sis,’ she began, her voice cracking as she tried to rein in how upset she was. ‘I’ve done something really stupid and hurt my ankle. It’s okay. I’m at the hospital now waiting for an X-ray. I just wanted to let you know that there’s no way I’m going to make it up to your place tonight, but don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll text you when I have more details. Love you.’

  She hung up, feeling exhausted and even more alone than ever before.

  *

  Will stood in the queue for the coffee machine, feeling wretched.

  He hated hospitals. The bright ligh
ts and antiseptic corridors always brought back unwanted memories from his childhood that he tried to bury.

  When he was only eleven his parents had been hit by a drunk driver as they had travelled back to Willow Tree Hall after a weekend away. Will could still remember being taken into a small room somewhere in the hospital so that he and Sam could be told that their parents hadn’t survived the accident. Suddenly an entire generation of family between grandparents and grandsons was missing. Nothing had been the same since.

  He and Sam had moved into Willow Tree Hall from their much smaller home, staying there permanently during the holidays from boarding school. They had both rebelled in their own ways later on in their teens. Sam had become a rock band manager, staying away as often as he could, much as Will had done.

  Then Arthur had broken his hip the previous winter. That accident had ultimately brought them all back together as a family, not least because Willow Tree Hall was in danger of collapsing after years of neglect.

  Sam returning had also meant that he had met and fallen in love with Annie who had been the housekeeper until then. Sam had spent the past year pouring every last penny into getting the hall back into a habitable state for the family. As heir to the Earldom when their grandfather passed away, it was his future home. So now Sam and Annie were slowly taking over the roles of future Earl and Countess of the tiny hamlet of Cranley as well as Willow Tree Hall.

  But Will had never been given that sense of responsibility. He loved his family but he had always been kept away from the succession that Sam had struggled so much with. He had gone to college to study engineering and then moved around from job to job until finally settling in the Alps for the past five years. He had enjoyed the luxury of being accountable to nothing and no one throughout his twenties.

  With a sigh, he picked up their drinks and turned back to where he had left Skye. But she was no longer there. He presumed that she had been taken away for her X-ray. At least that meant that they might not have to spend too much longer at the hospital.

  An elderly man nearby was lying hunched on a trolley, frail and weak under his blanket.

  Will had a flashback to seeing his beloved grandad lying in a similar position almost a year ago. Thankfully Arthur’s broken hip had been the only serious result of his accident, although a possible small stroke may have occurred as well.

  Will knew that everything had changed for the family on that day. And that it should have changed for himself as well. And yet he had continued to stay away, leaving the responsibility in Sam’s capable hands.

  At least that was what he had pretended to himself. But he knew, deep down, that he had been running from the hall as well. Running from the truth about his parents’ marriage that only he knew about.

  It wasn’t long before Skye appeared next to him, wheeled back into place by a hospital orderly.

  ‘You’ve had your X-ray?’ asked Will.

  She nodded. ‘They say it shouldn’t take too much longer to see someone and get the results.’

  Not knowing what else to say, they both stared down at her foot, which had been cleaned up a little. There was some faint purple bruising already appearing over the bloated, stretched skin. He looked at her face, pale with shock and pain. Suddenly feeling sorry for her, he reached across and handed her the cup of water.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking it from him.

  His whole life, Will had deflected any pain or serious matters with his dry sense of humour. So he tried to break the silence by saying, ‘By the way, please don’t sue us over your accident. We are truly broke, unfortunately.’

  But Skye didn’t laugh. Instead her eyes glared at him. ‘I wouldn’t do that. Your family were friends of Norman’s. How can you even think like that?’

  He shrugged off her criticism. ‘I don’t know you,’ he told her truthfully.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘You obviously don’t, otherwise you would never have suggested such a thing.’

  He sighed. ‘It was a joke, okay? A bad one. It’s been a long day.’

  Skye glanced down at her foot and grimaced. ‘Tell me about it.’

  Well, that had gone down well, he thought.

  The silence stretched out whilst he tried to think of some small talk that wouldn’t deteriorate into yet another disagreement.

  ‘So what about your job?’ he finally asked. ‘Will you be able to work with your foot like this for a while?’

  She looked at him for a beat, obviously deciding whether it was worth her while to open up to him. In the end, she said, ‘The café I was waitressing at closed down a couple of days ago.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘My manager was pretty lax with the health and safety of the kitchen. Put it this way, you really wouldn’t want to eat there.’

  ‘So you’re out of a job?’

  That meant they at least had something in common, he thought.

  ‘And a home too,’ she added. ‘Norman’s house sale closed today. I handed the keys over this morning and was on my way up north tonight to stay with Summer, my sister.’

  There was no way that she would be travelling anywhere that evening, thought Will.

  ‘Is there anyone else that you could stay with in the meantime?’ he asked.

  Skye took a sip of water before replying. ‘I don’t know anyone around here. And there’s nothing left to keep me in London now. Maggie’s in India somewhere, last we heard. I don’t suppose she’ll be much help out there.’

  ‘Maggie’s another sister?’

  ‘My mum,’ she told him.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise that she called her mother by her Christian name.

  But Skye seemed used to that reaction. ‘Anyway, she’s off the grid,’ she carried on. ‘I don’t even know if she’s got a phone these days.’

  Will was puzzled. ‘What happens if there’s some kind of emergency?’ he asked. Like now, he added silently.

  It was Skye’s turn to look surprised. ‘I deal with it,’ she told him. ‘Like I always have done.’

  He was a little taken aback. Every time an emergency happened in the Harris household, the whole family gathered together for strength. It was both a blessing and a curse, he had discovered.

  But he could never imagine any of them getting through the grief of losing his parents or his grandfather’s fall the previous year without each other.

  He found himself wondering how much else she had had to go through without any kind of support.

  *

  An hour later, Skye almost cried with relief when the doctor confirmed that she had only sprained her ankle and not broken it.

  ‘It is a bad sprain though,’ he added. ‘Lots of RICE.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she said, confused. ‘Is that like a korma thing or something?’

  The doctor smiled. ‘Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation,’ he told her. ‘You’re not going to want to put any kind of weight on it for about a week, so we’ll fix you up with some crutches.’

  Skye was horrified. She was going to be on crutches? What a nightmare. Especially when he added that driving would be inadvisable during that time. What was she going to do for a week? Summer was working so hard and didn’t have the time to come and fetch her. But she certainly couldn’t wait around in the middle of the countryside for a week either.

  All because she tripped over some kind of tree root. She closed her eyes in despair. What a complete klutz she was.

  Once she was loaded up with both the crutches and some strong painkillers from the pharmacy, she and Will headed back towards Willow Tree Hall in the Range Rover.

  Her mind was reeling as she tried to work out a strategy for staying in control of the situation she had found herself in.

  She cleared her throat. ‘I was thinking that I could stay in a hotel,’ she said, as they turned into the long driveway towards Willow Tree Hall. ‘Maybe I could get a train up to Liverpool tomorrow.’

  Of course, that led to the further problem as to what would happen to the trailer and car.
As well as all her worldly belongings which were packed up in both vehicles.

  She hoped that there was a really cheap hotel nearby because her budget wasn’t really up to that sort of thing.

  He glanced across at her. ‘The nearest hotel’s thirty miles away. Back where the hospital was.’

  So that left Plan B. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay in the Airstream tonight.’

  What else could she do?

  ‘We do have spare bedrooms in the hall, you know,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘I’m sure my family would be happy for you to stay.’

  Skye remained silent. To stay inside the beautiful hall was indeed tempting. But she really didn’t want to be beholden to this nice family any more than necessary. She had already caused a huge upset with the unexpected inheritance of the lodge and just needed some peace and quiet whilst she worked out what to do next.

  As they reached Willow Tree Hall, Will parked up the car next to the trailer and the battered Aston Martin. Its dented bonnet lay on the ground. That made her even more determined. Of course she wouldn’t be staying in the hall. Will obviously wouldn’t want her to be there any more than she did.

  It took a bit of wrangling with the crutches but finally Skye was standing outside the car in the increasingly cool night air. She looked over at the trailer and wondered how warm it would be overnight.

  As she shivered, Will looked at her. ‘You know, there’s a nice, big warm house over there.’

  ‘So why aren’t you staying in it?’ she snapped, the pain and unease making her grumpy.

  His humour quickly faded. ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘Well, I’d prefer the privacy of my trailer, thank you,’ she said in a prim tone. ‘That’s my business.’

  She straightened her back to appear as strong and as capable as she possibly could.

  He stared at her for a second before nodding. ‘Okay. Suit yourself. But you’d better come in and have some dinner with us. Otherwise I’ll be the one ending up in hospital if my family hear about it and I don’t think you’ll be the one driving me there.’