Lone Wolfe

by Kate Hewitt

  ‘That may be, but I’m not risking something like this happening again.’

  ‘Why don’t you just put a monitor on me?’ Mollie demanded waspishly. ‘Or imbed a computer chip in my head?’

  Jacob smiled faintly, although his eyes were hard with determination. ‘That’s not a bad idea.’

  Mollie let out a short, dry laugh and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. ‘Jacob,’ she said, opening them, ‘you are not responsible for me.’

  ‘You’re my employee,’ Jacob replied calmly, ‘so, in point of fact, I am.’

  ‘Not like that.’ He said nothing and Mollie knew there was something bigger going on here, something that stretched back into the years, its roots going deep into the spoiled soil of the Wolfe family. ‘It’s not your fault I fell down the stairs,’ she said clearly. ‘It’s not your fault your father hit your sister, or did any of the terrible things he did.’ She paused, for Jacob had gone utterly still, his expression seeming to close in on itself, blank and fathomless. ‘It’s not your fault,’ Mollie continued quietly, ‘that things fell apart when you left. You need to—’

  ‘You’re going to tell me what I need?’ Jacob cut in. His voice was polite yet very cold. Now Mollie was the one to still.

  ‘I just—’

  ‘But you blamed me as much as anyone else, Mollie,’ Jacob told her softly. ‘It’s my fault your father didn’t have a job for so many years. It’s my fault the two of you were struggling alone for so long, forgotten, invisible. Hell, maybe it’s my fault that he suffered from dementia. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if I’d stayed, if the manor had been something he could hold onto.’ Mollie stared at him, what little colour she had draining from her face, too shocked to utter a word. ‘So,’ Jacob continued in that same soft, lethal voice, ‘why should I believe you now? If you thought all that was my fault, how do you think my brothers and sister felt?’

  From somewhere Mollie found her voice, hoarse and scratchy. ‘They’ve forgiven you, Jacob. I know Annabelle has …’

  ‘I know they have,’ Jacob told her. He sounded scornful. ‘I’ve seen every one of them since I’ve been back. I’ve faced their anger and their confusion and their hurt. And I’ve asked for their forgiveness.’ He paused, his breath coming fast now. ‘Do you think that makes any difference?’

  Mollie could only stare. His words were hammer blows to her heart, for she knew he’d spoken the truth. She had blamed him. They all had. Jacob had shouldered all the guilt and all the responsibility, and they’d let him, they’d given it to him, even though she—and undoubtedly all his siblings—had said they hadn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she finally whispered, and shrugging a shoulder, Jacob turned away.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, his back to her, his voice low. ‘It’s not just about what you see as my overblown sense of responsibility.’ He drew a breath. ‘I blame myself, Mollie, because of who I am and what I did … not what I didn’t do.’ He turned to face her, his eyes bleak. ‘There’s no escaping or forgiving that.’

  Mollie stared at him, speechless, unable to think of any comforting words. She felt as if Jacob had retreated farther from her than ever before … and she couldn’t help but wonder if this time it was her fault.

  The next day the hospital released her. Jacob drove her back to Wolfe Manor. When he pulled up in front of the big house, Mollie made no objection. She followed him into the house’s dim, cool foyer, knowing that after all that had been said—all she’d realised—she wasn’t going to stand on her self-righteous pride and indignation now.

  ‘I chose one of the newly renovated bedrooms for you,’ Jacob told her. ‘I hope it’s suitable.’ He spoke in that awful, distant voice that made Mollie want to cry. It made it hard to believe that he’d ever kissed her tears or held her in his arms, or that they’d made love.

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine.’

  ‘The doctor told you to take it easy for at least a few more days,’ Jacob continued. ‘I hope you will abide by that. I’ve made arrangements for some day labourers to come in and do the heavy work in the garden.’

  ‘That’s fine. I can give instructions from here. It’s just a matter of doing the manual work, except for the Rose Garden.’

  ‘The Rose Garden?’

  ‘I haven’t settled on a design,’ Mollie admitted.

  Every time she thought of it, the whole idea defeated her. The Rose Garden had been her father’s idea of landscaping perfection. How could she change it, much less design something of her own? ‘I think I’ll go rest now,’ she said, because she couldn’t stand to be near Jacob when he was like this, cold and formal and so very distant.

  ‘I had your things removed from the cottage. They’re in your bedroom.’

  Mollie nodded and turned away. She felt Jacob watching her all the way up the stairs.

  The next few days fell into a disheartening pattern of impersonal solicitude. Jacob excused himself to the study most of the time, and Mollie didn’t bother ever going in there or even knocking on the door. She hated that room, and she had a feeling Jacob did as well.

  She worked on designs for the Rose Garden, although every sketch she began she ended up tossing in frustration. All her plans just seemed like a shallow version of what had already been there.

  Yet the rest of the garden was nearly finished. From the window she saw the new paving stones, the weeded flower beds, the pruned trees. The grass on the terraced lawns glittered like emerald velvet. The house, too, was emerging from its chrysalis of dust cloths and scaffolding; the downstairs was completely finished, the paint fresh, the window coverings and carpets restored or replaced as needed. It was beautiful, if impersonal, and Mollie wondered who would buy the house when Jacob actually put it on the market. Who would live there, love it? Even with its new patina of fresh paint, the house still seethed with unhappy memories … or so it felt to Mollie, as she wandered its empty rooms.

  Upstairs the bedrooms had been renovated as well; the photographs on Annabelle’s walls had been removed, and Mollie wondered what Jacob had done with them. Perhaps a decorator had thrown them out. Perhaps Jacob hadn’t cared about them at all.

  Mollie knew she was being contrary. A few weeks ago she’d been annoyed and embarrassed that Jacob had seen all those revealing candids of her. Now she wanted him to be a hiding a snap under his pillow? She was ridiculous.

  One rainy afternoon when even the labourers had to leave the garden work, Mollie wandered upstairs to the third floor of the manor. From the peeling wallpaper, a faded pattern of blowsy cabbage roses, to the cobweb spangling every corner, it appeared this floor had not yet been renovated or even touched. Mollie wondered if it had been completely forgotten.

  Curious and a little wary, she made her way up the narrow stairs, and pushed open the door at the end of the hallway.

  Pale, watery sunlight, breaking through the rain clouds of earlier, streamed through the long, narrow windows, revealing a thick layer of dust on the old wooden floorboards. They creaked as Mollie carefully moved across the room, taking it all in.

  It was a nursery. It looked like something out of a Victorian novel with a moth-eaten rocking horse in one corner, an elaborate wooden dollhouse in another. Rusted tin soldiers lined up on one windowsill, ready to march.

  There were some newer toys too—some building bricks, a few tatty board games, signs that the Wolfe children had once lived and played here. The air was thick with the dust Mollie had stirred up simply by walking across the floor, so with some effort she opened the windows and breathed in the rain-damp air. Then she turned back to the room.

  A few childish drawings and scribbles had been taped to the wall, and she moved closer to inspect them. A princess drawing by Annabelle, an elaborate map of the estate, laboriously inked in intricate detail, with two childish signatures in the bottom corner: Jacob and Lucas Wolfe, ages 9 and 8. On a rickety table in one corner there was a model of the house, built, she saw, from lolly sticks and toothpicks. She smil
ed faintly, thinking of how Jacob must have cherished architectural dreams even at a young age. She imagined him here, concentrating on his precious model, the other children looking on in interest. Perhaps this house did hold some happy memories.

  Another paper taped to the wall had an important-looking list of everyone’s birthday, as well as what kind of cake they preferred and what presents they wanted. Mollie’s gaze ran down the list, stopping in surprise when she saw Jacob’s birthday was, in fact, tomorrow. And when he’d been eight years old he’d wanted a double chocolate cake and a chess set.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Mollie whirled around, stirring up more dust. Jacob stood in the doorway, and from the tone of his voice and the expression on his face Mollie didn’t think he was very glad to see her here.

  ‘Sorry … I was just poking around. I don’t think this place has been touched in twenty years.’

  ‘More like thirty. I saw the door to the stairs was open and wondered if the renovators had finally made their way up here.’ Jacob glanced around the room with a dispassionate air. ‘It’s filthy. I’ll have to get them to clear it all out. Everything else is just about finished.’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ Mollie said impulsively. ‘There are so many memories here—’

  ‘I know.’ The two words were clipped.

  ‘Good ones though,’ she persisted. ‘At least, they feel that way to me. Look—did you make this?’ She pulled on his arm, surprising them both by her touch, and after a second’s pause Jacob reluctantly let her lead him to the corner of the room. He glanced at the model of the house without any expression at all. ‘Yes, I made it.’

  ‘It’s amazing! You showed your talent even then.’ He shrugged, but Mollie persisted, feeling some deep-seated need to show Jacob all these treasures, to help him reclaim the good parts of his past. ‘Look at this … you and Lucas drew this map?’

  Now he smiled faintly. ‘Yes … I’d forgotten about that. We spent ages on it. We were measuring the lawns with a slide rule, trying to make sure we got it exactly to scale. One inch for every one hundred yards, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘It’s incredibly complex, considering how young you were.’ She glanced around again at the dusty room. ‘Did you spend much time here?’

  ‘No, not really. Holidays mostly. Lucas and I went to boarding school when we were quite young.’ He paused, and Mollie held her breath, knowing he was going to tell her more. Perhaps he even wanted to. ‘My father never came looking for us up here,’ Jacob said softly. ‘Sometimes it felt like the only place we were really safe.’

  Mollie blinked, swallowed the sudden thickening of tears in her throat. Silently, because there were no words, she reached for his hand. To her surprise and joy, Jacob let her fingers slide through his, and held on.

  After a moment he nodded towards the old doll-house. ‘Annabelle could play with that for hours. She used to rope me into playing with her. I was always the father.’ He smiled wryly, his eyes now alight with memories. ‘And Nathaniel loved the dress-up box.’ He gestured to a chest in the corner; Mollie saw the dull gleam of a knight’s helmet and toy sword. ‘We used to have mock battles.’ Lost as he was in a rare moment of nostalgia, Mollie knew he didn’t hear the thread of love in his voice, or realize how he’d made sure all of his siblings had memories they could cherish … memories he’d made happen.

  He turned slowly around in the room, taking it all in, the sunlight breaking through the clouds and washing over him, his features softened with remembrance. And in that moment Mollie knew she loved him.

  It seemed so amazingly apparent, so utterly obvious. So simple. As the realisation rippled through her body, her heart’s answering response was, Of course.

  Of course she loved him. She’d started to love him even when she was a child, peeking between the hedges. She loved the boy he’d been, trying to take care of his family, and the man he’d become, responsible, gentle, utterly trustworthy.

  Her mind had tried to convince her she didn’t love him, that she didn’t even know him well enough to love him, but in that moment Mollie knew she did. Perhaps she always had.

  Yet she knew she couldn’t tell him now. Her heart was filled to overflowing, yet Mollie swallowed it back down. It would be too much for Jacob now. So she just smiled and touched his arm. ‘How wonderful,’ she said, ‘that you all had one another.’

  Jacob looked at her, blinking as if he was surprised by the realisation. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘it was.’

  With the realisation that she loved Jacob, everything else seemed to slide into place. It was as if her love for him was the key that unlocked not just her heart, but her mind. Her ideas. Now she knew just what to do with the Rose Garden.

  Yet first there was something more important to attend to: Jacob’s birthday. Since he’d closeted himself in the office for most of the day, preparing was easy. She left him a note in the kitchen letting him know she’d gone into town, and walked the quarter mile to the bus stop in the centre of Wolfestone. Her shopping took less than an hour, and when she returned to the manor she saw that Jacob had not seen her note or even left his study at all.

  Just as well, Mollie decided with a new, optimistic determination. This would give her more time to make things just as she wanted them.

  That evening she changed into a strappy top and a summery skirt that swung about her legs, tamed her hair and touched up her make-up. Then she went to Jacob’s study and rapped sharply on the door.

  ‘Mollie …?’ His voice, from behind the thick oak, was muffled.

  ‘It’s eight o’clock, Jacob. Aren’t you going to stop working?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have a great many things to do.’

  Mollie sighed. She’d anticipated this. ‘It’s just that I’m feeling a little woozy all of a sudden …’ She let her voice trail off, and within seconds Jacob had thrown open the door, his face harsh with concern.

  ‘What happened? Are you—?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Mollie grinned at him. ‘That was the only way I could think of getting you out of there.’

  Jacob stared, completely thunderstruck. ‘You lied to me?’

  ‘It was for a noble purpose.’ She tugged on his arm before he could work up any real indignation. The man’s moral code was unfaltering. ‘Come on.’

  ‘What …? I have to—’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything right now,’ Mollie said. ‘Except follow me.’ She led him into the kitchen, where she’d dimmed the lights. ‘Close your eyes.’

  ‘What …?’

  Laughing, Mollie stood on her tiptoes and reached up to cover Jacob’s eyes with her hands. ‘I mean it.’

  Jacob let out a short, irritated breath, and Mollie knew he had no idea what she was doing, or why.

  She led him into the centre of the kitchen, her hand still covering his eyes. ‘Now, I have to let go for a minute, but no peeking, all right?’

  ‘Right.’ He still sounded annoyed.

  Mollie dashed over to the light the candles on the cake—all thirty-eight of them. She picked up the cake and brought it front of Jacob; his eyes were still closed.

  ‘All right, you can open them now.’

  Jacob’s eyes flew open, and Mollie smiled. ‘Happy birthday, Jacob.’

  He stared at the cake as if he didn’t know what it was. He looked so nonplussed Mollie was afraid she’d made a terrible mistake. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a birthday cake before?’ she teased.

  His eyes met hers and he gave her a rueful smile. ‘Not one for me.’

  Mollie stared at him, too surprised to dissemble. ‘Not ever?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not that I remember. My birthday always fell at term time, and the school didn’t run to making cakes.’

  ‘Well, I made your favourite,’ she said with a smile. ‘Double chocolate. At least, that’s what you wanted for your eighth birthday. I don’t know about now.’

  ‘I love chocolate,’ Jacob said, and his voice sounded almos
t hoarse. Mollie felt the tension spin out between them, tautening and stretching, and her hands nearly trembled as she held the cake.

  ‘Here.’ She placed it on the worktop. ‘Make a wish.’

  Jacob’s gaze remained fastened on hers as he bent down to blow out the candles. Mollie held her breath. She certainly knew what she would wish for.

  ‘What did you wish for?’ Mollie asked after he’d blown them out. She sounded breathless.

  ‘Now if I told you, it wouldn’t come true.’ A smile, slow and sexy, curled Jacob’s mouth. Mollie felt heat flood through her body. She’d never seen him smile like that before. It made him look unbearably desirable, so that she could barely hold the knife steady as she turned to the cake.

  ‘Let me cut you a piece.’ She cut a generous slice and put it on a plate, yet his smile still warmed right through her and gave her the courage to take a forkful and hold it aloft, offering him her own wicked smile. ‘Ready?’

  Jacob’s gaze, dark and hot, never left hers as he obediently opened his mouth. Mollie fed him the cake, her heart starting an uneven, heavy rhythm at the sheer sensuality of the action. She loved him so much. She wanted him so much.

  His lips closed around the fork, his hand brushing her fingers. She nearly shuddered aloud. He ate, swallowed and then took the fork from her. ‘Now your turn.’

  ‘Wh … what?’ Smiling, Jacob reached for the cake. Mollie watched, mesmerised, as he discarded the fork and took a piece, sticky with chocolate, in his fingers and held it aloft. ‘You like chocolate, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh … yes.’ She opened her mouth obediently, like a little bird. Jacob fed her the cake, his thumb brushing her lip; and as she ate, her tongue touched his thumb and made her whole body quiver with desperate awareness. Somehow she managed to swallow, speak. ‘Jacob …’

  He pulled her towards him, easily, for she offered no resistance. Her head fell back as his lips brushed hers so briefly, so barely, and Mollie waited, hoping that he would deepen the kiss.