by Heidi Rice
He glanced over his shoulder, looking surprised she hadn’t left. ‘I’ll tell her I changed my mind.’
‘But she’ll know it came from me. I don’t want to alienate her.’
He swung around, staring at her now as if she’d just suggested he join the Women’s Institute. ‘Ellie, what the hell are you on about?’
She struggled to explain herself. ‘I like your daughter,’ she ventured, attempting to bring the conversation back where it belonged. On neutral, non-confrontational ground. ‘She’s been wonderful to my son this summer. And I want her to like me. If she figures out that you’re forbidding her to go because I’ve suggested it, she’ll hate me. I don’t want that to happen.’
‘She won’t hate you. She’ll know you’re worried about Josh, and that I worry about her.’ He sighed, the sound deep as he ducked his head. ‘That’s never a bad thing.’ The statement was so thoughtful, and so surprising, Ellie was struck dumb for a moment.
‘And, for the record,’ he added, ‘I don’t think you’re hysterical, or overprotective, or irrational. I think you’re a good mother who cares about her son.’ The compliment astonished her and humbled her at the same time. Dan had told her so often that she worried too much about Josh – his weight, his situation at school, his insecurities – that she’d allowed it to undermine her confidence. And when Art had accused her of the same thing on her first day on the farm, on some subliminal level, she’d believed him.
But, as she looked at Art, all she could see was the boy she’d once spied getting a hug from her mother, because his own mother had never bothered to give him one.
‘Thank you,’ she said, moved. ‘Although maybe I overdid the mother bear act when I came in.’
His lips quirked and the persistent hum in her abdomen reignited. ‘Overdoing it is better than under-doing it.’
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, that potent, persuasive mouth. Her pulse accelerated as he stepped away from the bench. Suddenly she could feel the heat emanating from him, and the ragged remnants of her self-control slipping through her fingers.
‘You’re knackered,’ he said. ‘We both are. It’s been an exhausting couple of months.’
The blood thundered in her ears when he stopped in front of her. His height, the breadth of his shoulders, that tempting smile as he towered over her, should have been a warning to step back and get the hell out. But she got fixated on the slow beat of his pulse against the strong column of his neck.
Droplets of sweat sat on his collarbone and dripped into his clavicle. She ran her tongue over her lips, tasting the salt, the desire to lick those drops off almost unbearable.
‘You should leave.’ The low murmur reverberated through every one of her pulse points. His eyes had darkened to black, the lust-blown pupils edging out the chocolate brown, the rigid line of his jaw darkened by a day’s growth of beard.
‘I can’t,’ she said.
Rough callused palms cradled her cheeks, forcing her gaze back to his face.
She sucked in a breath, but didn’t draw away, the hard possessive look like a torch paper to her libido, as his fingers threaded into her hair.
‘If you don’t leave, I’m going to kiss you.’ The gruff agony in his voice released something inside her. Something reckless and elemental.
Need blazed through her. Clutching his T-shirt, she dragged him closer. ‘I know.’
Then all coherent thought fled as his mouth descended on hers.
His kiss this time was nothing like the one in the kitchen over a month ago. Not gentle or seeking or coaxing. This time his lips, his tongue, were avid and demanding, exploring and exploiting every inch of her mouth. His fingers sank into her hair, sending the pins she’d used to keep it up pinging off the concrete floor like missiles.
The sting of having her hair pulled only made her feel more alive, more needy, as everything concentrated in her core, the ache building like wildfire. One large hand covered her breast.
He rolled the rigid tip between his thumb and forefinger through cotton and lace. Sensations shot through her, painful darts of longing, terrifying in their intensity.
She tore her mouth away from his. ‘Stop, Art. We have to stop.’ She flattened her hands on his chest, her cheeks stinging from the abrasion of his stubble.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this. I’m married.’ She dropped her hands, hoping the excuse didn’t sound as lame to him as it did to her.
Because the truth was, she’d never felt less married in her life. It wasn’t loyalty to Dan that was stopping her from doing the wild thing with Art. It was something much more basic than that. Something she would have to examine later – when she wasn’t about to spontaneously combust.
He stood silently, the outline of his erection against his cargo shorts evidence that he was as affected as her by the madness which had consumed them.
‘It’s a monumentally bad idea,’ she said, but even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice, the desire to be persuaded otherwise. ‘I should go.’ She swallowed past the ache in her throat, feeling like the worst kind of fraud.
She didn’t look back, didn’t dare, but he made no move to stop her, the silence deafening as she shot out of the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Josh, sweetheart, can I come in?’ Ellie pushed the door to her son’s bedroom open when the invite wasn’t forthcoming.
He lay in bed, his hair damp from his shower, his expression tense and wary as he looked up from the Harry Potter book he was reading.
‘Hey,’ he said, but the smile he usually gave her when she came in to wish him goodnight was noticeably absent.
She perched on the side of the bed. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you in Art’s workshop.’
‘OK.’ Josh’s eyebrows wrinkled, but then he smiled, the bright boyish smile she had become addicted to over the years. ‘So can me and Toto go to Gratesbury now?’
Ellie sighed. They’d had another stand-off about the trip over supper, with Toto looking on and Ellie suspected probably judging her the worst mother in the world.
Art hadn’t appeared, but for once she was grateful for his avoidance tactics. With her cheeks burning from what she was sure had to be the visible evidence of his kisses in the workshop and her own emotions still all over the place, having him there would probably have sent her right over the edge. But because he hadn’t been there, and hadn’t appeared after supper either, Ellie had been the one who had to tell the children that neither of them were going to Gratesbury tomorrow.
‘I’m sorry, Josh, no, it doesn’t. Art and I agreed it wasn’t a good idea for you two to go in on your own. As I said, I’ll take you on Sunday.’
The hopeful smile flatlined. ‘But the good shops aren’t open on Sunday.’
‘Then we can go on Monday,’ she offered.
‘That’s three whole days away.’ It wasn’t like Josh to whine, but he was pushing puberty. She needed to prepare herself for the fact that he wasn’t going to be her sweet, uncomplicated child for ever.
‘I don’t believe Art said that,’ he continued. ‘He’s cool. He lets Toto do stuff when she wants to.’
‘Josh, please, can we not have another argument about this?’
‘I like Art,’ he said, the accusatory stare challenging her to disagree with him.
‘So do I,’ she countered.
Unfortunately, I like him a bit too much.
‘No, you don’t,’ Josh replied. ‘You shouted at him.’
‘What? No, I didn’t.’ What was Josh talking about? She hadn’t shouted at Art since that first day.
‘You don’t like him, I know you don’t.’ Josh manoeuvred himself up in bed.
‘That is simply not true. I do like him, he’s a good man and a good father and I admire all the work he’s done on the shop.’
Josh looked down, gripping the book he’d been reading too tightly.
She tucked a finger under his chin, to tip his face up to hers. The mix of wariness and confusion on
his face disturbed her.
‘Why do you think I don’t like Art?’
Had Josh seen more than she’d wanted him to see? Had he sensed the physical attraction between them, the razor-sharp sexual tension that just kept building and building despite all their best efforts to stop it, and confused it for something else? The thought troubled her. As if this situation wasn’t already problematic enough.
‘I know you don’t like him, because you don’t like Daddy either,’ he said, and the guilt punched her in the gut.
‘What do you mean?’ She forced the question out, sick with dread.
She’d never argued with Dan, not in front of Josh. Had always assumed that he had no knowledge of the stresses and strains in their marriage. In fact, she’d prided herself on being able to keep all the anguish and agony of Dan’s betrayals, the fallout from their failing relationship away from their son. Josh was the innocent in all this, she didn’t want him to have to deal with any of the emotions she’d had to deal with as a teenager, confused and alone and secretly scared that something she had done had led to her parents’ break-up.
‘Sometimes…’ Josh paused, his guileless expression a damning reminder that however close to puberty he might be, he was still a child. ‘Sometimes when you speak to Daddy, it’s like you’re shouting at him in your head. It’s like you hate him.’
Ellie felt all her anxiety, all her worries about the divorce coalesce into a great big bundle of regret in the pit of her stomach.
Apparently the conversation she’d been busy avoiding for two months – for years really – was going to happen now. And she didn’t exactly feel prepared for it.
Winging it was not her forte. She preferred to plot and plan, consider all the possible pitfalls and work out a strategy before she did anything. But somehow her cowardice had got her into a situation where this conversation had snuck up on her without her preparing for it properly.
Honesty was the only possible policy now. Honesty and courage. What a shame she’d abandoned both years ago.
‘First of all, I don’t hate your father.’
‘Then why do you never talk to him on Skype?’
‘Because we’re not as good friends any more as we used to be.’ She cleared her throat, aware of the white lie in the statement. Had they ever really been friends? No wonder their marriage had been such an abject failure. ‘And we’ve decided to get a divorce.’
Josh stared, his eyes widening, as he processed the information. ‘You mean like Jesse Yates’s parents?’
‘Yes,’ she said, having a vague memory of the boy whom Josh had known in elementary school.
Josh’s eyes widened as he processed the information. ‘Does that mean I’m never going to see Daddy again, like Jesse never saw his daddy?’
‘No. Of course not.’ She gathered him close in her arms, his wet head snug under her chin as she hugged him tight.
Pulling back, she held Josh by the shoulders. ‘Once we get everything sorted in Orchard Harbor, we’ll have to live in separate houses, but you’ll be able to go and visit him, probably on weekends. And during the holidays.’ Why hadn’t she considered Josh’s feelings? ‘We’ve only been here the whole summer because I thought it would be nice to take a break from everything.’
Just because Josh had never said anything about seeing Dan, just because he’d seemed to be having such a good time on the farm this summer, she still should have consulted him. Of course he missed his dad. Dan might not be the best father, but she knew how much her son craved his attention.
‘Do you want to go home? To see your dad? Is that it?’ Maybe a good place to start would be to ask Josh how he felt, instead of making the decisions for him.
Josh blinked, his brows wrinkling in concentration before he spoke. ‘Not right away,’ he said.
The huge surge of relief made her feel light-headed. And she wasn’t even sure where it came from. They would have to go back to the US. Maybe not to Orchard Harbor, but somewhere close by – she couldn’t separate Josh from his father indefinitely. That had always been understood.
‘I like it here,’ Josh continued. ‘Better than Orchard Harbor. Toto’s my best friend ever and even her school isn’t too bad. And Granny’s so nice to me all the time. But…’ He hesitated and stared back at Harry Potter.
‘But what, Josh?’
He lifted his shoulder then dropped it. ‘When Toto and me were with her dad today…’ He looked up at her, worrying his bottom lip in a way she hadn’t seen him do in months. ‘I wished my dad would do stuff like that with me.’
‘Stuff like what?’ she asked, but she thought she knew what Josh was trying to say.
Dan didn’t do everyday stuff with Josh. He would take him to baseball games and buy VIP seats in the dugout. He would drive him to the beach, if his father’s campaign was organising a clambake. He would do impromptu trips to the mall to buy Josh a pair of three hundred dollar high tops. But Dan would never have spent a whole day with his son letting him help paint a caravan, because he had never been able to give his son time and responsibility and the sort of day-to-day attention that didn’t come with shiny distractions.
They’d stopped doing family holidays together, because it had become too stressful. Dan would always be organising lavish day trips deep-sea fishing or reef snorkelling which Ellie was sure Josh didn’t want to do, but her son would never say he didn’t want to do, because he didn’t want to disappoint his dad. And she could never tell Dan that Josh didn’t want to do it, because she didn’t want to be the one to discourage them from spending time together.
Dan swooped in and gave Josh gifts or snippets of ‘quality time’ to make up for the fact he got bored if he ever had to spend actual time in his son’s company.
And that’s what Josh had missed when he saw Toto with her father.
‘Just stuff,’ Josh said, the dejection in his voice making Ellie’s insides twist.
However wonderful this summer had been for Josh, however much fun he’d had with his new best friend, roaming the woods, gaining in confidence, becoming part of this community, when he returned home all the old problems would still be there. All they’d really done was run away.
‘When we go back to the US, you’ll be able to do stuff with your dad, Josh, I promise.’
Because Dan would probably be even busier avoiding spending actual time with his new baby. The rush of anger was fierce and unprecedented, at the thought of how Dan had managed to stuff up all their lives. Not just her and Josh’s but quite possibly Chelsea’s and her baby’s too. She’d always made excuses for Dan. Because she knew deep down, he didn’t mean to be careless and selfish and immature. He just was.
But for a second she couldn’t help comparing him to Art, who had been in exactly the same situation thanks to another unplanned pregnancy, and had taken all of the responsibility instead of none of it. When they got back to Orchard Harbor, she was going to stop letting Dan off the bloody hook, parenthood wise. She’d told Josh about the divorce and that was a relief, but Dan could tell him about his new sibling.
Because it was way past time Dan got over the shock of becoming an accidental father at twenty-one and grew up.
‘I know, but I don’t want to go back yet.’ Josh’s mouth opened in another jaw-breaking yawn. ‘Me and Toto have got our holly tree den to finish. And Art said we could help paint the caravan. And I want to see Miss Morely and the other kids at school again like you said.’
Ellie smiled, pleased that neither one of them had to go back and face reality just yet. ‘That sounds like a plan, kiddo.’ She gathered The Goblet of Fire and laid it on his bedside table. ‘But now it’s time to go to bed.’
He snuggled down in the bed as she lifted the duvet. She kissed his forehead, and smoothed his damp hair, her heart swelling as his eyelids drifted downward, before he mumbled, ‘If Daddy came here to visit, we wouldn’t have to go back to Orchard Harbor at all.’
If only it could be that simple, she thought, as she
wished her son goodnight. As she turned off the light and shut the door to his room, the shadows from the corridor played over the mural Dee had painted for Josh before they’d arrived.
Maybe they’d been running away, but Josh had needed this breather and so had she. This summer had been a positive experience all in all, and they had a whole six weeks left before they had to return to Orchard Harbor and deal with Dan and the divorce and the new baby.
But, as she padded down the corridor, she passed Art’s bedroom on the way, and caught herself sweeping her gaze down to the bottom of the door for any signs of light.
The bubble of disappointment formed when there was none.
She pushed the silly reaction to one side as she got ready for bed.
She and Josh had a clear plan of action now, one they were both happy with. She had a wedding to organise and a shop to run for the next six weeks before they flew home. She was going to be super busy tying everything up here and making preparations for their return to New York. She didn’t have the time or the energy to get hung up on Art and a couple of inappropriate kisses. And anyway, they’d both agreed that slaking the lust between them was a monumentally bad idea – because it absolutely was.
Her life was enough of a mess already.
But, as she climbed under the newly washed sheet, the phantom scent of sweat and turpentine overwhelmed the lavender and her lips tingled with the memory of that bone-melting kiss.
She shuffled around in her bed trying and failing to get comfortable. The burning question she didn’t have an answer for running over and over through her head.
How the hell was she going to survive her new-found hunger for a month and a half, with Mr Guaranteed Orgasm sleeping right down the hall?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
After so many years not even thinking about sex – let alone wanting to actually indulge in any – Ellie had been sure that once she’d made the decision not to have any with Art, her libido would eventually get the message. And start behaving itself.
Wrong.
Two days after his melt-your-brain-cells kiss in the workshop, she lay in bed, watching the fairy lights her mother had draped over the mantel sparkle on the ceiling like stars, and contemplated another sleepless night spent trying not to fixate on all the things she should not want to do with Art Dalton.