The Garden of Little Rose

by Suzanne Snow

  ‘I’m going to Annie’s cottage,’ Flora said, filling a glass with water whilst still holding Esther. ‘I know I’m a day early, but everything should be ready, and it would be good to make a start on the planting before Annie and Jon get back.’

  ‘Flora, are you sure you’re all right? What’s happened must have been a nasty shock.’

  Flora tried to bat away Sam’s concern. ‘Well, it’s not our first, is it?’ She sighed as she handed the baby over to her sister-in-law. ‘Sorry, Sam, that wasn’t fair. I know you’re concerned but I am okay, honestly. I just need to be working.’ Silence drifted over them whilst Sam threw together a packed lunch and then Flora was outside, rummaging in the boot of her car for her trusty work boots and gloves. She found her plans for the garden and set off on foot.

  Still only a small village, its origins rooted firmly in farming, Thorndale was popular with tourists, who arrived every day to wander around its craft courtyard and art gallery, and eat in the pub that offered locally brewed beer and home-made food. The only shop, no longer just the post office, had diversified with a deli counter, ice cream from a local dairy farm and excellent cheese. Flora was impatient to begin work and she hurried past the shallow, bustling river along the high street without pausing to appreciate her surroundings. Thoughts of the pictures of her and Mac – that people had seen and were no doubt gossiping over – churned through her mind and she prayed that her family’s past would not be dredged up again.

  Willow Cottage was at the far end of a lane leading from the high street; only a high farm gate separated it from the fields and moorland beyond. When she reached the gate leading to the front garden, she finally paused her furious march and smiled with a genuine pleasure that eased the tension in her temples. When Annie Armstrong had married Jon Beresford in December last year, they had established an education trust through the Thorndale estate to provide sponsorship for two pupils to study at agricultural college.

  Annie’s godmother, who had bequeathed her Willow Cottage, had been an Oxford professor until early retirement, and the principle of education for all had always been of great importance to her. Rather than sell the cottage or turn it into a holiday let, following her marriage, Annie had donated it to the trust to ensure it would always be a rent-free home for the students supported by the estate, and so it was occupied in its new capacity by two young people. Flora was thrilled to see that the garden was being carefully transformed, exactly as she had hoped, and knew that the weekend was going to be non-stop.

  The plants had been delivered on time and she separated them into groups for the different borders, thankful for the opportunity of working alone, allowing her mind gradually to settle. But after lunch, Charlie and Sam arrived – wheeling a pushchair containing a sleeping Esther – and were quickly followed by Nathan and Ally, the two students who lived in the cottage. Nathan had arrived in Thorndale last summer, under difficult circumstances. He was quiet, polite and wary of making new friends, and a few of the villagers hadn’t immediately taken to him. But despite all that, he had gradually settled in, worked hard and was thrilled to have been offered one of the first places at college through the new education trust.

  There was much to do in the garden and Flora was grateful for their help, as she directed her little team of volunteers. By late afternoon, they were much further on than Flora had hoped, and she was delighted with the results. They were sitting on the lawn, taking a break whilst they waited for Ally to return from the village with ice cream. Esther was playing on the grass, crawling between the plants and shrieking as Charlie slowly followed her. Flora smiled at them, appreciating once again her brother’s complete happiness in his marriage and family. She was drained but knew it to be more than the tiredness that came with physical exertion; sleep would be hard to come by when she eventually crashed into bed. The day in the garden had busied her mind, but it couldn’t free her from the scrutiny of the online world lurking somewhere beyond the cottage.

  They heard Ally return, as the garden gate creaked, and Flora looked up in expectation of a refreshing ice cream to cool her after a day of physical work. But it wasn’t Ally who appeared in the garden, and Flora’s eyes widened in amazement as her heart fluttered in shock. Mac’s gaze swept over the group, before coming to rest easily on her, and Flora hurried to her feet, the bottle of water she held falling to the ground.

  ‘You followed me.’ Flora’s whispered words weren’t a question, merely a statement, as she took a step towards him and then halted suddenly. Charlie made his way to stand beside her, his squirming daughter held firmly under one arm, offering his support, as Nathan disappeared into the house. There was a challenge, too, in Charlie’s gesture and Flora appreciated it, even though she knew she didn’t need it. ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘The vicarage wasn’t hard to find, and I asked at the shop for the cottage. I’ve already been to Middlebrook and they said you weren’t back yet.’ Mac was still staring at her, exhausted and pale, and it was little consolation to know he was troubled, too. ‘Flora, I had to come and find you because you didn’t return my calls and there are things I have to say.’ He hesitated, his glance flicking to Charlie for a second, before returning to Flora. ‘Could we go somewhere?’

  Strangely, Flora didn’t want to. They had created their own version of a secluded reality whenever they were together on the island, and now she just wanted to remain in the real world. ‘Whatever you need to say, you can say it here. This is my family.’

  ‘Okay. If that’s what you want.’ She nodded and Mac took a couple of strides forward, until he was near enough for her to touch. Her fingers trembled, remembering only too easily the shape of his shoulders and the feel of his bare skin against hers. She became aware of Sam, still sitting behind her, trying to yank Charlie back. It worked; he glanced down and then stepped away to join Sam, as they busied themselves amusing Esther, who was crawling amongst the pots on the lawn.

  Mac began to speak. ‘I’m sorrier than I know how to say about everything that’s happened. I wish I could change it and spare you whatever you and your family are going through just now.’ He sighed, running a hand over his face.

  Flora waited, wanting desperately to close the gap between them, to hold him and be held in all the ways she had been imagining for weeks. She scrunched her hands into tight fists, unable to escape his solemn blue-grey gaze, as her feet remained planted to the ground.

  ‘You should know that the pictures of Chloe and me in Ibiza were a set-up, Flora. They were only taken to imply something that’s not real. There was nothing in them that couldn’t be passed off as mates, old friends meeting up. I made sure of that.’

  ‘What?’ Flora felt shock, a moment of relief and then resentment chasing one another through her mind, as she tried to make sense of his words. ‘But why?’

  ‘Chloe and I ended our relationship a few months ago, but then she called out of the blue on the day of Mel’s wedding to ask me for help.’ Mac rubbed his neck with an agitated hand. ‘She’s seriously involved with someone she works with, and they were desperate to keep it out of the press until filming’s over and they could announce it.’

  ‘But why you?’ Flora whispered, a shred of hope growing into something more. ‘What does that have to do with you?’

  ‘She knew it was a big ask but she wanted something to divert attention should anyone be looking – she thought that a couple of pictures of me and her in a magazine would do the job. No one would be very interested in her getting back with an ex who isn’t part of her world.’ Mac was staring at Flora, his gaze pleading with her to understand. ‘I agreed, eventually, with a couple of conditions. The first was that the pictures would only run if she had no other choice and the second was that our agreement expired after four weeks, when she was due to finish filming. If they appeared after that, then I would say that she and I were still over and always had been. No one knew about it, other than her best friend, who was in Ibiza that weekend to take the sh
ots. Not her agent, publicist – no one.’

  He paused for a moment, before continuing. ‘The only reason I did it, Flora, was because Chloe had been there for me last year when Angus and Rachael died. She dropped everything to support me through those first weeks, when I couldn’t think straight. I wasn’t sleeping or eating properly, and I couldn’t work for a time. I knew she wouldn’t have asked me to do this unless she was desperate.’

  Mac’s smile was wry, rueful. ‘But I’d just met you and we’d shared that amazing kiss at the wedding – and, quite honestly, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since. I knew that if you were angry with me, then at least one of us would be trying to keep their distance. So I didn’t contact you, didn’t do anything that might attract attention to us, still hoping that the images wouldn’t run, and it would all go away and you’d forgive me once I’d explained everything. Then Chloe texted to say someone was onto them, and the pictures were out. I wasn’t happy and realised then how complicated I’d let things get. I drove straight to Middlebrook to tell you myself.’

  ‘But I already knew.’ Flora knew she had assumed what everyone else had, she hadn’t tried to trust him or ask for the truth.

  ‘Yes. I was too late. And I was going to tell you, but you made it clear that everything that happened between us at the wedding was over and you weren’t interested. I’m so sorry that I hurt you, Flora. But I still wanted to protect you as much as possible until the final two weeks were up and Chloe could release her statement.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was low, finally pressing him for the truth.

  He paused and his gaze became gentler still. ‘The garden was the perfect excuse to bring you to the island and keep you safe there. But it wasn’t just that. I’d barely looked twice at it before I met you and, for me at least, everything changed when I found you there amongst the madness of it all that first morning. You looked like you’d come home and now there isn’t anyone else I would trust with its future, however you feel about me.’

  Esther was crying now, and Flora wanted to join her. Tears pressed at her eyes and she swallowed down her desire to tell him it was how she had felt that morning too, and her elation that he had recognised it. Moira’s final words before Flora had left raced into her mind and she blurted out her next question. ‘The room at the B&B? I thought you’d done that just to keep me out of your way.’

  Mac nodded wryly. ‘So Moira told you? I did want you out of the way but not for the reason you think. If Chloe’s story went public before she’d finished filming, any reporter looking for me as the ex she’d cheated on would go to the hotel and find you. The cottages are pretty isolated, but I knew they could still be found, as everyone knows they’re mine. I asked Doug and Moira to be ready to take care of you if needed, but even they didn’t know why. With the B&B closed, I didn’t think anyone would come looking for you there. And every moment on the island with you, Flora, just made me realise how much I wanted you to stay and how it was beginning to feel like home again, after Angus and Rachael. I felt we were safe there and I was struggling to pretend, to stay away from you. And then Tamsin and how everything is between you both. I didn’t see that coming.’

  Tears shone in his eyes and Flora rushed forward, wrapping her arms around him. She held him, feeling his tension dissolve, relief coursing through her. ‘I didn’t trust you,’ she muttered sadly. ‘I should’ve done, when you asked me to give you time, after the ceilidh.’

  Mac pulled his head back to look at her, and she nearly gasped at the tenderness, the new openness, she saw there. ‘You had no reason,’ he said softly. ‘It was a lot to ask, given what happened before, with your dad, and how I left you after the wedding. And then Chloe’s story broke and everything changed again. She only came to apologise; she’s already left to sort out what happens next. Flora, I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess of things.’ He touched a hand to her cheek, stroking her face gently. ‘So, really, what I’m trying to say is that I love you. I have done probably since that first weekend after you marched up to me with your crazy dare and made it impossible for me to forget you. It wasn’t until the evening at Doug and Moira’s that I began to think you might feel the same.’

  She gasped at his words, as she began to accept the truth of his feelings. Everything around them melted away and even the sound of the birds in the trees seemed silenced, as she listened.

  ‘I can’t fast-forward forty years and show you our history, Flora. But I want to spend my life creating it with you and showing you all the ways you can trust me.’

  ‘How do I know that I can?’ She whispered the words, hardly able to think of anything other than the fact that he loved her, as his hand continued to stroke hers.

  ‘You don’t,’ he told her simply. ‘But if you love me too, and I’m praying that you do, then you’re going to have to try to let me show you the rest.’

  He let go of her hand to draw her into his arms, pulling her against him. She could feel his heart racing, as they held one another again, until he placed his lips against her temple and kissed her lightly. He drew back to look at her. ‘Doug and Moira send their love,’ he said gently. ‘And Tamsin asked me to tell you that her plants have grown, and she liked your note but still wants her hug.’

  Flora did cry then at his words, tears skittering down her face as she thought of Tamsin, far away on the island. Mac leant forward and lightly kissed her lips, before he spoke again. ‘I have to go home now, Flora. I’ve got to make the last ferry. And I’ll be there if you decide to come back and give me another chance. It’s up to you.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Flora returned to Middlebrook on Sunday, her time off at an end. She had finished the garden at Willow Cottage, and Annie and Jon were thrilled with the results. Champagne had been opened and a party spontaneously started, but she had pleaded a headache and slipped away. She loaded her car and returned home that same evening, despite Charlie and Sam’s pleading to stay for another day or two. She was still stunned by Mac’s declaration of love and, much as she knew that she loved him, too, she needed some perspective to decide what should happen next.

  Back in her cottage, she had a long chat with Sophie, and they went over the stories in the press. To Flora’s relief, even though she had eventually been identified as the woman in the pictures, Chloe’s sudden appearance at a movie premiere with Noah Maguire was the only story everyone wanted, and she and Mac had gratefully faded into the background. Noah was a recently divorced American actor, seventeen years Chloe’s senior, who had just played her stepfather in their TV drama. The two actors were pictured with their arms firmly wrapped around one another, their respective social media accounts full of ‘it’s early days but we’re madly in love’ photos.

  Sophie had raved about Flora’s appearance in the pictures that had been leaked from the wedding, teasing her that it was a good thing they hadn’t tried to pap Flora at work in muddy jeans and her beloved steel toe-capped boots. Flora had laughed, eventually, and looked at the photographs. There were just two and, although they had caught only a small moment in time, she knew that they undoubtedly revealed the truth of their growing feelings. In one she and Mac were standing at the bar while Flora was talking with someone, her hand tightly wrapped in his and her head turned away from him. He was looking at her in an unguarded moment, his gaze fixed adoringly on her face. In the second they were dancing and, from the way one of his hands was placed on her back while the other stroked her hair, she knew immediately that it was their first time. Her hands were on his shoulders and they were gazing at one another with an unspoken desire needing no words to reveal it.

  Three days after returning to work, Flora let herself into her cottage after a long day spent training a couple of volunteers new to the team. She was finding work more of a challenge now that her thoughts constantly strayed to Mac, Tamsin and the island, and she knew she had a serious decision to make. Her heart knew what it wanted, and it was only her head that was still advising cauti
on. She collected her post and dumped it on the table without looking at it, desperate for a shower to sluice away the tiredness that seemed to seep into her limbs. Twenty minutes later, feeling refreshed and with her hair piled on top of her head, she flopped on the sofa to go through the post. None of it was interesting, until she found a thick, white envelope; the writing scrawled across it unfamiliar. She turned it over and ripped it open, impatient to discover what was inside. She read it incredulously and then again, just to be sure.

  Dr and Mrs David McDonald invite you to join them to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Amanda Grace to Mr Rory Alexander MacKay

  On the island of Alana, Argyll

  And so it went on. Her eyes raced through the details a second time, and she discovered that the wedding was to be held this coming weekend in Mac’s hotel. But it didn’t make any sense. Flora had never heard of these people and she puzzled for a moment, trying to imagine how the invitation could possibly have made its way to her. Perhaps it had been sent by mistake from the hotel? She held it in her hand and then slowly turned it over. On the back, that same black handwriting was scrawled across the centre of the blank, white card.

  I dare you

  And then she knew, her tiredness evaporating, as joy and a surprising certainty replaced confusion and doubt. The laugh that followed the realisation was jubilant and she immediately reached for her phone, discarded nearby. For once it worked and the message sailed away.

  I haven’t got anything to wear…

  The answer came in a moment, as though Mac had been waiting for her response to his invitation.

  Doesn’t matter. Wear your jeans, I love the way your legs look in them. Just come. There’s a flight on Saturday morning and a ticket waiting for you.