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Toto nodded. ‘Oh, OK.’ But, as she tried to dart off towards the farmhouse, he yanked her to a halt again.
‘But do me a favour.’
‘Yes, Dad?’ She waited for his instructions, total and utter trust radiating from her.
And he got light-headed.
He knew Toto’s complete faith in him was unlikely to last much longer, but it was still a heady feeling for a man who had spent the first twenty-one years of his life convinced he could never do anything right. He’d strived for the last thirteen years never to abuse Toto’s trust, but he was going to have to blur the lines a bit today, to ward off a punitive lawsuit.
‘Take your time getting Josh’s mum to the Clubhouse,’ he said. ‘I want to have Josh down before she gets there.’
‘OK, Dad.’ Toto nodded, her acceptance of the instruction unquestioning as she sped off to find Ellie.
He jogged off towards the forest, hoping like hell the boy hadn’t already fallen off the tree and broken his bloody neck.
It took him less than five minutes to get to the Clubhouse. A simple A-frame design he’d built two summers ago in a hundred-year-old horse chestnut near the edge of the coppice woods with Toto’s help – or rather hindrance. He hadn’t given much thought at the time to the access. Toto could climb like a monkey and would probably have been able to get up the damn tree without the aid of the boards he’d nailed into the trunk. And as the thing had been built precisely so she’d have a refuge from the younger kids when she needed it, the ladder, such as it was, had been an afterthought.
He regretted that decision big time when he spotted Ellie’s son stapled to the trunk – a good twenty-five feet off the ground.
How had he got up that high before he froze?
And how was he going to get the kid down? Although the boy wasn’t exactly light for his age – he looked about twice as wide as Toto – Art would probably still have been able to sling him over his shoulder. But no way would those boards take the weight of both of them, assuming of course the kid would let him carry him. From the death grip he had on the board, Art figured he was going to have a hell of a time even getting the boy to let go.
Which left only one solution. He would have to talk him down.
Wonderful. Because he was so good at conversation.
‘Hey!’ he shouted up and then winced, as the boy nodded, butting his forehead into the trunk with a hollow smack. ‘It’s Josh’ isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sir?
Was that an American thing? He’d never been called ‘sir’ in his life. Not even by the bank manager.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the boy continued and Art winced again at the plaintive, terrified whimper. ‘I got stuck and now I can’t get down.’ More tremors wracked the kid’s body and Art lifted his arm, suddenly worried he might shake himself right off the tree.
‘You don’t have to be sorry, Josh. Happens to the best of us.’
He climbed the rungs, ignoring the give in each one and hoping he didn’t end up breaking his own bloody neck.
‘I won’t do it again, sir. I promise,’ the boy said, sounding more miserable than Toto when she had to do maths homework.
‘Let’s not worry about next time yet.’ He reached the boy. ‘I’m right here beneath you, Josh.’ He stared at the rungs above the boy’s feet, partially hidden by his legs and torso. One of the rungs was a little longer than the others, and if Art eased himself up carefully, he could hold on to it and effectively cradle the kid. Maybe that would help with his fear? Knowing that he’d be caught if he did let go.
‘You should get my mom,’ the boy said. ‘She’ll know what to do. And she wouldn’t want me bothering you.’
‘I’m here now, so I might as well help.’ And the last thing he wanted was Josh’s mother finding her son in this state. Forget about bothering him, she’d probably murder him. ‘I’m going to put my arms around you, Josh. And hold on to the rung under your belly, OK? So I can catch you if you fall.’
The boy nodded, headbutting the trunk again.
Art grasped the rung and hauled himself up, until his chest was resting securely against the boy’s back. The child’s whole body trembled as if he were in a high wind.
The kid was absolutely terrified.
Then Art heard the whimpers. Craning his neck, he could see the side of the boy’s face. The silent tears leaked out and dripped down to disappear into the roll of fat where he had pressed his chin into his neck.
‘Don’t cry, Josh. You’re OK, I’ve got you.’ Balancing carefully, he lifted one hand to pat the boy’s back, and felt the vibrations, and the heat of the boy’s body through the thin cotton.
‘Please don’t tell Toto,’ the boy said.
‘Don’t tell Toto what?’
‘That I cried. I don’t want her to think I’m lame as well as fat.’
The boy wasn’t exactly thin, but hearing him call himself fat in that sadly accepting voice had a shaft of anger shooting through Art.
‘She won’t think that,’ he said, because he knew his daughter. She didn’t judge people by their appearances. ‘But if we get down before she gets back, she won’t even know.’
‘How will I get down?’
Good question. There wasn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre. ‘Do you think you could move down a step, while I stay in place?’
He heard the sound of swallowing. The shaking was still pretty pronounced. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Good boy,’ Art said. He didn’t usually bother with positive reinforcement with Toto. But with this kid, he had the feeling it was required.
After what felt like ten hours, but was probably only ten seconds, they’d negotiated one rung down.
He lavished the boy with more praise, the relief loosening his tongue more than usual. The stillness of the summer air seemed eerie as Art waited to hear the boy’s mother crashing through the undergrowth ready to issue an injunction. But as they spent an eternity inching their way down the ladder, one tortuous rung at a time, until Art could finally step onto the ground – the sound never came.
Good girl, Toto. She must be escorting Ellie to the Clubhouse via Plymouth.
‘You can let go now, Josh.’ Relief surged through him as he grabbed the boy round the waist and lifted him the rest of the way down. ‘Well done.’
The boy huffed, and then to Art’s astonishment wrapped his arms tight around Art’s midriff and buried his head against his sternum.
‘Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.’ The words were muffled against Art’s overalls. ‘You saved my life.’
Containing his surprise – Toto had never been a big hugger – Art cupped the boy’s shoulders to ease him back. ‘No thanks necessary. You saved yourself.’
The boy loosened his hold to gaze up at Art. He had a dusty green smear across his cheek and red indentation marks on his forehead. Truth be told, he looked a mess, but then he smiled. His eyes were hazel, with flecks of green in them, and his round face was impossibly young and open, but, in that moment, Art could see the resemblance to his mother — which was weird, because Art was fairly sure he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d seen Ellie smile her real smile — as opposed to her tight smile, or her sarcastic smile, or her you-are-such-anarsehole smile.
But that rare real smile had been exactly like her son’s. It had made her eyes shine, as if someone had lit a furnace behind them.
‘I didn’t think I could, but I did, sir.’
‘Yes, you did.’ Art patted the boy on the shoulder, relieved when Josh let go of him. ‘But you don’t have to call me “sir”. It makes me feel a hundred years old.’
The furnace behind the boy’s eyes flared and he giggled. The childish chuckle made Art feel for a moment as if he were lit from within too.
And that’s when he heard the sound of someone charging through the forest, from the opposite direction to the farmhouse. That would be Ellie and Toto, back from Plymouth.
‘Josh, Josh, are you OK?’
Ellie catapulted from the wooded path that led down to the millpond. Her hair flew out behind her where it had escaped its knot. Even Toto, who was fast as a whippet, was struggling to keep up with mother bear come to rescue her cub.
Josh stepped back out of his arms as Ellie rushed past him to grab her son’s shoulders. ‘Thank God you’re safe.’ She stroked his cheek and then touched the abrasions on his forehead. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘It’s OK, Mom. It doesn’t hurt.’
A blush had suffused Josh’s cheeks.
Ellie was totally overreacting, and she was embarrassing the boy. Her son was twelve, not two. Art figured it was none of his business, though, as she crushed Josh to her bosom, running her hand over his hair. She peered at the treehouse, then fired a glare at Art that could laser stone.
‘What was he doing up there? He’s afraid of heights.’ Her glare travelled back to the treehouse. ‘And that thing’s a bloody death trap.’ Then the glare hit Toto. ‘What were you trying to do, kill him? Or just humiliate him?’
Toto shook her head, her eyes popping wide, but remained mute. Art figured she had to be in shock, because his daughter was usually incredibly hard to shut up.
‘Mom, I wanted to go up there,’ Josh offered in Toto’s defence. ‘It’s a clubhouse and it’s cool.’
Maybe the boy was scared of heights, but he only seemed embarrassed by his mother in full Valkyrie mode. Art gave the boy points for bravery, because the woman looked ready to commit murder.
The killer glare shot back to him. ‘Why does it not surprise me that your daughter is as much of a sadist as you used to be?’
Crap, she’d just made it his business.
*
‘Chill out, Ellie.’
‘Chill out?’ Ellie hissed, the obese gymnasts ready to explode out of her ears.
This man and his vicious little minion had nearly killed her son. Not to mention taken her on a trek across most of Wiltshire when she was so exhausted she was ready to faceplant for a week.
She’d chill Art Dalton right into the freezer cabinet if he wasn’t careful.
‘I will not chill out. And the name’s not Ellie, it’s Eloise to you.’
His brows wrinkled. Fine, maybe it sounded a bit pompous. She didn’t care.
‘OK, Eloise.’ He rolled the name off his tongue as if it were the punchline to a particularly unfunny joke. ‘There’s no need to flip out.’ He swung a hand towards Josh, who had wriggled out of her arms and was standing beside Art’s evil minion. The two children edged closer to Art, as if he were the sane dependable adult in this scenario.
‘The boy’s safely on terra firma.’ Art’s patient tone made her want to kick him exceptionally hard, somewhere extremely soft. ‘He made the decision to go up there and he got himself down without too much help from me. Toto came to get you as soon as she knew there was a problem. So whatever you’re accusing her of, you’re wrong.’
‘She came to get me and then took me on a guided tour of Wiltshire to bring me to a tree that I know is only five minutes from the farmyard.’
She was getting light-headed again, her lungs aching from the effort to hold back the tortured breaths of her outrage.
They’d done to Josh exactly what Art had done to her all those years ago, Art and the other commune kids. A couple of days after she’d arrived they’d told her she needed to be initiated in their stupid club. And somehow, because she was fascinated by the rough boy, and a bit afraid of him too, she’d agreed to try. And had ended up with the brand new Kookai blouse her dad had bought her for her birthday covered in fresh manure and them all laughing at her.
‘I don’t want my son near your daughter,’ she said. ‘I don’t want her suggesting he climb up trees, or swim in the millpond or tramp through fields of young bullocks to get a mythical stone that doesn’t exist. Do you understand?’
‘But, Mom, I want to join Toto’s club,’ Josh wailed, as if she’d just ruined his life. She ignored him, her gaze focused on Art Dalton’s face, and the rigid line of his jaw. Good, at least he didn’t look patiently amused any more.
‘Toto, why don’t you take Josh back to the farmhouse?’ Art addressed his daughter. ‘Dee can clean him up. It’ll be suppertime soon.’
‘OK, Dad’; ‘Yes, sir,’ said Art’s daughter and her son in unison.
‘Excuse me,’ Ellie began, her breath coming in jagged gasps now. ‘Who gave you permission to tell my son what to…’
Before she could finish the sentence, the children had dashed off together through the woods, back in the direction of the farmhouse. The direction she should have come from if Art’s child hadn’t taken her on a five-mile hike while her heart was exploding at the thought of Josh tumbling to his death.
Her temper hit boiling point, the white noise in her ears loud enough to sound like the woods were being dive-bombed by the Red Arrows.
‘How dare you tell my son what to do. He’s my responsibility not yours. I decide who he–’
‘If Dee has her way, he’s going to be here the whole summer.’ Art’s gaze locked on hers, all signs of amusement gone. ‘Toto’s a good kid and she likes him and they’re about the same age. It won’t do them any harm to hang out together. He’ll be sure to get lots of exercise.’
‘I’m not asking you. And don’t worry, we’re not staying the whole summer. I doubt I’ll stay more than one night after this. And if you’re talking about his weight with that comment about exercise, you can piss off. It’s perfectly healthy.’
‘Did I say it wasn’t?’
‘You implied it.’ Other parents always assumed they knew best. That if your child was carrying a little extra weight and theirs wasn’t that they knew how to fix it. They knew nothing of Josh’s body image issues. His anxieties. The way he could comfort eat his way through a whole quart of rocky road ice cream in two minutes after coming home from school. ‘And, believe me, being forced to climb a tree when he’s afraid of heights is not going to magically make him lose two stone.’
‘No one forced him to climb the tree. And he survived.’
‘How do you know that? You don’t know anything about him, you only just met him.’
‘I know he’s a little boy. And little boys need the chance to cut loose now and again. Not get wrapped in cotton wool by their mothers.’
She sputtered. She actually sputtered. The Red Arrows circling her head now. How dare he tell her how to raise her child, when he’d clearly spent no time at all raising his own. ‘Oh really, well maybe that explains why your daughter thinks she’s a little boy too.’
‘At least my daughter doesn’t think she’s fat.’
‘He’s not fat.’ She wanted to hit him. She squeezed her fingers into a fist, to resist the urge to lash out. ‘He has a traumatic relationship with food.’
‘Uh-huh? All I’ve seen so far is his traumatic relationship with you.’
‘You son of a bitch.’ The Red Arrows hit the sound barrier, the sonic boom going off inside her head as she swung her bunched fist towards his face.
He dodged back, and she hit thin air, flinging herself off balance and tumbling to earth. She body-slammed the ground, her reflexes too dulled by fatigue and incandescent rage to react fast enough to break her fall. Air gushed out, and pain ricocheted through her ribs, tears stinging her eyes.
She heard a curse, as strong hands gripped her waist and hauled her back onto her feet.
‘You all right?’ His gruff voice reverberated in her head, the low-grade headache now hammering her skull in time with the throbbing pain in what she suspected might be a dislocated shoulder.
‘Piss off,’ she said, but the expletive lacked heat. She hurt everywhere, her pride most of all.
The nausea galloped up her throat as blunt fingers pushed the hair off her brow. ‘You look knackered.’
Of course she did, she’d just hit the deck with enough force to puncture a lung.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said, her humiliation complete.
‘Put your head down.’
His palm cupped the back of her head and suddenly she was staring at the ground between her feet, studying the decaying leaves and a small beetle burrowing into a mound of twigs and wild grass.
‘Breath through your nose, it’ll go away in a minute.’
She wanted to tell him where he could stick his first aid advice. But she couldn’t speak round the lump of anguish, so she watched the beetle.
‘When did you last eat?’ he asked.
She tried to focus on his voice, which seemed a million miles away. ‘Yesterday morning, before we left home.’
‘Then you’re not likely to be sick,’ he said.
The dizziness and nausea began to subside. He released her head, and drew her upright with the hand he had clamped on her upper arm. The feel of his fingers, rough and cool pressing into her biceps, sent sensation zipping through her system.
Which should have been mortifying, but somehow wasn’t, because the pain had drifted away, to be replaced by a floating feeling. The warm numbness spread through her body.
‘Can you walk?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she said, but as she took a step, it was as if she were walking on the moon, about to bounce off into the cosmos.
‘Shit, here we go.’ She heard the husky words still a million miles away, but now from underwater.
Then she wasn’t vertical any more, she was horizontal and focusing on the scar that nicked his chin and made a white sickle shape in the dark stubble.
Her focus faded as she blinked. Once. Twice. The pleasant numbness enveloped her, her limbs going loose and languid, as she sank into a hot bubble bath that smelled of motor oil and laundry detergent and something else – the musty earthy scent of man.
CHAPTER FOUR
Consciousness beckoned through the magical twinkle of stars and the comforting scent of lavender. Ellie’s eyelids fluttered open and she found herself cocooned on an iron-framed double bed, the cluster of fairy lights draped over the mantelpiece opposite dotting a hand-sewn coverlet with sparkles of light.
A dark figure appeared from a door to her right, holding a towel, and looking muscular and intimidating in oil-stained overalls. The magical twinkles surrounded him like dancing fairies until he stepped into the light.
Art.
The dull ache in her ribs throbbed as the events before she’d blacked out came back. Her stomach cramped. And she scooted across the bed, ready to heave over the side. ‘I need a bucket.’
And after that please leave me alone to die in peace.
The polished wooden boards creaked. And the mattress dipped as Art sat on the bed.
‘Here.’ He slapped a cold wet cloth on her nape, then lifted her wrist to position her hand over it and hold it in place. ‘You don’t need a bucket. You’re not going to puke.’
She rolled over and propped herself up to glare at him – somewhat miffed the nausea had passed. ‘How would you know?’
‘Because you haven’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours.’
She tried to hold on to her indignation, but she didn’t have the strength. Had he carried her all the way up here? And where was here?
The room looked vaguely familiar, but her brain was still too fuzzy to figure out why. ‘Where am I?’
‘Your old bedroom. Dee redecorated it when she got the email saying you were coming over.’
The room was exquisite. No wonder she hadn’t recognised it.
The space was fresh and clean, decorated with bold colours and inspired prints. A couple of huge overstuffed armchairs in one corner sat next to a sturdy wooden dresser, its vibrant yellow paint making a statement against the white walls even in the dappled glow of the fairy lights. New curtains in retro gingham were draped stylishly over long sash windows that looked out into the reddening sky as dusk fell over the woods. The Victorian grandeur of the room looked inviting now instead of forbidding. Under the scent of lavender, Ellie detected the turpentine aroma of new paint.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured.
‘She put a lot of hours in fixing it up.’
The pang of guilt hit under her left ventricle, not dull this time, but sharp as a blade. What was she supposed to do with the knowledge that Dee had decided to welcome her back with home-made curtains and newly painted walls and fairy lights, like a treasured, long-lost child?
‘I wish she hadn’t gone to this much trouble,’ she said, knowing the effort her mother had put into redecorating the room would force her to reconsider her plans to leave tomorrow.
Art shrugged. ‘She wanted to do it.’ Standing up, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his overalls. ‘How are the ribs?’
‘I’ll survive.’ She placed a hand on her side. Her embarrassment at the way she’d swung at him and missed more painful right now than the bruises.
She noticed the sunburned column of his throat. Her gaze darted away, the glimpse of chest revealed by the open neck of his overalls making her aware of how much more body hair he had now than he’d had at fifteen. Not something she needed to be noticing.
‘Did you carry me all the way up here?’ she asked, the thought of those muscular arms holding her aloft not good for her equilibrium.
He nodded.
‘Thanks,’ she said, grudgingly. ‘But you didn’t have to do that.’
‘You’re not heavy. And Dee would have had my hide if I’d left you out there all night.’
The lack of sentiment was strangely comforting. At least she knew exactly where she was with Art.
But, as he put his hand on the doorknob, she felt compelled to add, ‘Thanks for getting Josh down from the treehouse. I’ll apologise to your daughter next time I see her. I shouldn’t have shouted at her.’
She’d been exhausted, and the child had definitely taken them well out of their way to get to the Clubhouse, but still she regretted the outburst – remembering the reputation she’d had at the commune once before.
Princess Drama.
How she’d loathed that nickname and all it implied – that she was a high-maintenance drama queen who was far too prissy and privileged to be included in Art’s gang.
‘Toto took you that way because I asked her to,’ he said at last.
‘What?’ she said, her shock doing nothing to cauterise the stab of hurt. ‘Why would you ask her to do that?’
‘What did Toto tell you when she came to get you?’ he asked, instead of answering her question.
‘That Josh was up a tree and he was about to fall off and break his neck,’ she replied.
He swore softly.
‘I can’t believe you would tell her to take me miles out of our way when you knew my son was in danger and that I would be worried about his safety,’ she said, finally finding her voice. ‘I know we’re not friends.’ She was ranting, but at least it disguised the tremor in her voice. ‘But I–’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he interrupted her. ‘I only asked her to take her time so I could have Josh down before you got there. I underestimated Toto’s flare for the dramatic though, and I’m sorry about that.’
‘But…’ The simple apology cut her rant off at the knees.
‘If it’s any consolation, your son was never in danger,’ he said. ‘He’s a brave kid, who handled himself just fine.’
‘A brave fat kid you mean,’ she said, unable to let go of her resentment completely. And unsettled at the realisation that Art’s compliment meant something. Why should she care what he thought of her son?
‘I never said he was fat. I said he thinks he’s fat.’ His head dipped to one side, the patient perusal sending heat into her face. ‘There’s a difference.’
The husky tone wrong-footed her, because it made the frank assessment sound like a compliment, too. Almost.
‘No need to apologise to Toto,’ he added. ‘Your freak out might teach her to dial down on the drama.’
His gaze skimmed back over her, and her misguided belly dissolved into a warm fuzzy puddle of need. Annoyingly.
Clearly being starved of male attention – because she’d had little enough from Dan in recent years – had the potential to make her delusional.