had been a long time since he’d discussed this with anyone and he felt sick to his stomach even thinking about it. The whisky ran warm through him and he realised – completely inappropriately – that it had also been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Almost two years since he’d felt the touch of soft skin, the drape of long hair in his hands, since his fingers had skimmed delicate curves.
He closed that thought down and waited for the verdict, hovering next to her as she prepared to leave. With Johanna, he had expected forgiveness. The reassurance that she loved him and they would get through this together. The touch of her fingers twined in his, the feel of her lips promising she’d be there for him. That she understood, and that she’d wait for him – that they’d still build a life together.
He’d been wrong to expect any of that, and the memory of the cold sheen in her eyes was something he would always carry with him. It had been a stark lesson in what women were capable of: a ruthlessness he’d never seen before. She’d shut him out, closed him down, thrown him out with the trash and moved on to better things. The papers could call him a hero as much as they liked – but headlines didn’t keep you warm at night. They didn’t love you, give you hope or belief in the future. He hadn’t had any of those things for a very long time – thanks to his own actions and Johanna’s response.
And now here he was again, having poured out his heart, waiting for a woman’s verdict – and with almost as much tension as he’d felt in court. This was the part, he knew, where Pippa Harte told him to pack his bags and leave, and did it all with a sweet smile. Off you go, Mr Retallick! Don’t let the barn door hit you on the arse on the way out…He was braced, he was ready. In fact he hadn’t even unpacked at all, just in case – just plugged in the laptop to charge, showered and changed clothes, and left everything else in his bags. He had his polite smile ready for when she told him to sling his hook – or at least phoned him a cab, because he’d drank far too much whisky to be driving.
Instead, she reached out. Took one of his hands and gently squeezed it, as he’d seen her do with Scotty that afternoon. He felt the shock of the unexpected contact like a delicious slap: her slender fingers in his, all that glorious hair only inches away. The tempting shape of her body beneath her shabby old clothes.
“That’s enough,” she said. “The rest is private. I know what I need to know. I’m so sorry that happened to you, all of it. And we’d be glad to welcome you at Harte Farm for as long as you need to stay. Just try and keep a low profile – the last thing I need is the villagers deciding to throw you a street party or storming the castle with pitchforks. But…stay. Enjoy the place, for as long as you’re here.”
He was stunned. Silent. Flooded with emotion at her gentle acceptance, the way she looked up at him, her eyes liquid. Her hand, warm, soft, still in his. Sweet Jesus – this slip of a girl, this virtual stranger, had given him more comfort and consolation in that one short speech than he’d received in the last eighteen months. It warmed him even more than the whisky.
“Thank you,” he murmured, pulling her gently towards him, needing to feel her against him. To share the way he felt, even for a second. She came, taking tiny steps, and laid her head against his chest. He could feel her breath, hot and fast against him; could smell the lavender of her shampoo, the slight tremble in her arms as they slid around his waist, briefly stroking his lower back before she slipped back out of reach.
“Now I’d better get to bed,” she murmured. “Before I start letting out war cries and jumping on your head.”
He watched her go – face flushed, breasts rising and falling, eyes blinking too rapidly – and knew that she’d felt it too. That moment. That magical moment between a man and a woman, where you feel the thrill of potential, the primal joy of heat calling out to heat.
Scarier than a war cry any day, he thought, as the door slammed shut behind her and she disappeared back out into the darkness.
By the time the roosters started calling, Pippa had already been awake for an hour. Her days always started early, but this, she thought, glugging coffee, was ridiculous. Up and about by 5am, ready to get the feeds done and crack on with some paperwork.
She grimaced as she drank the last cooling dregs, tried to convince herself it was a good head start to the day. Except it didn’t feel like that. She normally valued these quiet hours before the rest of the family got up, the time on her own to think, to plan. To eat chocolate digestives and occasionally have a little cry.
But today was different. Today, she didn’t feel alone – because her head was full of Ben Retallick. Full of his story, his sadness, the pain in his chocolate-brown eyes. Full of the feel of him as they’d embraced, the way it felt to run her fingers over the packed muscle of his back, the way her heart sped up the minute he touched her. It was all…weird.
She wasn’t a blushing virgin by any means, but her sexual experience was limited to one boyfriend several years ago. And when he’d touched her, it certainly hadn’t felt anything like the fireworks that had popped in psychedelic glory when Ben held her the night before.
Growing up on a farm, you got your sex education the natural way – but at no time in her life had she experienced anything like the flood of sensation she’d felt in Ben’s arms.
All he’d done was hold her, wrap her in his arms as she leaned into him. It was comfort, it was innocent. It was one human being in need recognising another. And yet…she’d left Honeysuckle a mess. Knowing that it would have been so easy to raise her head to his, to invite his lips. To invite his touch. To invite absolute chaos into a life that was already pretty ragged around the edges. If he’d wanted more – if he’d wanted to throw her on the floor and ravish her – she wouldn’t have been able to stop him. Wouldn’t have even wanted to. Luckily, she thought, he’d been a gentleman. Even though part of her was wishing he hadn’t been.
She needed to get a grip. She didn’t have the time for a relationship, no matter how much her body told her it wanted one. She didn’t even have time for a mindless quickie on the shag pile of Honeysuckle, for goodness sake. That could all come later, when the kids were older. When life was more settled. She’d switched off those thoughts years ago, set it all aside. It hadn’t been easy – but there was so much else to do.
She wasn’t a saint, she had her moments of desperation. Of self-pity. Of wishing she had someone else’s life. For one small period she’d hoarded travel brochures in her bedroom, giving in to fantasies about jacking it all in – letting Social Services take the kids and backpacking around Asia to find herself. Or lose herself, whichever came first. But that’s all they were: fantasies. Even they left her with the guilt hangover from hell, when Lily and Daisy had found the glossy magazines and asked if they were going away on holiday.
So she compartmentalised, as the books say. Learned to set aside her own needs and focus on everyone else’s so hard she almost forgot she had any. It had seemed the only way to cope.
Until now, until last night, it had been working. Last night she seemed to have regressed to being a love-struck teenager, wondering how it would feel to slip her hands beneath that t-shirt; to have him bury his hands in her hair. How it would feel to put her skin next to his and let all that heat take its course.
She’d be doodling his name on a pencil case inside a loveheart next, she thought, shaking her head in an effort to clear it. This was real life, not a romance novel: and real life was busy. Hard. Challenging in every single way. She didn’t have time for mooning
