freezer,’ said ever-practical Shelley.
‘Believe me, there won’t be half left to freeze,’ he said.
He bit into his first mouthful, savoured the taste. ‘Best pie I ever had,’ he said with only mild exaggeration.
She laughed. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute.’
‘Seriously, it’s delicious.’
‘My grandma’s recipe,’ she said. ‘Trouble with learning to cook from your grandmother is I tend to specialise in old-fashioned treats.’
‘This is a treat, all right,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time since someone baked for me.’
She looked around the room. ‘So who uses this kitchen?’
‘I do. But only for the most basic meals. I’m useless at anything more complex.’ Declan had never needed to learn to cook. He’d moved out of home at age eighteen, already wealthy enough to eat out or hire caterers whenever he wanted.
Shelley leaned her elbows on the countertop. ‘Was Lisa a good cook?’
He was so shocked to hear her mention Lisa’s name he nearly choked on his pie. But why shouldn’t she? It was a perfectly reasonable question. Shelley didn’t know of his guilt over the deaths of his wife and daughter and his determination to punish himself for their loss.
‘She...she did her best—but we used to laugh at the results more often than not. We ate out a lot. I think she was hoping this kitchen would transform her into a culinary wizard. She used to talk about doing classes but...but she never did.’
‘She... Lisa...she sounds lovely.’ He could tell Shelley was choosing her words carefully.
‘She was. You...you would have liked her and she...she would have liked you.’
He realised it was true. The two women were physically complete opposites; Lisa had been tiny and dark-haired. But there was a common core of...he hesitated to use the bland word ‘niceness’ but it went some way to articulating what he found almost impossible to articulate.
‘I... I’m glad,’ Shelley said. He could see sympathy in her eyes. But not pity. He wouldn’t tolerate pity.
Even two years later he still found it difficult to talk about Lisa. It was as if his heart had been torn out of him when she’d died.
But if he were going to talk to anyone it would be Shelley. There was something trustworthy and non-judgemental about her that made him believe he could let his guard down around her. If only in increments.
‘Lisa was...vivacious. That was the word people used about her. When I was young I was a quiet kind of guy, awkward around girls. Females ran a mile from me when they learned what a geek I was.’
‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Shelley said with an upward tilt to her lovely mouth. ‘You’re a very good-looking guy. I imagine you would have been beating girls off with a stick.’ Was that acknowledgement of a fact or admiration? Whatever it was he liked the feeling her words gave him.
‘Not so,’ he said, with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I probably spent way too long in front of a screen.’
‘But Lisa saw something in you?’
‘Lisa grew up with brothers, knew how to handle boys. She took me out of myself. I was an only child of parents too busy to take much notice of me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she murmured.
‘They’d decided not to have children. I came as a shock to them.’ He tried to make a joke of it but his bitterness filtered through. ‘I don’t know how many times I heard the words “Declan was our little accident” when I was growing up.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Surely they said it with fondness,’ she said.
‘Perhaps. I didn’t see much of my parents anyway. My mother was too busy defending criminals or doing pro bono work for underprivileged people to realise there might be someone at home who needed her time too. Thankfully she shunted me off to her mother for the school vacations.’
‘The one with the mulberry tree?’
He nodded. ‘The very one. She was an artist and took great delight in passing on her skills to me—to defy my parents, I sometimes think.’
‘And your father?’
‘Let’s just say “typical absentee parent” and be done with it.’
‘I... I feel sad for the little boy you were,’ she said.
‘Don’t be. I put that behind me long ago. Who knows, if I’d grown up in a happy household with a boatload of siblings I mightn’t have got where I did so fast.’
‘That’s a thought,’ she said, but didn’t sound convinced.
‘At least they had the sense to hire a wonderful nanny for me. She more than made up for it.’
Until he’d turned twelve and they’d terminated Jeannie’s employment, citing that a big boy like him didn’t need to be looked after any more. Jeannie had never given up on him, though. She’d stayed an important part of his life.
‘Jeannie was going to live in the apartment to...to help you with...?’
He had to change the subject. ‘Yes,’ he said abruptly. ‘What about you? Sounds like your childhood might have been less than ideal.’
‘It was very ideal until my father decided he preferred another family to us,’ she said. It gutted him to see her face tighten with remembered distress.
‘You and your sister?’
She nodded. ‘And my mum—none of us saw it coming. He met a younger woman with a little boy. She got her clutches into him and that was the end of it. For us anyway.’
‘So why did you have to leave your home?’
‘He’s a real-estate agent. He said our little farm needed to be sold. Then he pulled some tricky deal and moved right back in with her.’
Declan could think of a few words he’d like to use to describe her father but held his tongue. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘He tried to make it up to Lynne and me. Wanted to keep seeing us. I was allowed to keep my pony, Toby, there. He said it was a good way to make me visit.’
By the tight set of her face Declan doubted the tale would have a happy ending. ‘Makes sense,’ he said.
‘Until the day I got there to find she’d sold my beautiful Toby. And my father had done nothing to stop her.’
This time Declan did let loose with a string of curse words. ‘That’s cruelty. How old were you?’
‘I’d just turned fourteen. It’s a long time ago but I still remember how I felt.’
‘Did you get
