Hidden Cottage (21 page)
‘Looks like a race of some sort is about to start,’ Mia said.
‘I guarantee Rich wins,’ Owen said, pausing with the oars and holding them against his legs.
‘Ready, steady,
GO
!’ Daisy shouted in a voice so loud Jensen and Tattie turned to see what was going on.
Sure enough, Rich was first to reach Eliza and as soon as Madison had slapped her hand against Eliza’s, he was heading back to Daisy and singing ‘We Are The Champions’. Bouncing on his back, her head bobbing wildly up and down, Madison waved to her mother and Jensen who joined in with the laughter and happy cheers. The clamouring exuberance of their antics on the lawn contrasted extravagantly with the serenity of the lake.
‘You know your friend well,’ Mia said.
Owen laughed. ‘I certainly do. Rich always plays to win.’ He started rowing again, each stroke creating a shower of droplets that fell like sparkling diamonds in the bright sunlight.
Leaning over the side of the boat, Mia let her hand trail in the cool water. With the sound of birdsong filling the air, she closed her eyes and listened contentedly to the languid splish-splash of the oars. Then aware that Owen had stopped rowing, she opened her eyes and found he was staring directly at her. Self-conscious, she sat up straighter and shook the water from her hand.
‘What were you thinking just then?’ he asked. ‘You looked very relaxed.’
‘I was thinking how wonderful this is. If I lived here I don’t think I’d ever want to leave.’
‘I feel much the same.’ He started rowing again, taking them round to the back of the small island that was densely overgrown with trees and bushes. She twisted her neck and saw that the house was now out of sight.
Once again Owen stopped rowing and letting the boat drift, he pointed to the island. ‘You’ll probably think I’m crazy, but I want to build a summerhouse on it. Call it a folly, if you will, but I want it to be a symbolic place of escape.’
Imagining how good it would be to have her own island to escape to, Mia cast her gaze about her. ‘Isn’t all this escape enough?’ she said.
‘Can you have too much escapism?’
The boat turned slowly so she was now facing into the sun. She put a hand to her brow to shield her eyes to look at him. ‘Needing somewhere to escape implies that you feel trapped or that you’re running away from something. Are you?’
‘That would be an obvious conclusion to reach, but strange as it may seem, I’m not. Actually what I’m doing, and I’ve only recently realized this, is that I’m actually running
to
something.’
‘Do you know what it is?’
Seconds passed, during which he seemed lost in thought. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘Yes I do.’ He began rowing again, inviting no further comment, leaving her instead with the tantalizing wish to know more. But sensing he might think she was prying, she let it go. ‘What other plans do you have for the lake?’ she asked, playing safe with a less personal question.
‘Just lots of general maintenance and perhaps I’ll have a new jetty installed,’ he answered. ‘I don’t think I need to do anything about attracting more wildlife; it seems to be doing well enough without my interference.’
Watching a dragonfly skimming the surface of the water, she said, ‘I’ve lived in the village all these years and while I knew of the house, I had no idea just how beautiful it was here.’
‘Missing what’s right under our noses is often the way, isn’t it? I used to sneak in here as a child.’
‘Really?’
‘I’ll tell you about it one day.’
‘Not now?’
‘No. Another time.’
She laughed. ‘You’re a very infuriating man, you know that, don’t you? You feed me these intriguing little titbits only to leave me wondering.’
He laughed too. ‘I’m just trying to make myself sound more fascinating than I really am.’
Oh, I think you’re plenty fascinating, she thought. Determined to learn something more about him, she said, ‘So how come you’ve moved here on your own? Being such a
fascinating
man, I can’t believe you don’t have a significant other in your life.’
‘Ah, well, therein lies another story. There was somebody, but Friday night, after I’d dropped the books off for the fete with you, she blew me out. Not that the two things are connected,’ he added with a short laugh.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Now I feel awful for blundering in like that.’
‘No need to apologize. It was my own fault; I acted selfishly and deserved what I got.’
Thinking he didn’t seem the selfish kind – but then nobody knew better than she did that appearances could be deceiving – Mia said, ‘Were you together for long?’
‘Not really, we only met in January. So no hearts broken. Just one of those things.’
Wondering if he was putting a brave face on the break-up, or if he genuinely wasn’t bothered, Mia sipped some more of her wine. Then staring into the distance, to the far side of the lake where a fallen tree was lying half-submerged in the water, she found herself hoping that Owen wouldn’t tidy the lake up too much, that he would allow nature to add her own unique charm.
‘Tell me about Mr Channing.’
She looked at him, surprised. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I’m curious to know what sort of man he is. I’m also curious why you don’t wear your wedding ring all the time.’
Glancing at her left hand and her wedding band, she said, ‘But I do.’
‘No you don’t, not all the time.’
‘Goodness,’ she said, instinctively on her guard and affecting an air of amused nonchalance, ‘what strange things are of interest to you. Are you sure you don’t have too much time on your hands?’
Without answering her, and using just the one oar, he steered the boat round the curve of the bank, narrowly missing an overhanging tree branch. When they were some way clear of the branch, he stopped rowing and with his eyes fixed on her, he said, ‘I wish there was a way of saying this that wouldn’t cause offence, but the trouble is, I find everything about you is of interest to me. You’re a very interesting woman.’
She tensed. ‘If this is what passes for fun for you,’ she said in a quietly measured voice, ‘I don’t think you should say any more.’
‘You think I’m teasing you?’
‘I think it’s possible that you’ve just been dumped by your girlfriend and now you feel the need to reinflate your squashed ego by flirting with the first woman to hand.’
‘Ouch,’ he said with a frown. ‘You don’t think you’re being overly sensitive to what was meant as a compliment?’
She met his gaze full on. ‘Was it meant as a compliment?’
‘Yes. A risky one, I’ll admit. But I really meant no harm by it. All I wanted to do was . . . oh, hell, I don’t know what I hoped to achieve. But it certainly wasn’t this. You look so incredibly angry with me.’
His sincerity both touched and alarmed her. A sloppy drunken flirt with predictable chat-up lines she could deal with, but a sober and contrite man whose company she enjoyed was a different matter. Especially as lurking not so very far beneath her innate sense of propriety was a stirring of something that had no right to be stirred. As if reminding herself of its presence and significance, she looked down at her wedding ring. ‘The reason you saw me without my ring,’ she said, feeling compelled to make the point, ‘was because I was bitten on my finger last weekend by a gnat and the ring was rubbing against the swelling and making it worse.’
He glanced at her hand. ‘Is it better now?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. This was good. Now he was behaving himself; now there’d be no more silly talk from him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Not for your finger, but for offending you. Although, I am sorry about your finger as well. Very sorry. Bites are nasty things. I once had a mosquito bite on my nose. My God, you wouldn’t believe how awful I looked. Children would laugh and point – they were the brave ones; the terrified ones ran off screaming into the night never to be seen again. I was reduced to walking around with a bag on my head like the Elephant Man.’
A small laugh burst out of her. Followed by another.
‘You find the single most humiliating moment in my life funny, do you?’
She laughed some more.
‘You’re a cruel woman.’
And you’re a very dangerous man, she thought when she had her laughter under control.
‘I’m going to be perfectly honest with you,’ he said, his face now serious. ‘When I moved back here, I told myself to expect the unexpected, but never did I think I’d meet someone as unexpected as you.’
She stared at him helplessly. What could she possibly say? ‘I’m sorry if I’ve given you any cause to think . . .’ her words trailed off.
‘To think what?’
She thought of her conversation with Eliza last night. ‘If I’ve given you any misleading signals.’
‘You can put your mind at rest on that score; the fault is all mine. But just so you know, I’m not some sort of lecherous philanderer. Far from it. I really don’t make a habit of making declarations of this sort to women I’ve only just met. And I apologize unreservedly for upsetting you. Just accept that I’m an idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut when he should. Will you promise me something?’
She nodded.
‘For the sake of my self-respect, which has just reached an all-time low, will you try and forget we ever had this conversation?’
‘Forgotten as of now,’ she said with as much conviction as she could manage.
It was an out and out lie. She knew she wouldn’t be able to forget what he’d said. Because already the siren voice of temptation was whispering in her ear –
What would it take to believe he was serious and do the unthinkable?
It wasn’t often that Owen could reduce his friend to stunned silence, but he certainly had now. An hour had passed since his guests had all left and so it was just the two of them sitting on the veranda. In silence.
Finally Rich spoke. ‘Just to clarify matters,’ he said, ‘forty-eight hours after breaking up with Nicole you’re coming on to another woman, and not just any woman, but a married woman who is a neighbour. What. The. Hell. Were. You. Thinking?’
‘All right, no need to labour the point that I cocked up spectacularly. I get it. It was a stupid thing to do.’
‘Stupid doesn’t come close, Owen. You might just as well pack up now and leave because you’ve completely blown your chances of being happy here. How soon before Mia tells someone what you said and word goes round? More to the point, what’s to stop her from telling her husband?’
‘She won’t.’
‘Oh yeah? How can you be so sure?’
Owen shrugged. ‘It’s just a feeling I have. She doesn’t seem the sort to go running to her husband. Or to indulge in tittle-tattle. Especially about herself.’
Rich gave him a withering look. ‘You’d better hope you’re right or your days of being happy here are seriously numbered.’
Owen stared morosely down the garden to the lake. Rich was right on all counts. And the worst of it was he really couldn’t explain what madness had taken hold of him. All he knew was that something extraordinary had happened when he’d been alone in the boat with Mia. He knew that attraction could hit at any time and in the strangest of ways, but never before had he felt it as powerfully as he had when Mia had tilted her face up to the sun and closed her eyes. Such a simple and spontaneously innocent gesture, but one that had stopped him in his tracks. And led him to sitting here in total misery.
How was he ever going to convince Mia that he wasn’t the contemptible chancer she clearly now believed him to be? Oh yes, she’d behaved impeccably for the rest of the afternoon, but not once did she look him in the eye again. Frankly, she looked like she couldn’t wait to get away. And who could blame her?
As far as Jeff could see he might just as well be invisible – nobody listened to a word he said, never mind cared about his opinion. To cheer himself up, he decided he’d get a newspaper from Parr’s and then settle himself in the garden with a beer. He’d get a pork pie as well. He hadn’t had one of those in ages. That would definitely hit the spot.
But when he pushed open the door at Parr’s and found the place chock-full, he was hit with yet a further blast of annoyance. Because there, at the front of the queue holding everyone up while Windolene Wendy fawned over him, was Owen Fletcher. It was about a month since he’d moved here and there seemed to be no escape from him. All Jeff heard these days was Owen Fletcher this, Owen Fletcher that. He couldn’t talk to anyone in the village without being told what a great addition he was to Little Pelham, how he’d rolled up his sleeves and mucked in at the fete; how he’d given Georgina a hand with a problem she’d had with her computer; how he’d made a generous contribution to the village hall fund to put in a new toilet and modernize the kitchen. Closer to home, the man had even offered to give Tattie’s daughter piano lessons when she was around. And if Jeff had heard it once about Owen bloody Fletcher’s sofa-racing antics, he’d heard it a million times. The man was clearly a show-off. The kind of man who went out of his way to attract attention to himself, to enhance his image and social standing for his own ends. He’d soon learn that that sort of behaviour wouldn’t wash. Not in the long run. People might be taken in now, but they would soon tire of him. That’s if the more astute members of the village weren’t already seeing through his act of Mr All-Round-Nice-Guy.
Jeff had only spoken to Little Pelham’s newest inhabitant on one occasion, three weeks ago when he’d returned from his trip to Dubai, when he’d bumped into Owen Fletcher outside the DIY shop in Olney. He’d spotted the green E-Type with its pretentiously personalized number plate of OWEI, and seeing its owner about to open the driver’s door as Jeff pulled in behind, he had decided to approach and introduce himself. ‘Ah, so you’re Jeff Channing,’ the man had said.
‘The one and only,’ Jeff had said back. ‘How are you liking village life? Not too quiet for you?’
‘No not at all; it’s suiting me very well.’
‘I suppose you knew what to expect, having lived here as a boy.’
‘More or less.’
‘So what do you do? What’s your line of work?’
‘I do as little as possible. I sold up my business and came here to live as stress-free a life as I can manage.’