Lone Wolfe (27 page)

 
          
He
lay there, quietly, letting the feeling of calm acceptance spread through him.
He felt different. He felt at peace. He drew Mollie close again and closed his
eyes, and this time when he slept there were no dreams at all.

 
          
MOLLIE
woke to sunlight and the heavy warmth of Jacob’s arm across her. She shifted,
and his eyes flickered opened. ‘Good morning.’

 
          
She
smiled, blinking the sleep from her own eyes. ‘Good morning.’ She gazed at him,
his features softened into a smile, and she realised she’d never seen him look
so relaxed before.
So at peace.
‘You’re different,’
she said softly, and he smiled back at her.

 
          
‘I
feel different.’ He captured her hand in his own and pressed it against her
cheek. There could be no denying that this peaceful morning was a world apart
from the shattered aftermath of last night’s revelations. Mollie chose not to
ask Jacob why. Not yet. He would tell her when he was ready.

 
          
‘Come
on,’ she said instead. She slipped from the bed, reaching for one of Jacob’s
T-shirts, discarded on a nearby chair, and slipped it over her head. ‘I want to
show you something.’

 
          
‘Show
me?’

 
          
‘Outside.’

 
          
Once
they were both properly dressed, fortified with a quick breakfast of coffee and
toast, Mollie led Jacob through the gardens. The world was bathed in fresh,
lemony light, the leaves of every tree a vivid green, glittering with dew.

 
          
‘You’ve
done a marvellous job,’ Jacob told her as they walked along the neat, repointed
paths, the flower beds well weeded, the soil freshly turned and black. ‘It’s
like a completely new place.’

 
          
‘It
is a new place,’ Mollie said firmly, for what had come to her through working
in the gardens—and being with Jacob—was that Wolfe Manor didn’t have to suffer
as a prisoner of the past, just as Jacob didn’t.
Just as
she
didn’t.

 
          
‘Where
are you taking me?’

 
          
‘The
Rose Garden,’ Mollie told him.
‘Although it doesn’t have
roses any more.’
Funny, how difficult it had been to let go of the
roses. It had felt, a little bit, like letting go of her father. That garden
had been so much a part of him, so dear to his heart, and yet Mollie knew he
would have approved of what she’d done. Henry Parker had always believed in
gardening from the heart, with both passion and purity. He would have agreed
the roses had to go, even though his heart would have broken just a little bit.
And she hoped—believed—he would have liked the changes she’d made. She only
hoped Jacob liked them.

 
          
‘Here.’
She stopped at the entrance to the old

 
          
Rose
Garden, the hedges blocking what she’d done from Jacob’s view. She stood on her
tiptoes to cover his eyes. ‘Don’t peek.’

 
          
She
felt his smile against her hand.
‘Certainly not.’

 
          
Smiling
back, her heart starting to beat just a bit faster, she led him to just inside
the garden. ‘Okay.’ She took her hand from his eyes. ‘Look.’

 
          
Silently
Jacob surveyed the transformed space. Although the garden was still octagonal
in shape, no remnant of what it had been remained. It was entirely new.

 
          
Mollie
watched him take in the hand-crafted stream that marked the perimeter of the
garden, and the little wooden bridge—painted red for joy—that spanned it.
Slowly he walked forward, over the bridge, coming into the garden itself.

 
          
Nerves
made Mollie speak, stumbling over the words. ‘I—I got the idea from you, you
know.’

 
          
‘A Zen garden?’

 
          
‘Well,
yes, but not just that. At the expo I read that one of the hallmarks of J
Design is how each building reflects the spirit of the owner rather than the
designer. And I wanted this garden to be like that—a reflection of you.’

 
          
Jacob
turned to her, startled. ‘Me?’

 
          
‘Yes,’
Mollie said, smiling at Jacob’s surprise; he looked as if he could hardly
credit anything being about him. ‘You’re the owner of Wolfe Manor,

 
          
Jacob.
And you’re quite an amazing person, you know.’

 
          
He
caught her hand, his fingers twining with hers, and drew her to his side. ‘Show
me what you did.’

 
          
So
Mollie did. She’d been nervous to over-explain all the choices she’d made in
the garden, but with Jacob it was natural and easy to share her ideas: how
she’d planted the plum trees as a symbol of resilience, since they flowered
without leaf, and the pine tree as a symbol of strength. The wrought iron frog
perched at a bend in the stream was a symbol of sudden enlightenment, and Jacob
recognised it right away.

 
          
‘“Old
pond, frog jumps in, splash.”’ He quoted the old Japanese haiku about sudden
enlightenment softly, and Mollie grinned. ‘My epiphany came last night,’ he
told her, drawing her close again, ‘thanks to you.’

 
          
He
paused as they came to the main showpiece of the garden. Slightly off-centre,
in a bed of raked sand, Mollie had placed eight stones. She’d chosen them
carefully, from the one with glittering gold flecks that reminded her of
Nathaniel’s acting talent, to the smooth, grey oval whose seamless surface made
her think of Annabelle’s cool, collected persona. Yet the stone that drew the
eye to the centre of the arrangement was the tall pillar of rough-hewn granite
that presided over them all, a guardian, a gatekeeper, strong, silent,
there
.
Always.
She felt Jacob’s hand tighten around hers as he silently counted the stones,
his gaze sweeping over them and taking in the significance of the arrangement.

 
          
The
stream that surrounded the garden came to its source at the top of the little
rock garden, where a gradated slope turned it into a waterfall, allowing the
water to spray over the rocks, bestowing them with diamond drops, before
gathering in a basin below that funnelled it back to the stream bed.

 
          
Water,
Mollie knew, was the symbol of rebirth, of both life and healing, and every
rock was bathed by it. Jacob stretched out his hand and let the water wash over
his fingers in his own silent baptism.

 
          
Then
he turned to Mollie and said in a voice low with heartfelt sincerity, ‘Thank
you.’

 
          
They
strolled through the rest of the gardens then, their hands clasped, fingers entwined,
and Mollie showed him all that she had done, loving how easy it was talk to
him, to point out the challenges and difficulties of each part of the project,
the plants she’d worked hard to save and the ones she’d had to let go. She
shook her head mournfully at the ragged stump of a huge oak tree.

 
          
‘I
left the stump to commemorate it,’ she admitted sheepishly. ‘No tree that old
should just be forgotten, the stump removed like it never even was.’

 
          
‘No
indeed,’ Jacob agreed. ‘That’s where we had our tree house, you know.’

 
          
‘I
don’t remember—’

 
          
‘No,
my father tore it down in one of his rages.’ Mollie found herself tensing
slightly at the mention of William Wolfe, as if even now he held some power
over Jacob, and his—their—future happiness. But Jacob just squeezed her hand
and shook his head. ‘It’s over,’ he said softly. ‘I only feel sorrow now, for
the man he was, and the man he could have been. The father we could have had.’
He stopped, gazing at the manor, the sunlight touching its roof in gold. ‘I’ve
lived so much of my life in the shadow of what happened that night,’ he said
quietly.
‘And not just that night, but everything that came
before.
Everything that led up to it.’
He
sighed, the sound soft, sad and accepting. ‘I know I’ll always regret the kind
of childhood we suffered, but you’ve shown me that it doesn’t have to cripple
me. That moment doesn’t have to define me.’ He smiled at her, and Mollie saw
that the shadows from his eyes were gone.

 
          
The
night was cool and damp as Jacob rose from the bed. He left Mollie curled on
her side, her hand tucked under her cheek, a smile curving her lips even in
sleep. Jacob smiled at the sight of her before he pulled on a pair of
drawstring trousers and a T-shirt and left the room.

 
          
He’d
become accustomed to walking the manor and its grounds by night, the only
respite from the hell of his nightmares. Yet tonight he’d had no dreams; he
hadn’t had one for nearly a week, since his ghosts had been exorcised and he’d
felt the healing balm of forgiveness. He forgave himself, which seemed an
incredible and amazing achievement, to seek something from within that he had
not thought he’d been capable of possessing in the first place.

 
          
In
the past week he’d found himself walking through the rooms of the house with a
different, sweeter set of memories than he’d had before.
This is where Sebastian took his first steps. This is where Jack
sledged down the back stairs on a baking tray and blacked both his eyes. This
is where Lucas and I stole a batch of biscuits from Maggie and ate them until
we were sick
.

 
          
He
paused at the foot of the grand staircase.
This
is where I saved Annabelle
.

 
          
Annabelle
had rung him several weeks ago, needing his forgiveness, feeling guilty for her
own sorry part in the events of that terrible night, believing herself to be
responsible for driving him away. And Jacob had given it freely, without
reservation or regret, for he’d never once thought she had anything to be
guilty for. Yet all the while he’d held onto his own guilt, let it burn into
his soul like the most corrosive acid. It was only with Mollie’s help that the
scars were now healing over, fading away.

 
          
He
was thankful now, in a new, quiet way, for his own hand in the events of that
night. It was strange, to feel gratitude after living with the souldestroying
guilt and fear for so long. Strange to let them go, and letting something
cleaner and stronger take their place.

 
          
As
dawn broke over the gardens, Jacob knew he had one more place to visit before
the night was truly over.

 
          
Mollie
woke alone. She sat up in bed, saw the first pink streaks of dawn slant through
the window and illuminate the room in pale morning light, touching everything
with gold. Jacob wasn’t in bed; he wasn’t in the room.

 
          
She
slipped out of bed and quickly dressed. He was probably just working, she told
herself, or perhaps just enjoying some early-morning solitude.

 
          
Yet
that same fear that had been eating at her contentment all week now rose again
inside of her, like a hunger that could never be satisfied. This week had been
wonderful, so unbearably sweet, yet even so a pall of uncertainty hung over it.
Neither she nor Jacob had talked about the future, and Mollie wondered when—or
if—they would, or what kind of future they could even
have
.
Jacob still seemed set on selling Wolfe Manor, and travelling who-knew-where.

 
          
Still,
she was not about to go in search of Jacob this early in the morning and ask
questions or demand answers. Instead she slipped on a pair of boots and headed
out the back door, to the garden.

 
          
She
left the ordered gardens behind, heading to the distant areas that had been
outside her domain: the smooth, unrippled expanse of the lake, the copse of
birches that was beautiful in its unexpected wildness, all the parts of the
estate that were lovely without being landscaped. She loved this place, she
thought with a pang of sorrow. She would be sorry to see it sold, and not just
for what it might mean for her and Jacob.