The Rose Garden (17 page)

‘You did the right thing, Gina, thank you.’

‘I’m afraid I have to go and open the café,’ Gina said, picking up her handbag.

‘Thanks so much for bringing this to show me,’ said Molly as she walked her to the back door.

‘What is it?’ asked Kim, looking at the paper on the table. ‘What’s on it?’

‘It’s obviously a plan for Mossbawn,’ Molly said, studying it intently. ‘Someone has drawn up some kind of development plan
which clearly entails knocking down the house and destroying most of the garden.’

‘What are you going to do?’ demanded Kim, furious.

‘I don’t know, but it explains a lot: that man Frank Dunne’s absolute lack of interest in the house, and when Ronan King mentioned to him two weeks ago about the dining furniture he said I could keep the lot, he didn’t need any of it. I presumed he was moving his own furniture, but obviously if the house is going to be knocked down no wonder he doesn’t need it!’ she said angrily.

‘You can’t just go knocking down a beautiful old house like Mossbawn, surely?’

‘Unfortunately it’s not a listed property.’

‘What can you do?’

‘Well, first off I can talk to Ronan King, find out what he knows about all this and see if he has any connection to Liam Kelly.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve already signed the first part of the contract, so I’m not sure what that means. I’ll call Michael and talk to him.’

Seething with annoyance, Molly phoned her solicitor, David’s partner Michael Quinn, but his secretary told her that he was busy and would phone her back. She then managed to get through to the Dublin auctioneer, who made it very clear that, while he was acting for her in regard to the sale of the property, he had utterly no responsibility for what a buyer might do with a property once they had purchased it.

‘Obviously most of us want our homes kept as homes, but with large houses like these, this is often not practical and they may end up as nursing homes or put to some other use. I remember one beautiful house in West Cork was turned into a recording studio by a musician.’

‘So you had no idea about Frank Dunne’s plans for Mossbawn?’

‘We didn’t discuss it,’ he said defensively. ‘I have a large number of properties on my books and could not be expected to follow up what happens to them.’

Fifteen minutes later Michael Quinn phoned her. As she quizzed him about what her legal position was with regard to the sale, he asked if she had signed the contract.

‘Yes, I dropped it back into your office last Friday.’

She could hear Michael rustling around searching for something.

‘I have it,’ he declared.

‘A copy?’

‘No, the original,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m sorry, Molly, but Denise has been on sick leave for the past two weeks and we have a new girl filling in for her, so I’m afraid there has been a bit of a backlog with documentation.’

‘It’s still sitting in your office?’ she laughed.

‘Exactly!’ he apologized. ‘I have the contract here in front of me.’

‘Tear it up, Michael!’ she said and explained to him what had happened.

‘Gladly!’ he said.

Kim was grinning from ear to ear when Molly told her she would not be proceeding with the sale of the house to Frank Dunne.

‘I’m so glad that awful man is not buying the place and getting his hands on Mossbawn.’

‘So am I, and hopefully the next time we’ll find the perfect buyer,’ she said, reminding Kim that the situation with regard to selling Mossbawn had not changed.

‘Or maybe you’ll find some other way of holding on to the house,’ added Kim encouragingly, already texting Emma and Grace with the good news.

KIM WAS WALKING DOWN BY THE RIVER WHEN SHE SPOTTED THE
pair of swans with their cygnets. Automatically she reached for her iPhone to take some photos of them as they glided along, the baby swans paddling gently between their serene parents. The light was perfect and she did her best to capture the moment without disturbing them.

‘Hey, I’d love a copy of that!’ said a voice, and she turned to see Luke Ryan sitting on the stone bridge in the sunshine watching her.

‘No problem,’ she replied. ‘Give me your phone number and I’ll send it to you.’

He called out his number and she saved it to her contacts.

‘Thanks, I left my phone in my jacket pocket in my car.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, stopping to watch the swans. ‘They are so beautiful.’

‘I’m planning on doing a project on legends with my class, so the swans will tie in perfectly.’

‘Where do you teach?’

‘Kilfinn National School,’ he said proudly. ‘The village school is small, but the kids are great.’

‘It looks cute.’

‘It opened over a hundred years ago, so most people in the village went there sometime,’ he explained.

‘Have you been teaching there long?’

‘About two years. I was working in London and one day it hit me that I didn’t like what I was doing. I worked crazy hours, and moving figures and numbers on a computer screen just didn’t do it for me any more. I didn’t give a damn about it, so I applied to teacher training college and was very lucky to get accepted.’

‘I worked in banking for years but lost my job last year,’ she admitted. ‘I guess I’m a bit like you and now I’m ready for a change in direction.’

‘Is that why you came to Kilfinn?’ he asked.

‘Partly. I was in a relationship and that broke up too.’ Kim didn’t know why she was telling a virtual stranger so much, but she felt that she could trust him. ‘It’s all been a bit of a disaster and I don’t know why, but I just wanted to come and stay with Molly, hang out in Mossbawn, the way I used to when I was a kid.’

‘And I bet Molly has you doing plenty of hard physical graft!’ he teased. ‘Spreading shite and the like!’

‘Yes, and I smelled to high heaven after!’ she said, bursting out laughing.

‘Hey, I’ve got to go,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ve got to see a man about a horse!’

‘Me too, I’m due back at Dr Jim’s. I’m helping out on reception for a few weeks,’ she said.

She watched the swans serenely sail along the river for another few minutes, before heading back to the surgery.

Later on she was cooking pasta for dinner for herself and Molly when she got a text from Luke.

‘
How about coffee on Saturday morning if you’re free?
’

She was free …

‘
Sounds good.
’

‘
Pick you up at 11a.m. Luke
’

‘
C u then. Kim
’

Kim couldn’t believe that she was actually contemplating meeting him. He might be a serial rapist for all she knew, but checking him out in vague conversations with Molly over the
following few days she realized he sounded a pretty decent type of guy. Obviously he’d had a few girlfriends over the years, but by the sound of it he seemed to be currently single … Besides, Luke was more the kind of guy that you wanted to be friends with rather than get romantically involved with.

They were going to go for coffee, that was all.

LUKE ARRIVED IN THE JEEP, BUT THIS TIME WITHOUT THE TRAILER.
Kim wondered where they were going as she ran out to meet him.

‘How are you?’ He grinned admiringly as she slipped in beside him in her jeans and suede jacket.

‘Great. I’ve been kept busy in the surgery and I’m building a website about Mossbawn House.’

‘Interesting! What does Molly think?’

‘I think at first she was a bit worried about it, but when I showed her how it is going to look and she read some of the content I think that she was actually very pleased.’

‘I must look out for it. My brother Justin wants Grangefield to have one, but we haven’t got round to it yet. He says it will help promote the stud farm so it won’t only be the locals that know about us.’

‘It would certainly help.’

‘I thought maybe we’d drive over to Rossmore, take a walk around and get a coffee there.’

‘Sounds great!’

Rossmore was about a forty-minute drive away, a small seaside village with a cluster of houses and cottages, a few craft shops and a stylish hotel with an award-winning restaurant. A popular tourist spot during the summer, for most of the year it depended on fishing.

They chatted easily and Kim was surprised at how much they
had in common. She couldn’t believe that in Dublin they had literally worked on the same street for five years, had a few mutual acquaintances and yet had never bumped into each other!

‘It’s mad!’ she giggled.

She discovered that Luke loved Mexican food, had travelled around Australia for a year, owned a horse called Lucky when he was twelve and hated zombie movies.

‘They are pathetic! Give me an intelligent vampire any day of the week!’

As it was dry but overcast, Rossmore was quiet as they walked along the steep cliff path, the scenery spectacular.

‘I think we deserve a coffee now,’ he joked as they found their way to a small café overlooking the seafront.

An hour later they were still sitting there talking, and it had begun to rain heavily.

Coffee turned into lunch and Kim ordered the seafood special plate, while Luke went for a massive bowl of mussels.

‘The seafood here is amazing,’ she enthused as she tucked into crab, prawns and some spicy chorizo.

As Luke was driving he didn’t drink, but she had a glass of white wine.

He was good company, easy to talk to and actually very attractive, with his dark hair and unusual grey-green eyes. And the conversation never flagged as they chatted about when they were kids, their favourite films and places they had both backpacked to when they were younger.

‘The next time I go to Melbourne and up to the Barrier Reef I will not be staying in a hostel and sharing a room with ten other sweaty guys,’ he vowed. ‘I’ll be staying in one of those nice fancy hotels sipping cocktails!’

‘Me too!’ she laughed.

As the weather eased they made a run back to the jeep, Kim flinging herself into the seat. As he reached for her safety belt, his hand brushed hers and Kim had the strangest feeling that she wanted him to put his arms around her. Luke didn’t seem to notice
as he entertained her with stories about the kids in his school and their ability with iPads, iPhones and all things technical.

‘Some of the older teachers in the school haven’t a clue as to how tech-savvy most five-, six- and seven-year-olds are!’

‘Luke, thanks for the coffee and the lunch,’ she said as he dropped her off at Mossbawn. ‘I really had a great time.’

‘So did I!’ he said as she began to get out. She took her time, deliberately waiting to see if he would arrange to see her again, or even ask her out. But he didn’t, and she felt strangely disappointed.

‘Bye, Kim!’ he called good-naturedly as he turned the jeep and drove off.

She was so stupid, trying to read something into him being nice and polite and asking her for coffee, when that was all it was – coffee! She was the one reading far more into it than there was. Maybe she was kind of desperate after Gareth. Maybe her confidence was so low that if a guy was any way decent to her she presumed it was more. She really liked Luke, but she guessed that he was just being kind and neighbourly. His mum and Molly were friends, for heaven’s sake! She just needed to cop on to herself.

Over the next few days she checked her messages, but there was nothing from Luke. She was tempted to text him, but resisted. Kilfinn was a very small place – they were bound to bump into each other again … and again …

MOLLY HAD BEEN STRESSED OUT FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS. FRANK
Dunne had not taken well to her decision not to go ahead with the sale of Mossbawn and had actually been quite threatening. He’d written to her and phoned her three or four times, shouting that they had made a deal and she could not back out of it. But Michael Quinn had been quite firm that she had not returned a signed contract so there was nothing he could do and they had not technically received his deposit from his solicitor.

‘I spent time and effort on this project, not to count the costs I’ve wasted on plans for Mossbawn!’ he’d ranted at her. ‘You just can’t go and change your mind!’

‘You own the property!’ Michael reminded her. ‘And there is nothing he can say or do that will change that.’

She felt so alone and vulnerable, and prayed to David to give her strength to stand firm and ignore Dunne’s bullying tactics.

One day, coming home from the village, she was sure she had spotted his car parked near her driveway and she had panicked, turning around and driving to Rena’s.

When Cara phoned to ask her to dinner on Saturday, Molly automatically said no. Over the past few months her friends had regularly asked her along to dinners, meals out, or to join them for a few drinks, but she had refused. She knew they were being kind and trying to include her the way they always had when David was alive, but she just couldn’t face it without him. She always found
some excuse to back out or cancel arrangements. It was pathetic to isolate herself from their friends, from the other couples they used to hang out with, but she couldn’t help herself. How could she pretend to be happy when she saw all those couples and she was the one alone? A widow. She hated that damn word, just hated it!

Of late the invitations were coming less often and she knew that she had no one to blame but herself. She was happy to watch TV or listen to the radio or read a book – was it any wonder her social life had become a great big zero since David’s death?

‘This time I’m not taking a “no”!’ argued Cara fiercely. ‘I’m fed up of you saying “no” to Tim and me. We are your friends – remember that. If you were the one who had died, not David, we would still try to be David’s friends. You know well, we’d have David here for dinner and drinks, a few meals. Why can’t you accept that, Molly, and stop being so bloody difficult?’

‘Okay, okay!’ she said, giving in. ‘I’d love to come to dinner!’

Cara and Tim were such good friends, and Molly knew that Tim really missed David too. They’d been close friends, played golf every week and often went for a coffee or a few pints.