Page 89 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

‘And pop your Disney cherry.’

He smiled. ‘Something like that.’

‘I’m not sure that’s the one for you to start with, not at your age.’

‘Yeah, but I have to see it now, don’t I? Considering the evening we’ve just had, I need to get the references.’

‘I suppose there is that.’

‘And I was thinking…I don’t know…maybe you might come over and watch it with me?’

Ottilie’s heart sank. She should have seen this coming. Stupid, stupid Ottilie; always letting her emotions get the better of her. She should have been clearer from the start. He looked so nervous, so hopeful, and she was going to smash the confidence he must have had to muster to ask this question to bits with her answer.

‘Heath, I’ve had a great night tonight, better than I thought I would, and you’re a good friend but…’

‘Ah.’ The physical step back he took from her was like a knife in her gut. ‘Yeah, of course. It was just a thought, you know…Doesn’t matter.’

‘It’s not that I don’t think you’re attractive, because I do.’

‘You don’t need to explain. I get it.’

‘No, you don’t. It’s nothing to do with you?—’

‘I really do get it. Please, don’t make it more embarrassing than it already is.’

‘We’d both be rebounds for each other.’

He studied her for a moment. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘Isn’t it right? We’ve both just come from relationships where…’

‘I thought that was all the more reason we deserved a bit of fun. I wasn’t after anything serious; I just thought we’d enjoyed each other’s company tonight and it might be nice to spend more time together. It wasn’t that deep; it was only company, that’s all. Forget it. Clearly, it’s a bigger deal for you.’

‘I’m just not ready. It’s not even a year?—’

‘Of course. I’m sorry for asking,’ he said, a new stiffness to his tone that twisted the knife of guilt that little bit more. ‘It was insensitive of me – I realise that now.’

‘You’re not! If things had been different, the timing…I don’t know, maybe. I like you…’

He turned away, staring out into the darkness, and she realised she was only making it worse. Even as she tried to find words that would make it better, the sound of a clanking old Land Rover engine grew into the night air.

‘This’ll be Victor,’ she said, relieved and frustrated in equal measure at the timing of the farmer’s arrival. ‘Will I see you tomorrow? At the house, I mean. I understand if you don’t want to come now; I realise I don’t deserve?—’

‘I promised my gran I’d help you, so I’ll be there,’ he said tersely, and then walked off in the direction of Flo’s house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Ottilie was beginning to feel she was getting under Corrine and Victor’s feet. She’d been at Daffodil Farm for six weeks, and while they’d been more than welcoming, she realised her presence was disrupting their usual routine. Every day her house was a bit closer to being ready to live in again, but it was slow going and often frustrating. Often whatever work they’d done would turn out to need redoing because of some feature or other they’d failed to take into account, or some other damage that nobody had seen until it was too late. It didn’t help that they were all mostly amateurs, learning each repair on the job, watching YouTube videos or reading manuals or working it out as they looked at it. Ottilie didn’t worry about the quality of the work, but she did worry that it was going to take a lot longer than anyone had anticipated, and that any enthusiasm they had was fast waning.

Some days Heath was there and some days he wasn’t. He had his own job to do, of course, like most of the volunteers, and so she completely understood that. The distance between them was what was hard to bear. He was courteous, but he didn’t make unnecessary conversation. On the days he turned up he worked hard and he did his best, and he smiled politely at her and said all the things he ought to say, but she knew the truth. She’d led him on and she’d hurt him and he hadn’t deserved that. She’d tried to tell him that he didn’t need to keep turning up, that the drive from Manchester was too much and that he didn’t owe her anything, but he insisted that he’d promised Florence he’d see the project through and that he was only doing it for her.

She’d also realised that if the renovations were going to take as long as she feared, she could hardly ask Fliss to keep on a locum nurse for all that time. It was costing her boss a lot of money to pay the cover, so she’d made a call to say she was going to go back to work. With the biggest structural jobs done, Ottilie would have to somehow fit in the rest during evenings and weekends.

‘I think I’ll move back into Wordsworth Cottage,’ she said as she sat in her uniform having breakfast with Victor and Corrine.

They exchanged an uncertain look.

‘It’s not finished yet,’ Corrine said.

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