Page 39 of Coming Home to Roseford Villas
Halstead House looked beautiful in the late October sunlight. Somerset had been experiencing a run of unseasonably warm weather, resulting in a golden glow that gilded the turning leaves of the trees in the woodland directly behind the house. The gatehouse, a shortbread-coloured stone construction, stood sentry on the left-hand side of the driveway, and as Rory pulled into the parking bay off to the rear of the building, she felt a thrill of excitement. She couldn’t quite believe that this was going to be her home. She knew it was only temporary, but she couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to stay here longer. She could already anticipate the joy of making it her own.
‘Welcome back!’ Stella was hurrying down the driveway to meet her as she got out of the car. ‘It’s so lovely to see you again.’
The two women hugged and Stella handed Rory the keys, explaining each one on the ring. ‘But if you have any problems, just give me a call, or come and find me. I’m about most days, either teaching or planning the next retreat. Chris isn’t around a lot at the moment as he’s working on another renovation project just the other side of Yeovil, but if you get any urgent issues with the house, give me a shout and we’ll get them sorted.’
‘It looks wonderful,’ Rory breathed as they made their way to the front door. ‘I can’t wait to get settled in.’
Stella smiled at her. ‘I was really happy here when I first came to Roseford,’ she said softly. ‘I hope, even despite all of the stuff with Leo, that you’ll be the same.’
Rory’s heart sped up a little at the mention of Leo’s name, but she tried not to let it show on her face. He wasn’t in Roseford any more, so there was no need to worry about bumping into him. ‘I think I will,’ she said to Stella. ‘I really do think I will.’
Stella said goodbye and they agreed to meet on Monday morning to go through the notes for the course Rory would be running, and to agree when she’d be tutoring Gabe for his English GCSEs. Everything felt as though it was falling into place, and although Rory still wondered what it would have been like if Leo was also living in Roseford, she found herself taken up with starting this next phase. There was too much else to think about without brooding about the loss of Leo McKendrick. She’d spent a lot of time in her teens doing just that, and she was damned if she was going to do it as an adult. Leo had his life, and she had hers, she told herself, not for the first time. But if that was really the case, why did her thoughts keep returning to him? And as she carefully unpacked her car and got ready to begin this new start, why did she keep thinking about how much lovelier it would have been if Leo had still been around?
45
Leo stared in irritated frustration at the laptop screen in front of him. It had been eight weeks since he’d started his new job at Palmer, Dennis and Wright but it felt like eight decades. Aunt Vi and Uncle Bryan had waved him off at Taunton station, but even as the train had pulled out, he’d been second-guessing his decision to continue upon his pre-plotted trajectory. The job offer would have been difficult to walk away from, but he could have done it: could have cited ill health as a reason not to take it. Goodness knows he had enough medical grounds to absolve him of any guilt and responsibility. But he hadn’t had the nerve. He just hadn’t been brave enough. And now here he was, back in the corporate world, a world he knew so well, trying to adapt again into what he knew best.
The trouble was, after the first few days (if he was honest, the first few hours), he realised he’d made a terrible mistake. No, he thought. Not just one: a lot of terrible mistakes. Taking the job in the first place, turning down Uncle Bryan and Aunt Vi’s offer to sell him Roseford Villas when he’d loved running it so much, and, most heart-breaking of all, walking away from Rory for the second time in his life, having realised too late that he’dblamed her manuscript for the break-up because he was just too frightened to admit how he really felt about her. This time he was a grown adult and leaving her had been totally his decision. He couldn’t blame his parents, or anyone else.
Christ, he should have fought harder. He should levelled with her while he had the chance. Instead, he’d let her leave Roseford thinking that he hated her for writing about them, what they’d once been to each other. The truth was, by the time he’d left for London, he didn’t care what she chose to write: he only knew that he loved her, and he’d do anything to get her back.
Sighing, he shut the laptop and pushed himself up from his office chair. He didn’t have any meetings booked for the rest of the day, which was just as well; his concentration levels were shot. His back gave a warning twinge, which had been happening more and more since his move to London. He’d put it down to the terrible bed in the rented flat that the law firm had allocated for him while he was trying to find somewhere permanent to live, but he felt as though even sleeping on the best bed in the world would have brought him little comfort. He hadn’t slept properly since he’d left Roseford, and deep down he knew he wasn’t likely to for as long as he couldn’t get Rory out of his head.
Absently, he checked his phone, hoping for a text, or a WhatsApp, or something from her. But unsurprisingly there was nothing. Why would there be? There was nothing left to say. He chucked his phone onto the desk in frustration. What a mess he’d made of his life. She’d avoided him for weeks when they’d both been in Roseford. It was unlikely she’d contact him now they were far away from each other. How they’d managed to keep that distance, he still wasn’t sure: but he’d respected the boundary of the chalet, and had made sure he’d given her the space. He kept wondering, now, if he should have done.
‘Everything OK?’ Andrew Palmer, one of the partners in the law firm, poked his head around Leo’s office door. ‘I was heading out to lunch if you fancied a bite to eat.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll grab something later.’ Leo forced a smile at his new boss. ‘I’ve not got much of an appetite at the moment.’
Andrew, who was only a few years older than Leo, gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Still nervous about being the new boy? I wouldn’t worry. You’ll be making partner before you know it, with your track record.’
Leo knew that Andrew had intended to reassure him, but his words had exactly the opposite effect. He felt his stomach clenching at the prospect of another long, stultifying stint behind a desk, looking at contracts until dusk fell every evening, taking paperwork home at the weekends and spending day after day locked into the corporate world. The vision made him want to scream. He knew so many people would have given their back teeth to have this opportunity, so why did he feel as if the prison doors were clanging shut behind him, with no chance of parole? He tried to give his best, most confident smile.
‘Oh, you know,’ he said quickly, ‘it’s just taking a little while to get back into the job after the time out over the summer. I guess I’m missing the fresh air!’
‘Well, call me a dyed-in-the-wool city lad, but too much greenery brings me out in hives!’ Andrew laughed. ‘I mean, the wife and I spent three weeks in the Loire Valley last summer and by the end of it I couldn’t wait to clap eyes on Canary Wharf again. You can have too much of a good thing, you know.’
Leo wasn’t so sure he would ever have had too much of the good things he’d had over the summer, whether it was fresh air, green grass or the opportunity to fall back in love with Rory, but he kept that to himself. ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to the City again,’ he said, picking his phone up from the desk. ‘Maybe I will come with you for a sandwich after all.’
‘Oh, I think we can do better than that,’ Andrew replied. ‘I know this great place a couple of streets away that serves a brilliant plat du jour. We’ll call it a “welcome back to your spiritual and professional home” treat, shall we? You’ve been in the wilderness long enough.’ Andrew clapped a hand on Leo’s shoulder as they left the office, and Leo tried to summon the will to get enthusiastic about the prospect of a smart lunch. Really, he thought, all he wanted was a sandwich, the scent of freshly cut grass and Rory.
46
Another week passed, and Leo’s mind hadn’t changed. The traffic going past the window of his flat kept him awake, the long hours encased in the modern glass building that was the pride of Palmer, Dennis and Wright felt stifling, and he missed the freedom of the far more casual work attire of shorts and polo shirts he’d donned during his summer as custodian of Roseford Villas. Contract law, the thing that had fired him up in the early years of his career, just wasn’t doing it for him any more. He was bored rigid.
Every evening when he returned to the tiny studio flat in North Greenwich, he looked around the four walls and felt claustrophobic. He’d taken to going on long walks, just to get out of the place, but as the evenings grew chillier and the rain started to fall, he realised that, along with the encroaching darkness, this wasn’t a solution he could sustain. At least walking for an hour or two guaranteed he was mostly exhausted by the time he fell into bed, but then he’d wake consistently with the early-morning traffic and toss and turn until it was time to get up again. The green space of Greenwich Park gave him the comforting illusion of the countryside, but it didn’t feel enough.
Nine weeks had passed since he’d started his new job, and he knew it had to end. Sighing, on the short commute to work, he thought about WhatsApping Andrew Palmer, who’d become a mate in the weeks Leo had been working at the firm, to suggest a meeting. If he didn’t make a move soon, he’d be going sick anyway, he feared. Something definitely had to give. If he didn’t take charge now, Leo was worried that something was going to be him. But was that really a wise decision? Shaking his head slightly, he closed WhatsApp again. Perhaps he was being too hasty.
As he was checking his work emails, he couldn’t resist opening his web browser and looking up Roseford Villas on Rightmove. His aunt and uncle had put the place on the market some weeks ago, but the last time he’d checked with them, no one had shown any interest. It was a tricky time to be in the hospitality trade, even with Roseford’s British Heritage Fund connections. They’d been warned by the estate agent that the market was sluggish, but they desperately needed to sign off on the place in Spain, and so were going ahead with the sale. They’d dropped the price within a month, but when he’d phoned Aunt Vi to check in with her last week, there hadn’t been any movement. With a jolt, however, as Leo perused the listings for Roseford, he realised that Roseford Villas had disappeared again. Changing his options slightly, he selected ‘include properties under offer and SSTC’ and searched again. And there it was. Roseford Villas had a flag on it saying, ‘Under Offer’.
Leo’s heart gave a huge thump. Even though he’d discussed buying the business with Aunt Vi and Uncle Bryan, it still felt strange to think that someone else had shown interest. But, perhaps, it also signalled an ending of that particular line of thought for him. He’d lain awake a lot over the past few weeks, wondering if he had made the right decision in turning themdown. Now, it seemed, it was out of his hands. Someone else had rushed in where he’d feared to tread.
Leaning back in his seat on the train, Leo tried to reconcile the very different emotions that kept fighting for dominance in his brain. On the one hand, it meant that the dream he’d had in the small hours of a London night of upping sticks back to Roseford and taking over the B&B was truly over, which had to be a good thing. It had been a daft plan, anyway. He couldn’t be sure he’d have got the mortgage, and even with a decent deposit, it was still a huge financial risk. Putting down roots in Roseford might have seemed appealing when he was between jobs, but did he really want the commitment of running a B&B? What, apart from a couple of months’ experience, could he possibly bring to the project in the long term, anyway?
On the other hand, he’d adored being in Roseford. As much as he’d loved his time with Rory, it was the village of Roseford that had stolen his heart as much as she had. Roseford felt like the promise of home, of a new beginning, of something deeper than pushing around the small print of a thousand businesses that weren’t his. It feltreal.Roseford Villas had been his, for a short time, and he’d savoured every minute of it.
In frustration, Leo shrugged himself off the seat as the train got to his stop. It was no use, anyway. Aunt Vi and Uncle Bryan deserved to start the next chapter of their lives, and a firm offer on the table was what was needed for them to do so. A pipe dream from their nephew was about as far from that certainty as it was possible to be. Slouching along the platform to the office, Leo tried to put it all out of his mind. The dream, such as it was, needed to end.
