Page 45 of Could It Be Magic?
Thea nodded. ‘It was, but it got a lot worse when he started using his phone. Poker, online slots, sports betting… it was suddenly all there, any time he needed a fix. What had been a once-a-month social thing became an addiction. By the time I realised what was going on, we were up to our eyeballs in debt, and we needed to sell the house to cover it.’
‘That’s when you moved into your gran’s annexe,’ Nick said. ‘I remember you coming back to Lower Brambleton, when the kids were really small. I wanted to reach out to you, but I wasn’t quite sure how. No one really knew what had happened between you and Ed.’
Thea shrugged. ‘I wanted to keep it that way. Tristan knows, of course, but I asked him to keep quiet – and Gran knows most of it. I had to tell her, when we needed a place to live. The kids were so tiny, and I had nowhere else to go.’ She blinked back more tears. ‘It’s stupid, but I’m so ashamed that I let myself get taken in by what he did. How could I have been so stupid? I turned a blind eye to it, and buried my head in the sand because I didn’t want to face the truth. It was only when the court orders and County Court Judgements started arriving in the post that I let myself believe how bad things were. We had no choice but to sell our house, and the money I’d inherited from Mum and Dad had all gone into buying the place. Ed, at least, had the decency to leave once he knew the game was up, but once the debts were all paid off it didn’t leave much left for me and the kids. That’s why we ended up in Gran’s annexe until I could get myself straight again.’
‘And the bastard hasn’t ever had the guts to make good?’ Thea could hear the anger in Nick’s voice.
‘We’ve had no contact with him since he left,’ Thea sighed. ‘Until recently, when Cora got a message from a boy who claims to be her half-brother.’
‘What?’ Nick’s hand stiffened under her own. ‘When?’
‘Just after her birthday. So it looks as though I might have to make contact with Ed again, for the sake of the kids.’
‘You don’t have to do anything, Thea,’ Nick said gently. ‘Just because some boy has been in touch with Cora, it doesn’t mean you have to respond.’
Thea shook her head. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’ She felt a slight feeling of unease that Nick couldn’t grasp the complexity of the situation. ‘I can’t just ignore this. There are children involved – not just Cora and Dylan, but at least one other child of Ed’s. I have to be the adult in the situation, to protect my kids.’
‘Of course you do,’ Nick replied. ‘And I can’t pretend to understand what that feels like. But you’ve come so far since those awful days, I would hate to see you dragged back into a situation you didn’t want to be in.’
Thea turned towards Nick. ‘I promise that’s not going to happen.’ She reached out a hand to touch his cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added. ‘I’m ruining your evening, aren’t I? You can go back to the party if you like. I don’t mind.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Nick murmured into her hair. ‘I’m staying with you, and when you’re ready, we can get out of here.’
‘But it’s still so early.’
Nick shifted on the chaise longue so that Thea could see the moonlight reflected in the serious expression of his eyes. ‘I’m staying with you,’ he repeated.
Thea felt a rush of gratitude mixed with something much stronger as she took a deep breath to steady herself. Nick had listened to her and had been there for her as she’d admitted something she hadn’t talked about in years. The tumult of emotions she felt as she looked at him was confusing, but some instinct drove her to silence the voices now. Before she could second guess herself, she leaned forward and kissed Nick hard on the mouth. He stiffened in surprise, before she felt him responding to her, and as they continued to kiss, Thea felt the strange, but reassuring combination of passion and security. She wondered, not for the first time, why they hadn’t got round to this years ago. Things would have been so different if she’d got together with Nick and not Ed…
As they broke apart again, Thea’s heart was thumping in her chest.
‘Shall we get out of here?’ Nick asked, a husky note in his tone.
‘Absolutely.’ Thea stood up and pulled Nick to his feet. ‘But, if it’s all right with you, I don’t want to go home just yet.’
Nick smiled at her in the moonlight. ‘It’s a good job I tidied the house before I left then, isn’t it? Shall we have a coffee at my place?’
‘I’d like that.’ Thea smiled back. ‘I’d like that very much indeed.’
Slipping down the stairs, not bothering to say goodbye to anyone else, they headed for home.
39
The atmosphere between them seemed to crackle as Nick drove the short distance from Cherry Tree Court back to his small cottage on the far side of the boundary of Saints Farm. Nick had lived there ever since he’d got back from agricultural college. It was a former farm worker’s cottage and had lain empty for many years before Nick decided to take it on and renovate it. His mother and father had agreed to give it to him, so long as he footed the bill for the repairs, and it had been a labour of love for Nick, over the years.
Thea sat quietly in the passenger seat, and Nick glanced across at her from time to time, trying to gauge how she was feeling. It had come to him, as they sat and talked, that despite the fact they’d lived in the same place for a long time, and grown up together, there was still so much they didn’t know about each other. The revelations she’d made about what had happened with Ed had shocked him, but it had also ignited a fierce protectiveness within him towards her and her children. He was concerned about what she’d told him about Ed’s other son making contact with Cora, and he wanted to be there for Thea and the kids, to support them during what might prove to be a difficult time. Whatever he’d felt about Thea before, it seemed to have intensified now that she’d trusted him enough to confide in him. That, combined with the fierce physical attraction that had built through the earlier part of the evening, and he was more certain than ever that he’d done the right thing in spending more time with her.
‘Well, here we are,’ he said, cutting the engine and turning to Thea. ‘Are you ready for that coffee?’
Thea’s smile assuaged some of the nerves he was feeling. She’d been a whole lot calmer when they’d walked out to the Land Rover, and seemed to have recovered her equilibrium. ‘Sounds good,’ she said as she swiftly opened the door.
A silence fell between them as he led Thea through to the small kitchen at the back of the cottage. He brewed some coffee in the cafetière and then they walked back to his tiny sitting room at the front of the cottage.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been to your house before!’ Thea gave a nervous laugh. ‘I mean, not since you’ve actually lived here…’ She seemed relieved to be away from Cherry Tree Court and able to talk about lighter things.
Nick grinned as a shared memory surfaced from the back of his mind. ‘Oh yeah! I remember when we were eighteen, we all came here for a party after our last exams. God, the place was a mess, wasn’t it? But after about five pints of cider, I don’t think we really cared.’
‘Just as well,’ Thea replied, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘I think if we hadn’t been so drunk, the stone floors would have been really uncomfortable.’
