Page 47 of Gideon
“I’ll miss …” he starts to say impetuously but then shuts himself down. “I’ve enjoyed very much being with you,” he finishes very formally. “It’s been an experience that I won’t forget.”
“Like appendicitis?”
He grins. “Not nearly as painful.” He pauses. “Well, not quite.”
I shove him and he laughs, but I retract my hand quickly. He can say all he wants. I know my own mind for once, and the clouds of confusion and rage that have been my constant companions for years have swept back, leaving me in an uneasy sort of clarity. I have to let him do this, to separate us, because he needs to do it. I know if I stepped into him, his control would snap, and I could have what I want, but he would blame himself and some of that sunny sheen to him would be tarnished and damaged, and I can’t have that.
“Four months?” I say, holding out my hand.
He bites his lips but takes it, the zing in my palm somewhat familiar by now. “And if you’ve changed your mind, you’ll tell me straightaway,” he says quickly. “No hard feelings. I will totally understand.”
“And the same for you,” I say.
He smiles almost helplessly. “It’s a deal.”
Our hands separate and we turn to see the land drawing close, but my hand tingles as if he’s still holding it. I wonder if that will be enough to tide me over for the next few months.
Chapter
Ten
Until now you’ve just bobbed along on life’s stream like an oblivious and very grumpy cork
Gideon
It’s twilight when we pull up the long drive leading up toChi an Mor. The great Elizabethan manor house glows in the last rays of sunlight like it’s been lit by spotlight.
I stir in the back seat. “Where am I staying?” I ask.
Milo glances back at me and smiles. “Oz and Silas have got a cottage on the estate. It’s lovely and private, so they thought it would be perfect for you.”
Niall looks at me in the rear-view mirror. “The house is still open to the public, so that’s no good for you. It would be like staying in a goldfish bowl.”
I wonder with a pang why they haven’t suggested me staying with them. Then I remember that I used to sleep with Niall. That’s probably a step too far even for Emily Post.
As if sensing my thoughts, Milo reaches back and squeezes my leg. “We’re at the main house at the moment because we’re having the patio done at the house and the hammering is driving me crazy.”
That twang eases, and I smile at my baby brother. He looks well. He’s lightly tanned, and his hair is a crazy mess due to Niall’s habit of having the windows open in the car even while doing ninety miles an hour down the motorway. It had made conversation impossible, but I’d been glad of that, as it gave me the opportunity to stare out of the window and think of my last glimpse of Eli.
He’d greeted Niall and Milo pleasantly and accepted their hugs of thanks for looking after me. Then he’d turned to me, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder.
“Well, this is it,” he’d said in a low voice.
“For now,” I’d reminded him, and he’d smiled.
“We’ll see.” For a second he’d hesitated and then had stuck out his hand. “It’s been an honour to look after you,” he’d said steadily.
I’d stared at him, accepting his handshake and trying to memorize the rough grasp. “A sentence which has never been said before.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he’d said levelly and then, touching his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute, he’d turned and moved back through the crowd. I’d watched as a tall, dark-haired young man came out of the throng to grab him in a hug and then they were gone, swallowed in the mass of people as if he’d never been in my life. My fist had clenched in my pocket around the strip of card with his details as if it were made of gold.
Niall takes a side turn, dragging me from my thoughts. We follow a winding, almost overgrown, path with trees hanging over it until we emerge from the trees, and he pulls up outside a small cottage.
Built of a honey-coloured stone, it looks Georgian in origin, with sashed windows that have been painted a grey green, and wisteria climbing the stones, the purple looking almost psychedelic in this light. Trees surround it and the air is full of the chattering song of the birds as they prepare to bed down for the night.
I climb out of the Land Rover and stretch, feeling my muscles pop. “It’s lovely,” I say, and Milo comes up next to me, taking my arm companionably.
“It’s pretty inside. Silas and Oz have had it done up so they can rent it out. You’re their guinea pig.”
