Page 46 of Summer At Willow Tree Farm

Ah yes, wines.

Never have a mani–pedi girly night with wine, after years without decent sex and five days of intensive girl bonding over too much paperwork.

‘All done.’ Annie placed Ellie’s completed foot back onto the cushion she’d arranged on a footstool. ‘You’re now armed and dangerous.’ She wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously. ‘Should you decide to take Dalton down.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said.

Even if her marriage was over, there was still Josh to think about. Jumping Art would only confuse him. Not to mention the somewhat bigger roadblock, they didn’t actually like each other.

But, even so, Ellie found herself admiring the glittery sparkle on her toes from the light of Annie’s living room fire as Annie cracked her fingers and announced, ‘Right, Tess, you’re next for the man killer toenail treatment.’

*

Ellie was still on an elderflower-and-girl-power high as she and Maddy strolled back across the fields together from Annie’s house serenaded by the scent of evening jasmine and manure and guided by the glow of a full moon. They headed towards the light in the farmhouse kitchen once they came out of the woods.

A wave of sentiment washed over Ellie. It was past midnight, so everyone would have been in bed hours ago – the first thing she’d discovered about farm life was that it did not allow for late nights – which meant Dee had left the lights on for her tonight. It probably shouldn’t matter to her, but somehow it did.

Maddy

giggled as they entered the farmhouse, obviously drunker than Ellie. ‘I hope Jay’s not too fast asleep yet.’

‘If he is, he won’t be for long,’ Ellie teased, enjoying the younger woman’s delight. ‘I’ll get the lights. See you tomorrow for the start of Phase Two.’ They were due to start clearing out the back barn tomorrow afternoon. ‘But don’t exhaust Jacob too much, we need him to move heavy machinery tomorrow.’

Accomplishment and excitement surged through Ellie to add to the general light-headedness from their boozy evening as Maddy stumbled up the stairs.

‘No worries, I’ll do all the work,’ Maddy whispered, still giggling.

OK, that was way too much information.

Ellie opened the kitchen door, planning to hunt up some nibbles and a nightcap to give Maddy time to introduce Jacob to the delights of Spoilt Diva nail polish and then crash out, because she did not need to be hearing the two of them going for it after the discussion they’d had at Annie’s about potential hook-ups.

She realised her mistake, though, when she entered the room and spotted Mr Guaranteed Orgasm himself hunched over a plate piled high with her mother’s moussaka.

Their eyes met, and he swallowed.

‘Hi,’ she said, heat flushing through her. Bugger.

He nodded a greeting, looking as pleased to see her as she was to see him. i.e.: not at all. His biceps bunched against the short sleeves of his T-shirt as he scooped up another enormous mouthful of moussaka. And then the significance of his presence in the kitchen at this hour dawned on her.

For Pete’s sake, had Art been eating every night at midnight then, just to avoid seeing her at supper time?

‘We got the loan approved today,’ she said.

This was bonkers. He might not like of the shop, but it was going ahead anyway. And it was going to be a huge success – at which point she would take great pleasure in telling him ‘I told you so’. But, until then, they needed to find a way to work together. Art had gone out of his way, once upon a time, to make her feel excluded, but she was going to be the bigger and better person here and include him whether he wanted to be included or not.

He swallowed down another mouthful. ‘I heard,’ he said. No word of congratulations or encouragement.

Great, so he’s still being a wanker about the whole thing.

He carried on eating, clearly attempting to finish his meal before they had anything resembling an actual conversation.

Sod that. Maybe she couldn’t get Art onside with the project, but she’d had enough of his sulking. And now was the perfect time to call a truce, while she was buoyed up on a wave of success, girl power and Rob’s elderflower champagne – and armed with man-killer toenails.

She headed for the pantry in search of some additional Dutch courage. The bottles of sloe gin lined up in myriad shades of red and pink on the top shelf made her heart – and the warm hum in her stomach – jump for joy.

She snagged a bottle and walked back into the kitchen to see Art scraping the last of his moussaka off the earthenware bowl. Lifting two shot glasses from the sideboard, she placed them on the table in front of him with a decisive click and prised open the bottle’s stopper with her thumbs. ‘Fancy joining me for a drink?’

Dark eyes met hers, the question in them almost as potent as the suspicion rolling off him.

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