Page 96 of Summer At Willow Tree Farm

‘So what?’ It was Dan’s turn to look shocked. ‘So I came to get you. You and Josh. I’ve missed you. I want another chance.’

‘Dan, you’re not serious? Even if Chelsea’s not pregnant, our marriage has been over for years.’ And it had taken him over a month to make a move once he’d broken up

with Chelsea. If he expected her to believe he’d been celibate for four whole weeks, he must think she was more gullible than Mary Poppins.

‘Why? Because you’ve found some farmer to replace me?’ he demanded.

‘No, because you found a thousand women to replace me.’

‘There weren’t that many.’

‘That many? Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

‘OK, I fucked up.’

‘“Fucked” being the operative word,’ she said, deciding that sometimes crude worked.

Dan gave a long-suffering sigh, as if he were actually the injured party here. ‘I screwed up and I’m not proud of it.’

‘You screwed up more than once, Dan. A lot more than once. Someone who keeps repeating the same offence is clearly not capable of change. I believed you the first time you said it wasn’t going to happen again. I even believed you the second time. But I finally stopped believing and we simply ended up locked in a loveless, sexless relationship in which we were both kidding ourselves that we actually cared enough about each other to stay together when the truth was we were just too lazy and self-absorbed to do anything about it. I’m sorry you came here today. And I’m sorry you saw Art and I together, because you and I are still nominally married.’ Was that the real reason she’d been so determined to keep her and Art’s liaison a secret, not to protect Josh or Toto, but simply to protect her own reputation? The new stab of guilt sliced under her ribs, making her anxiety increase. ‘But what we’ve been doing together is still none of your business. You left me, Dan, years ago, every time you decided to sleep with another woman, so you don’t get to turn up now out of the blue and lay down the law about marital ethics.’

Unfortunately, that fact didn’t make her feel any better about the look that had flashed across Art’s face when Dan had arrived. They had shared something this afternoon, something profound. And now she might never know what that something was, because she hadn’t had the guts to ask before her ex had turned up.

‘Is he better than I am in the sack? Is that it?’ Dan sounded frantic. ‘I can do better. I know I was selfish sometimes, I got wound up in myself and our sex life suffered. I get that, but I can change that.’

‘It’s not about the sex.’ Exactly how immature was this man?

‘Then what the hell is it about?’

‘I respect him,’ she said.

Art had opened up to her this afternoon for the first time, and she’d had an insight into why he felt the need to close himself off. ‘And I know he respects me.’ Although he might not respect her much now. ‘And that’s a basis for something more than we ever had.’

How much more she wasn’t going to contemplate right now, not until she’d had a chance to talk to Art. That she was having this conversation with her estranged husband was probably a bit… well… peculiar. But peculiar she could live with. Dan not so much.

The plan had always been to go back to Orchard Harbor. To remake her life there, or nearby, so that Dan could have access to his son. She’d been so careful not to think outside that box. But why should she let Dan call all the shots? Why was she so terrified of acknowledging that there might be other options? Or that she had feelings for Art that went way past those for a casual hook up?

‘Don’t say that. We could do more counselling to fix that?’ Dan said, the tremor in his voice making Ellie stare at him. ‘I’ve found someone more appropriate than Dr Macklin,’ he said, naming the couples therapist they’d attended for six months in one last-ditch attempt to save their marriage, while Dan was busy sleeping with Josh’s middle school teacher on the sly and getting her not-pregnant. ‘I’ve been to a few sessions already.’

‘You’ve… What?’ Ellie’s voice rose several octaves. Surely she could not have heard that right. Dan taking responsibility, creating a plan of action, and then actually following through on it? To save their marriage? She’d always been the one doing all the emotional heavy lifting in their relationship. The one who had continually tried to paper over the cracks of what had eventually become a derelict crumbling mess. That Dan had finally decided to shoulder at least some of that burden felt like way too little, way too late. She wasn’t convinced there was anything left to build on any more. But after so many years of struggling alone, it felt necessary to at least listen to what he had to say.

‘This doctor’s a sex therapist, world renowned, based in New York.’

‘I don’t need sex therapy,’ Ellie said. Not any more anyway.

‘I know you don’t.’ Dan looked sheepish, the honey brown hair falling over his brow in artful disarray.

Ellie wasn’t buying the embarrassed look, until colour lanced across his cheekbones.

‘But I do,’ he murmured into his chest.

She didn’t speak, wasn’t sure she was capable of speech. His eyes finally met hers, the look surprisingly direct for a man whose father was a politician with two terms in the Senate under his belt.

‘You’re having sex therapy?’ she said, just to be sure she hadn’t had a breakdown and stress-projected that piece of information.

He nodded, the sheepish look turning to sober introspection, which actually looked genuine. ‘I’ve had a month to think about everything, about where we went wrong.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Where I went wrong. And it all got down to my inability to be faithful. And eventually, after lots of soul-searching and denial, I figured out I needed help. So I found this doctor. She’s terrific.’

She. ‘The good doctor’s a woman?’

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