Jennifer nodded. It was good that they’d found something to help with the evenings.
‘Tell you what—give me your stuff and I’ll dump it in your room. You go and see Mum.’
‘Great,’ she said, even as she felt the familiar pull of anxiety bed in.
Kate took her bags and bounded back into the house. Jennifer followed slowly, her belly twisting with nerves as she crossed over the threshold and headed down the hall that led to the library. The smell of food reached her. Marie, their housekeeper, was likely making her favourite—lasagne. But hunger was the last thing on her mind.
She paused at the library door, her hand resting on the handle, and took a breath, her shoulders rolling back as she braced herself for whatever was to come.
She opened the door and stepped inside. The room was well lit, the fire notably out. Her mother sat reading in her favourite chair overlooking the grounds, although the curtains were now drawn against the darkening outdoors.
‘Mum?’ she said tentatively.
Her mother looked up, lowering the book into her lap as she dipped her reading glasses to look at her.
A smile of recognition spread across her face. ‘Jennifer, darling, you’re home.’
The air left her lungs in a whoosh. Her mum knew who she was today. Fuck you, Alzheimer’s!
She swept across the room to draw her into a bear hug, emotion welling as she held her mum close.
‘Why, Jennifer, you’re going to suffocate me if you keep this up.’
‘Sorry, Mum.’ She backed off a little, her eyes raking over her mother’s face, taking in her glowing complexion and bright green eyes with glee. ‘I’ve missed you.’
* * *
Marcus had made the decision to drive himself to Wales, keen to have the distraction of the roads to occupy him. And the solitude. He didn’t like the way he’d been all week and he certainly didn’t like the way he was now.
He’d watched her enter the station with the feeling that he’d just made an epic mistake swelling uncomfortably in his gut.
But it didn’t make sense. She wanted him. He wanted her. It was win-win. Only her face, the way her post-orgasm glow had drained so swiftly, had twisted him up inside.
Had he gone too far? Did she truly think he was endangering their business? Was that what it all came down to?
He couldn’t believe it. It didn’t sit right.
The sign for his home town lit up in his headlights, blurred through the rain, and his heart skipped, his stomach lurched and his thoughts quit, drowned out by the memories that came pouring in uninvited.
He shifted in his seat, squinting through the windscreen to take in the surroundings that never seemed to change: the stone-built terraced houses lining the road, the corner shop that wasn’t on a corner, his primary school—the gates of which he’d stood at many a night, waiting for his father to collect him and eventually setting off alone, scared witless in the dark.
His grip over the steering wheel tightened and he diverted his gaze straight ahead. He’d left that life behind long ago...and neglected his grandparents in doing so.
His throat closed over and he swallowed through it.
He was back now. That was what mattered.
He stopped at a set of lights, the only sound that of his windscreen wipers beating away the rain, and then a laugh reached him—the high-pitched ripple of a teen. He turned his head towards it. A young couple were just leaving a house, a lad with his arm hooked around his girl, his grin happy, her laugh even more so.
The scene reached inside the car, engulfing him with its warmth, coaxing out a smile as his hold over the wheel eased.
Just because it had been bad for him, it didn’t make it bad for everyone. It had never been the place that ha
d been the problem...
And yet he’d kept fleeing it, when all he’d ever wanted was to flee him. But he wasn’t his father, and his father was long gone.
His eyes pricked at the sudden lightness inside him.