Sunshine and Cider Cake, page 16
‘I know I want to get to know you, Ashley. Maybe build something with you.’
‘But I’m not sure I can, knowing you’re having a baby with another woman. You must see that.’
‘It’s the shock. It took me some time to figure it all out. But I’m coming round to seeing it as one of my best friends having a baby. It just happens to be my baby. I’ve always wanted children, Ashley.’
The thought speared pain into her very being. ‘Eddie, all we’ve done is kiss. If you’d asked me before you went home, I would’ve said we were friends.’
‘More than friends, Ashley. You must know I want to be more than friends.’
She waved ineffectually at the night, at the romantic white lights and the mist hanging on the hills, dark in the distance. ‘I don’t know what to think. You’ve never made your feelings clear.’
‘I thought I had. With every kiss.’
‘And there was Bree in the background.’
‘I tried telling you about her, I really did. It’s just not that easy to unpick it all. There never seemed the right time to tell you.’ He ran an exasperated hand through his hair, anger beginning to bite. ‘Jeez. Every time I tried, we got interrupted. She was a big part of my life for so long. She hurt me. I left. I met you.’
‘And now there’s a baby.’ Ashley remembered Petra saying men rarely came without baggage. An on-off ex-girlfriend she could’ve coped with, but this… She wondered what Petra would do? But Petra was a different woman. Ashley had fought long and hard to get to this point in her life. She wasn’t sure another woman’s baby had a place in it.
‘Ash, I’m struggling here. I can’t change what’s happened, what happened before I even met you. I’ve tried to be as honest as I can. I’m thirty-six years old. I’ve got a history; you must have expected that. What do you want? The fairy-tale?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ The confusion in her head worsened. ‘Of course you have a relationship history. I do too. But you’re having a baby with your ex. It’ll never be history, will it? Bree will always be in your life from now on because she’s having your child.’
Ashley stood up, feeling sick. She handed him back his jacket, trying not to look at his stricken face. Was she was about to throw away the best thing that had ever happened to her? ‘I don’t know, Eddie. I really don’t know.’ She shook off his attempt to take her hand again and added, suddenly decisive, ‘No, I do know. I can’t cope with this. I’ll try to be your friend but there’s no future for any other kind of relationship between us. None at all. Not now. Maybe not ever.’
And then she walked away, stumbling a little and refusing to look back.
Bree found Eddie where Ashley had left him. His hands were dangling listlessly between his knees, his head down. A picture of abject misery.
‘You didn’t come back in, honey,’ she purred. ‘I’ve been waiting for an age back there. The little girlfriend gone?’ She sat down next to him, captured his hand and pressed it to her velvet-covered breasts. ‘If you don’t mind my saying, she seemed whiney, if not a little hysterical.’
He turned on her. ‘Don’t you dare say that.’ Snatching his hand away, he pointed a furious finger. ‘Don’t ever say that about her. She’s honest and true and brave, and has more goodness in her little finger than you have in your entire body.’
Bree backed off, holding up her hands in surrender. Changing tack, she said, ‘Okay, big boy. What’s eating you?’
‘You know damn well what. You couldn’t let me tell her, could you?’
She pulled a mock-innocent face. ‘Tell her what, baby?’
‘Aw, jeez Bree. Will you ever change? Will you ever stop playing games? You knew I wanted to tell Ashley myself. Break it to her in some way she might understand. But no, you had to come wading in, be the drama queen. As per usual.’
‘You used to like me being a drama queen, Ed.’ She pouted at him suggestively.
He gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘If the scales hadn’t already dropped from my eyes, then they sure have now.’ He shook his head, wonderingly. ‘What did I ever see in you, Bree? Why did I let you play me for all those years?’ He surged to his feet.
Bree hung onto his arm. ‘She’ll come round. Just a big shock, is all.’
‘Oh, she’ll come round because I’ll make damn sure she does.’ He shook her off. ‘I don’t care how long it takes, I’m going to do everything I can to help her understand. What you’re incapable of understanding, Bree, is I love this girl. I love her in a way I’ve never loved anyone else. Certainly not you.’
She blanched.
‘Until I met Ashley I didn’t realize how love could make me feel. I hadn’t realized how happy I could be. And I was never happy with you, Bree. Never! You’ll have my support with the baby, I’ll raise the kid, I’ll be there for my child, but that’s all you get.’ He went to go and then changed his mind. ‘And one more thing. I’d advise, very seriously, that you don’t do anything, I repeat, anything to upset Ashley. She’s going to be co-parenting with me. She’s going to be around. I don’t care what I have to do, but she’s going to be there. Ashley’s going to be in my life!’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ashley huddled on the sofa in the little flat and stared glassily at a blank television. It was three in the morning, but she was too cold and miserable to move.
‘Oh good, you’re still up,’ Noah said, as he poked his head around the door. ‘Fancy a cuppa and a debrief? I’m too wired to sleep.’ Then he saw her properly and dropped to his knees at her side. ‘Ash, what’s wrong?’ he asked, aghast. He took her hands in his. ‘You’re frozen.’ Chafing them between his, he added, ‘I’ll make tea and you can tell me all about it.’
As he clattered about in the kitchen, he told her about the ball, about how successful it had been, about how much money had been raised, about how much the American veterans had enjoyed it. Ashley let his chatter slide over her head, only partly processing what he was saying. Sitting up, she accepted the throw he tucked around her shoulders.
‘No wonder you’re cold, there’s nothing to that dress,’ he scolded and pressed her fingers around a mug of tea.
Ashley mustered a smile. ‘You sound like my mother.’
‘Well, I suppose I am in loco parentis.’ He winced. ‘But that makes me sound ancient. Spill the beans then, coz. What’s happened?’
She looked at him, eyes huge with misery and confusion. ‘Truth?’
‘Truth. As ever. Nothing less.’ He settled on the floor at her feet. ‘Is it something to do with Eddie?’
Ashley’s lips twisted. ‘How did you guess?’
‘I saw him with a rather chic woman dressed in black. Girlfriend?’
‘Ex.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ He drank some tea.
‘She’s having his baby.’
‘Is she, now?’ Noah let out a low whistle and put his mug down in shock. He grimaced. ‘Forgive me, but I thought you and he were getting close.’
‘We are. Were,’ Ashley corrected herself bitterly.
‘That’s awful. He never struck me as the sort of bloke who would play women.’
‘I don’t think he is.’ She sighed wearily. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘How can it be more complicated? You wait until the next time I see him. I’ll let him know he doesn’t mess with my cousin and get away with it.’
Despite herself, Ashley managed a grin. Noah’s protectiveness was both touching and funny. ‘It’s all right, you don’t need to defend my honour. It all happened at Christmas, way before he met me.’
Noah’s shoulders and indignation sank back to their normal levels. ‘Thank God for that.’ He flicked a glance at her ashen face. ‘Might make it tricky to have a relationship with him, but not impossible.’
‘No, it’s impossible, Noah,’ she whispered and sipped her tea.
‘Why?’
There was a pause. It fell heavily between them. Eventually she spoke. ‘At my last consultation, the one before I came down here, there was some discussion about my ability to have children. Because of the accident, I mean.’
‘Oh, Ash!’
She shrugged. ‘It depends on a lot of things, the consultant said. It’s not definite, I’m still not fully healed…’ She let the sentence dangle.
‘But?’
‘If I can’t have children, I’m not sure I can start a relationship with a man who’s having a baby with his ex-girlfriend, even if there’s an entire ocean in between them. It would be too painful knowing I might never get to have a baby of my own with him.’
He picked up his mug and swirled the tea around thoughtfully. ‘And you wanted a relationship with Eddie?’
Ashley nodded. ‘Think so.’ She thought about the man’s intelligence and humour, his kindness and generosity of spirit. How she fizzed inside whenever they kissed. She blew out a hollow breath. Oh yes, she wanted a relationship with him, all right.
Noah bit his lip, appearing to consider what to say. ‘You know, it would be one way to have a family. I mean, the world is full of blended families – is that the term? – and there are lots of step-parents who do it.’
‘Yeah. Maybe. I just don’t think I’m a big enough person.’ She recalled what Eddie had accused her of. He’d been right. ‘I think I want – wanted – the fairy-tale.’
‘Fairy-tales are hard to come by, love.’
‘I know. Doesn’t stop you wanting them, though.’
He reached for her hand again. ‘Can I be really honest here?’
‘Go on,’ she said, warily.
‘It’s just that you always react to things so quickly and jump with both feet. Usually by jumping in the opposite direction.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That bloke you were seeing at uni. Didn’t work out, so the next thing, as soon as you graduated, you high-tailed it back to Ludlow. Didn’t get the job teaching in Florence, so you stayed in Shropshire.’
‘Hang on, Noah.’ She sat up, indignant. ‘Steve was a complete jerk; he didn’t want me to work if we got married. Can you imagine? And the international school made it clear I wasn’t right for them. What exactly was I supposed to do?’
‘Okay, I’ll concede Steve was a jerk, but did you ever talk to him about all that? No, you just ended it. And there could have been other teaching jobs in Italy, but what did you do? Did you apply for any others? No, you went home.’
‘What’s your point, Noah?’ Ashley said tersely.
‘That if things don’t work out your way, you immediately cut them right out of your life. No negotiation. No discussion to find a way through, a way of it working out. Something bad happens and, bang, on to the next thing you go. Without a backward glance.’
Ashley shifted, uncomfortable. Noah had never talked to her so critically before.
‘I’m saying this because I love you and I want you to be happy. Life’s all about compromise, Ash. And, as we get older, there’s sometimes more to compromise about.’
‘Like Eddie?’
‘Like Eddie.’
‘I don’t think I can compromise about Eddie and the baby, Noah,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘I’m scared I’ll find it too painful. Too hard. That’s what’s behind all this. Self-preservation. Back off, will you?’
‘Aren’t the best things worth fighting for? Might even be worth the pain.’ Registering her anger, he sighed. ‘Okay. Maybe it’s as well you didn’t get in too deep with Eddie, then.’
Ashley didn’t bother to correct him.
‘You’ve plenty of time to meet someone else. That’s if you want to,’ he added hastily, as if realizing his lack of tact.
She yawned and stretched her legs. She needed to get to bed. She didn’t want anyone else, only Eddie.
‘You are going to stay in Berecombe, though?’ Noah looked suddenly stricken. ‘You’re not going to cut and run this time? I can’t do this commemoration year without you, coz!’ He tried for humour. ‘I mean, who will do my filing?’
Ashley straightened her shoulders. She gazed at him. What would she do without him? She looked around at her little flat. Her post-accident independence had been so hard won; she didn’t want to give it up now. She certainly didn’t want to prove him right by running home to Ludlow and to the well-meaning but suffocating care of her parents. Eddie aside, Berecombe suited her. She felt safe here.
‘Well, I have my painting,’ she began slowly. ‘I’ve only just begun getting back into that and I’d like to do more, experiment with some different styles, maybe.’ She thought of Petra and Millie, of Beryl, Ken and Tess, and even Biddy. ‘I’ve made friends here,’ she added. Then she remembered Ken’s offer. She slid to the edge of the sofa, positivity blunting some of the sharpness of her anger with Noah. ‘And I haven’t told you, have I? Ken’s offered me a job. At the Arts Centre. Oh Noah, I really love this town. It’s entwined itself around my heart. I don’t want to leave!’
‘And neither should you.’ He grinned. ‘You’ve got the memories project too, don’t forget. You’ll want to see that through with Ruby?’
‘If I can. Might have to be by letter or phone, though. I’m not sure when she’ll be back in Berecombe.’
‘By whatever means is fine by me. There’ll be others to interview too. You’re just getting started with it all.’ He clasped her fingers tightly. ‘Stay, Ashley. You’re putting roots down here, I can tell. And it’s a good place to do that. We can find you another man, if you want one. Or woman.’ He pulled a face and added cheerfully, ‘Or neither. You’ll be fine on your own. And you’ve always got your big, brave cousin to fight your corner.’
She smiled at him. Through her exhaustion, buoyed by his love and support, surged a sudden optimism. She could do this. Eddie McQueen or no Eddie McQueen. She could do this. ‘And I’ve always got my big, brave cousin.’
‘Stay, Ashley,’ he implored.
‘I just might.’
‘And might there be a chance you could make it up with Eddie? He’s too good a man to let go, Ash. He’s so right for you. You must realize that.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ She darted a quick smile, his earlier criticism still stinging. Was there a chance for a relationship with Eddie? ‘Maybe, when I’ve had time to think it through,’ she said cautiously. ‘I might get used to the idea.’
‘Baby steps, coz. He’ll be worth it in the end.’
Ashley stared into space, an image of Eddie’s warm smile filling her vision. Did she have enough strength for the fight?
Noah read her thoughts. ‘Look at what you’ve fought these past couple of years. You’ve learned to walk again, battled the pain. Started a new life in a new town. Got yourself a brand-new job. Why not fight to get yourself the man you want?’
She took his hand; her cousin was telling the truth. Stating the obvious. Eddie was the man she wanted. He was the one she needed.
‘Then, let battle commence,’ she whispered, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. ‘It might take me a while but, Eddie McQueen, get ready. I’m coming for you!’
Return to Berecombe and find out what happens next in the second book in the Great Summer Street Party series!
Acknowledgments
I needed a lot of help to write this one! I hope I’ve included everyone this time.
My sincere thanks go to the very lovely and talented Colin Simmonds who furnished me with details of a painter’s life, and to Dr Pinky Jain and Dr Linzi McKerr of Worcester University for information on academia. My grateful thanks go to Julia Roebuck who opened up the world of Morris Dancing, Wendy Jones who, as always, gave medical information, and Leah Larson and Greg Poulos for help on all things USA. Janice Rosser and the Helen Vereker Singers helped with what it means to be in a community choir and Janice Preston provided information about art classes. Thank you all! I’m also grateful that writing this book meant I had an excuse to discuss my mother’s childhood wartime memories with her. She also helped with the titles. Thanks mum! I’m so grateful these people gave up their precious time to share their expertise; any mistakes are very much all mine.
Charlotte Ledger and her team at One More Chapter helped shape this book with brilliant editing and I am eternally grateful for their enthusiasm and expertise.
And finally, a huge thank you to you, the reader, for buying, borrowing, reading, reviewing, and supporting my books. If one thing the past two years have proved, it’s that reading and books are more important than ever.
Thank you for reading…
We hope you enjoyed The Great Summer Street Party Part 1!
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Don’t miss Part 2 and Part 3 to complete your collection!
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Georgia Hill writes romcoms and historical fiction and is published by One More Chapter, the digital-first imprint of HarperCollins.
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She divides her time between the beautiful counties of Herefordshire and Devon and lives with her two beloved spaniels, a husband (also beloved) and a ghost called Zoe. She loves Jane Austen, eats far too much Belgian chocolate and has a passion for Strictly Come Dancing.
www.georgiahill.co.uk
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