The Mill on Magnolia Lane: A gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy Page 8

  As she yanked a T-shirt over her head there was a tap at the caravan door. Lizzie pulled on some jeans, shut the bedroom away from view and raced to answer it.

  ‘Tim!’ she said, trying to sound airy and not at all like she’d only just woken after a night of passion.

  ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Just letting you know we’re here.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she replied hastily. ‘The usual?’

  ‘That’d be much appreciated,’ he said, looking at her sternly.

  With a curt nod, he sauntered off to organise his men. Lizzie let out a sigh as she closed out the noise. But as she turned a strong pair of arms folded around her.

  ‘Gotcha!’ Jude said.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, instantly relaxing into his embrace.

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ he replied, kissing her.

  ‘I can’t believe we slept in so late.’

  ‘Who was that at the door?’

  ‘You mean you couldn’t tell by the noise? It was the builder. He always lets me know he’s arrived. Like all the shouting and banging wouldn’t tell me that.’

  ‘He’s just doing his job I suppose.’ Jude kissed her again before going to the window and moving the net curtain aside. ‘I should probably get back,’ he said, looking out. ‘I hadn’t realised how late in the morning it was. Charlie… you know…’

  ‘I don’t suppose you can expect Harriet to stay there all day, especially with Artie to take care of too.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ he said, crossing the room to take her in his arms again. He was warm and smelt good, and she laid her head on his chest for a moment, listening to his heartbeat. Then he tilted her chin up and kissed her, and she could have happily forgotten that she needed to get dressed and make tea for her army of workmen outside. But then he pulled away with a look of regret.

  ‘I wish we didn’t have so much to do,’ he said.

  ‘Me too. If you need a shower before you leave, feel free to use the facilities. I’ll have to water the troops before I can get one.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ he said, grazing his lips over hers, lightly this time, though her own lips tingled with the imprint of his for a long time afterwards. ‘You’re incredible – did I tell you that?’

  ‘You might have mentioned it about ten times last night,’ she said with a smile.

  He lifted her hair from her neck, a delicate touch that sent shivers of delight through her. ‘Well, I’m saying it again. You are incredible.’

  ‘Go and get your shower,’ Lizzie groaned, as desperate to fling him back into bed and ravish him as she knew he was her. ‘If you don’t go soon I can’t be responsible for my actions.’

  * * *

  An hour later, Jude kissed her again before she opened the caravan to let him out. She watched with a smile and an ache of longing as he strode to his car. And then Tim Lundy called across.

  ‘Alright there, Jude! How’s Harriet and the nipper?’

  Jude nodded shortly. ‘They’re fine.’ He glanced back at Lizzie. Her brow creased into a vague frown. She watched Jude walk back to the car, throwing her a last brief smile before he started the engine and pulled out of the drive.

  Tim came over as the car disappeared. He handed over a handful of mugs he’d collected. ‘You’re good friends with him, then?’

  Lizzie paused, slightly taken aback by the bluntness of the question.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s my boyfriend,’ she added, making a fist of putting the record straight.

  Tim grunted a noncommittal reply before turning and walking back to the construction site. Lizzie watched him for a moment before heading back inside. She had a lot to do and a late start wasn’t going to help.

  SEVEN

  Lizzie’s mill was beginning to live up to its Mad Lady nickname. If things had been this disastrous for that inauspicious occupant, it was no wonder she’d gone mad. During the weeks that followed her first night with Jude, Lizzie had started to dread the knock at the caravan door that would see her listening to Tim, the colour draining from her face as he explained yet another problem they’d found: dodgy foundations, rot in the roof timbers, ancient lead water pipes that weren’t remotely legal or healthy, a snag in planning permission, a supplier who’d gone bust without delivering goods they’d been paid for…

  The initial excitement at the start of Lizzie’s grand, once-in-a-lifetime project had ebbed away. She kept a fearful watch on her bank balance and her finances dwindled at a rate she had never reckoned on. Jobs were coming in, of course, but it often took a while to see the income from those because each one would involve planning, completion, sign-off from the client, invoicing and then – if the client was a prompt payer, and many weren’t – finally payment. If things continued at this pace she’d seriously have to consider selling her caravan to raise extra funds, leaving her faced with the prospect of camping out in the shell of her nowhere-near-finished mill. She wondered how much trouble it would be if she asked Tim to concentrate on one corner that she could inhabit without too much discomfort, though she suspected that the answer to that question wouldn’t be what she wanted to hear. Even with her limited experience, she guessed it wouldn’t be so simple to separate the building into chunks fit for living in and those not, because one bit was always connected to another in a way she wouldn’t have the building knowledge to foresee, making it impossible to work on that section without disturbing another.

  She was trying to explain all this to Jude one Sunday as they sat watching a Disney film with Charlie.

  ‘If you get the plans from Tim I could take a look and maybe give you some advice,’ Jude said. ‘That’s assuming he’s working from proper plans.’

  ‘I haven’t ever asked,’ Lizzie admitted.

  ‘Maybe you should ask him.’

  ‘But do you think my idea could work?’

  ‘Without seeing the layout it’s hard to tell, but I suspect you might find it’s as difficult to do as you fear. I mean, you can live in pretty much anything really if you’re prepared to have building work going on around you, but I’m sure you don’t really fancy that.’

  ‘I might not have a choice,’ Lizzie said in a dull voice. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and closed her eyes. ‘I might have known it would go this way, I suppose.’

  ‘You could stay with us,’ Jude said.

  Lizzie glanced across to see that Jude’s brother was engrossed in the movie with a broad smile stretching his face. That was a relief, because Charlie’s enthusiasm for any plan that involved them seeing more of Lizzie would doubtless sway her on an issue that she needed to stay clear-headed about.

  ‘That’s really nice of you,’ she began carefully. ‘It’s just…’

  ‘You don’t want to?’

  ‘Not that I don’t appreciate the offer…’

  Jude turned his attention back to the TV. ‘It was just a thought; I was trying to help you out – it doesn’t matter.’

  But his hand had slipped from hers and Lizzie got the distinct impression that it did matter.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.’

  ‘Why on earth are you sorry?’ he asked, his gaze still trained on the screen.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just that…’

  ‘I said it was OK,’ he replied, but his tone said otherwise.

  ‘I just don’t want to rush anything. It’s best for all of us.’

  ‘I know it is. There was nothing in it – just trying to do you a favour.’ Jude’s jaw was set.

  ‘I realise that but it’s more… Maybe we’ll see how the build’s going over the next few weeks?’

  ‘Look!’ Charlie shouted, interrupting them, pointing at the TV. ‘He’s fallen out of the boat!’

  Lizzie smiled as he turned to her with a grin. She’d never been so grateful for one of his enthusiastic outbursts as she was right at that moment.

  * * *

  Luckily Jude’s strange mood hadn’t las
ted for long and, by the time they’d parted, it was as if nothing had happened. Except that it had happened, and Lizzie had been left wondering what it all might mean. She’d gone to bed that night with the matter tapping at her consciousness, like a sharp tooth that kept being found by a tongue, and she’d woken up with the same vague sense of the same conundrum still troubling her. But it was a new day and the builders would be here again soon, and Lizzie soon found herself considering what new misery Tim could inflict on her instead of worrying about Jude and his funny turn.

  As she sat on the caravan steps with her first cup of tea of the day, gazing up at the mill – which looked oddly romantic in the early morning light, despite the scaffolding – she reflected that, with all the stress, it was easy to forget that they had made some progress. The old building was beginning to look like a house rather than a shell, from the outside at least. The walls of the long living quarters standing adjacent to the mill tower looked solid, the brickwork had been cleaned up to reveal dove-grey stone, the roof was watertight and a glossy new front door hung at the entrance. The windows had yet to be replaced, and there was still a great deal of work to be done inside, such as electrical rewiring and fitting a new boiler, bathroom and kitchen. Right now, however, the main priority was making sure old floors were safe and ceilings weren’t about to come down on someone’s head.

  Putting down her cup, she crossed the garden as the rising sun turned the meadows beyond golden. The front door was unlocked and Lizzie pushed it open to step inside. Her tread echoed on the bare floor, sunlight skimming the windowsill as it flooded the entrance hall. She took a deep breath and appreciated that the house smelt of chemicals and unprimed wood and damp – it was the smell of a work in progress, of her home coming together, warts and all.

  But perhaps it was overly optimistic to imagine herself living in here any time soon, and her thoughts returned to Jude’s offer the previous day. Perhaps she’d been too hasty when she’d refused it. Now that she thought about it, his reaction troubled her more than she’d really admitted. He’d seemed genuinely hurt and offended, and she hated that, but why should she feel guilty when all she’d been doing was deciding for herself what she wanted? Their relationship was good just the way it was, wasn’t it? She hadn’t come to Magnolia Lane wanting or looking for love, but what if love had found her regardless? And if it had, what was she supposed to do about it? She’d almost forgotten how she was supposed to behave in a proper relationship.

  Damn her stupid mistrust. Damn the betrayal that had split her from Evan and made loving anyone else that much more difficult. If only she’d never met him. If only she had a time machine that would take her back to the moment she’d first walked into the bar where Evan played pool every Saturday night so she could tell her past self to run – run fast and far. Jude had done his best to put Lizzie at ease when it came to Harriet, but Lizzie was finding it harder to let go of the shadow Evan had cast over her life.

  She needed to speak to Jude. But then her intention to go and fetch her phone from the caravan was diverted as the sound of a throbbing car engine reached her. Not Jude’s car – she knew that sound now like her own heartbeat, she’d listened for it so often – and not the grumbling engines of the work vans arriving. Ordinarily the sound of a car out on the road wouldn’t have concerned her, but it seemed as if it was pulling to a halt close by. Going out, she spotted the low chassis and gleaming red paintwork of her sister’s sports car, now parked outside her garden gate. A vague frown creased her forehead. Gracie didn’t do spontaneous visits. She was usually so wrapped up in her whirlwind life in the city that she barely had time to worry about her family in the wilds of Suffolk. Sometimes it was easy to forget that she had a sister at all, and, true to form, Gracie hadn’t bothered to come and see Lizzie once since she’d bought the mill.

  She watched as Gracie climbed out of her car, and as her sister looked up and their eyes met, Lizzie’s breath caught in her throat. Not since their father’s funeral had Lizzie seen her sister look so distraught. Flinging open the gate, Lizzie raced to throw her arms around her.

  ‘Gracie… what’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s…’ Gracie swallowed, caught by a heaving sob. ‘It’s Frank…’

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘I’ve… I’ve driven… all the way… from London…’

  ‘In this state?’ Lizzie cried, horrified at the thought of what could have gone wrong. Gracie could barely speak, let alone drive. ‘What’s happened; what’s Frank done?’

  ‘He’s…’ Another sob. ‘He’s dumped me!’

  * * *

  ‘Of course you must stay with me,’ Lizzie said, handing Gracie a hot, sweet tea as she sat at the little table in the caravan. Then she crossed to the gas fire. It was summer and even though the mornings out here often had a chill, it was hardly enough to bother Lizzie. She’d noticed that Gracie was shivering, however. It was difficult to know whether this was down to her mental state or whether she was simply feeling the cold that bit more. Gracie had always been thinner than Lizzie, slender and delicate, with hair more auburn than chestnut and paler skin, but she looked very wan and thin to Lizzie now. Perhaps that had something to do with the shivering. ‘There’s not a lot of space,’ she continued as she struck a match and put it to the gas, ‘but I can make room for you.’

  ‘Really?’ Gracie took a sip of her tea and gave Lizzie a watery but grateful smile. ‘I’m sure I’d be a terrible nuisance.’

  ‘Weren’t you always?’ Lizzie asked with a sideways look.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Gracie said. But whereas an inside joke like this would usually have provoked laughter, now it only sent her sorrowful gaze to the depths of her teacup.

  ‘How long can you stay off work?’ Lizzie asked. She couldn’t imagine the stern-looking boss who stalked the gleaming glass corridors of the advertising agency where Gracie worked on Canary Wharf being very happy that one of her client managers had disappeared into the ether.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t even told them I won’t be in today – I came straight here when I got Frank’s text.’

  ‘Bastard,’ Lizzie said, reminded again of the cowardly circumstances of Gracie’s dumping. She’d always thought Frank too old for Gracie (he was fifteen years her senior), and she’d always thought him arrogant too, but Gracie had always been so smitten and so in awe of the man that she wouldn’t hear a word said against him. Not that she’d have ever listened to Lizzie about anything anyway. Besides, no matter what anyone thought about Frank, he had always seemed to make Gracie happy, and it looked from the outside that he was taking good care of her – paying the rent on their flat, treating her to exotic holidays and generally making sure she had everything she needed. Lizzie didn’t know exactly what had happened here yet, but she guessed nobody would have seen it coming, least of all her sister.

  Lizzie stood and wiped her hands down her jeans before joining Gracie at the table with a tea of her own. ‘You could ring in sick later maybe? Pretend you were throwing up or something to explain why you didn’t do it earlier?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose I could do that.’

  ‘And you can self-certify for a week too so you wouldn’t need a doctor’s note.’

  ‘Yes. And by then Frank and I might have fixed everything and I’ll be back in our flat again and back to normal.’

  Lizzie forced a bright smile. ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘Have you got much with you?’

  ‘A couple of bags in the car. Probably nothing that I need, but I wasn’t thinking straight and I picked any old thing up to pack.’

  ‘Anything you don’t have we can sort here.’ Lizzie paused, taking a slow sip of her tea. ‘Does Mum know?’

  ‘Not yet – didn’t want to worry her.’

  ‘She’s going to find out.’

  ‘I can’t stay with her,’ Gracie added. ‘We’d kill each other inside a week, you know that.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to suggest it,’ Lizzie said. ‘I think we ought to tel
l her sooner rather than later, though. She’ll be ever so hurt if she’s the last to know.’

  ‘If it all blows over and Frank has me back then there’s no point in worrying her.’

  ‘You don’t want to tell her at all? What if it came up in conversation by accident?’

  ‘You wouldn’t tell her, would you? Not after I asked you not to?’

  ‘I might not mean to but who knows. And do you really think it’s that certain that you’ll be back with Frank so soon?’

  Gracie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I’ll tell her later then. But if she tries to persuade me to move back in with her you must back me up that it’s a bad idea.’

  ‘Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think,’ Lizzie said, looking doubtfully around at her tiny caravan. ‘I mean, there’s a spare bedroom but it’s really small, and we’d have to buy some bedding for you…’

  ‘You don’t want me here? I knew it was going to be a problem—’

  ‘Of course I want you here!’ Lizzie said, hoping she sounded suitably convincing. ‘And if you are right about Frank then it wouldn’t be for long anyway.’

  * * *

  On reflection it ought to have been obvious from the start that the same tensions that had crept between Gracie and her mother in the years before she finally left home would end up featuring in Gracie’s new arrangement with Lizzie. Out of the three siblings, Lizzie was least like her mum, and Gracie was perhaps the most like her, but this was why Gracie and her mum often clashed. James hardly counted at all – he was most like no one any of them had ever met.

  It’s only a week, Lizzie kept telling herself as she forced yet another smile and bit her tongue as Gracie used all the milk without telling her, or all the hot water so that Lizzie had to wait for the tank to refill, or signed for parcels and took them in but then couldn’t remember where she’d put them when Lizzie asked, or answered her phone when Lizzie was perfectly available to answer herself, or hovered around the caravan like a lost spirit, talking whenever Lizzie needed to concentrate on a project or a piece of important work. Though she understood Gracie’s need to offload, it was hardly helpful. And she could have told her sister that it wasn’t helpful and about just how distracting all that stuff was, but Lizzie was afraid that the criticism, however mild, might have Gracie bursting into tears.