Page 48 of Wild About You

Jamie and Lucinda were sitting on the bench. Enjoying the view of the infant wildflower meadow, talking, a slight smile on his normally grumpy face as she spoke to him. Just as when I’d received Sean’s message, I stood stock-still, an animal frozen to the spot.

What was thispain? A delayed reaction to Sean?

They were engrossed in each other.Ugh. Carefully, I turned, and began to move away, very slowly, trying not to capture their attention.

At that moment Keith appeared, carrying someVerbena bonariensis, the tiny purple flowers shivering on their long stalks.

‘Hiya!’ he said, smiling. ‘Are you alright? You look like you’re practising deer stalking or something.’

I bit my lip. ‘Quite the opposite actually. I didn’t want to disturb them.’ I tilted my head slightly.

‘Well, they’re looking now. Do you want to come over there with me? I was going to show Jamie the verbena.’

‘No, that’s fine.’ I noted the slight puzzlement on his face. ‘As you were.’ For some reason I’d started talking like a colonel on parade. ‘Pip pip and all that.’

He looked puzzled. ‘Are you alright, duck?’

‘Hi Anna!’ Mica came through the gate, wiping her hands on a cloth. ‘You have to give me the recipe for those biscuits. They were incredible. Not that I got to eat many of them.’ She nudged Keith.

‘So glad you liked them,’ I said. ‘I’ll send you the recipe.’ I could feel Jamie and Lucinda looking at me. ‘Sorry, I’ve just remembered something I have to do. I’d best be off – can we catch up later? I’d like your opinion on the parterre.’

‘Sure,’ she said, smiling. Keith carried the verbena off in the direction of Jamie.

I went back to the blissful silence of the office, and was making myself a restorative coffee when Tally came bowling through. ‘Gosh, I’m exhausted,’ she cried, picking up her bag. ‘I went to condition-check the paintings inthe music room, but I’m too drained. That presentation to Jamie was really tiring. Lucinda made some excellent suggestions.’

‘Lucinda did?’ I frowned at her.

‘Yes,’ said Tally, checking her lipstick. ‘Looks like she’s back in the fold, if you know what I mean. I think I’m going to finish early.’ I heard her rooting around in her desk. Then she said my name. When I looked at her, she seemed uncharacteristically awkward.

‘Fi said I should have a word with you,’ she said, her tone particularly clipped. ‘You were… very helpful at the fete, Anna. I appreciate it.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘No, well, yes. Anyway. Fi said I haven’t been… entirely nice to you. So I wanted to say that I’m sorry.’ She gave an awkward little laugh. ‘I suppose the truth is, I felt a teeny tiny bit threatened when you started working here. As a sophisticated woman, I am very much used to being the alpha female here at Stonemore.’

I clamped a hand over my mouth. I couldnotlaugh at Tally’s heartfelt apology. Luckily she wasn’t looking at me; in her awkwardness, she was playing with the handle of her bag.

‘So. Well. You seemed very capable, and very metropolitan. I could have been nicer,’ she said, as though the words were being wrangled out of her.

In the time it took for her to finally look at me, I managed to get a hold of myself.

‘That’s very decent of you, Tally,’ I said, a slight tremor in my voice. ‘I accept your apology.’

‘Well, yes, anyway, I’m very tired so I’m going now.’ She was gone in under a minute, and I allowed myself a stifled cackle of laughter when I was totally sure she couldn’t hear me.

Despite the diversion, as I settled back at my desk, a restlessness overcame me. I couldn’t help my brain returning to Lucinda and Jamie in the garden. Every time I tried to refocus on a plan to rebuild old hedgerows with wild pear and apple trees, my mind returned to them. Sitting alongside each other, talking and smiling in a way that was so unfamiliar to me.

Name those feelings, I thought idly, as I poured the water into another coffee and stirred.Go on, Anna. Name them.

Irritation, check. Just like with Sean then.

Disappointment, check. But a different kind, somehow. And something else.

Jealousy.

Definitely jealousy. Was I really that much of a loser? Completely unable to support others in their happiness? Why shouldn’t Jamie and Lucinda fall wildly in love? It wasn’t hurting me. It wasn’t their fault that all I had to my name was an ambiguous ex, a failed fling with Callum, and the serious creeps about the idea of jumping back in the dating pool.

I picked my mug up and clomped back to my desk: 3pm. Two hours until home. I could get lots done in that time.

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