Page 14 of A Forever Home at Honey Bee Croft

‘I didn’t follow you. I knew you were coming here.’

‘But I didn’t ask you to come.’

‘You looked upset,’ he repeated as though that explained his presence.

‘I wasn’t upset. I was in a rush. I still am.’

‘You look upset now.’

‘What do you expect?’ I waved my hand in the direction of the care home. ‘My dad’s in there and he has no idea who I am. Of course I’m upset!’

Cursing myself for saying too much, I set off towards my car, but Damon grabbed my arm, his fingers pressing into my skin.

‘Let go!’ I cried, snatching my arm from his grasp and rubbing it. I’d have a bruise there later. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘I want to talk to you, but you keep walking away.’

‘Because I have a mountain of things to do in a short space of time and I want to crack on with them.’

‘Can I take you for a coffee?’

I shook my head. ‘Damon, please listen to me. I have alotto do. I don’t have time to stop and chat, so I definitely don’t have time to go for a coffee. I’m sorry.’

‘You never seem to have time for me anymore.’ He stuck out his bottom lip like a petulant child. ‘You used to chat to me but now you spend all your time working, or here, or at the farm with those stupid bees.’

Incensed, I glared at him. ‘The bees aren’t stupid.’

‘Don’t you care anymore?’ he asked, ignoring my comment.

‘About what?’ Damon was trying my patience today. I had so much to do and he seemed to be everywhere, delaying me.

He looked bewildered. ‘Me, of course! I thought we had a connection.’

I widened my eyes in disbelief. Seriously? This again?

‘Our only connection is that we went to the same primary school. Nothing more.’

‘You can’t mean that. We went out.’

‘That wasn’t a date, Damon. You know it wasn’t.’

‘If you’d just let me take you out again, I could?—’

I’d lost my patience now. How many times were we going to have the same conversation?

‘Please stop!’ I said firmly. ‘We had one coffee, it wasnota date and you know it so stop trying to turn it into something it wasn’t. Don’t come here again. It’s distressing enough without you turning up.’

‘Iwantto be here. You don’t have to go through this alone, Poppy.’

He took a couple of steps closer, his arms outstretched as though to hug me and I backed away, furious with him for overstepping.

‘Iwantto go through this alone and this isn’t about you. I don’t care if you want to be here. This ismydad andIdon’t want you here. Do you understand?’

‘But who else have you got?’

He’d said it gently and there was obvious concern in his expression, but those words! He might as well have punched me in the stomach. Those six words had tapped into my biggest fear for the future.

‘I’ve got plenty of people,’ I said, my tone sharp. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’

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