Page 63 of Falling in Love at Pennycress Inn

Charlie nodded, averting her eyes.

‘Hey, you can tell me.’ Pushing the pizza box aside, Nicola leaned across the table and took his hands in hers. ‘What is it?’

Pulling one of his hands away, he raked his fingers through his hair before taking her hand again and leaning forward, too. ‘I didn’t want to have this conversation yet. I wanted to wait until we’d finished our meal, spent some more time together.’

‘What conversation?’ Her voice came out as a whisper. She knew exactly what he was putting off telling her. ‘You’re going back to London?’

He nodded slowly, gripping her hands tighter.

‘When?’ She blinked and tried to remember to breathe.

‘The day after tomorrow.’ His voice was low, and she had to strain to hear it.

‘The day after tomorrow?’ Pulling her hands away, she reached behind her, resting her hands against the nape of her neck.

He nodded again, his eyes fixed on hers.

Lowering her arms, she clasped her hands together on top of the table. ‘I don’t understand. Has the farm sold already? How come the sale is going through so quickly? I thought we’d have at least six weeks from the day you accepted an offer on it.’

Charlie reached out and tried to take Nicola’s hands again, frowning when she pulled them away. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m needed back at work.’

‘But you’re on a sabbatical, a secondment, whatever it is. You’ve got time off.’ She didn’t understand. He hadn’t once mentioned that he might be called back to work. Whenever they’d discussed his departure, not once had it come up into conversation that he might get called back into the office. He’d only ever said he’d be leaving when his uncle’s farm had sold. When he’d completed what he’d come here to do.

‘It’s a sabbatical.’

‘I don’t care what it is. You never said this might happen. You never said you might be called back into work one day.’ Standing up, she pushed her chair back and walked across to the middle of the garden before returning. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want him to leave.

‘I know. I didn’t think this would happen either.’

She looked at him. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked tired. She hadn’t noticed the bags under his eyes when he’d walked through the door. She hadn’t noticed the difference in him. But she could now. ‘How long have you known?’

Bringing his hand to his mouth, he cleared his throat. ‘Since yesterday.’

Sinking back into her chair, she looked at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me when you found out?’

Running the palm of his hand across his face, he visibly winced. ‘Because I wanted us to have just another day to enjoy our time together without this hanging over us.’

‘And when were you going to tell me?’ She tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘If I hadn’t guessed something was up and questioned you, when would you have told me?’

He shifted in his chair again.

‘Would you have told me? Or would I have just woken up one morning to a text telling me you’d gone? Or turned up at the farmhouse to find you’d disappeared?’

‘Of course I would have told you.’ Leaning forward again, he held his hands out in the middle of the table, his palms up, waiting for hers. ‘Like I said, I had planned to tell you this evening, after dinner.’

She looked from her own hands to his. She couldn’t think straight. Her thoughts were all jumbling in her mind. Tentatively, she placed her hands in his, feeling a lump form in her throat as he closed his fingers around hers. ‘Why? Why do they need you back now?’

‘Because the firm’s lost one of our biggest clients. They think I stand a chance of winning them back.’

‘I thought you were the boss? Can’t you just tell them what to do?’

‘I still have people above me, people I answer to – the board, the shareholders, the…’ His voice trailed off.

She nodded. He was leaving early, running away from Meadowfield, from her, because his firm had lost a client. He was choosing winning the client back over her. His job was already coming between them. ‘And when you go back, what happens to us?’

‘Just like we discussed, we visit each other. You can come to London. I can come here.’ Leaning forward, he circled his thumbs against the back of her hands. ‘We make this work.’

‘So, this weekend, you’ll come back to Meadowfield? Or I’ll come to London?’ She focused on the rhythmic circular motion of his skin against hers.

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