Page 15 of Starting Over at Halesmere House
Both tall, sporting the same short curls, although the older man’s hair was grey and he didn’t have Zac’s breadth of chest. His grin, as Zac said something to him while he unhitched a commercial woodchipper, was unmistakeable and she was certain he must be Zac’s dad. He opened the van and began unloading tools into a wheelbarrow while Zac moved the chipper to one side of her drive. Alice was caught watching when he looked over and he raised a hand. She waved back and retreated to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
The two men were in the garden by the time she opened the patio doors and stepped outside. Zac was carefully pushing a machine that resembled an over-sized lawnmower onto a tarpaulin already spread over part of the lawn.
‘Morning. Tea will be ready in a minute.’ She looked at the older man with a smile. ‘Unless you’d like something else?’
‘No, tea will hit the spot, thanks.’ He came over, holding out an arm. ‘You must be Alice. I’m Neil Blake, Zac’s dad. Nice to meet you.’
‘Hi, Neil. It’s lovely to meet you too.’ Their handshake was brief. Zac approached, running a hand through his hair and messing up the curls some more.
‘Morning.’ His eyes narrowed and she couldn’t help liking how it emphasised the playfulness in his expression.
‘Hello. Wow, it must be cold – you’re wearing a coat.’ Alice noticed it was the same one he had lent her that first day chasing sheep.
‘It’s coming off; I’m already too hot.’ He shrugged the coat from his shoulders and draped it over a garden chair, revealing the tattoo on his right arm. ‘So you’ve met my dad. He arrived last night and he’s staying with me for a bit. I’ve brought him along so he can make himself useful. Take everything he says with a very large pinch of salt.’
‘Hey,’ Neil protested, and she noticed the merry glint was a match for his son’s. ‘I was just about to let Alice know not to listen to a word you say about me.’
Zac was back on the lawn and pulling protective safety gear on, a chainsaw at his feet. ‘Well, at least if you’re working with me, I should get to hear the nonsense you come out with.’
‘How you do like your tea, Neil?’ The kettle in the kitchen behind Alice was whistling its cheerful tune.
‘Plenty of milk please, no sugar.’ Neil’s voice was also similar to Zac’s, with the same deep resonance, although his accent was a northern one.
‘Have you got enough milk?’ Zac’s grin was evident, even behind a safety visor. His foot was on the bar of the chainsaw, keeping it steady before he removed the saw cover to start it up.
‘Lots, actually,’ she said smoothly. ‘I seem to be receiving extra deliveries and I made sure to stock up at the shop just in case.’
‘Perfect.’ Their eyes held before he glanced up at clouds hovering. ‘I’d better make a start; I’m not sure the forecasters have got it right.’
Neil was putting on ear defenders and Alice returned to the kitchen to make the tea. She filled a plate with some of the treats she’d picked up on her early morning dart to the shop. In the garden, Zac was already slicing branches from the conifers with smooth, efficient strokes and Neil raised a hand in thanks when he saw her place the tray down.
Alice returned to her desk, re-reading the email from her clever and technically gifted cousin Marcus, Sandy’s son. He was pushing for Alice to send over the last few details for her website so he could finalise everything. She was thrilled with the concept he had produced: an elegant, simple design with a white background interspersed with pastels and pretty images of colourful flowers.
Having a live website would make it all official and she was suddenly nervous about launching the Flower Shed. She’d bumped into Lizzie at Halesmere yesterday and Lizzie had suggested holding an event to celebrate the occasion before Christmas, maybe as part of the Artisan Open Day planned for December. Alice loved the idea, and they arranged to meet for lunch to discuss it. With so much coming up, she really needed to get a move on with the website and keep her Instagram relevant.
She heard the whine of the chainsaw as she worked, and from her desk she saw Neil feeding branches into the woodchipper, which spat them out in bits at the other end. She strongly suspected that both men ran on buckets of tea, and she had the kettle back on the Aga a couple of hours later, website content finalised and emailed to Marcus. Sandy arrived soon after, bringing more baking apples and fat orange butternut squash from her garden.
‘Oh, how lovely, thank you.’ Alice took the bag and deposited the contents on the worktop in the kitchen. She loved having Sandy so close and able to pop round for visits instead of having to make weekend plans.
‘I remembered you said you were intending to make soup for your studio guests once you’ve done your food hygiene certificate. I’ve got more squash than I know what to do with so I thought you might like some. I really must give away more plants next year.’
‘So you’re suggesting I use it up?’ Alice was already imagining thick, spicy soup for lunch. Good, nourishing food was also going to be part of her winter routine and she loved to eat seasonally if she could. ‘I bought sourdough this morning so if you’ve got time to stay and join me…?’
‘I hoped you’d say that. You’re much better in the kitchen than me.’ Sandy shrugged out of her coat and went to the patio doors to look outside. ‘Those two are hard at it. Is that Zac’s dad? I heard he was coming for a visit; I think he’s staying in the flat with Zac. It’s tiny so one of them must be on the sofa.’
‘Yes, Neil arrived yesterday.’ Sandy’s interest gave Alice an excuse to watch too, and she was surprised to see that two conifers were already gone, with Zac halfway down a third, which looked strangely bald and thin. ‘They certainly don’t mess around. I wasn’t going to bother before spring, but Max had already asked Zac to have a look and he apparently had time to do it this week.’
‘Did he now?’ Sandy slid a gentle elbow into Alice’s side. ‘Because I know Max is flat out with the clearance at the hotel, and he wants Zac to start on the woodland at Halesmere as well before he leaves. There’s some work to do in there before they can replant more trees.’
‘That’s nothing to do with me,’ Alice protested as she edged away. The last thing she needed was anyone other than Kelly suspecting she found Zac attractive. Especially her aunt, with whom she usually shared most things and who had taken care of Alice during one of the worst times of her life. ‘Zac offered to do it and I said yes. One less problem for me to sort out later on.’
She busied herself arranging the apples Sandy had brought into a bowl. ‘Are we still having lunch after church on Sunday? I could return the favour and bring these back to you in a crumble if you like?’
‘Yes, and yes please, that would be brilliant. There’s bound to be a couple of extras, though, so do you think you can stretch it to serve eight?’ Sandy shared the rectory for now with a family from Ukraine, a young woman and her two children, both at the primary school next door to the church.
‘Sure can.’ Alice was thinking over baking ingredients in her cupboard. She’d been buying everything she could at the community shop and had topped up online; she just needed some oats and demerara sugar for the crumble. She bet the shop would have both; she’d nip down and check later.
‘Can I help?’ Sandy turned back to the kitchen as Alice quickly diced the squash and put it in the top oven to roast. She loved cooking but it still felt strange, preparing a meal in this kitchen that didn’t yet feel like home. Everything was unfamiliar, from the cupboard where her new wine glasses lived to the pans hanging above the Aga instead of sitting in a drawer.
