by Holly Ford
Lizzie smiled. ‘When I’m cooking for people,’ she said, ‘I always try to get the preparation work done early. It takes the pressure off.’
Cally nodded seriously.
‘You know,’ Lizzie added, already heading for the pantry, ‘I think good food is a lot like wine. You just can’t make it in a hurry.’
‘What can I do?’ Cally asked, as Lizzie returned with the supermarket bag full of ingredients she’d bought in town the day before.
‘Here.’ Rummaging deep in the bag, Lizzie broke off three thumbs of ginger and handed them to Cally. ‘Could you julienne these?’
‘Sure.’ Cally carried them over to the bench.
Lizzie went back to the pantry. The shelves had been tidied. It took her a few moments to work out that Carr’s collection of herbs and spices, to which she’d been adding with every visit, was now in a series of plastic containers. And in alphabetical order.
Exiting with cardamom pods, saffron and Szechuan peppercorns, she found Cally standing at the bench, still looking at the ginger.
‘Lizzie?’
‘What is it?’
‘Can you show me?’
Half an hour later, watching Cally slice the ginger into ever-finer julienne strips, Lizzie couldn’t help but think it was just as well they’d started early. Cally stared down at the chopping board, her forehead furrowed with a concentration she was going to regret by the time she was forty.
‘There,’ she said at last, letting out a long breath and tilting her head to consider her handiwork. ‘Are those fine enough?’
‘Perfect,’ Lizzie told her.
Duck legs in the oven at last, Cally eyed the tick of the timer. ‘Now what?’
‘That’s it for a while.’ Lizzie finished washing her hands. ‘But there is something else you could help me out with, if you have a minute.’
Popping out to the Land Rover, she returned with a cardboard box. ‘Come on.’ She held out a conspiratorial hand to Cally. ‘Come upstairs.’
In Carr’s bedroom, she put the box down on top of the bed. ‘I was trying to make some room in my wardrobe,’ she lied, ‘and I found these jumpers. They don’t fit me any more.’ She unfolded a rust-coloured polo neck and laid it out on the bed. ‘I really do have to get rid of them, but I hate to throw them out. I think they’re about your size. Is there any chance you might wear them?’
Cally stared down at the jumper reverentially. ‘Are you … are you sure? It looks so expensive.’
Lizzie handed it to her. ‘Try it on.’
Cally peeled off her cardigan and pulled the jumper over her head. Failing to get the polo neck past her hairclip, she re-emerged, took the clip out, and tried again.
‘There,’ Lizzie smiled. ‘I thought it would fit.’ She tilted her head, considering. ‘That colour looks lovely on you.’ It really did, she thought, as Cally turned to look at herself in the bedroom mirror. It brought out the highlights in her hair, which, now that you could actually see some of it, was a very pretty colour.
‘Your hair is beautiful down,’ she added. ‘Do you wear it like that very often?’
Smoothing the jumper over her stomach, Cally shook her head. ‘I don’t really know what to do with it now it’s long.’ She pushed it away from her face. ‘It gets in the way.’
‘It does,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘You get used to it.’
‘I’ve always had it cut short until now.’
‘What made you decide to grow it?’
Cally looked a little abashed. ‘I thought I could save on haircuts.’
‘Well,’ Lizzie said, unsure if she should laugh or not, ‘I think you made an excellent decision.’ She pulled another jumper from the box. ‘Here, try this. Dark green will look great on you, too.’
Chapter FIVE
‘Are you still angry with me?’ Ella closed the bedroom door and leaned against it.
‘Angry?’ Luke glanced up, eyes narrowed, from his laptop. ‘Just because you chose to spend the first day off we’ve had together for months with another guy, why would I be angry?’
‘Come on,’ she soothed. ‘I was working. You know that.’
‘You’re always working,’ he said coldly, not bothering to look up this time.
‘So are you.’
‘I get paid for my work.’
Ella glared at him, deciding how angry to get. On the one hand, that had been a pretty cheap shot; on the other, Luke did have a point. It was the first day off they’d had together for ages, and she had really been looking forward to spending some time with him, and instead she’d run off to add yet more photographs to a series no one was ever going to see. She’d ruined Luke’s day, and hers, and quite possibly Ash’s, too — it was hard to tell, because the horse she had so wanted to photograph had gone batshit crazy the moment he got out of the gate, and if Ash didn’t ride so well and Pooch wasn’t too old to join in Windy’s fun, she and Ash would probably both be in traction. All for a show that only existed inside her own head. What was wrong with her?
Luke closed his laptop. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’
‘It’s okay,’ Ella sighed. ‘It’s true.’
‘No. It’s not okay.’ He sighed, too. ‘Look, I was just being a prick. You need to work, and I want you to work. And your work is great and you will get a show. It’s just …’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I miss you, that’s all.’
Ella nodded. She missed him, too. She’d been away so much, and working so hard, they were lucky to see each other in daylight. Luke had picked her up straight from the airport yesterday, and having crawled into bed full of lust last night, she’d ended up falling asleep before he got out of the bathroom. Then this morning, she’d had to get up early to go riding with Ash, and all in all, it had been far, far too long since they … Noting the gleam in Luke’s green eyes, Ella suspected his mind was taking a similar turn. Maybe the day didn’t have to be completely wasted.
‘I’m not working now,’ she suggested, in a low voice.
A look of amusement crossed Luke’s face.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. That line sounds vaguely familiar, that’s all.’ He looked her up and down slowly, the corner of his mouth curving into more than his usual half-smile.
She was, Ella remembered looking down at herself, wearing a rather smelly flannel shirt and a pair of jeggings, liberally dusted with horsehair, tucked into her socks. Not exactly her sexiest outfit.
‘Come here,’ he grinned. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve unbuttoned a checked shirt.’
Staying right where she was, Ella glared at him. Luke’s disastrous relationship with Charlotte Black might have been all over — bar a little shouting — six years ago, but still, she didn’t appreciate the reference.
‘That’s quite a stare,’ he told her, still looking amused, ‘from someone who’s been riding around with Rob Caterham 2.0 all day.’
Ella glared harder, appreciating the reference to her own brief crush on Charlotte’s husband even less. ‘I never slept with Rob,’ she reminded him huffily.
‘Exactly.’ Luke raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Unfinished business.’
She bit her lip. He was hard to stay mad at when he was grinning like that. But — was that what he’d been sitting here doing while she was away? Reliving old times? Did being here at Glencairn bring everything back? The last time Luke had stayed on a high country station, it occurred to her, he would have been engaged to Charlotte. Well, if his mind had been full of his ex-fiancée all day, Ella supposed she had only herself to blame. He hadn’t exactly wanted to come here.
‘So you’ve been brooding over ancient history?’ she teased him, deciding to keep it light. ‘I thought you had work to do.’
‘You know’ — the glint in Luke’s eyes intensified — ‘how I like to multitask.’
Indeed she did. The thought of his skills in that area having removed any further desire she had for argument, Ella raised her chin and held his gaze. If he ha
d the past on his mind, it was time she got it off. So to speak. She’d give him checked shirt. ‘How about you and I,’ she suggested, ‘do something new. Something you didn’t— Something you’ve never done with anyone before.’
Luke’s eyebrows rose again. ‘A first?’ he smiled wickedly. ‘Let me think.’ Steepling his fingers reflectively, he leaned back in his chair.
Crikey. It was that difficult? On second thoughts, Ella wasn’t sure she was up for anything that took this long to imagine.
Luke rose slowly from his chair. Prowling towards her, he took her by both shoulders.
‘I love you.’ He kissed her gently. ‘There. That’s a first.’
Wow. But, hang on. ‘You never said that?’ Ella faltered. ‘Not even to …?’
‘No.’ He looked down into her eyes. ‘Not even to—’ Suddenly, the smile in Luke’s eyes changed to an expression of alarm.
‘Oh my God.’ Laughing, Ella batted his chest. ‘You just remembered you did, didn’t you?’
Luke winced. ‘I may have done. Once.’ He shut his eyes. ‘Unless you count gift cards. In which case, I guess I’ve said it a lot. But the thing is—’
‘What? You never meant it?’ She pressed her hand to her mouth. She should really stop laughing at this. ‘That makes it so much better.’
‘The thing is,’ he persisted, with a slight air of desperation, ‘I’ve never actually wanted to say it before. To anyone.’ He sighed. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘It’s okay.’ Ella put her arms around his neck. ‘I don’t care whether I’m the first.’ She kissed him. ‘So long as I’m the most recent.’
There was a discreet tap on the door. ‘Dinner,’ came Lizzie’s voice, ‘will be ready in half an hour.’
Letting go of Luke, Ella sighed. ‘I’d better have a quick shower.’
Halfway to the bathroom, she took pity on him. He’d had a pretty rubbish day, after all. Retracing her steps, she stuck her head around the bedroom door.
‘Oh, by the way,’ she grinned, ‘I love you, too.’
Which was hardly news to him, she was sure.
Walking through from the sitting room, a glass of wine in her hand, Ella glanced around the firelit dining room, admiring her mother’s gorgeously staged table. Carr’s amazing old house had certainly sprung to life in the last year. It still looked a little like a location for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but these days the vibe was more Lucy Harker’s house than Vlad the Impaler’s. It wasn’t that the homestead had Lizzie written all over it — just her initials subtly engraved in judicious places. Studying Ash as he took his place opposite her, Ella wondered how he felt about the transformation.
Carr’s son was certainly quite a presence at the table. He was another version of Rob Caterham, in some ways, it was true. He had the same rugged physicality, the same quiet confidence, the same sunkissed glow. Like Rob, he belonged in a checked shirt so thoroughly that he seemed to be wearing one even when — as now — he wasn’t. But the resemblance only went so far. Rob was the most open, easy-going guy she’d ever met. Ash Fergusson, on the other hand, seemed like a man who liked to keep himself to himself. A man it would be harder to get to know. There was something about him … as if he’d been broken, once. And not just his face. As if he carried the scars of something— Ella stopped. Something it was absolutely none of her business to discover. Still, she could understand how a guy like Luke might feel threatened by him.
Ella caught herself: a guy like Luke? What did she mean by that?
A guy who didn’t have ‘hero’ stamped across his forehead. A guy with decidedly earthenware feet. A guy who … Ella sighed. She had a feeling that if Ash ever told a girl he loved her, he’d remember it. And it would be quite safe to believe him. In fact, Ash was exactly the sort of guy a girl ought to fall in love with. Why couldn’t he have been here a year ago? Before she met Luke? He might have stopped her losing her heart to the very last guy she should.
She turned her head to find Luke watching her, his eyes full of a hurt that suggested he’d read her mind. Ella felt a wave of shame. He stiffened — in all the wrong ways — as she slid her hand over his knee. Oh dear. This weekend really wasn’t going well. She removed her hand as Ash got up to pour the wine.
‘So, Luke,’ said Carr, in his most benign tone, ‘how’s business been?’
It was an unheard-of overture on his part; Luke’s messy break-up with Charlotte Black hadn’t left Carr his biggest fan. Ella held her breath.
‘Still keeping our heads above water,’ Luke said modestly. ‘Actually, we had a pretty good week last week.’ He paused. ‘How’s the wool-price indicator holding up?’
Ella felt like clapping. Luke had closed a hundred-million-dollar deal last week, and the urge to brag about it must have been almost overwhelming. He might just win Carr over yet.
‘Here we are.’ Lizzie set an outrageously ornate — and, by the looks of things, very heavy — silver salver down on the table and lifted the lid. Cally followed with two smaller dishes.
Peering into the first, Ella beamed. ‘Duck leg curry?’
‘With coconut rice and pickled plums.’ Her mother nodded. ‘Peter Gordon. Your favourite, yes.’
‘Thanks, Mum!’
‘Duck leg curry,’ Ash repeated, ‘with coconut rice and pickled plums is your favourite?’
‘Of course.’ Ella raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Comfort food.’
‘What do you have on special occasions?’
‘Shepherd’s pie.’
Ash returned her grin. Clearly he shared his father’s sense of humour.
‘How’s the flat-hunting going?’ Carr asked. ‘Seen anything you like yet?’
Uh-oh. She’d been hoping to avoid that subject. She had thought she’d got away with it, since it hadn’t come up last night. Ella glanced sideways at Luke. Sure enough, he was looking stony.
‘No,’ she told Carr, feigning breeziness. ‘Not yet.’
‘The Queenstown market must be pretty tough,’ Ash suggested — possibly to relieve the silence that followed.
‘Yes.’ Ella nodded, avoiding her mother’s eye. The real problem was that she was never there long enough to look for a flat, but she had an idea it wouldn’t help Luke’s mood to remind him of that.
Ever since she had started work as Damian Priest’s photographic assistant, Ella had been living in Luke’s parents’ luxury Queenstown apartment. All two hundred square metres of it, complete with stone fireplace and a view of The Remarkables that more than lived up to the mountain chain’s name. Luke saw no reason for her to move out. Ella did. The apartment was so far beyond her own means she was too embarrassed to tell anyone she lived there. And she daren’t insult Luke’s parents by offering them the kind of rent she could afford, which she was pretty sure wouldn’t cover the gas bill. The whole arrangement made her feel like exactly the sort of woman she’d set out never to be.
‘Just think of it as living with me,’ Luke’s argument always ran. ‘What’s wrong with that? You don’t mind staying at my place in Christchurch.’
‘But you don’t live here,’ she’d argue back.
‘I virtually do. I’m here as much as you are.’
‘And it’s not your apartment.’
‘Yes, it is. It belongs to the family trust.’
‘I need to find a place of my own.’
‘What for?’
‘So I’m not dependent on you.’
‘What’s wrong with depending on me? I’m undependable, is that it?’
‘Those are two different things.’
‘Are you sure?’
And so it went on, and on … And yet eight months later, for all her supposed independence, she was still there. Still not paying rent or the gas bill. And sounding ungrateful to boot.
But Damian’s assignments took him — and now her — all over the world, and when Ella was home, and conscious, she wanted to spend time with Luke, not looking at awful, depressing flats she knew he’d refus
e to set foot in.
‘What’s Damian up to this weekend?’ her mother asked, tactfully changing the subject.
‘Partying at some chalet up a mountain somewhere.’ Ella shook her head. ‘I don’t know how he does it.’
Damian was the best part of forty years older than she was, but sometimes he made her feel like an old lady. His energy was amazing. And it shone through in his work, which was what every magazine editor from Time to Vanity Fair loved about a Damian Priest portrait. Ella still couldn’t quite believe she was working for him. The job was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She thanked God for the impulse that had led Damian, on the strength of a forty-eight-hour visit, to give up New York for Queenstown. God, and yes — Ella had to admit — Quentin Cooper, too, the old family acquaintance who had gone a long way towards redeeming his infamously awful manners by setting her up with the job. She never dreamed, when she rushed out the door at a few hours’ notice just over a year ago to fill in as Quentin’s assistant on a fashion shoot for Vogue, that it would lead to something like this.
Catching Cally looking at her, Ella gave her a conspiratorial smile. There was something different about her tonight — her hair was down, was that it? And she was wearing a gorgeous rust-coloured jumper that really brought out her hazel eyes. That colour had always worked wonders for Lizzie, as well. In fact, didn’t her mother have a jumper just like that? Only hers was tighter.
Cally gave Ella a quick, shy smile in return, then dropped her eyes back to her plate.
‘How’s the coconut rice?’ Lizzie asked.
A slightly odd question, Ella thought, but — ‘Perfect,’ she replied. A chorus of agreement went up.
‘Cally made it,’ Lizzie said, causing Cally to look as though she’d like to disappear under the table.
With a nod of approval, Carr helped himself to a little more.
‘Here, have some more kale.’ Ash passed Cally the dish, a big grin on his face. It was so sweet the way he and Carr looked after her — like two huge dogs who had adopted a fawn and were taking turns to protect it.
