The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights

by Sarah Lefebve

  ‘Sorry.’ She took a deep breath, then decided to go for the full truth. ‘I thought he was going to head over and do your uncle Dom a serious injury. He is just so upset.’

  Lottie stared blankly and wondered who was going mad, her or Tiggy? She needed a rewind button so she could start the day again. ‘Upset, why?’

  ‘He showed me your text.’

  ‘Text?’

  ‘You know, the one about Dom and Amanda.’

  ‘What text? I never…’

  ‘The one you sent last night telling him to leave Amanda alone because…’

  Lottie didn’t hear the rest, the words just drifted by. It had suddenly dawned on her what Tiggy meant. There was only one text she could possibly mean.

  Bugger. The one she’d sent to Rory, or rather tried to send to Rory whilst dancing on a table. She grabbed her mobile and scrolled through the texts. Crap.

  And that explained why Rory hadn’t understood her drunken mumblings last night when she’d finally managed to get her key in the keyhole, and eventually worked out how best to get up the stairs and into bed.

  Well, there was a fair chance he wouldn’t have understood anyway, but she had thought he would have at least laughed about the heart. It had taken a lot of effort that had, even if it hadn’t been perfect. The thought had been there, and he hadn’t even had the decency to mention it. Which she’d sulked about until she fell asleep, turning her back on him and ignoring the fact that he’d snuggled up and pushed his erection none-too-subtly against her. She’d even managed to hold her breath and pretend she was asleep when he’d cupped her breast in one warm hand and kissed her neck. That bit had taken a considerable effort, and more willpower than she normally exerted. Kissing her neck was guaranteed (well almost) to send goosebumps down her arms and lead to her displaying varying degrees of wanton behaviour. But she hadn’t, because she was cross.

  She studied her feet. ‘Did he get two texts from me?’

  ‘Er, yes. Were you drunk, Lottie? That second one was a bit unexpected.’

  Lottie felt herself go bright red. ‘It wasn’t meant for him.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She knew she was mumbling. ‘I meant to send it to someone else.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tiggy stared then grinned as the penny dropped. ‘Don’t tell him, will you, love? I think he was rather chuffed about that one.’

  ‘And he’s okay?’ Better to change the subject.

  ‘Oh yes, yes, nothing that a good sleep won’t sort.’

  ‘And the horses are okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, all fine at the moment, although…’

  ‘So I can go home?’ Billy would forget the soppy text pretty quickly. He forgot everything after a couple of days, but right now it would be more than embarrassing for both of them.

  ‘Oh no, I mean, please don’t. I’m worried about Billy and what he might do.’

  Which reminded Lottie of the earlier strange comment. She knew that her Dad and Uncle Dom didn’t exactly get on, but they didn’t hate each other. Did they? And why would her text cause a problem in the first place? All of which she said to Tiggy, and was even more flummoxed by the ‘it’s all a bit complicated, love’ response.

  ‘Oh, leave your car here, I don’t think he’ll be coming out. Let’s go and have a cup of tea in the tack room, dear, it’s about time somebody told you what was going on; not that it’s really my place to…’

  ***

  ‘So, Dad is upset exactly why?’ Lottie peered into the biscuit tin in the vague hope that there would at least be crumbs left. Since coming home from Spain she’d been determined to do something about what Rory had coined her ‘Spanish tummy’ (she was pretty sure that phrase was supposed to refer to something even more unsavoury, but Rory had insisted on using the term), and the ‘something’ involved trying not to eat two rounds of toast for breakfast and to skip the mid-morning bacon sandwich. But the effort had left her feeling permanently hungry and just as podgy. So her new plan had been to have a regime of riding more horses and entering more energetically into sex with Rory. This had been fine until last night, when she’d been sulking. To make up for the lack of sexual gymnastics, she’d skipped both rounds of toast and her stomach now felt like an empty barrel and was making alarming noises – a bit like the pipes did at Tipping House.

  ‘He thinks Dom has a plan to sell this place from under him.’

  Tiggy forgot about the biscuits. ‘Dom? But why would Uncle Dom want to do that? I mean, it’s our home, well Dad’s home, and I thought everybody wanted to make sure Folly Lake wasn’t sold to someone who might bulldoze it. And anyway, it isn’t Uncle Dom’s to sell, is it?’

  ‘But you said he was helping Amanda.’

  ‘Did I?’ Lottie racked her brain and tried to remember exactly what she had said. ‘But that was a bit of a joke more than anything. That one was for Rory as well, it wasn’t for Dad.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tiggy digested the news while she sipped her tea. ‘So Dom isn’t friends with Amanda?’

  ‘Well, I don’t really know. She was there when I went the other day, which seemed strange, and I think she went to see Elizabeth not Uncle Dom. But I don’t get why Dad is upset. And Amanda’s nice; I don’t think she wants to see the village ruined.’

  ‘He thinks Dom wants to wreck his life.’

  Lottie reluctantly registered the fact that Tiggy had now said the same thing more than once, and it still didn’t make sense. ‘Uncle Dom? But, he’s Uncle Dom, I—’

  Tiggy put down her mug and gave her a weak smile. Lottie guessed it was supposed to be reassuring, but it looked a bit sickly and made her stomach dip alarmingly, in the way she guessed it would if a policeman came to the door and said he had bad news. Not that she knew how that would feel.

  ‘Years ago, Lottie, before you were born, Dom and Billy were mates. They were so close,’ Tiggy crossed one finger over the other, ‘like this. Like brothers, even though they were so different. People used to call them the three musketeers, your mum, dad and Uncle Dom. And they caused all kinds of mayhem, from what I’ve heard. I mean, I wasn’t actually close to Billy then, I know, I was married and had other friends, but it’s what I’ve heard.’

  Lottie wondered how long this would take, and what Pip would make of it, and whether she would get back in time to help her muck out.

  ‘But when your mother died, Dom blamed Billy.’

  She stopped thinking about mucking out.

  ‘Dad killed Mum?’ It was such an alarming thought, it tumbled out before she could stop it.

  Tiggy looked shocked. ‘No, no. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Billy loved Alexa; he was mad about her. Totally.’ Tiggy paused. ‘Look, I don’t know exactly why, or what happened, but something serious did. They’ve never got on the same ever since. Billy won’t talk about it, but then it got worse,’ she paused and Lottie had the impression that whatever she was about to say mattered, really mattered. ‘Your gran and Uncle Dom decided that you shouldn’t stay here with your dad. They thought you’d be better off going back to Tipping House with them. You were the most important thing in the world to him, Lottie. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. He had a terrible time fighting them to keep you with him.’

  ‘What do you mean, going back? I never lived there, I’ve always been here with Dad.’ Lottie realised that the coffee was crashing about in her mug like a tidal wave and put it down on the floor at her feet.

  ‘No, you haven’t. Not always.’ Tiggy shrugged apologetically. ‘Didn’t you know? You were born there, Lottie, at Tipping House.’

  ‘No.’ Lottie felt curiously light-headed. ‘No, you’re wrong.’

  ‘Maybe I should shut up. I just wanted, well I’m worried…’

  ‘Shut up?’ Lottie folded her arms, to keep in the feeling that she was going to explode imminently. ‘You can’t just say stuff like that and then shut up.’ She leant forward and studied the undecided Tiggy more closely. ‘If yo
u don’t, I’ll go and ask Dad.’ That did the trick, instantly.

  ‘Well, I don’t know much.’ She cringed at the speculative look. ‘No, I don’t. But I do know that when you were born you all lived up at Tipping House. You, your mum and Billy. After you were born, Billy wanted to move out. He told me he couldn’t stay and he wanted to bring you back here to the place he’d lived when they first got married.’

  ‘Why, Tiggy? Why would Uncle Dom hate him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must! You know everything else.’

  ‘I only know the tiny bit that your dad told me. He doesn’t talk about it much.’

  ‘Don’t I know it.’ Lottie muttered the words as she stood up, but was pretty sure by the alarm that was spreading over Tiggy’s features that she’d heard.

  ‘I don’t think he’s in a fit state to talk at the moment.’

  ‘It isn’t him I’m going to ask.’ Lottie pushed open the tack room door, and nearly tripped over a crimson-faced Tabatha.

  ‘What should I do next? Sorry, I just came to see… it’s just I turned the horses out and I didn’t know who to ask.’

  ‘Ask Tiggy. She knows most things.’ Which might have been a bit unfair, especially when it came to horses.

  ‘Where are you going, Lottie?’ Tiggy gave Tab a reassuring smile then jogged after the striding Lottie breathlessly, wondering why on earth she worked with these fit people, who were constantly either in crisis or just behaving in a super-fit way, when all she wanted to do was sit down with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. She got to the car just as Lottie started up the engine.

  ‘If Uncle Dom and Gran really are up to something then I want to know why, seeing as Dad isn’t ever going to bloody tell me.’

  ‘Don’t do anything silly, I mean, maybe you should talk to him first?’ She clung on to the half-open window, hoping Lottie didn’t press a button and make mincemeat of the end of her fingers. ‘When he feels a bit better, that is. I’m only trying to help him. I’m sure he wants to tell you.’

  Lottie revved the engine and Tiggy fought the urge to jump back out of harm’s way. She was a pacifist; an easy-going, low-adrenalin wimp in an adrenalin junkie’s world. But she loved Billy, and his daughter, far too much to watch them destroy what they had. ‘Lottie, just wait. He only kept it quiet because he loves you and he was so frightened.’

  ‘Dad doesn’t do scared.’ Billy had never backed off from anything in his whole life, well definitely not in the life Lottie knew about. And he’d always taught her not to. No was never an option as she’d grown up. It was man up and get on with everything, a trait, strangely enough, that he shared with Elizabeth.

  ‘He was scared you’d hate him.’

  She stopped revving the engine, stopped staring fixedly at the stuffed Bagpuss on the dashboard and looked at the wild-haired (and wild-eyed) Tiggy, who was floundering about like a beached whale.

  ‘Why would I hate him? He’s my Dad.’

  Tiggy, who had been brought up in a household where a man thought it was his right to use his wife as a punching bag when the fancy took him, decided not to voice the first response that had come to mind. ‘He thought,’ she took a deep breath – did confidences matter at a time like this? Billy had told her all kinds of things at the end of a long day, when they’d shared a drink, but he was the type of man who thought opening his heart was a weakness, and he’d be mortified to know she was spouting off. And to his daughter of all people. But all of a sudden she couldn’t stop the splurge of verbal diarrhoea. He deserved better than he’d got. It wasn’t right that he stood to lose everything. And if anyone could help, his headstrong daughter could. ‘He thought you’d think he was silly and possessive, that you would think you’d have been better off with them, up there, rather than here.’

  ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘Stupid is relative, Lottie. Everything was taken from him when your mother died, and it would have finished him off to lose you too. Billy was never stupid, just scared.’ She loosened her grip on the window and flexed her fingers. ‘He fought to keep you, Lottie, and now he’s fighting to keep this place. You and Folly Lake kept him sane, and now he’s sure that Dom is involved in taking it away. But I just can’t believe Dom would hold a grudge like that, whatever happened. It just doesn’t seem right, somehow. I mean, whatever happened, it can’t be that bad, can it?’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’ Lottie pressed the button for the electric windows.

  ‘Don’t do anything silly, will you, please?’ Tiggy had her head sideways, as though it would help the words get through, and grabbed hold of the window again. ‘All Billy wants is someone to look after, someone who admires him and a place to call home, with a regular supply of food and sex, that’s all.’

  Lottie cringed at the last bit. Sex? Who talked about sex at his age? It had been bad enough hearing about it when she was younger, but even the thought of it now was too yuk for words. ‘He’s just like all men, really, even if he is your dad.’ It would have been nice if she could have shut the window completely, but there was a small gap, created by Tiggy’s fingers. Any minute now she’d be pressing her face to it. ‘He just needs to be someone’s hero, and all those girls who scream at him from the stands don’t count. You were the only one who counted, Lottie, and this was your home. Even if you never come back to stay, it’s your home in his eyes. It’s all the happy bits.’

  Chapter 17

  Normally Lottie considered herself a pretty safe driver, but the highway code wasn’t uppermost in her mind as she sped along the narrow lanes, the green hedgerows a dizzying blur as she took a corner slightly too quickly for comfort. Dizzy was the last thing she felt, though, as the broad, black rear of a horse came towards her at alarming speed.

  ‘Shit.’ It would be so undignified to be killed with her nose buried up a horse’s back end. She could imagine the headlines, ‘Promising eventer, Charlotte Brinkley, died today of suffocation after embedding herself in a horse’s arse. The horse’s rider was unharmed.’

  She wrenched the steering wheel to one side, clipping the grass verge with a satisfying clump and embedding a good clod of Cheshire mud under her front wheel arches, and ground to a halt inches from a ditch (she knew there was a ditch because she nearly fell in it as she clambered out), mortified that she had nearly added to the road kill statistics.

  ‘I am so sorry.’

  The horse, which had half reared as it felt a brush with destiny up its back end, was now doing a fair imitation of a cat on hot coals, but the rider seemed remarkably unfazed.

  He grinned as only he could.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Mick.’

  ‘Whoa there, where’s the fire?’ Warm Irish tones snaked around Lottie’s ruffled feathers and her adrenalin levels did a dive, then peaked again as he winked.

  Lottie felt something crumple inside, and it must have shown on her face. He leapt off the still-dancing horse and landed just inches away from her. ‘Everything okay, treasure?’ She could handle this, until he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, which made her face do funny contortions in a bid to stop the tears springing out from her as though she was a leaky watering can. There would be that many, she was sure, if she let go. She bit her lip instead, which hurt. Which had been the point, but she hadn’t expected quite that much of a sting.

  ‘Uncle Dom hates dad, and I sent him this stupid text.’ She sank back against the car bonnet, which was surprisingly warm, well hot, and had to edge her way along to a cooler spot.

  ‘You sent Dom a stupid text? What, like the kind old Rory would?’

  Lottie felt marginally less close to tears, but then more hot and bothered as Mick joined her in the leaning-against-the-car exercise as his horse decided to pack in the histrionics and put its head down to eat grass.

  ‘Oh, hell, I think maybe I’d better just let the fire go out on its own.’ She kicked at a tuft of grass and tried to ignore the heat that was radiating from his body, or maybe it was her that was
hot and he was just normal. ‘No, I sent Dad a stupid text, one that was meant for Rory, but I was drunk and it is just so hard to make things out of x’s you know.’

  ‘I think you lost me, somewhere right near the beginning.’

  He really was, Lottie thought, incredibly sexy. It was everything, the complete package. And, unlike Rory, he was actually trying to talk to her, properly. Like he had at the hunt, when he’d been more than happy to tag along with her at the back. He made her feel safe and wanted. She swallowed hard. ‘I just.’ It came out as a squeak, because he’d put a hand on her leg, well, thigh. In a tingly kind of spot near the top. To move would look rude and she’d burn her bum on the bonnet of the car.

  ‘Do you think Rory loves me?’ Lottie was pretty sure her brain hadn’t instructed that to come out of her mouth, and it came out a bit abruptly.

  ‘By the way, he went on about you while you were in Spain, I’d say so.’ He didn’t move away. ‘I was fed up of hearing about you to be honest, until,’ he was giving her the full-on sexy look, studying every inch of her face until she felt like squirming, ‘you came back and I realised why.’

  ‘Oo.’ She fought to lower her tone a couple of octaves. ‘Oh, I mean, he talked about me, like, a lot?’

  ‘He did. And I can see why.’

  ‘Oh.’ She tried to avoid looking straight into those all-knowing eyes. ‘So, he did miss me. A little bit?’

  ‘Oh, he missed you, treasure. I think you mean more to him than he realises.’

  ‘I missed him.’ She looked everywhere but straight at him, and missed the pained look that briefly crossed his dark features. Mick didn’t really want to talk about Rory and Lottie missing each other, but if that was what she wanted, he knew he had to. ‘I didn’t think he was that bothered, though, really.’ She risked a glance and he was studying her intently. ‘Have you ever loved anyone?’ She had to stop looking at him, it wasn’t good for her. Definitely not.