‘Are you going to let me in?’ Dylan asked. He hooked a thumb at the darkening skies. ‘I think I’m about to get rained on.’
Millie stepped back and he closed the door behind him.
‘I wanted to explain—’
Millie held up a hand to silence him. ‘It should be me explaining to you.’
‘But this morning… I mean the thing with Rowena…’ He pushed a hand through his hair, his distress evident in the faltering tone of his voice. It was a Dylan that Millie was unfamiliar with, the sight of it twisting that knife of guilt again. ‘I wish you hadn’t had to see that.’
‘So do I. But I can’t blame you for something you had no control over. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine. I’m just glad you’re ok.’
‘Is it true?’
‘I don’t—’
‘The things you and Rowena said. Is any of it true?’
‘Would it make matters better or worse if I said yes?’
Dylan gave her a tight smile. ‘I really don’t know. It’s hard to get my head around.’
‘I get that. I’m sorry you had to get dragged into it… you know, with the wine and everything. That was unforgivable.’
‘I’ve had worse trips than that after cooking up mushrooms from the fields, so I’m pretty sure there was something more than wine in that bottle, because I recognise the effects.’ Millie raised her eyebrows and he laughed lightly. ‘Don’t look so shocked. I haven’t always been this angelic.’
‘You don’t hate me?’
‘No, I don’t hate you.’
‘You ought to.’
‘Don’t be silly. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘But it was. And everyone will see it that way.’ There was a pause. Dylan stuck his hands deep in his pockets, and then Spencer emerged and stood at the doorway, giving Dylan a curt nod of acknowledgement.
‘Oh,’ Dylan began, ‘if I’m interrupting something—’
‘You’re not,’ Millie said quickly. ‘He’s helping me to pack.’
Dylan’s vexed frown gave way to a look of shock. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘I don’t see what else I can do.’
Dylan looked at Spencer, who held his hands up. ‘I’ve tried to talk some sense into her but she’s determined she’s going.’
Millie frowned at him. ‘We’ve been over it and you agreed.’
‘No, I didn’t. I said I would help you if you were adamant that you wanted to go. The two things are very different. I don’t think you should. I think you should stand your ground and show Rowena that you won’t be victimised any more and that you’re settling in Honeybourne whether she likes it or not.’
‘What about the residents of Honeybourne? They might not be so keen on that idea.’
‘We’re two of them and we are.’ Spencer looked at Dylan, who nodded agreement.
‘I think you’ll be the only two.’ Millie let out a sigh. ‘I saw the look on Jasmine’s face this morning. I don’t think she’s ever going to speak to me again. That on its own is enough to make me want to go.’
‘Look, I think you guys need some privacy,’ said Spencer, ‘so I’m going to wash up our glasses and then skedaddle.’
Dylan took Millie gently by the shoulders. ‘Is this why you told me we couldn’t be together?’
Millie opened her mouth to argue. But what was the point? She had wanted to protect all the people she had come to care about over the last few weeks and she had failed miserably. She nodded.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ Dylan said quietly, holding her gaze. ‘And I think you might be the first woman I’ve ever said that to and meant it.’
‘I have to.’
‘Is this about me sleeping with her, because I don’t think—’
Millie shook her head. ‘I know what she’s like, and what’s done is done now. But what if she’s not finished yet? I can’t put you in any more danger and I don’t want her manipulating any more of my friends to get back at me; it’s not fair to drag anyone through it.’
‘I can handle her. Once bitten twice shy.’
Millie shook her head. ‘Even I underestimated the lengths she was prepared to go to. I worry that she might be willing to go even further and I can’t take that risk.’
‘Because you like me?’ Dylan gave her an impish grin and Millie couldn’t help a small smile in return.
‘Nothing is ever that simple. It’s not just you I’m worried about either. Anyone who is anything to me is a target.’
‘Half the village knows what happened,’ he said with a rueful smile, ‘or at least a version of it. But they all know that she’s trouble. So anyone she comes across is going to be on their guard. She won’t fool people again.’
‘She doesn’t need to fool them and she doesn’t need to be in contact with them to cause mischief.’
‘We can give as good as we get. Ever seen the film The Wicker Man?’
Millie’s smile returned. ‘I know that you’re trying to make light of this, but you can’t deny what happened to you last night. Whatever you think it was, she got to you and you were at her mercy. She’s capable of doing it again.’ She pulled herself gently from his grip. ‘I’m sorry, but leaving is the only way I can be certain.’
‘And what if she follows you to the next village?’ Dylan said as she walked to the front door to see him out. ‘And the next one and the next one? Are you supposed to spend the rest of your life as a hermit, just in case?’
‘Yes,’ Millie replied.
‘No way!’ He strode across and took her hand from the door. ‘You’re too funny, too clever, too beautiful for that. How can you deny the world the gift of all that you are? Without you in it, life is a darker place and I’m not going to stand by and watch this happen.’
‘You don’t know what you’re messing with,’ Millie fired back. Why couldn’t he accept her decision? Why couldn’t he see it was for the best? And why did he have to choose this moment to show the real Dylan Smith – a considerate, sensitive, eloquent man, the man she had always known was inside him. Why did he have to make it so damn hard to leave him now?
He took her by the shoulders and gazed down at her. She was mesmerised, knowing that he was about to kiss her and undo all her stoic resolution and there was nothing she could do to stop him. In her heart, she didn’t want to. But as the moment came, it was shattered by a frantic hammering at the door that made them both leap apart. Spencer ran through from the back room. If it was Rowena, at least Millie had the two best allies that she could hope for. Emboldened by this, she undid the lock with a shaking hand and opened the door.
Jasmine stood on the doorstep, hair wild around her shoulders, trainers on beneath her linen trousers and a raincoat pulled around her. She had the triplets in tow and Ruth bringing up the rear. She glared at Dylan.
‘I’ve been calling you for hours! Don’t you ever answer your phone?’
‘What the hell?’
‘I told you he was here,’ Ruth cut in, but nobody took any notice of her.
‘Is Rich with you?’ Jasmine asked sharply.
‘No…’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Not today. What’s going on?’
Jasmine looked at Millie. ‘Have you seen him tonight?’
Millie shook her head.
‘Me neither,’ Spencer said as he came to the door.
‘I can’t find him,’ Jasmine said.
‘Maybe he can’t get a signal on his phone,’ said Dylan. ‘There are some dodgy spots around the Dog and Hare—’
‘No!’ she fired back in a strangled voice. ‘He doesn’t have his phone with him.’
‘But he’ll turn up. Have you been to the pub?’
‘I’ve been everywhere. Nobody has seen him. I don’t know what to do.’
Millie stared helplessly at her friend. She wanted to reach out, to comfort and help in any way she could. But she wasn’t sure it would be welcome.
‘What do you want us to do?’ Spence
r asked. ‘We can go and search if you like.’
‘How long has he been missing?’ Dylan asked.
Jasmine shrugged. ‘Four, maybe five hours.’
Dylan looked at the triplets, wide-eyed and fearful. Clearly their mother’s anxiety was rubbing off on them. ‘Hey, kids, how’s it going? Do you fancy a night in the pub?’
Jasmine opened her mouth but Dylan silenced her. ‘It’ll be cool. I’ll run them down and they can sit with Colleen in the back room while we sort this. If we’re out late they can sleep over in one of the guest bedrooms. She won’t mind.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Spencer agreed. ‘I’ll call ahead.’ He ran to get his phone. Dylan looked at Jasmine. ‘Come in and sit down.’
‘I’ll come to the pub with you,’ she began, but Dylan stopped her.
‘I can do it. I need you to think about where Rich might be.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve tried everywhere I can think of. He’s not at any of his friends’ or at the pub or any of his other haunts. We—’
‘Not now,’ Dylan said, glancing at the kids who were listening intently. ‘Tell me later. Or tell Millie and Spencer while I’m gone. Ruth…’ He turned to the old lady who had sidled in with the children. ‘Would you care to accompany me to the Dog and Hare? I could do with an extra pair of hands to keep these rascals in order.’ He gave her a cheeky wink and Ruth almost squealed her reply.
‘Ooh, yes!’
‘Well, we’d better get a move on; it’s ten thirty now and we don’t want to keep everyone up.’
‘Quite,’ Jasmine said, trying to appear cheerful. ‘It’s not the school holidays yet so you definitely can’t stay up all night.’
Millie smiled. She was impressed by Dylan’s ability to siphon Ruth off without it seeming to Ruth that she was being got out of the way. And it was reassuring to see that some of the flirting, charming rogue was still in evidence; the new Dylan she was coming to know was both attractive and oddly disconcerting in equal measures. But her smile faded as she realised in that same moment that she was expected to take care of Jasmine. And now that she knew about Jasmine and Spencer’s past, she wondered whether his presence would make things better or worse.
Spencer returned, phone in hand. ‘Colleen says she’d love to see them and she’s getting ice cream out right now. I didn’t tell her exactly what the situation was, just that we had a bit of an emergency on our hands.’
‘Good man.’ Dylan nodded his approval. He turned to the children. ‘Glad to see that you’ve got your raincoats on over those PJs, I think you might need them.’
By now, night was almost upon them. More worryingly, so was the storm.
‘Jas…’ Dylan said gently. As she turned to him, he nodded his head towards the triplets.
She bent to kiss each of them on the head. ‘Be good for Colleen, won’t you?’
They all nodded.
‘Will you find Daddy?’ Rachel asked.
‘Of course. He’s probably just gone somewhere I haven’t thought of and he’ll think I’ve been very silly when he turns up.’
Rachel didn’t look convinced, but she followed without another word as Dylan offered Ruth his arm and then whistled for them to follow him out into the night. Spencer, Jasmine and Millie were left staring at each other as the room fell eerily quiet.
‘Is there anything I can get you?’ Millie asked Jasmine awkwardly as the tension became unbearable.
Jasmine shifted from one foot to the other. She wrapped her raincoat tighter, despite the warmth of the room.
‘No… thank you.’
Spencer draped a comforting arm around Jasmine ‘He’ll turn up. Everything will be fine.’
‘I know. I’m trying to be sensible about it but…’
‘But what?’ Spencer asked. ‘What’s happened?’
Jasmine sighed. ‘We had the hugest row. And we both said things… There was talk of divorce. And there was…’
Jasmine faltered. Millie glanced at Spencer, trying to read his expression. Whatever his feelings might have been about the prospect of Jasmine and Rich splitting up, he didn’t show them. Millie’s admiration of him grew, but so did her pity. He was everyone’s rock: kind, selfless, principled to the last, and yet he was so obviously lonely. A man like him didn’t deserve to be lonely. Millie didn’t know whether he still carried any sort of torch for Jasmine, but if he did, this situation would be hard for him.
‘Millie,’ Spencer said, ‘have we got some of that brandy to spare?’
‘Sure.’ She turned to fetch the bottle and a glass but was stopped by Jasmine.
‘I’m alright. I need to keep my head clear.’
‘Just a drop will calm you down,’ Spencer insisted.
‘How can I sit here drinking brandy when I don’t know where he is? He could be anywhere, lying in a ditch, hanging from a tree…’
Millie gasped. Even Spencer looked at Jasmine in shock.
‘He wouldn’t do anything like that, would he?’ he asked, his face seeming to drain of all colour.
‘I honestly don’t know.’
Spencer raced through to the back room and emerged after a second, pulling a thin jacket on. ‘Let’s go and look now. I’ve got my phone; Dylan can join us when he’s dropped the kids off.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Millie began, but Spencer cut her off.
‘I need you to stay here.’
‘I want to help!’
‘And you can, by waiting for Dylan. Tell him we’ve gone to look for Rich and we’re going to start where the old rope swing is. He’ll know where that is.’
‘Rope swing?’ Millie repeated.
‘Not as random as it sounds,’ Spencer replied briskly, before ushering Jasmine out and slamming the front door behind them.
Millie spent the next ten minutes pacing the room. It felt vast and far too quiet in the aftermath of the drama that had unfolded there and she felt increasingly useless. Millie had almost come to the decision that she would leave a note on the door for Dylan and go to join Spencer and Jasmine, when Dylan arrived back on the doorstep, dripping wet and shaking the rain from his hair as she let him in.
His gaze swept the room.
‘Where’s Jas?’
‘She went out with Spencer. They seemed really worried about Rich. They said to tell you that they were going to start looking in the place where the old rope swing is.’
Dylan’s expression darkened. ‘What the hell happened today?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That’s a notorious spot… It’s…’ He turned for the door again. ‘I’ve got to go and find them.’
‘Notorious for what?’ Millie cried as he yanked open the door again. He spun to face her.
‘Let’s just say there are plenty of sturdy branches on the trees there, and tyres aren’t always the only things found swinging from them.’
A wave of nausea swept through Millie, and the floor seemed to drop away from her. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
‘Wait here,’ Dylan said, turning again for the door.
‘No!’ Millie grabbed his arm. ‘I need to come!’
‘You need to stay here. The storm is going to get bad.’
‘I don’t care. Please… I can’t just wait here…’
Dylan turned to her again and paused. His expression was unreadable and he seemed to be weighing up his options. Millie searched his face as she waited for his answer. She was terrified that Rowena was somehow involved, as irrational as it sounded, and even more terrified that her arrival in Honeybourne had somehow played a part in the current events, as if she was some walking jinx. If anything happened to Rich, to any of them, Millie didn’t think she could ever forgive herself. She had to do something to help, however small. Being part of the search was the only thing she could think of.
After a moment Dylan nodded. ‘Have you got some good boots? It gets pretty boggy out there. You’ll need a waterproof jacket too… and a torch if you have one.’
Millie raced around collecting what she needed and returned to find Dylan stamping his feet at the door.
‘Ok?’ he asked. With a brisk nod, Millie followed as he led them into the storm.
There was a tense silence for the first fifteen minutes, broken only by the howling of the wind and patter of rain against Millie’s hood as she desperately held it in place on her head. The streets of Honeybourne were lit, albeit sparsely, but when the village gave way to wild countryside, holding the torch Millie had brought made the going much harder. The rough terrain forced them to slow their pace, and allowed them to finally exchange words.
‘How much further is it?’ Millie asked, wiping rain from her eyes.
‘Ten minutes or so. But that’s on a good day. Maybe fifteen, twenty tonight.’
‘What if Rich isn’t there?’
‘We look somewhere else. You should be more worried about what we’ll do if he is there.’
‘You’re fond of him, aren’t you?’
‘Of course. He’s like a brother.’
Millie paused for breath. And the next question was out as if it had a will of its own. ‘Is that why you warned Spencer off?’
Dylan turned sharply, his expression hidden by shadow. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I know… about Spencer and Jasmine.’
‘Nothing happened between Spencer and Jasmine.’
‘I didn’t mean that. But I know how Spencer felt about her.’
‘He had no right to blab.’
‘He couldn’t help it. And look… Tonight he was the first one out looking for Rich. So it’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. Spencer keeps his secrets close. I think, given half a chance, he’d still be in there.’
‘But he seems such good friends with them.’
‘Rich doesn’t know anything about it and Jas is too forgiving. Besides, it’s a small village; you have to get along with people if you’re going to live here.’
‘He still thinks a lot of you, too.’
‘Like I said, you have to get along around here.’
‘It’s more than that, I can tell.’
‘When we were kids he was always hanging around our house,’ Dylan said. ‘I thought it was because we were mates and I was flattered. He was older than me and when you’re teenagers a tiny age gap is massive. I never realised that it was all for Jasmine’s benefit, even back then.’
The Little Village Bakery: A feel good romantic comedy with plenty of cake (Honeybourne Book 1) Page 20
