Paul turned to Ellen.
“How many guests would we be catering for at a time? Do you have numbers yet? Obviously, there needs to be enough people so there is plenty of company for everyone but not so many as to become like an institution. I don’t want to take on more cases than we can cope with. That would defeat the object of them coming here in the first place.”
Ellen smiled up at him.
“You’re right Paul. The group proposing and funding the venture were considering as many as twenty at a time but actually I think we will see better and quicker results from a much smaller number. I think about twelve maximum would be ideal. That would mean we could have a smaller staff to begin with too. If we think we can cope with more then we can increase the numbers after an initial trial.”
Amy looked back up at the fabulous château.
“So what’s the actual plan? From what you said last night, you don’t know exactly how long your guests will be staying either. Are you going to have rooms like the hotel or apartments so that people learn to live independently? If it was me I’d like to see individual apartments with shared areas as well. You could have small kitchenettes in each apartment but a full sized communal one too. Imagine everyone getting together and cooking a giant meal a couple of times a week. Great practise if you have a family and brilliant fun too. And you should consider a family suite maybe. In my line of work I’ve found that partners are sometimes just as scared of the changes as the victim. If there was somewhere for them to be together and get used to the new situation, that might help too.”
Paul listened to her excited tones. She sounded as enthusiastic about the project as any of them. He reached out and placed his hand on her arm. She didn’t pull away and he took a step with her towards the château.
“You’re making some good points Amy. We need wives and partners coming here to help with the transition period, then they can both go home full of confidence rather than worry. Maybe we could turn it into a semi self-sufficient unit. If we could get a decent garden going we could offer things like afternoon teas or maybe even lunches grown and cooked by the residents. It would benefit everyone. Our clients would get back their independence and maybe learn a new skill set in no time.”
Amy walked with him as he made his way back towards the huge front door.
“Yes, it would give them confidence and a purpose too but surely that would come after any treatment they needed,” she agreed as they walked up the front steps.
Paul shoved the heavy doors open and stepped inside. They had already been there for more than an hour but he wanted to give it all another look over. Whatever David professed, it would still cost an enormous sum of money to make the place perfect for their needs.
“I don’t see why they can’t get stuck in immediately. We aren’t going to be treating any actual injuries, that will have all been done prior to coming here. We can offer some therapies for wellbeing and general health though. Some people don’t need as much help in the aftermath of their injuries but for those that do this is more to get people back on their feet emotionally than literally, and there’s a lot more we could do than just cooking. There’s the gardening and we could take small parties from the facility on fishing trips, maybe even do something with water sports. The estate is big enough to have woodland craft courses and there is the stable block too. We could turn that into something useful I’m sure.” Paul walked into the hallway and stood at the bottom of the grand staircase. He turned around, his boots grating slightly on the sand covered tiles. He spun slowly and made some clicking noises against the roof of his mouth as he gauged the size of the space without actually pacing it out.
Amy watched him carefully. His whole demeanour had changed since she had first met him. He shoulders were straight and pulled back once again. His cheeks were clean shaven and the cleft in the centre of his chin was no longer hidden by dark stubble. His thick hair was still a little long but it now gleamed with a healthy shine. He stood straight and tall and Amy wondered if there was any man in the world so handsome.
It took her a few seconds to realize that he had stopped speaking. He was staring directly at her and for a single moment she actually thought he could see her. His blue eyes were angled towards her and apparently looking so intently that she pulled in a sharp breath of surprise.
Paul moved his hand up her arm slightly and stopped when he reached her elbow.
“Are you okay? You sound as though you’re choking on the dust,” he tone was gentle and concerned, his voice only just above a whisper.
She nodded and then remembered that he couldn’t see her response. She felt a tear slide to the corner of her eye as she realized that he would never be able to see her look of love, but she refused to let it fall.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she lied but her voice hitched and Paul gripped her arm more tightly as he heard the catch in her tone.
“Don’t you dare pity any of us,” he growled down at her, the frown back creasing his forehead as he misread her emotion.
Amy shook her arm away from him, almost annoyed that he could confuse her love for pity.
“I wasn’t. There’s no way that I would pity you. Right at this moment I am almost envious. This is going to be such a wonderful place.” She turned around on the spot and gazed up at the high ceiling. “I wish I was going to be here to see it completed.”
Paul was quiet for a moment and then something in her tone made him move towards her again. He could feel the movement of the air as she turned around and around in the hall. He held out his hand and she caught it on a twirl. He spun her back to him as she laughed and he felt his heart lifting, filling with something he couldn’t even begin to explain. He stopped spinning with her and on an impulse pulled her towards him. He needed to know what she looked like.
She gasped as they stopped moving. She felt slightly dizzy and she wavered towards his big body. His free hand came up to cup her face and his fingertips gently moved across her cheek. He ran his forefinger up along the bridge of her nose and traced the shape of her eye as his thumb moved gently over her lips. Then his hand suddenly moved from her face and his fingers threaded into her hair.
“My God, you’re so beautiful.” His voice was a mere breath and he slowly dipped his head towards her.
For a fraction of a second she felt his warm breath on her face. Her eyes fluttered closed and she waited for his lips to touch hers but he suddenly dropped his hand from her hair and tore himself away from her.
Amy felt a cold draft envelope her and she was about to ask why he had stopped but there was a sudden clatter of tiny footsteps behind her. A whirlwind of energy rushed in through the front doors and Robbie raced straight up to Paul. He grabbed the big man around the tops of his legs and buried his face in Paul’s stomach. Then he lifted his head and gazed up at a very confused Paul.
“She’s not going to kidnap you is she? I was searching for frogs in the pond but I ran here as fast as I could after papa told me she had taken you away. He tried to stop me but I can run faster than him now.” Robbie breathed hard as he turned round and faced Amy. He stood protectively in front of Paul.
Amy had to put her hand up over her mouth to hide her smile at his ferocious glare but Paul played along with the young boy.
“Phew! It’s just as well that you came and saved me when you did Robbie. I have no idea what she was going to do with me. If you had left it a moment later I might have been lost forever.” Amy caught the smile in his tone but there was something else there too.
Robbie narrowed his eyes at her and placed his hands defensively on his hips. He looked as though he was he was about to really tell her off but there was suddenly another clatter of much heavier footsteps.
David came up the château steps and into the wide hallway a little more slowly than his son.
“Oi, you little rascal. I told you not to come in here yet. Paul needs some time to look over the place by himself.” He looked at Amy and mouthed ‘sorry’ at her. She sh
ook her head in response and David spoke directly to Paul. “So do you think it’s a viable proposition? We’re not going ahead if you don’t think that this is the right place.”
Paul shook his head.
“As far as I can make out, it’s perfect for what we are going to be doing. The château is brilliant. The space and location are ideal but you and Ellen are the ones putting up the money for the purchase and the renovations. I don’t have a clue how much that’s going to cost so that’s going to be your main consideration.”
David sucked in a breath.
“That’s why we need it to be the right place. The costs on this are well within budget but Ellen is now talking about another hotel too. I don’t want to leave us short of cash. If we can make this a going concern that actually pays for itself then that will make an enormous difference. The funds for staffing and therapies will be coming from the health services of the clients concerned but it would be brilliant to make the place pay its own running costs.”
Amy braved Robbie’s hard stare and spoke up.
“So how long do you think the actual purchase, repairs and alterations will take?”
David shrugged.
“Everything is in place for us to buy it immediately. The mayor knows that we are keen and even had a public meeting with the locals. Everyone was on side so he’s already had the paperwork prepared and is just waiting for us to agree. The château could be ours within days. We can start the work as soon as next week and I would think we could host our first proper guests within a couple of months.”
Amy looked about the damp walls. Dirt and windblown sand covered the floor, wallpaper drooped and plaster had crumbled in the moist atmosphere. She shivered as a gust of sea air blasted through one of the cracked windows.
“That sounds a little ambitious to me but you must know what you are talking about as you have done it before.”
Paul laughed.
“It’s nothing to do with knowing what he is talking about, it’s more to do with the workforce we are going to get in a couple of days. We have a team of four injured army guys coming over and they don’t know the meaning of sitting about doing nothing if they don’t have to. If Dave wants this place cleared out and ready for the electricians and plumbers by the end of next week then that’s what Dave will get.”
Amy took in a shocked breath.
“But you can’t do that. These men will be disabled. They might not be able to work like that. It’s slave labour,” she sounded horrified.
Paul snorted.
“Rubbish! Strictly speaking they are still in Her Majesty’s employ so if the army says they have to work here then work here they will. They will love it Amy and I wouldn’t care if the guys couldn’t do anything but move their eyeballs. I would find them something useful to do, even if it’s just choosing the colour of the paint for each of the bedroom suites.”
Robbie piped up as he bobbed up and down excitedly around the three adults.
“I can help too Paul. If we get it done quickly then Amy won’t be allowed to take you away. I can make sure the pond is full of frogs and insects to keep everyone interested.”
Paul laughed at the boy.
“You’re on Robbie, frogs and insects it is but we will have to see what your mama says first. I think you are meant to be at school most days next week.”
David caught hold of his son’s shoulder.
“We will have to see if we can bring you over after school if you promise to be good but don’t forget that Fran will want your company at home too Robbie. She’s not old enough to find frogs with you yet and she may be jealous if you are over here all the time.”
Robbie pouted furiously.
“Girls! There are far too many of them around here. I hope all this lot turning up at home are going to be men.” He stomped off out of the château doors to find Patrick and Ellen.
David sighed.
“Sorry about that Amy. We were trying to give you both some space to look around quietly. He’s only eight and he doesn’t really understand what you are doing here.”
Amy smiled back at him. She took a quick glance at Paul who was running his hand up the wooden bannister. He hesitantly lifted his foot and placed it on the first tread of the stairs, then he waited for a moment as he inclined his head towards the high ceiling. He gave a couple of the clicks she had heard him make earlier and then he placed his left foot firmly on the next tread.
“I’m not sure I know what I am doing here either. It’s like he’s a different man… What’s he doing now?” Amy whispered to David.
“Checking how many treads there are. He would have counted them all when we made our first tour but there are four sets of stairs here not including the second set into the cellar. I suspect that if he knows the height of the ceiling and the height of each tread, he can work out the exact number of steps. He’s making sure he hasn’t made a mistake.”
Paul seemed to bounce on the balls of his feet for a second and then he sprang forwards and charged up the stairs taking the treads two at a time. He negotiated the sweeping curve and came to unerring stop as he reached the gallery at the top. Then he turned and laughed back down at the two of them as they stared up at him.
Amy raised an ironic eyebrow as she spoke another aside to David.
“Hmm. I see what Ellen meant about him not falling down the stairs very often. I don’t think I could have done that without tripping or falling over at the top.”
David nodded in agreement.
“It’s just a matter of knowing your whereabouts and your limitations, though I confess that Paul seems to take his in his stride.”
David turned and followed his son out of the château while Amy waited as Paul jogged down the stairs again.
“I think this place will be perfect, don’t you?” He grinned down at her.
She sighed deeply at the thought of leaving France without him but she gave him her best cheery smile even if he couldn’t see it.
“Yes, I’m sure you are going to make it a huge success.”
Paul suddenly linked his arm through hers and proceeded to walk with her towards the entrance.
“Well, you have to make that report to the judge so we had better make it a good one otherwise Robbie is clearly never going to forgive you.”
She laughed.
“I know. He’s not keen on us girls by the sounds of it anyway. If I have to take you back then I’m really going to give us females a bad name.”
Paul stopped dead as he reached the big wooden doors. He turned to face her and suddenly pulled her into his arms. He placed one hand in the small of her back as he cupped her cheek in the other and lifted her face.
“Are you really going to attempt to take me away from here Amy?” He breathed the words out gently and for a moment she was speechless. He brushed his thumb across her parted lips and she suddenly found her voice as she shook her head.
“No, I will be going home on my own. I could never take you away from here. This is where you belong,” her words caught in her throat as she realized once again that she would never see him again after the four weeks were up.
Paul wound his fingers into her silk soft hair and he let out a deep groan before he released her.
“Thank you,” he said simply and he turned and left her there on the stone steps while her heart split down the middle and broke in two.
Chapter Five
Paul lay in the big bed. He wasn’t sure what time it was but he couldn’t be bothered to call the speaking clock to find out. He knew it was late because he had heard David and Geraldine making their way up to their apartment and he had listened as Ellen and Patrick had bid goodnight to Lucy and Joe beneath his open bedroom window. He had even heard Amy as she had closed her door in the room next to his.
He wondered if he was actually ill as he listened to the painful beating of his own heart.
At dinner earlier that evening he had assumed that he had a touch of indigestion. The pains started not lon
g after they had picked up a very round but relieved Geraldine from the local hospital. For a few minutes it had been pandemonium in the Land Rover as everyone had shifted about to allow her the front seat. Paul had found himself squashed up against a very stiff Amy while Joe had somehow folded his huge body into the rear seat and sat with his knees bent up to his chin next to Robbie.
The feel of Amy’s soft body pressed hard against his own was disconcerting. Her scent had filled his senses as it had done since the court case.
His heart had pounded hard against his ribcage and for a moment he had thought he was having a panic attack. He’d had many since becoming blind, the fear of the never ending blackness almost overwhelming on occasions, though the years of wearing the bionics had kept them to a minimum. But this attack had felt different. The pressure was there in his chest but it didn’t have that oppressive suffocating feeling. The pain was intense but breathing wasn’t a problem. It was more like his lungs couldn’t inflate properly or maybe his heart had been stabbed.
At the arranged knife throwing competition, the tightness in his chest grew even more intense. Amy had let out a loud gasp as he spun on his toes and threw his lethally sharp knife hard and fast. Even though he had heard a solid thump, for a few seconds he had even wondered if he had hit the target but then the men started a slow hand clap and Amy squealed that he had hit gold.
“How did you do that?” She demanded as she stared from Paul to the target some fifty feet away. The knife was deeply embedded in the straw behind the dead centre of the tiny golden circle.
Paul turned to her slowly.
“It’s just a matter of knowing where the target is. I’m a bit rusty but Dave gave me precise instructions as to height and distance so I only needed to make sure I was accurate with the direction. I’m pretty good with that sort of thing.” He smiled down at her and refused to take his white cane from her before he sauntered towards the target with a smug grin on his face. His smile was wiped back off his face just a few seconds later as Joe howled with laughter when he tripped over a large tuft of grass that stuck up in the middle of the range and he stumbled to his knees.
Scarred Horizon (Scarred Series Book 4) Page 5
