The Winter Garden

by Heidi Swain

  ‘I haven’t.’

  The racket upstairs suggested otherwise.

  ‘Well,’ I elaborated, ‘not company, company.’

  The swearing then morphed into heavy footfall and Finn stepped into the hall to find himself faced with the source of the rumpus.

  ‘Hello, bruv,’ said Zak, who had almost collided with him in his eagerness to get to the kitchen. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing,’ Finn shot back.

  Personally, I was more interested to find out why Zak was topless.

  ‘I’m here to—’ Zak began, but Finn didn’t wait to hear his explanation.

  ‘Oh, forget it,’ he angrily said, pushing through and making for the door. ‘I’ll let Chloe know about the willow.’

  He crashed out, slamming the door behind him and making the whole house shake. Again.

  ‘Earth to Freya,’ said Zak, clicking his fingers in front of my face. ‘Can you hear me?’

  I came back to earth with a bump. ‘What?’ I dazedly asked.

  ‘Where’s your stopcock, my love?’

  Chapter 22

  ‘So, what happened then?’ Chloe asked wide-eyed as I relayed the details of what had happened on Tuesday when she came in on Thursday.

  ‘Zak came tearing down the stairs, naked from the waist up and crashed straight into Finn.’ I told her, cradling my head in my hands.

  ‘No wonder he seemed in such a temper when he called to tell me about the willow,’ she said, eyeing the bundle which was now in the office, protected from the still breezy weather. ‘Finn, I mean.’

  The snow had all gone and the temperature had lifted a little, but it was unlikely that Chloe would be holding her Winterfest session in the Grow-Well as originally planned. Making wreaths wasn’t the tidiest of tasks, but it was going to have to take place in the Prosperous Place dining room if we didn’t want the attendees to freeze.

  ‘At least the floor is tiled,’ Luke had said to Kate when he told her about the change in venue, ‘which will make sweeping up easier than if the room was carpeted.’

  Kate had looked as unsure about Luke’s reasoning as Chloe had about my description of Zak’s half-naked appearance in my kitchen.

  ‘So, why exactly did he have his top off?’ she asked, leaning in. ‘You don’t suppose he was planning to entice you upstairs for a bit of—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted, and she grinned, ‘of course not.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The silly sod was trying to change a tap washer in the bathroom sink without turning the water off,’ I tutted, thinking of the unnecessarily drenched room. ‘He thought he could be quick enough to switch them, but even with all those muscles, he was no match for the square’s water pressure and then he found the isolation valve was jammed.’

  ‘And he was shirtless, because?’

  ‘Because he’d got a sudden soaking, the water was freezing and he’d whipped his top off and dumped it in the bath before running down the stairs.’

  ‘That sounds feasible enough,’ Chloe shrugged.

  ‘Of course, it is,’ I shot back, still not able to see the funny side, ‘not that Finn thought so. You should have seen his face.’

  ‘I’m rather pleased I didn’t.’

  ‘He took one look at Zak, made what I suppose was the most logical assumption and legged it out the door.’

  I was a bit put out that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, but I was willing to overlook it. I had to if I didn’t want to take us straight back to square one and I daresay I’d have reacted in exactly the same way had I turned up at the studio expecting to have a heart to heart and found a half-naked girl in the flat.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Chloe, ‘and just when you two were starting to get on.’

  ‘I know,’ I groaned, ‘that’s the worst of it.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do now?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ I said, ‘but I’ll come up with something.’

  I was going to have to if I wanted to feel Finn’s strong arms around me again and the touch of his lips kissing mine and I really did want to feel both of those things. I might have been trying to convince myself otherwise, but it was no good. My body gave an involuntary shudder as I again remembered the stirring sensation of our spontaneous embrace.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Chloe.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, clearing my throat and turning my attention back to my list of jobs. ‘I’m fine. The wind really cuts under that door, doesn’t it?’

  * * *

  The shops were open late again that evening and, although there wasn’t the same carnival atmosphere, Chloe convinced me to join her and Hannah for a little retail therapy followed by a drink in The Dragon.

  Nell and I had been making inroads into our respective advent calendars, but the festive spirit that I had felt building had come to a grinding halt in the face of what had happened with Finn.

  All of my thoughts were now focused on finding a way to explain to him why Zak had been shirtless in my house as well as picking the right moment to sort out our former misunderstandings. If I could manage to do that, it would be the best Christmas gift ever!

  ‘Right,’ I said, coming back from the bar and banging three pints of Christmas Cracker down on the table, ‘I’ve made a decision.’

  ‘About what?’ asked Hannah, dipping into Chloe’s bowl of chips.

  ‘Finn,’ I told them both. ‘I’m going to take charge of the situation once and for all.’

  ‘And how are you going to do that?’ Chloe frowned, pinching a chestnut from the bag Hannah had picked up from one of the food stalls outside in response to the chip pillaging.

  ‘I’m going to stage an intervention,’ I said, drinking down a mouthful of the festive ale. ‘I’m going to get Finn on his own—’

  ‘Impossible,’ Chloe cut in.

  ‘So, it’s just the two of us,’ I soldiered on, ignoring her scepticism, ‘landline unplugged, mobile’s off, doors locked, curtains closed, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Nice,’ nodded Hannah, with a cheeky grin.

  ‘And I’m going to force him to listen to what I have to say.’

  ‘I suppose that could work,’ said Chloe.

  ‘You could tie him up,’ giggled Hannah, clearly quite taken with the idea.

  Chloe gave her a sharp nudge.

  ‘What?’ she protested. ‘It might come to that.’

  ‘It won’t,’ said Chloe, a smile tugging at her lips.

  Hannah looked disappointed and I couldn’t help but laugh before drinking more of my pint. This proactive show of force was going to be the right way to go about it; I just knew it.

  ‘I’m going to own this situation,’ I told the pair, putting my glass back down with a thump. ‘No more buggering about.’

  ‘It’s the only way,’ Hannah agreed, pinching another chip.

  ‘Actually,’ said Chloe, nabbing a second chestnut for good measure, ‘I think you might be right.’

  * * *

  My stirring speech in the pub had further fuelled my determination to reach a resolution and, as luck would have it – which must have been a positive portent – the perfect opportunity to put my forceful plan into action presented itself the very next day.

  I had finished work and was locking the garden office, when I heard Finn crashing about in the studio. Because of the cold, Nell was wearing her dog socks. She hated them really, and still hadn’t worked out that her feet felt better for having them on, but at least Finn wouldn’t be able to object to having her in the studio if he hadn’t swept up. I didn’t want to run the risk of taking her home before I tackled him, in case he sloped off before I got back.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Nell, giving her head a rub. ‘Let’s get this done.’

  I purposefully marched the few steps to the studio and hammered on the closed door, allowing myself no time to think or run through what I was going to say.

  ‘Freya,’ said Fin
n, when he opened the door, thankfully before my courage failed me.

  ‘Can I come in?’ I asked, sliding past him before he could say no, ‘and don’t worry about Nell. She’s got her socks on, so her feet will be fine.’

  After a look at Nell’s feet, which made his eyebrows shoot up, Finn closed the door and I leant around him, slid the bolt across, crossed the studio floor and ran up the stairs which led to the living space above.

  ‘What the hell,’ he gruffly objected, as I took the steps two at a time and didn’t look back. ‘Freya?’

  ‘I won’t keep you a minute,’ I told him, as he rushed to follow me. ‘I promise I’m going to make this really quick.’

  I didn’t focus on the finer details of my surroundings, but ‘functional’ and ‘basic’ would have been the best words to sum up what I did notice. Cosy home comforts were few and far between and I couldn’t see a phone handset anywhere.

  ‘Do you have a landline here?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ said Finn, frowning.

  ‘A phone,’ I reiterated, as I mentally ran through my intervention checklist.

  There was no need to draw the curtains because we were high up and no one could physically get in now because I had barred the only entrance.

  ‘No,’ said Finn. ‘No landline. What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Mobile then?’ I said, pulling mine out of my jeans pocket.

  ‘You know I have a mobile,’ said Finn, waving the ancient model about before I swiped it out of his hand. ‘Hey!’

  ‘Trust me,’ I told him, feeling the adrenaline pump through my veins as I marched to the bedroom, or the space where the bed was. ‘I’m going to put it here with mine and if it rings, ignore it.’

  Finn stood with his hands on his hips and a less than amused expression on his face.

  ‘Here, Nell,’ I said softly, ‘lay down.’

  She ignored me and crawled under the table, circling twice before settling with her head on her front paws.

  ‘Good girl,’ I praised.

  Now the scene was set, I wasn’t sure what to do next. The initial influx of adrenaline was starting to wane but I couldn’t give up. Not when I’d completed phase one without a hitch. I might not get another chance.

  ‘Will you sit down?’ I said to Finn.

  ‘Are you asking me to, or telling me to?’

  He sat on the sofa before I could answer, his long jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him and one arm resting along the back. He wasn’t such an imposing prospect sitting down. In fact, he looked almost relaxed. I wished I was.

  ‘Look,’ I said, moving to stand right in front of him to make sure his attention didn’t wander.

  ‘How about I go first?’ he suggested.

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  I know I sounded rude, but I couldn’t risk any interruption. It might have been happening on Finn’s turf, but this was my intervention; my way, my rules, my words first.

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I know this might seem a little unorthodox…’

  ‘A little,’ Finn snorted, ‘you’ve all but kidnapped me in my own home, Freya!’

  I dismissed the ‘tied-up’ image which had appealed to Hannah in the pub.

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘and I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘please, just listen because I’m here to clear the air between us once and for all.’

  Finn nodded and thankfully didn’t say anything else.

  ‘You told me that you liked me last week,’ I swallowed, ‘and I told you that I liked you back.’

  He was most likely wondering why now.

  ‘Right?’

  ‘I did,’ he confirmed.

  ‘And you also said that you have trust issues.’

  He began to move and I held up a hand to stop him standing up.

  ‘I haven’t come to ask what they are because that’s your business, not mine, but what I do want to do is dispute the conclusion that I think you jumped to when we talked about relationships in the pub.’

  It felt like forever ago now.

  ‘I told you,’ I carried on, ‘that I had broken off my engagement at the wedding venue and I think you assumed that I had left the poor, broken-hearted groom at the altar.’

  Finn frowned, but didn’t comment.

  ‘Didn’t you?’ I asked, wringing my hands.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘what else was I supposed to think?’

  ‘I daresay, it was a logical assumption,’ I swallowed again. ‘But it was wrong. My fiancé and I were at the wedding venue when I broke off our engagement, but it wasn’t our wedding day, nowhere near it in fact, and it wasn’t the selfish act on my part that you’re thinking it was, at all.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘On the day it happened,’ I told him, reaching for a dining chair because my legs were shaking, ‘we were both beginning to realise that our so-called romantic relationship had materialised purely as a result of us working in such close proximity and we were going along with a union which would benefit us professionally, but had absolutely nothing to do with falling in love.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Our families are both highly esteemed landscape architects and they were keen to have more than a business merger. We had successfully worked together on high-profile projects before, and our parents, noticing this, took the opportunity to push us closer together. They thought they were giving us the nudge we needed to take things from professional to personal.’

  ‘I see,’ Finn frowned.

  ‘However,’ I carried on, keen to ensure that he really did, ‘when I met Eloise at Broad-Meadows, I talked to her about the relationship, and she told me some blunt home truths before asking me some probing questions. The answers I gave her made the scales fall from my eyes. I realised I wasn’t in love and so I sat my fiancé down and told him what I’d worked out.’

  ‘And did he understand? Did he agree with you?’

  ‘Totally,’ I sighed. ‘What we were planning to enter was a marriage of convenience, a business transaction really, and deep down it wasn’t what either of us wanted. We were a dream team when it came to work, and it was our professional compatibility which had seduced us into believing that we were right for each other in love, but we weren’t.’

  ‘So, if it was mutual a decision to end it,’ Finn asked, ‘then why did you say it was you who broke off the engagement?’

  ‘Because I was the one who instigated the break. I was the one who got the ball rolling and as I wanted to stop working with my parents and return to a more hands-on horticultural role and he wanted to carry on in the industry, it was easier to explain it that way. I guess it’s just kind of stuck.’

  ‘I see,’ Finn said again.

  ‘Do you?’ I implored him. ‘Do you really?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his eyes meeting mine. ‘Yes, I do.’

  I felt a tidal wave of relief rush over me, but I couldn’t submit to it yet. There was still more I wanted to tell him.

  ‘Eloise was the person who helped me reconnect and find my way back to what it was that I had started out loving. She was the one who encouraged me to get my hands in the earth again and I haven’t looked back since.’

  ‘I think I would have rather liked your friend, Eloise,’ Finn smiled. ‘I thought that when you talked about her before.’

  She would have liked him too. His clever sculptures would have been the perfect fit for Broad-Meadows.

  ‘And what about your ex?’ he asked. ‘What’s he doing now?’

  ‘Oh, Peter’s living the dream.’ I smiled. ‘Working in New Zealand.’

  ‘New Zealand, wow,’ Finn sighed. ‘Hang on, did you say, Peter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The guy you were engaged to is called Peter?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said again. ‘It was him who interrupted us… before…’

  ‘In the studio,’ Finn carried on, ‘when we were… kissing.�
��

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The one who you described me to as no one.’

  ‘I only said that because I didn’t want him to start teasing me,’ I hastily explained. ‘Peter and I have stayed good friends and I’d already mentioned you to him by then and he annoyingly thought I had a bit of a thing for you.’

  Finn raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Which was right.’ I swallowed, my cheeks starting to glow.

  Finn grinned.

  ‘I take it that you are still happy about that, then?’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘Me having a bit of a thing for you.’

  ‘Of course, I bloody am,’ he laughed, clearly delighted to have made me say it again. ‘And it’s a relief to find out your ex is called Peter. You’ve mentioned his name more than once and I was beginning to think he might be someone… current.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling hurt.

  ‘Not that I had you down as someone who would just kiss another person when they were already in a relationship,’ he quickly went on, a rush of colour suddenly flooding his face and matching it to mine. ‘But I was the one who instigated that kiss and when Peter’s call came through, I felt as guilty as hell.’

  I wondered whether he was the one who had instigated it, but perhaps that was a conversation for another time.

  ‘Is that why you’ve been pretending it never happened?’ I asked him, ‘Because you thought that not only had I left a groom crying at the altar but I was also in some sort of long-distance relationship?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure what I thought, to be honest,’ he admitted, raking a hand through his hair. ‘I couldn’t really see you as being that sort of girl, but I got it all messed up in my head. That said, there was never any doubt that I was severely smitten with you, Freya, but I’ve had a rough time relationship-wise, and after our kiss and Peter’s call, I just thought it would be best all round if I tried to keep things between us on a purely professional level.’

  ‘And now?’ I asked, standing up again, ‘Now you know that I’ve never been a Bridezilla, I’m completely single and that Peter’s a friend, are you still going to try and keep things professional?’