Heart of the Cotswolds: England

by M. L. Buchman

  “Would you like a kick in the shins?”

  “You’ll just hurt your foot if you kick me in the cast.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him but felt better than she had in a while. She’d forgotten just how good the good days could be with Aaron, but that day just out exploring had been so exceptional that—

  “How about why you think—”

  At her scowl, he cleared his throat.

  “—how you know that you’re in love.”

  “With you,” she emphasized.

  “Uh-huh.” Aaron picked up a nearby rock and tossed it negligently onto one of the piles. She was pretty sure it was the wrong pile, which told her just how much he cared about this conversation despite his pretended indifference. “You do know that, if you were any other woman, that would make your sanity suspect for choosing me out of the herd?”

  “Trust me, I know.” She’d arrived at the same time as the ambulance and couldn’t believe the mounds of rock that Trent had moved aside as Conrad had raced the pink Ferrari through Fosse like a Formula One driver. It had looked like the chalk outline of a corpse, in limestone piles over a foot deep. She really needed to figure out which saint to thank that Aaron wasn’t dead. His face and the rest of his body still showed the signs of various cuts and bruises, which he shrugged off as if they were somehow too normal to even be noticed.

  The terror of finding out that she loved him and then nearly losing him in the same fifteen minutes still shook her to the core.

  How did she know she loved Aaron? Conrad had said as much and she’d simply walked into the trap.

  “Because it’s true.”

  Aaron began tossing more rocks aside. Jane reached out and grabbed the bare toes sticking out the end of his cast to get his attention.

  She looked into those deep, revealing eyes of his and could see the worry there. Jane had never doubted, except for that one week, that Aaron enjoyed being with her. But now she could see that it went much deeper. Is that what Conrad had seen so clearly? She could see it in Aaron and she didn’t think it was wishful thinking. However, pushing him wasn’t going to help.

  “Give it time,” she managed though her heart longed to hear it now. “Just give it time.”

  He opened his mouth to say he was sorry, but she held up a hand to stop him.

  Aaron grimaced, “Right. Sorry doesn’t help shit. I’ve got that.”

  Actually it helped a great deal, but sometimes Aaron used it like a cudgel on himself that was very hard to stop.

  She carefully set aside her beautiful vase, making sure it was stable on the little stone table Aaron had built for them a lifetime ago, then moved forward and kissed him. For the first time since the pub dinner with his captain, he returned it like he really meant it.

  “Come on,” she fetched his crutches and helped him to his feet.

  She led him back to the cottage where they made slow love through the long afternoon.

  Chapter 16

  The knock on the door rousted them both from the air mattress. Aaron checked his watch—eight a.m. on a Saturday. That wasn’t even decent.

  He lay still for a moment while Jane scrabbled around for her clothes—a sight he would never tire of. He might not know if he was in love but, getting to wake up each day next to a naked Jane, he did know that he was the luckiest damn guy ever.

  “Aaron,” Jane’s hiss was a little frantic. The front door did open into the living room, so he got her point. Besides, her blouse and shorts were on now and she was brushing out her hair as she called out for the visitor to hold on.

  He yanked on his own clothes and helped her toss the sheet and blankets into some shape. The air mattress had definite limitations. Sale or no sale, the master bedroom was next on his list. He wanted Jane in a king-size bed so badly he could hardly think of anything else at the moment.

  “Oh. Good morning, Harriet,” Jane was at the door, completely polite and looking as put together as ever. “We weren’t expecting you.”

  An estate agent at eight in the morning. Well, maybe the cottage was finally Jane’s and they could get down to the bigger repairs at long last.

  “I have news that I thought I should bring by in person.”

  Aaron still felt all rumpled and only half awake. He waved as he crutched by into the kitchen to start some tea. He really needed to remember to buy some coffee.

  The cry of dismay from the living room had him racing back.

  Harriet was looking at the floor and Jane had gone sheet white.

  “What? What is it? Did someone die?” He doubled his crutches under one arm and wrapped the other around Jane’s waist.

  So warm and soft as she slept against him moments ago, she was now shivering and as rigid as steel.

  “Are you okay?” Stupid question. Try again. “What happened?”

  Jane finally waved a hand helplessly at the estate agent.

  “Two problems. The financing fell through because Ms. Tully is no longer employed.”

  “I have the cash,” Jane whispered. “It means liquidating some investments, but I have the cash.”

  “And the owner,” Harriet cleared her throat delicately, which was the English version of a severe epithet, “has used that opening to raise the price of sale.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “It’s…terribly crass,” she chose her words carefully. “But it is legal.”

  “How much?”

  She showed him the number. No wonder Jane was in shock—it was over half again the asking price.

  “That’s an odd amount.” It wasn’t half, two-thirds, or three-quarters of the original listing price. In fact, it had digits right out to pence. “How much is that in US dollars?”

  Harriet pulled out a calculator, tapped in the amounts, and showed them. “That is at today’s valuation.” Which told him that the seller was American—it was an even dollar amount, though it was still a strange number.

  “I can’t afford that, Aaron. What am I going to do? It would almost wipe me out. I could buy the cottage but then I couldn’t afford to live here for very long.”

  Aaron couldn’t imagine Jane anywhere else. The cottage was so perfect for her. Their talk of the renovation had made the place so real that he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else either. That had been part of his problem last week. He wanted Delta. But even more than that he wanted to be here with—

  “Ha!”

  “What?”

  He shook his head, “I’ll tell you later.” He finally got what Jane had been saying. What if love was when you couldn’t imagine being with anyone else—ever? If that was the right question, then he already knew the answer.

  Well, if the right place for him was here with Jane, he’d be damned if some greedy son-of-a-bitch landowner was going to take it away.

  “If she accepts today, that locks in the price? He won’t be able to increase it again.”

  “Yes,” Harriet nodded. “This is his counter-offer. Once you accept it, the price negotiation is complete. If Jane counters at a lower price, he could choose to increase it again. Or walk away from the deal.”

  “Okay. Jane, sign it.”

  “I just said I can’t. Weren’t you listening?”

  He cursed his crutches for the hundredth time this week as he tried to turn her to face him.

  She finally looked up at him with those green eyes he could watch forever.

  “We can afford it.”

  Her eyes widened briefly. They didn’t change at his nod, but she mechanically took the pen and signed with a flourish.

  Harriet was watching them closely, but didn’t say a word before she left.

  “How long do you think that news will take to sweep through town? By end of morning or until sometime this afternoon?” He tried to make it a joke, but Jane’s wide eyes were still watching him so closely.

  “Really, Aaron?”

  “Really.”

  “What…” the single word ran Jane out of breath.

&nbs
p; “What changed?”

  She managed a tiny nod.

  “I can’t imagine ever meeting a better person to spend the rest of my life with.”

  Again the tiny nod of agreement.

  The words, doofus. He took a deep breath as if he needed as much air for three little words as he did before diving out of an airplane. The image was too funny and he started to laugh.

  Jane’s smile slowly grew.

  He was the most ridiculous person he’d ever met, but those weren’t the words she needed, waited for. He wanted to pull her against his chest, crush her there so that she could never leave, but he needed to see her eyes when he was finally able to speak.

  So he waited until he could get his breath under control.

  Waited until the mood was again quiet and his world was filled by her half-formed smile and her brilliant, shining eyes.

  “I love you, Jane Tully.”

  The tears running down her cheeks were the only answer she managed.

  It was more than enough.

  Chapter 17

  The next weeks were frantic with banks and setting up a mortgage. With Aaron’s savings and his job, they were back to being able to finance the purchase. Every step forward was like slogging through mud until Jane thought she was going crazy. She would have, if she wasn’t so happy.

  She’d downloaded the picture of her and Aaron with everyone else at the bar that night and made it the background on her phone. Any time she felt that the world was winning, she would go into the bathroom, look at the phone and then up at herself in the mirror. The two images were coming into alignment.

  Departments she’d never heard of were investigating her and Aaron’s visas. Did they have the right to own land in the UK? Did they have the correct forms to work here? Did they even have the right to stay in the country?

  They finished the bedroom and started on the bath. The arrival of the king-size bed and dressers had been a major celebration. Hal and Bridget had made a big fuss when she and Aaron had arrived to fetch the last of his belongings from his room at the pub. Hal had thumped her on the back hard enough to knock the wind out of her, not leaving her any way to protest as Bridget kissed both of them soundly.

  She and Aaron hadn’t looked at each other until everything was tucked away in drawers or hung in the small closet. The last thing she hung was the dress she’d worn to the wedding. When Aaron saw it, the heat came into his eyes and cast or no cast, he’d swept her into his arms, carried her the two steps to the bed, and they’d fallen into it together. It had been a long and glorious afternoon before they emerged again.

  Inspectors came out of the woodwork ready to find something damning about the cottage. There were times they were queued up in the kitchen with cups of tea, waiting to inspect one thing or the other. The suggestion that they might add a gable and window in the third story suddenly had the District Council Trust descending on them. Renovations in the Cotswolds were tightly regulated in order to maintain an “authentic historic appearance.” They were quickly followed by the National Trust. It was as if the UK didn’t want them to be here, but they fought them down one by one. Some nights they’d collapse into bed too exhausted and strung out to even eat.

  At the very depths of the renovation of the bathroom, they had to move back into the pub for a few days. Hal and Bridget welcomed them just as jubilantly as they had sent them off.

  Aaron had shed crutches and now his cane. He was down to a walking cast, which was a great relief—though she still wouldn’t be kicking his shins. Aaron cooped up, unable to work, was a definite challenge. He’d cleared the fallen arch, all while sitting on his butt. However, the thought of him working on it…

  “Can’t you just let Trent do it?” The thought of him back near all that stone scared the living daylights out of her, though she tried not to show it.

  “It’s mine to do!” Aaron’s voice was practically a snarl, though she could tell it was directed at the arch and the last few feet of wall and not at her. She’d finally had to enlist Trent to shut him down, at least until he was solid on both feet.

  So they’d turned to the interior renovation with a vengeance.

  “Going to be time to christen this room soon,” Aaron was putting the last coat of paint on where he’d removed the wall between the living room and dining room. The new beam was stained dark to match the historic woodwork. She’d selected a cross between a warm bronze and a soft gold for the walls that glowed in the sunlight.

  “We need to celebrate.”

  “That’s what I had in mind.”

  She kissed him on the shoulder as she walked by. “That too. I meant we should have a dinner party.”

  “Us?”

  “Us. I want to invite Hal, Bridget, Trent, and Conrad at least.”

  “Well, we are good enough cooks now that we aren’t too likely to poison them.”

  “I think,” Jane turned slowly, unable to believe how the room looked. It didn’t just look like she’d imagined, it felt like…home. “I think I’ll bake a pie. A good authentic apple pie from that recipe your mom sent me.”

  Suddenly she was clamped in Aaron’s arms.

  “You want the way to my heart, you bake one of those apple pies.”

  “I thought I already was in your heart,” she tried to sound offended but it didn’t work very well.

  “You are. But you and apple pie? That’s every Vermont boy’s dream come true,” Aaron began nuzzling her neck.

  “Hey. I thought we were going to wait for the furniture.”

  “Preview,” he grunted as his hands clamped on to her behind and pulled her tight against him.

  “You’re in the middle of painting,” she leaned back as he worked his mouth along her collarbone.

  “Coat needs to dry,” he pulled her down to straddle his lap as he sat on the top of the little stepladder just high enough to do the brush work on the ceiling.

  “You’re not paying attention,” but then again neither was she because he was paying incredible attention to what he was doing to her body.

  In the moments before he totally blanked her mind, she wondered if he’d always have this power over her.

  With a soft groan she gave in to the moment and hoped that he would.

  “And then, like ruddy Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, he dropped the whole ten-foot-high arch on himself.”

  Aaron could have done without the tale of his idiocy told in full shining color, but Trent was unstoppable and the others around the dinner table roared with laughter. To be fair, Jane laughed politely and only paled slightly, but the others were certainly laughing. At him, not with him—which Aaron supposed he fully deserved.

  Then Conrad, acting much the Earl of Evenston, told of the dusty vagabond who had walked into the poshest wedding of the season. Bridget followed with, in excruciating detail, his first meeting with Jane.

  “When did this become a roast Aaron night?”

  “The day you were born,” Captain Yakov Feynman crowed. Jack had been passing through again, up from Dorset where he’d been for sea training with the Brit’s Special Boat Service—their version of SEAL Team 6. He flirted outrageously with Jane—who haughtily informed him that they weren’t on speaking terms, then hugged him for welcome to prove herself wrong. He’d also flirted with Bridget, who gave back even better than she got, despite leaning against Hal while she was doing so.

  They settled into reverent silence as Jane served up fresh apple pie, vanilla ice cream, and a drizzle of caramel sauce. She’d actually made six pies in the prior week for practice until even his nostalgic appetite for apple pie was sated. Well, mostly sated.

  “This is spectacular, Jane.”

  “He’s right for once,” Jack conceded. “You better marry this girl or I’m going to take her off your hands damn fast.”

  Aaron felt a momentary madness come over him. “Of course I’m going to marry her, so back off, Jack-off.” And as they traded a laugh, his words sank in. When they finall
y slammed home, he spun around to face Jane.

  Again, those wide green eyes inspected him carefully.

  “You are?” Her voice was just a whisper in the sudden silence.

  He could only nod.

  “Don’t you think you’d better ask first?” Jack slapped him hard on the shoulder.

  He could only nod again. Then he rose to his feet, shoved his chair aside, and went down on one knee before her. The pain hit his bad knee and all he could do was curse as he switched knees.

  “Do it up right, boy,” Trent admonished.

  Conrad was smiling and Bridget was looking like she was fighting tears as Hal wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Do it up right,” he muttered mostly to himself in disgust.

  “Yeah,” Jack joined in. “Like the soldier you were and the man you are.”

  Aaron had to look at the captain for a moment.

  Jack nodded with that short, military acknowledgement that he was sending the right man in to get the job done properly.

  “Hurry it up, Aaron,” Hal crowed. “Before the lass comes to her senses.”

  “Now I better understand Jane’s instructions on when I should just shut the hell up!” He scowled at his friends who had the gall to just grin at him.

  He turned back to Jane, reached out for one of her hands, and actually felt like a White Knight as he knelt at his Queen’s feet.

  “You know my skill isn’t with words.”

  That earned him a small smile.

  “But you, Jane Tully, are absolutely the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Will you have me, Jane? For richer, poorer, and all that?”

  She managed a tiny nod that changed his world.

  “Say it, girl!” Jack called out. “Say it like you mean it.”

  Jane glanced over Aaron’s head with a look that would quell a Russian tank. Then she looked back down at him and Aaron could feel the smile all the way to his toes.

  “In your vernacular, Aaron: Hell, yeah!”

  Aaron laughed so hard that he had to sit down. His cast made it awkward enough that he more collapsed than sat on the floor. In a moment, his arms were full of Jane Tully. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him so hard that he fell onto his back, dragging her down on top of him.