Heart of the Cotswolds: England

by M. L. Buchman

  “Get a room!”

  “Take a video!”

  “Can I have your slice of apple pie?”

  “Hell, no!” He and Jane shouted in unison and then both burst out laughing. He’d thought that making the grade at Delta Force had been a good day, but that didn’t even pass muster compared to holding Jane Tully in this moment.

  “You know that you two have really fixed this up a treat,” Trent sat on the forest-green leather couch, a pint glass of beer clasped in both hands. Jane liked that he looked comfortable there. Tonight had made the cottage feel more like a home than she’d imagined possible. Than she’d ever had since leaving home at eighteen.

  They’d lit a small fire though it was a pleasant May evening and they’d also opened the French doors to let in the last of the sunset. The bronze wall paint soaked up the warmth. She’d found some tall copper vases at a car boot sale in Cirencester that were now filled with cattails. Aaron, the ever resourceful Aaron, had shown her how to plant sunflowers so she have those in the fall. Fosse had a gardening club, that as the new owner of an English garden, she’d best join soon and learn something herself. If she had time.

  “With the way the owner jacked up the price at the last minute, I’m going to have to find work as soon as the renovation is done.”

  “Then just keep doing it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Fixing up places like this,” Trent waved a hand. “You got a good aesthetic eye. Aaron’s about the most capable lad I’ve ever met, though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him I said so or I’ll never keep him in line.”

  “Fixing up places like this?”

  “Renovations are a big business in the Cotswolds. I can count the folks who are this good at it on my two hands and have plenty of fingers left over for holding a pint,” he tipped his beer to make his point.

  Jane shook her head. “I don’t think I could survive the inspector storm ever again. That really set us back.”

  “Inspector storm?”

  She described all the different bureaucrats who’d been through and what they’d insisted on, but tapered off as Trent started shaking his head.

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “What doesn’t sound right?” Conrad turned from chatting with Aaron and Jack to face them.

  She explained.

  “Trent’s right. That’s damned peculiar.”

  “We just thought it was your English system to make foreigners suffer.”

  Trent and Conrad exchanged a look that was too easy to interpret.

  “Then what was going on?”

  “Sounds like someone had it in for you,” Trent didn’t sound happy.

  “But who would…” Even as she said it she knew. “Debbie.”

  “Who’s that?” Trent asked.

  Conrad simply looked disgusted.

  “Oh no! No. No. No.” Jane’s stomach clenched into a fist. “Aaron!”

  Everyone spun to face her at her call.

  “How much was that price? For the cottage?”

  He named the amount.

  “No. In US dollars.”

  Hearing the amount, it took all of her willpower to not be sick. This couldn’t be happening.

  In seconds he’d shoved aside the coffee table and was beside her. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “That…” she was so angry that she was shocked she was still capable of speech. “That is exactly the amount of profit I made when I finally had to sell Mom and Dad’s house. I had already paid Debbie half of present market value to gain sole ownership. Then the market recovered while I held onto it. It’s exactly how much the value went up.”

  “What’s Debbie got to do with our cottage?”

  She didn’t know, but she knew she was right.

  “I’m afraid I may have the answer to that.” Conrad spoke tersely in his Earl of Evenston tone. Aaron had met less intimidating Delta Force commanders.

  He held onto Jane’s shaking hands and they all turned to listen to the earl.

  “When I purchased the estate here in Fosse-on-the-Wold, a holding company came in and swept up most of the for-sale properties. The town had fallen into quite a state of disarray and prices were very favorable to an enterprising person with money.”

  “Geoffrey,” Jane breathed it out.

  “Geoffrey,” Conrad confirmed. “I didn’t see any particular harm in it and he hasn’t done any undue price gouging. At least not prior to this. He simply had the capital to hold the properties until the market improved. Even fixed up some cosmetic problems…”

  “Such as hiring me to be fixing the garden wall,” Trent agreed. “You recall, Aaron, when we started it was past historical and well on its way to eyesore.”

  Aaron nodded, it was all he could manage.

  “Yes, my youngest son has many shortcomings, but he is a smart investor who likes to make sure he receives top dollar. People can imagine renovating an interior, but a crumbling rock wall lies beyond the range of most potential buyer’s imaginations.”

  It didn’t mean that Aaron was one bit less tempted to go find the Third Worm of Evenston and wring his neck before the night was over.

  “But how did Debbie—” Then Jane swore in a very unladylike way, rich enough with both British and American invective to raise a number of eyebrows including his own. “That day I was in your office, Conrad, at the manor.”

  “What day? What happened?”

  But Jane just shook her head. Too much to explain to Aaron, especially as to why she’d been there—because of her fears about him.

  “Yes,” the earl agreed. “That’s when you admitted to her that you were in the process of purchasing a cottage.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” Aaron had no problem strangling Geoffrey until he whimpered like a lost soul. He was warming up to the idea of doing the same thing to Jane’s sister even if she was a woman. The only downside he could see was that it wouldn’t actually achieve anything.

  “Nothing,” Jane whispered. Then she sat up straighter, pulled her hands from his and folded them in her lap. “We’re going to do absolutely nothing,” she stated in a clear voice.

  Aaron could only goggle at her. “Nothing?”

  “I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how she’s affected us in any regard. Not monetarily, not emotionally. My pain is what she thrives on and I’m done with her.”

  There was a respectful silence.

  “So—” Aaron didn’t even know where to begin. He understood her reasoning. He also knew better than to argue with his fiancée on the night of their engagement.

  Old Delta training: done with a mission—for better or worse—then move on to the next one. Once the post-op briefing was done and any learned lessons had been integrated into future tactics, dwelling on the past was not constructive.

  “So…what’s next?”

  “Well,” he could see Jane fighting—and against all odds winning—the battle for calm in front of their friends.

  If ever there was a woman for a warrior man, she was it. Jilted out of a third of her savings and she simply moved forward. Her inner strength never ceased to teach him the best way to be.

  “Trent was discussing an intriguing proposal before…well….before.” It was nice to hear the waver and know that she wasn’t all steel inside.

  “I thought I made it clear that I was the only one proposing tonight,” he aimed a mock scowl at Trent and Jack, which didn’t earn a smile, but it lightened the mood.

  “A business proposal.”

  Aaron shook his head. “From an old dude like Trent? I can’t believe you fell for that line.”

  It finally earned him the laugh he’d been hoping for before they all began discussing it.

  “Come on up. I have a surprise for you,” Aaron called from the third floor window.

  As if it was a great mystery. Aaron had banished her from the top floor all week. Her office was the last unfinished room in the cottage.
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br />   “Let me clean up first,” she called back.

  She finished watering the soil around the new rose bushes she’d planted to frame Aaron’s beautiful stone arch. In a year or two, they’d help bring the view to life. For tomorrow’s backyard wedding…at least the intent was there.

  A couple walked their dog along Heart of England Way and she could see them admiring the cottage and the garden. They waved and continued on their way. She waved back. She wasn’t sure, but she thought they were somehow involved with the town’s small library.

  She turned to look at the cottage herself. It was done. With Hal and Trent’s help, and the cottage as their showpiece, they already had several jobs lined up. She was the business and logistics side of their company, but Aaron had bought her a toolbelt and was teaching her how to help as well. Tearing things down and building them back up seemed to make him happiest. She liked the little touches: fine trim, brass fittings, the little things that made their cottage a home rather than just a house.

  Springs Cottage Restorations was going to take a lot of hard work, but it was all theirs. And one thing she knew about being a project manager engaged to a former Delta Force soldier, they both thrived on hard work.

  Aaron had also been teaching her to relax. He claimed that it was the Vermont in him coming out.

  At the end of a day, they’d often sit out in the garden, splitting a beer and watching the now-grown sheep in the field. On the days when it drizzled, they would go to the pub, chatting over a ploughman’s lunch with brown bread, Cotswold Blue Brie, pickles, and a hard-boiled egg. Sometimes they’d curl up on the sofa in the den and watch a science fiction movie. It had never really been one of her genres, but Aaron was slowly convincing her that there was more than Star Trek and Star Wars that were worth watching.

  She brushed a hand over the few leaves peeking out from the rose branches to cheer them on, then went inside and took her time cleaning up from the garden.

  Ages ago, a lifetime ago, Aaron had said that he had some special ideas on how to christen the upstairs office when it was done. True to his word, he’d left it until last.

  After a quick shower, she dressed. Before heading upstairs, she unwrapped the outfit she’d purchased for the occasion on her last trip up to London—a transaction that had embarrassed her and amused the perfectly polite English clerk. As she dressed for him, she felt a little wild, and very un-Jane-like…which maybe was a good thing. When she arrived at the door and leaned up against the jamb in the best pose she could manage, she wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised.

  The office was perfect. He’d found an old wooden roll-top desk that made her feel as if she’d just stepped back a century or two. A low bookcase, frilly curtains at both the garden window and the new one that looked out the other side of the cottage toward the spring itself. Instead of paint, he’d selected a pale, floral wallpaper that complimented the armchair she’d purchased so long ago. It was, a hazy memory finally came clear, the wallpaper that she’d noticed on that very first night as he’d walked a half-drunk woman through town. And he’d remembered that she’d liked it.

  “Oh, Aaron!” It was perhaps the most feminine space she’d ever been in. It wasn’t over-the-top or ridiculously girly. He’d taken photos of the gamboling lambs, a pheasant, and a wide photo of her walking barefoot through the water up Brook Lane in Blockley, and had them framed. With the desk and the choice of art, it stated that here worked a powerful businessperson who was also pure woman. She knew she was pretty, but she’d never seen herself as feminine, not until this moment. “Such a gift!”

  “I was thinking the same thing myself.” He too had cleaned up, even wearing clean slacks and a button-down shirt, opened down just enough buttons to show off his beautiful chest. He was staring at her.

  “You like?” She tried a model pose that felt moderately ridiculous, but it must have worked because his smile went electric.

  She hadn’t quite been able to face a teddy, but she’d actually liked the black lacy underwear and bra. Over it she wore an almost sheer, white silk robe that barely reached the top of her thighs. After some trials in the mirror, she’d left it open in the front with the belt dangling loosely to either side rather than closing it or tying the sash across her bare stomach.

  “You’re not the only one who has been looking forward to this moment,” she informed him.

  “I can see that.” He pointed to her armchair. “Sit.”

  “That wasn’t quite the welcome I was expecting.”

  His groan of frustration was satisfying enough that she decided to humor him. However, to punish him for not sweeping her into his arms, she closed the robe as she sat. She made a point of admiring the view out the window rather than looking at her beautiful man and wondering just what he had in mind. Thankfully, it was an easy view to admire. The newly planted roses below, the pristine rock wall with its amazing arch that opened out onto the world, and in the distance the rolling hills that were the outer reaches of Fosse Manor.

  “Close your eyes.”

  She did.

  He walked around the room for a moment.

  “How long do I keep them—”

  “Just keep them closed, all right?” The frustration was oddly satisfying.

  “Yes, sir!” Jane made a mock salute.

  More walking around and then he stopped close beside her.

  “Let me know if I hurt you.”

  “What—”

  But her question was cut off in wonder as he gathered up some of her hair and ran a brush through it. She’d never had a man brush her hair before. Never had anyone, other than during a haircut, brushed it for her.

  At first it felt awkward, even uncomfortable. But Aaron was gentle. She could remember him watching her each night as she started at the ends to clear tangles, then worked her way up until she could make long, smooth strokes through her hair. He gained confidence as he worked. Soon she was looking forward to each brushstroke. It was as if Aaron himself was caressing her, telling her how beautiful she was, how worthy she was. Every passage of the brush pulled joy from deeper and deeper until it was welling up out of her heart.

  “I love you, Aaron Mason.”

  “I love you, Jane Tully.” He didn’t say it often, but she’d learned to cherish it each time he did. He was more of a show than tell kind of guy.

  She gave herself to sensation as he worked his way around until her hair was far beyond any mere hundred strokes. She floated in a glorious space halfway between smiling and swooning.

  When he finally stopped, she was floating in her chair.

  “This is what you thought of, that day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brushing my hair.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Aaron?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Never stop thinking, okay?”

  “Thinking about you? My favorite occupation. Now open your eyes.”

  It was hard. It was like coming back from some distant, fairy-tale land where reality had no place. When she finally forced her eyes open, she was looking once more at the green hills out the window.

  In the center of the window ledge a star shone almost too brightly to look at.

  She blinked her eyes trying to understand how Aaron had installed this bit of the sun in her office.

  Then the world shifted.

  A diamond ring, glowing with the afternoon sunlight.

  Aaron reached out and picked it up. Then he knelt in front of her and offered it up to her.

  “I know it’s for tomorrow, but I didn’t want to share the moment of giving it to you with anyone else.”

  “Tomorrow we will marry,” she said as she held out her hand.

  Aaron, her very own White Knight, slipped the ring onto her finger.

  “Today,” she smiled at the man who was the view of the wonder of her future. “Today we are wed.”

  “Forever,” Aaron agreed.

  Jane nodded, “Forever.”

 
Epilogue

  Jane tried to remember the woman who had stalked into this pub such a short time ago, but nothing fit. Three months and a lifetime’s worth of change had happened since she’d been that woman. The person desperately seeking drunken oblivion to get her through her sister’s wedding was a distant memory, almost an illusion.

  Instead of being stared at by a dusty stranger, this evening the love of her life held the door for her to go through. His simplest caress, his palm against the small of her back as they headed for the bar, the warm surety that was Aaron’s presence in her life. The small cottage on the Spanish coast had been a heavenly spot to honeymoon, but it felt so good to be back, in this town, in this place where it had all begun.

  What she would now call a “strapping lad” stood at the bar, though she didn’t recognize him. Hal must have just hired him.

  “A pint of Guinness and another of the Donnington Gold,” Aaron placed their order, then pointed to their usual table by the fire. “In for dinner. We’ll be over there.” His speech was still as efficient and to the point as ever. Jane now also knew that it was strategic. He’d probably scanned and assessed every person coming along the sidewalk and estimated how many were likely to be coming in. If they wanted their favorite table, they’d best grab it quickly.

  “I’ll bring them across,” the man’s words followed them as they passed others. Trent nodded a gruff welcome from the table where he hunkered with several other old-timers, all busy with baskets of whitebait and chips. Gwyneth the butcher—her living room would be their very first job—waved with her half-finished pint. They might be forever “The Americans” but they were also locals now. Bought in. With a business. Here to stay.

  “Do you have any idea how wonderful that sounds?” Jane asked Aaron as he held her seat for her.

  “How what sounds?”

  “Here to stay. I thought you could read my mind.”

  “Other way around, mi amor. You’re the mind reader on this team.” He eased down with his back to the wall, facing the room, just the way he liked it. “Besides, ‘Here to stay’ never sounded like me, but some amazing woman convinced me I was wrong.”