Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange by Jenny Kane (a court of thorns and roses ebook free txt) 📗

Dylan came to Tom’s rescue. ‘I’ve told you about Helen, Mum. She works on the dig with Dad. She’s really nice. Knows about the Romans and dinosaurs.’

Keeping her eyes fixed on Tom, Sue sounded suspicious. ‘A work colleague then?’

‘And a friend.’ Feeling increasingly uncomfortable that Sue was here and Helen wasn’t, Tom changed the subject. ‘I believe you had something exciting to tell me?’

‘Can I tell him, Mum?’

‘Go for it.’

‘Next week it’s my very first parent’s evening at school. Will you come Dad? Will you? Pleeeeease.’

As Dylan wriggled off his seat and scrambled onto his dad’s lap, Tom felt his heart burst with love for his son. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ He looked up as Sue, who was looking at him oddly. ‘What time is it?’

‘Four o’clock. Will that be okay for you?’

‘Blimey, I was expecting an evening appointment. I’m sure my parents, when they bothered to go to such things, dragged me back into school after seven.’

‘I expect they did, but this is a new century. Anyway, I needed to book an early timeslot, as I’m going out afterwards.’

‘So you chose four o’clock to suit you, even though you knew I don’t finish work until six?’

‘Well, I…’

Catching the worried expression on Dylan’s face, Tom gave his son a smile. ‘I will be there. I’ll talk to Sam the minute we get back. I’m sure he won’t mind.’

‘You can meet my teacher! And you’ll get to see my work. I’ve got a picture on the wall over the art table. But I’m not going to tell you what it’s of. It’s a surprise!’

*

‘Are you alright?’ Thea locked the inside of the campervan door, and slid into bed next to Shaun. ‘Got the guilts for sneaking off to bed with your temporary co-host in the middle of the afternoon?’

‘Hardly! It’s our day off anyway, apart from the news thing. No, it was something Ajay said. It made me think.’ Shaun tucked his arm around Thea’s shoulder. ‘If we hadn’t met before, you and I might have met today for the first time.’

‘How did you work that out?’

‘It’s not unusual for the local news crew to visit us when we’re on site. They often invite an expert on the period in question, Saxon, Tudor, whatever.’

‘So?’

‘So, if life had been different, and you hadn’t gone to work at Mill Grange, you may well have been the local expert, drafted in from the Roman Baths, so we’d have met today, and I’d have asked you on a date.’

Laughing, Thea kissed him hard. ‘You old romantic you.’

‘Well, it could have happened.’

‘It could.’ Rolling onto her side gingerly, so as not to fall out of the narrow bed, Thea slid a hand down under the covers. ‘Or it could have been the bloke who runs the museum in Cirencester or the lass who manages Chedworth Villa.’

Shaun groaned gently as Thea’s fingers found what they were looking for. ‘Nah, it would have been the hot girl from the back room in the Roman Baths. No question.’

Nineteen

Saturday March 28th

Helen’s legs ached more than they had any right to, considering how much physical work she’d done over the last six months. It wasn’t as if the walk from where she’d parked her Land Rover at Exford, to Landacre Bridge was that far. The three and half miles of moorland terrain wasn’t even tough going. It was the fact she’d marched there at an incredible speed, trying to outpace her thinking that caused her muscles to twinge.

Even the climb up Chibbet Hill, which was the steepest part of the walk, shouldn’t have done more than increase her pulse. Today, however, as Helen sank down onto the grass next to the pretty bridge, and surveyed the wonder of Exmoor, she felt as if she’d like to borrow Bert’s oxygen tank.

Not wanting to spend the day wandering about Mill Grange on her own, when there was a high chance that Tina would take one look at her expression and ask her what was wrong, Helen had packed a rucksack with food and drink, grabbed a notebook and pen, and grabbed her car keys. She hadn’t known she was heading to Landacre, but now she was here, she was glad she’d come.

‘I’ll start planning the book,’ Helen told a passing rabbit.

Resting against the dry-stone wall behind her, she stretched her legs out and tried to visualise the chapter headings she’d need to encompass everything a potential reader would wish to know about Upwich Fortlet. She grabbed her notebook and listed the headings, ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Romans in South West England’, before the picture she’d been trying to suppress floated to the front of her mind, obscuring her work-based thoughts.

Helen wondered if Dylan had stuck to orange juice or if he’d finally been brave and opted for the strawberry milkshake he always said he fancied, but never tried. Tom would have black coffee. How many cupfuls has he drunk by now? She couldn’t imagine Sue eating scones, but maybe she was wrong. ‘Or maybe you don’t want her to eat them, because that’s what you and Tom do when you go to Sybil’s.’

I think we owe him some proper family time, don’t you?

The memory of Sue’s words made Helen feel cold as she leafed through her empty notebook. She tried to imagine all the pages filled with the notes she’d need to make if she was going to write about the fortlet’s history, rather than picturing Tom, Sue and Dylan playing happy families.

You know that Tom was put in an impossible situation and he went with Sue and not you because it was the right thing to do for Dylan.

Helen forced herself to consider a more pressing problem. What would she do about her job?

‘That’s the only real problem,’ she muttered to herself as she pulled a flask of coffee from her bag. ‘I need to choose between working with my friends at Mill Grange or going back to working with my colleagues in Bath. The insecurity I