Connor walked away from the tumbledown house and across to the church, spending some time in the graveyard, some graves covered in ivy, others neat with fresh flowers. The church dated from the twelve hundreds, solid and secure in its position at the top of the hill. He stopped by the notice board, anything to distract himself, and a printed jar with markings showed fundraising for improvements to the church roof. Sixty thousand they needed and they’d raised thirteen so far if he read the crude colouring-in right. Seemed a shame when such a beautiful place was struggling to find money. From the church he took the public footpath through the trees and finally ended up out on the open hillside, Fordham Grange, just as old and secure as the church, to his left.
The path led right around the walled gardens of the Grange, long wild grass on either side of the trail and the stunning view in front of him. As far as the eye could see there was beauty, green and golden fields, Broadway tower in the distance on another hill, the river sparkling in the bottom of the valley.
Here is peace.
A noise behind him had him turning. Someone was following him through the trees, but the footfalls sounded louder than he had been, rhythmic, and when the man burst out of the woods in running shorts, shoes and little else, Connor was startled by the abruptness of it all.
Then he realised who it was.
So much for peace.
Ash pulled up the run right next to him. And more of that naked chest was seemingly thrust into Connor’s world. “Hey,” he said by way of greeting. He didn’t even sound out of breath.
“You’re a runner,” Connor noted. And why the hell did I say that? Because I’m stupid around Ash’s naked chest, that’s why.
Ash looked down at himself. “Uhm, yeah.”
They stood in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, but then both spoke at once.
“I wanted to apologise—”
“I’m sorry—”
They both stopped. Connor waited. Something about the expression on Ash’s face spoke to him. There was concern there, and embarrassment.
“I’m sorry if us kissing at the surgery was inappropriate.” Ash spoke formally, which was at odds with the bare chest, barely there running shorts and the glistening sweat that was over every inch of his lithe body, well the inches that Connor could see, anyway.
“And I’m sorry if I judged you without knowing you.”
Ash appeared to consider the statement. “Will you tell me why you did?”
Connor shook his head rigorously.
Another impasse. Ash stepped into his space and he smelled of sunshine. Connor held himself rigid. Quickly Ash pressed another kiss to Connor’s lips, backed off and began to leave, jogging backwards for a while.
“Never said sorry meant I wouldn’t kiss you again,” he said with a laugh. Then he ran through an arch in the wall to the Grange and disappeared.
Yet again Connor was left astonished at the audacity and more than halfway turned-on by the action.
“Arsehole,” he muttered. Then, pivoting on his heel, his peace well and truly destroyed, he went back to his car.
Confident, sexy, arrogant Ash was seriously fucking with his head and was way too much like Tristan. He was halfway through the woods when he stopped as a sudden thought crossed his mind.
So why doesn’t him being in my space freak me out? Why was he the first man to get close since everything happened that didn’t make Connor want to run? What was it about Ash and all his cockiness that wasn’t quite the same as those others?
Connor crouched down as all his energy left him in one heavy exhale.
The others.
* * * * *
Rachel lived in the old school in Upper Fordham, in an annex to her parent’s house with its own drive. The place was small but perfectly Rachel in so many ways, and thank God, she answered Connor’s knock without delay. Seeing him standing there, she simply moved to one side and let him in.
She smiled at him, but the smile dropped quickly. “I’ll get the wine.”
When she came back, she stopped his pacing in her small kitchen with a hand to his chest. “What? What happened?”
“I bought a house, Andrew asked me to buy into the practice as partner, and Ash… fuck… Ash…”
“Drink this.” She handed him one of her extra-large goblets with what was probably half a bottle of wine in it. He took a few healthy swallows without even considering the taste or the fact he’d left his car at an angle doubtless blocking her drive and wouldn’t be able to move if it he was drunk. He wouldn’t be driving tonight.
She encouraged him to her sofa, moving a Kindle so he could sit down.
“Okay,” she said very matter-of-factly as she sat on the opposite chair. “Start at the beginning. You bought a house.”
“Mick sold me the house he owns by the church, the one he inherited.”
“The one you and your family used to visit when you were a kid.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so you’re putting down roots.” She sounded a little doubtful, but that was only to be expected. After all, he’d spent the last year telling her how he wasn’t ready to stay in one place. “And Andrew asked you to be partner.”
“You know about that?”
“It was the first thing you just said to me,” she smiled. “But yeah, I know everything at that place. Did you say yes?”
“I haven’t yet, but I will do.”
“So you’ll be my boss,” she teased. Connor smiled at the comment, but he didn’t feel the smile and it must have showed.
“And Ash?”
“He’s all over me like a rash,” Connor admitted. “And when we kissed…”
“Hang on. You’re kissing Ash.”
“No,” Connor said miserably. “He kissed me, well, apart from the first time I think I kissed him back, I know I leaned in…”
“Wait a minute. There were two of these kisses? How did I not know this?”
“I don’t tell you everything,” Connor snapped. He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth.
“I don’t expect you to.” Her tone was soft but there was the hurt in her voice as well as in her expression.
“Shit, Rachel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, hell, I don’t know what to say. He kissed me, and one of them was just now.”
The hurt disappeared to be replaced with interest. “Wait, you were on a date with him?”
“No, he was running, I was on a walk—listen, none of that is important.” He placed his wine glass on the coffee table, watching as the sheer volume of the red climbed one side of the glass, then sloshed back on the other. The thick liquid clung to the crystal for a while and it fascinated him.
“So what is important?” Rachel asked. “Why are you here?”
Connor buried his face in his hands, then slumped back in the sofa. “Because my head is screwed. I buy a house and all I see is my mum and dad there, I buy into a partnership and all I can see is thirty years in the same place stretched out in front of me. Ash kisses me and all I can see is the betrayal and pain that is inevitable.”
“One day you’ll look at the house and see it’s beautiful and that your parents were part of its history, and in thirty years you will look back and see the friends you’ve made and the families you have become part of. But with Ash, I don’t get why you’re already seeing how it will end when it hasn’t even started.”
“Isn’t that what you are doing with Landon?” Connor asked as he dropped his hands from his face.
“What?”
“Assuming it will end.”
“That’s different.”
“How? Tell me how it’s different?”
“We’ve talked about this, about his title and his money—”
“And I can’t think the same way?”
“But you’re not.” Rachel sat forward in her chair. “There’s something there in you, a pain that I can’t imagine, and it’s colouring how you feel about Ash and his family. I can see it, a bitterness, a hatred even.”
“You don’t know what I’ve seen,” Connor said.
“Then tell me.”
Connor was aghast at the idea. “No.”
Rachel poured herself an equal-sized glass of wine and was clearly thinking her way through a response. Finally after she had sipped enough and probably thought enough she simply said, “Then I can’t help you.”
Connor closed his eyes briefly. “I’m not sure anyone can.” Sleep was pulling him under. Wine made him mellow but also knocked him out.
“I’ve known you over a year and you’ve not had one date or even talked about another man. Hell, Connor, if you don’t talk it out and get past the shit in your head, you’ll die a lonely old man.” Rachel’s tone held a lot of sadness and a hell of a lot of truth.
“At least my heart will be safe,” Connor murmured. He wasn’t even actually sure he said the words out loud. Sleep called and he was happy to let it pull him into a doze on the sofa.