Ash found it difficult not to punch the air. Connor had agreed to spend five minutes in his company and that gave Ash five minutes to convince Connor that they should do some more kissing. What he had found today in the kitchen was at least a talking point, and that in turn would maybe, possibly, lead to more talking, then at the end of it some kissing and a whole lot of touching.
Something about Connor was wrong. There was real distrust in his eyes whenever he looked at Ash, and there had to be a backstory to all of that. Someone had hurt Connor and Ash was determined to show Connor that Ash was nothing like whoever it was.
Someone rich clearly, but Ash couldn’t help who his father was. Someone irresponsible maybe, but Ash felt he was a responsible kind of guy. Someone who fucked Connor over… Ash would get to the bottom of it and get the gorgeous sexy veterinarian on his side. Ash had never come across someone who didn’t like him and it was disconcerting.
His cell vibrated and he answered immediately when he saw Landon’s name on the screen. Landon had his appointment today and Ash had been waiting a long time to hear the news.
“And?” he jumped in without preliminaries.
“I have a hiatal hernia,” Landon growled. “Meds every day, and I need to cut out on the spicy food.” He sounded grumpy and tired. Ash had mixed feelings of relief at the news that it wasn’t his brother’s heart and sorry for Landon who loved spicy food.
“And your heart’s okay?” Ash asked.
“Perfectly fine.”
“That’s good news, then.”
They talked a little while longer about the fact these hernias were very often hereditary, but Ash wasn’t too worried, very much in the mindset that he’d worry about it if it happened. He ended the call when Connor came out from the practice and walked over to him.
“Where are we going?” Connor asked from beside him.
“In here.” Ash pushed open the café door and indicated Connor should go first.
“I said I wasn’t—”
“Shhh,” Ash interrupted. He threaded his way through the pine tables and reached the door to the back stairs. He turned to see if Connor had followed and simply stared until Connor muttered something Ash didn’t hear and made his way through the tables to catch up. Ash held back a smile, and took the twisty old stairs up to the top floor of the two-story house. Originally built in the sixteen hundreds, it was a maze of small rooms upstairs. All of Liz’s money had gone into the café downstairs and the kitchen renovation was the first thing she’d done upstairs. The old kitchen was piled to one side. Today Ash and Richard had been stripping out and making the old walls ready for the new cupboards. Preparation was going to be a good two-day job but tonight the walls were bare and back to the original. The ceilings were low and Ash remembered to warn Connor just as Connor’s forehead connected with a beam.
“Ceilings are low,” Ash warned.
Connor rubbed his forehead. “I get that,” he said, his tone sheepish and not pissed off.
Ash gestured at himself. “Even I hit my head,” he said with a smile.
For a second Connor’s lips quirked into his own smile, but then it disappeared. Like he had deliberately decided he wasn’t going to show any humour at the situation at all.
Connor was a difficult man to get a handle on. He was prickly and angry, alongside sexy and gorgeous and all the other adjectives Ash could think of.
“So what is it you wanted to show me?” Connor asked.
“Look.” Ash tugged at Connor’s arm and guided him over a pile of wood and around the far end of where the old kitchen had been. Then he pointed at what he and Richard had uncovered.
“What?” Connor asked. He was peering at the blank wall in puzzlement. Ash got that, he’d only noticed the markings when the sunlight had streamed through the window and hit the wall a certain way. Ash picked up a lamp and tilted it at the wall and the scratchings became more evident.
“A maker’s mark,” Ash said reverently. “And a date, but we can’t make much out of it.”
Connor peered closer, his fingers tracing the words, although just above the surface like he didn’t want to touch the wall itself. “Wow” was all he said.
“This was one of the first houses in the village,” Ash explained. “Or so Richard tells me. And just to be working on something like this, it’s an honour you know, to be a guardian for something so old.”
“Won’t the cabinets you put up just cover the whole thing?”
Ash shifted the light a little. “Richard is talking to Liz, about maybe covering it with Perspex and making it a feature somehow. Benefits of bespoke kitchen design. He even said he’d swallow any extra cost.”
Connor pulled away, looking uncertainly at Ash. “I’m buying a house, you know. Not as old as this one, but I’d love to find something so cool.”
Ash felt like that admission was raw for Connor, like he didn’t want to talk to Ash, let alone admit what he was doing.
“In Aston?”
“No, in Upper Fordham, one of the houses up near the church.”
Ash held back his instinctive joke about them being neighbours. There was something very fragile here between them, a connection of sorts that he didn’t quite understand.
“Those houses have a lot of memories in their walls,” Ash said instead.
Connor nodded, he looked sad, introspective, and Ash wanted a different end to this little interlude.
“I still work on the accounts, you know.”
Connor blinked at him. “What?”
“At the same time as doing this. I’ll go home tonight and clear my work. But this here, it isn’t playing for me.”
Connor stared at him, worrying his lower lip with a tooth. “Why would you tell me that?”
“My family has money, doesn’t mean we don’t have a work ethic. You said I had a heart that was rotten because of money. I don’t want you to think that. I want you to know that I work hard.”
“Why? I don’t get why you won’t leave me alone,” Connor whispered. He stood from his crouch and steadied himself against one of the beams behind him.
“Because I’m at a crossroads in my life and I found you, and I like you, and it would be good to see where things went if you let them.”
“You don’t know me,” Connor said. He sounded confused, but at least there was no anger there.
Ash fought against the instinct to press Connor back against the wall and kiss him until he had nothing but lust in his head and no doubts at all. Connor didn’t need that and Ash didn’t know how he was so certain of what Connor needed.
“You fixed Tux,” he said. That seemed like neutral territory.
“That is what I do.” Still with the confusion.
Ash shrugged. “We should go for a drink.”
Connor looked like he was going to refuse, but then he nodded. “Okay.”
As they walked over to the White Hart, Ash filled the space in talking with so many words that he thought Connor was probably overwhelmed. To give him credit, he didn’t tell Ash to stop.
“The parish register has the first reference to what was called The Inn in 1532.”
“That’s old.”
They’d reached the corner of it and Ash pressed a hand against the old stone walls. “Did you know Oliver Cromwell stayed here before the battle of Worcester?”
“I didn’t. I don’t know much about Aston.”
“This might be a large village or a small town, but it has history in every inch of it. Did you know my brother’s house has musket rounds marks on the outside wall? And that your house would have stood at the same time. You should check for wall damage in your house.”
“I will.”
They went in through the front door of the White Hart; the place was half public house and half hotel. One of the newer buildings in the small town, it was still five hundred years old with a huge, rambling and very mature garden. With drinks in hand, Ash made the executive decision to make the most of the weather and sit in the garden. Tall oaks surrounded the grass and finding a free table away from tourists was easy enough if you walked farther from the pub and under the trees into the extended garden beyond. There was the bank to the River Coln and a small fence that ran the length of the property, and beyond were the hills to Upper Fordham.
“Okay here?” Ash asked as they reached a table. Connor sat down, facing the gorgeous view and placed his beer squarely in front of him.
Ash took the seat opposite and nursed his beer slowly.
They made small talk about the weather, the town, the practice, but Ash could sense Connor wasn’t entirely connected to this meet-up. He was either staring over Ash’s shoulder or down at his beer, and only looked at Ash when he spoke.
“So, tell me something, Connor, who was he?” Ash asked bluntly.
Connor glanced up at him from his beer. “Who?”
“The rich guy who screwed you over?”
Connor dropped his gaze again and focused in on the bottle in front of him, his fingers tracing half-circle patterns on each side. “I don’t know you well enough to go into all that,” he said.
“Yet, I’m being judged by the standard he set. Am I right?” Ash waited for an answer, but all Connor did was stare over his shoulder. Ash sighed heavily. “Okay, so, I don’t have any chance at all?” No sense in being attracted to Connor when ghosts in Connor’s past meant a relationship of any sort was impossible.
Connor finally met his gaze, and even though his expression was guarded, he offered Ash a small smile.
“Tell me about yourself,” Connor said. He hadn’t answered the question, if anything he turned everything on its head, but at least he had smiled and there was conversation underway that wasn’t Ash talking at Connor, but Connor talking to Ash.
“What do you want to know?” Ash leaned forward at the table. He had a lot he could tell Connor to justify what a nice guy he was really. Never mind the small matter of the missing millions in his brother’s accounts or the fact that he was unhappy in his job. There was other stuff, simple general stuff, that he could throw Connor’s way.
Connor appeared to consider his first question. “Do you have a boyfriend in London?”
Ash was startled. “I wouldn’t be here if I had… No I don’t…” He shook his head. “That is your first question? Really? Do you trust no one?”
Connor shrugged slowly. “So that’s a no, then?”
Ash cursed. “Jesus, your ex really fucked you over, didn’t he? I’m a one-man kind of guy. If I had a boyfriend, which, incidentally, I don’t have, then I wouldn’t be chasing you.”
“Is that what you are doing? Chasing me?”
“If you have to ask that, I’m not doing it right.”
“Who was your last boyfriend, then?” Connor persisted.
Ash considered the parameters of what a boyfriend was. Someone who lasted a whole night and into the next night, someone Ash looked forward to spending time with. Seemed like the answer he gave was very important to Connor here. But if he told the truth, what did that mean? Connor would listen to that truth, and Ash was convinced he’d run in the opposite direction.
“Flynn was my last boyfriend,” he said. “I was with him maybe two months, until his dad was posted overseas.”
“His dad? How old were you?”
“I was twenty-three, he was nineteen.”
Connor huffed a laugh. “See what I mean?”
“No, I don’t see what you mean, I don’t even know what you’re getting at. I feel like anything I said would be wrong at this point.”
“What are you? Late twenties? And your last serious relationship was when you were twenty-three?”
“I’ve had relationships,” Ash lied. Actually he hadn’t. And just at the point where he wanted that, it seemed like his lack of stability in the past was counting against him. Fucking typical Ashby Sterling-Haynes.
“I’ve done this before. With someone who had money, but no…” Connor stopped talking, but Ash wasn’t letting him get away with leaving what he wanted to say.
“No what? Staying power? With a, what was it, a rotten heart? Someone who cheated on you? I never did that to any guy I was with. If I was with someone for a night or more, I was faithful and focused.”
“Exactly. A night or so isn’t anything to be proud of.”
Ash sighed noisily. “Jesus, I feel like we’ve broken up before we’ve started.” Then he wished he could take back those last words, because in that short sentence he’d pretty much signed the death warrant for anything he wanted between him and Connor. Now Connor was going to leave and Ash had somehow blown it along the way.
The silence was thick with tension and Ash started fidgeting. Had he destroyed any chance of getting to know Connor better? Just as he was about to get up and leave, Connor surprised him.
He let out a huff of laughter.
“Why are you laughing?” Ash asked with a puzzled look on his face. He really didn’t get Connor.
“Because you called me on the bullshit in my head, and because you did it with style.”
“So does that mean we can get a night out or something?”
“Let’s start with lunch tomorrow and see how it goes.”
Ash nodded. “I can work with that.”
Connor downed the rest of his beer and stood. “But now I have to go. Thanks for the beer.”
Ash watched Connor walk away until he went around the corner of the hedges and disappeared from sight. Somehow he’d gotten Connor to agree to a date. Something he had said had managed to persuade Connor there was value in what they could have for the next few weeks.
Fuck knows how I managed that.
* * * * *
Because you called me on the bullshit in my head, and because you did it with style. Connor groaned out loud at the fact, that what was in his head had actually made it out into the open. His counsellor had said he should say what he thought, that pushing those boundaries was a good thing.
But I actually said that. To Ash’s face.
Connor was mortified at that and couldn’t believe he’d said yes to spending time with Ash. Like he knew it would, the decision played over and over in his head until he couldn’t bear to be in his house. He’d only been inside half an hour and already he was out walking through Aston-Under-Wold feeling restless and itchy and not entirely happy.
The clock set into the White Hart’s front wall showed it was ten pm, and he turned left to head towards the practice, letting himself in the front door, then shutting it behind him. Standing there with the scents of the animals and the disinfectant, he felt calm wash over him. This all made sense: his education, his experience, the work he did. He checked in on the current guests at the practice. A guinea pig, two cats, and a puppy with parvovirus. Only the guinea pig showed any enthusiasm to him even being there. Both cats gave him baleful eyes, and the puppy was still at that age where sleep was the only thing to do apart from eat.
Restlessness had him pacing a while, then sitting at his desk in his office and switching on the small lamp. Pulling a sheet of paper from the printer, he picked up a pen and wrote at the top two words: Practice and House.
Then he scribbled in amounts and dates and ideas, and before he realised it he was running out of room. If he was in partnership here, he wanted to be a real part of the practice, to have his own ideas actioned and to be central to the team. The prospect excited him and scared him in equal measure. But there was a lot of positives to make him stop moving on and to stay right here.
Then there was the house. He’d signed the mortgage documents and the house would be his by the beginning of August. Properly his, not just after the exchange of a five pound note, that is. So that was an investment made, and one he could sell on after the five years if he wasn’t staying here. Hell, he’d only agreed to live in it for five years, and he’d only be thirty-six or so when that was up, plenty of time to move on.
Who wants permanence anyway?
Then he looked at the left-hand side at the ideas he’d had for the practice and with the curl of excitement in his belly, he thought, Me. I want to stay.
So maybe that was why he’d said yes to a lunch date with Ash. Maybe that was why he was pushing aside prejudice and facing his fears headlong. He and Ash might even have fun for the summer, but there was no way it was lasting past that, and just maybe that was what Connor needed.
Inevitably Tristan appeared in his thoughts and this time he let them in. This was one of those moments that his counsellor had called self-actualisation. Writing down the thoughts and stopping the destructive ones in their stride.
You should find someone you trust to talk to.
Like who? Andrew, his soon-to-be partner? Or Rachel? Evan on reception? Unbidden, the image of Ash came into his mind, but he pushed it to one side.
Briefly he wrote down the train of thought and read it back out loud. Everything was fine until the last few on the list. They’d meant nothing writing them down, but actually saying the words out loud? He choked on each separate syllable but managed to say the words in black on the paper.
“Anger. Resentment. Fear. Denial. Attack.”