So much for creating a little distance between her and James. Pressure was mounting to start assembling her wedding displays, and when he dropped by next day, en route to his dad’s, it would have felt ridiculous not to invite him in for a coffee.
‘Did you get my text yesterday?’ he asked as she filled his mug. ‘I didn’t want to pester you but I was worried you weren’t okay.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry, I forgot to reply,’ she said vaguely.
She filled his mug and he perched on the edge of the kitchen table. ‘So, how’re you getting on with those wedding flowers?’ Of course, as he and Kenny were attending as guests, James was well aware of her pressing deadline.
Lucy pulled a face. ‘I have to admit, it feels like a heck of a lot to pull together.’
‘Can I help at all?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I don’t think so …’
James laughed, his dark eyes sparkling. ‘I didn’t mean with the actual arranging, though I guess I could follow instructions—’
‘Actually, you could help,’ Lucy cut in, aware of a sense of relief now. ‘Would you mind asking your dad if it’d be okay to take some bits and pieces from the woods? I wouldn’t decimate it, just a few sprigs …’
James was beaming now. ‘Lucy, you could fill your car ten times over with what you plundered from there and no one would notice. Just let me know when’s a good time and I’ll meet you, okay?’
So, next morning, after dropping off the children at holiday club, Lucy drove towards James’s father’s forest. The narrow lane climbed steeply away from the village, cutting through a dense wood before emerging again into open fields. She pulled up at the tumbledown hut at the roadside where James was waiting for her. ‘Hi,’ he said, greeting her with a brief hug.
‘Hi.’ She smiled. ‘Thanks for doing this. I hope it’s not terribly dull for you.’
‘What else d’you think I’d be doing?’ he asked. ‘No, actually I’ve always loved it around here. The woods, I mean. This was the centre of Dad’s Christmas tree empire, believe it or not.’
‘Really?’ She looked around at the tall pines that bordered both sides of the road, and the badly rotting shed. ‘So, this was your shop?’
He nodded. ‘It didn’t look much better then than it does now, but no one seemed to care about that. C’mon – if we head through the forest there’s a clearing. I think you’ll find what you need there.’
Lucy looked at James. He was all rangy and tanned in a roomy grey T-shirt, faded jeans and battered old walking boots. As he marched on it became clear that he knew these woods as if they were part of him. ‘Was your dad’s business really successful?’ she asked as they followed a shady path through the trees.
‘Yes, amazingly,’ he replied. ‘It was the only thing he did that ever made decent money and he took it pretty seriously – by his standards, anyway. Of course, at thirteen years old I thought I knew much better than he did. One time, I persuaded him to drive me and my brother to a couple of garden centres so we could assess the competition.’ He chuckled. ‘I thought it might persuade him that we could up our game a bit.’
Lucy smiled. She had already decided she had over-reacted to Noah questioning Sam about her relationship to James, and to her mother’s quizzings too. It had just been a little too much, too close together, and it had touched a nerve. But since when had she based her life choices on what other people thought of her?
‘So, what did you have in mind?’ she asked. ‘For your dad’s business, I mean?’
‘Oh, you know – I thought we could build a shop, sell all kinds of Christmas paraphernalia seeing as people were coming from all over to buy our trees anyway.’ He grinned at her. ‘I had an idea that we might be a sort of festive superstore.’
‘Nothing wrong with ambition. So what happened?’ They had emerged from the woods into a wide clearing, filled with clear sunshine on this cool, bright morning. It was the kind of secret glade she’d have delighted in finding as a child.
‘He was furious,’ James replied. ‘Stomped around the place, going, “Who the hell wants scented candles and potpourri?”’
Lucy laughed. ‘Potpourri angered him?’
‘Made him livid. I remember him shouting, “Why have you brought me to a bloody grotto?”’
‘With Christmas music playing, no doubt.’
‘Oh, don’t get him started on Christmas music.’
Armed with laundry-style bags and secateurs, they started to gather lush ferns and eucalyptus; the kind of greens that were often regarded as ‘fillers’ but which Lucy found as beautiful as the flowers they would be arranged to set off. There was a wild bay tree, from which she clipped sprigs, having paused to ask, ‘Are you sure it’s okay, taking all of this?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Does your dad know I’m doing this?’
‘I told him I was meeting you,’ James said, as they carried on filling the bags.
‘Honestly, this is fantastic,’ Lucy said. ‘How did you know all this was here? I mean, it’s perfect.’
He turned and looked at her. ‘I grew up here, remember. This is where I spent pretty much all of my childhood.’
Onwards they went, filling all of the bags Lucy had brought, before heading back into the woodland and making their way towards the road. Lucy breathed in the scent of the firs as they followed the pine-needle-carpeted path. Chinks of sunshine eked in through the branches. It was so soothing in here, dark and shady and blissfully silent apart from their footsteps on the soft ground. Every so often, Lucy stopped to pick up small objects – a speckled feather, a particularly exotic fir cone – in the hope that they might inspire Sam to start a new museum in his bedroom. He would probably reject them, as the whole point had been that he’d found the items himself. Maybe he’d outgrown the whole idea anyway. But it was worth a try, she decided.
Back at her car, they loaded the bags into the boot. ‘D’you think you have enough here?’ James asked.
‘Oh, yes, more than enough.’ She closed the boot and smiled at him. ‘Thank you so much. This has really helped me.’
‘Hey!’ a voice rang out, and they both swung around to the direction of its source. There didn’t seem to be anyone in sight.
Lucy frowned. ‘This is your dad’s land, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course.’ James sighed, and a look of resignation settled on his face as someone – it was Kenny, she saw now – appeared from the woods and stomped towards them.
‘What’re you doing here, Dad?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘I’m not on house arrest, am I?’ he retorted. ‘I mean, I am allowed out into my own woods from time to time?’
‘Of course you are,’ James said, exasperated. ‘It’s just, I wasn’t expecting—’
‘What you two are doing is more the point,’ Kenny cut in, smirking now and turning to stare at the bags sitting there in Lucy’s open boot, greenery bursting from them.
‘James was just helping me out,’ Lucy started. ‘We were just—’
‘Helping you out in the woods? Bet he was!’ Kenny guffawed loudly.
She looked away, her face burning hot. Christ, what was he inferring? Did everyone assume she and James were have some kind of fling—
‘Dad, I told you I was meeting Lucy,’ James said, clearly mortified by his father’s remark too. ‘I said she was doing some wedding flowers. Emma Somerville’s wedding, remember? The one you’re invited to?’
‘I didn’t realise you meant this Lucy,’ his father muttered.
James laughed hollowly and shook his head. ‘How many Lucys d’you think I know, Dad?’
Now Kenny was scratching at his beard, fixing his gaze on Lucy. ‘Well, I don’t know. He never tells me anything about his private life.’
James groaned and shook his head, like a teenager in the presence of his embarrassing dad. Lucy edged towards her car, keen to escape before Kenny announced that he was considering taking out a full-page ad in the Heathfield Gazette, saying something like: James and Lucy. What’s really going on between those two? Silly her, for thinking it was so normal and unremarkable for a woman to be platonic friends with a man! ‘I’ve met you before,’ Kenny added, studying her intently now.
‘Yes – it was at the hospital. You’d had an incident with a fishbone …’
‘You were with Rikke. Our Rikke.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me gathering up a few bits and pieces from the woods,’ she added, indicating the pile of bulging bags.
‘A few bits and pieces? Is that what you call it?’ He raised an extravagantly sprouting eyebrow and strode over to her car to peer into the boot. She really couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not.
‘Remember I told you Lucy’s decorating the church and the house for the wedding?’ James said.
‘Right,’ his father said, his dark eyes gleaming with amusement now. ‘Well, you just come and take whatever you like anytime, Lucy. I’m sure James will be very happy if you do …’
‘Kenny, I—’ she started.
‘… Something like nine hundred Scots Pines and Douglas Firs out here,’ he went on, sweeping an arm as if to indicate his kingdom, ‘so I’m hardly going to miss a few bits.’ He paused and looked at them both. ‘Sorry to disturb you two today.’
‘Dad,’ James said quickly, ‘you weren’t disturbing anyone.’
‘So you keep saying.’ Kenny chuckled as Lucy climbed into her car, and James threw her an apologetic, what-can-you-do? kind of look as she drove away.
Had Kenny really thought they’d been ‘up to’ something, other than gathering plants? The idea was so ridiculous it was actually funny. Amused now – in a mortified way, as if she’d come out of the ladies with a trail of loo roll stuck to her shoe – she fixed her gaze on the narrow road that led back to the village. At least she had virtually an entire garden centre stuffed in her boot – which meant she would never need to venture into Kenny Halsall’s woods again.
And thank heavens for that.