‘Shacked up?’ Mia raised an eyebrow at Daniel’s reflection in the window.
He held his hands up in protest. ‘Nothing I’ve said. The lads have put two and two together and made five.’
‘You sent her flowers, roses even. What the hell are we supposed to think?’ Luke pointed out, not unreasonably.
She caught Daniel’s eye again. ‘I love them,’ she mouthed and his lips quirked up in a shy grin.
His face became serious as he turned back to his friends. ‘I’m sorry, Aaron. I don’t know what else to say to you other than that. I had to get away from London—you’re right, it was killing me.’ The bleak expression on his face made Mia want to hug him, but that would only add to the speculation from the others about their relationship.
Aaron stood and slung his arm around Daniel’s shoulders. ‘Don’t worry about it. Seriously, mate, you look better than you have in a long time and I’m just pleased to see you getting back to yourself. If you do feel the need to redeem yourself then you could tell me some good news. Something along the lines of Mia having a sister—as glorious as she is.’
‘Two sisters,’ Luke interjected.
Mia laughed, turning towards the kettle to finish making the drinks. ‘I do have two sisters actually and they are the ones who got the looks in our family.’ Mia glanced fondly towards the pinboard on the wall where her favourite picture of the three of them was displayed.
‘The bad news is one is married and the other is living it up in New York. Although knowing her, she’s probably starving in some garret trying to capture that authentic artist vibe.’
She thought it best not to mention that Kiki’s husband Neil was an enormous arsehole who physically abused her sister in addition to a constant barrage of emotional bullying. She’d tried to talk to her so many times about it, but Kiki refused to acknowledge it, to the point of threatening to cut all contact with Mia if she raised the subject again.
After losing Jamie, the thought of her sister—almost her twin having been born less than a year apart—cutting her out of her life was too much for her to bear. Mia had maintained a reluctant silence on the matter and hoped that Kiki would one day find the strength to face the problem and deal with it.
Nee’s answer to their difficult childhood had been to fly the nest as soon as she possibly could to go to art school. She produced some incredibly dark pieces that Mia knew were her way of funnelling the frustration and upset of her childhood experiences. They were powerful and terrible in their beauty and they broke Mia’s heart every time she saw one of them. Nee had gained a bit of a cult reputation, which had led to the offer to study in America. She had been gone like a shot, seemingly needing as much physical distance from the past as she did emotionally.
Mia thought back to the period before Nee had left for the States; Kiki had just had her second child, Charlie, and Mia and Jamie had travelled back to their home town to stay with his parents and see Kiki and her new baby. Their mother had turned up at the hospital, clearly drunk at ten in the morning. She had become hysterical when Mia had refused to let her anywhere near the baby. Jamie had ended up calling Mia’s father, who had arrived at the hospital with the family doctor. Vivian had been swiftly interred in a clinic for a couple of months whilst her ‘nervous condition’ was treated.
Mia had cried on the phone to Nee about how awful it had been. Mia and Jamie had extended their stay by a couple of weeks, taking Kiki’s older child, Matthew, to stay with them at Jamie’s parents’. The new baby was sick and Kiki had struggled to cope with her and a lively two-year-old. Matty had wanted to play with his new baby sister and couldn’t understand why she and their mummy kept crying all the time. Neil had been worse than useless, refusing to take any time off work to help his wife, insisting that as she did nothing else, the least she could do was manage to look after the children.
It had been a difficult and chaotic time and now that Mia thought about it, she realised that she had not listened to Nee during the fraught conversations they had over what to do about their mother, their sister, their niece and nephew. Mia and Nee had sadly reached the conclusion that they were powerless to do anything about any of it. Nee had been working on an exhibition for her finals and Mia had insisted that she stay in town and focus on that, determined to protect her baby sister from as much of the horror that was going on at home.
Then Jamie had died and she hadn’t had time for anything or anyone else. She’d let Nee drift away. Now Mia needed to talk to Kiki, find out what she knew of their little sister’s new life in New York and then track her down. She’d neglected her sisters for far too long.
***
‘The weather looks promising so I might try and distract them with some hard labour in the garden.’ They’d been rained in for twenty-four hours and Daniel was starting to regret inviting his friends to stay. It was foolish to be jealous, but Mia and Luke had been holed up in the far wing, running through the various design concepts the architect had drawn up. Every laugh from that direction had distracted him from the endless task of painting the first-floor landing. Aaron had smirked at every huff and sigh he’d made so he’d got his own back by making him paint the skirting boards.
Mia glanced up from her notebook. ‘Better wait until Madeline arrives. She’s my self-appointed Head Gardener. I don’t know a hydrangea from a hawthorn, but she swears there is hidden beauty somewhere under the weeds.’ She put down her notes and folded her arms. ‘According to local history, the gardens were famous in the area for attracting insects and wildlife. That’s how the beach got its nickname—Butterfly Cove. I assumed it was an act of whimsy by one of the previous owners, but apparently not.’ She didn’t sound convinced.
Daniel sat back in his chair, trying to imagine the scene. He recalled the half-buried statues hiding in the undergrowth and wondered what other treasures they might find lurking. He’d need to make sure he took his camera with him to capture some before, during, and after shots.
If Madeline was coming, then Richard was bound to join her. Quieter than his wife, he was no less enthusiastic about helping Mia transform the place and Daniel had quickly come to admire his dry wit and steady presence. Once everyone else was busy in the garden, he might try and steal him away for a few minutes to talk about the barn. His stomach gave a little nervous roll. He hoped Richard would approve of the project.
Having the older man was a blessing and a curse. His dad’s death had happened just as things had taken off for Daniel in London and the booze had helped to numb the pain. Properly sober, the hours spent doing repetitive tasks around the house allowed his mind to wander and his thoughts strayed constantly to the stern, reliable man who’d taught him so much. How his dad would have loved the idea of taking something broken down and giving it new life. Oh, Dad.
The sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs heralded the noisy arrival of Aaron and Luke. Grateful for the distraction, Daniel hurried to put the kettle on, giving his burning eyes a surreptitious rub on his sleeve as he did so.
The silence seemed to go on and on, driving Daniel’s nerves close to breaking point. Richard had listened without interruption to his ideas, and now wove his way around the piles of old furniture littering the barn, pausing now and then to flick through the scribbled sketches and notes in his hand.
Say something. Daniel opened his mouth, lost his courage and turned away. Dusty velvet caught his eye and he raised an old oilcloth to reveal an elaborately gilded chaise longue and matching footstool. It was one of the items on the list Mia had given him for the next room she planned to work on. Needing to dissipate some of the nervous energy filling him, he picked up the stool and carried it out into the yard.
He returned inside, to find Richard standing next to the chaise. His neutral expression revealed