Ducking down next to the figure huddled beneath a Star Wars duvet, Jack touched a gentle hand to the rigid shoulder. ‘Noah? Shh, now. Uncle Jack’s here, everything will be okay.’ The lie curdled on his tongue. Nothing could ever be right for the poor kid, not since that terrible early-April morning when all their lives had been turned upside down and shattered by the terrible car accident. One bitter twist of fate had robbed Jack of his elder brother and made him into a surrogate father overnight. The fact that Jason had entrusted his son to his keeping was a weight he didn’t know if he could carry—and an honour he would spend the rest of his days trying to be worthy of.
It feels daft to be writing this, Jack, but the solicitor told me I needed to make my wishes clear should the worst happen, so here goes. In the event of my death, I want you to be the one responsible for Noah’s well-being and upbringing. You’re the only person I can trust to give him the life he deserves, to raise him how I would. A normal life. Give him the choices we never had, Jack…
The words of Jason’s letter to him, left with the solicitor for safekeeping together with his will, were etched into Jack’s memory in indelible ink. He knew they’d hurt their mum with their not-so-implied criticism of the way she and their dad had raised them. Jack had been not much older than Noah when his parents had decided to escape from the rat-race and start a new life in the country. It had been one big adventure to his ten-year-old self. At fourteen, Jason had been devastated to leave his friends and life in London behind to move to an old farm in the back of beyond, and he’d never quite recovered from that initial resentment, though it’d been almost twenty years ago. And now he’d never be able to heal the rift with their mother.
Growing up on the farm it had been the Gilberts against the world, an isolated existence thanks to his parents home-schooling their sons. Jack had loved the cosy security and been perfectly content with it just being the four of them most days. Jason had chafed against it, especially when his plans to escape off to a job in the city after finishing at university had been thwarted by their father’s early passing. Jason had given up a promising position with a trading house to help manage the farm. Though he’d never said so, it was clear he’d rather be anywhere else and every free moment he could manage, Jason disappeared somewhere. He’d never talked about what he got up to, and never invited Jack along either which had hurt more than he’d ever admitted.
Pain sliced through him, and Jack rubbed his chest to ease the phantom ache. It was ridiculous to be upset over something that had happened a dozen years or more ago, but he’d have followed Jason into the bowels of hell given the chance. Things changed abruptly when his brother had returned at the end of one trip with a visibly pregnant woman in tow. The pain vanished at the mere thought of Lydia. God, Jack had hated her pouting face on first sight.
Those mysterious weekends became a thing of the past, and Jason seemed to grow up overnight. He started taking things at the farm more seriously, started making all these plans for the future, but Lydia was having none of it. Country life was boring. Everything was boring, especially being tied down with a baby. She’d lasted all of three months after Noah was born before packing her things and leaving Jason literally holding the baby. The last they’d heard of her, she’d moved to New York with her new, obscenely wealthy, older husband.
Though he’d resigned himself to remaining at the farm Jason had been determined to give Noah a very different upbringing to theirs, making sure he was properly socialised through nursery attendance then enrolment in the local primary school.
Noah whimpered, but didn’t wake. Smoothing his hand in slow circles over the boy’s back, Jack kept up a litany of soft whispers. Sometimes it would work, and his nephew would settle again, sometimes not. There was nothing he could do but wait and see. The ache in his knees spoke of another long day on the farm, and Jack stifled a groan as he shifted position to sit on the floor.
It might have been the change in pressure against his back, or some dark terror conjured by his mind that disturbed Noah. Whatever it was, the boy turned over suddenly and opened his eyes. ‘Uncle Jack?’
Jack brushed the sweaty strands of hair off Noah’s forehead. ‘I’m here, buddy.’
Noah’s face crumpled. ‘I couldn’t find Daddy. I looked everywhere, but he wasn’t there.’ The last word came out in a strangled whisper.
‘Ah, buddy, come here.’ Jack opened his arms and his nephew slid from beneath the sheets to crawl into his lap. Thin arms wrapped around his neck, and Noah burrowed his damp face into Jack’s chest. Bitter, painful experience told him the best thing to do was to let Noah cry it out of his system, so Jack set his jaw and let the boy soak the front of his T-shirt as he rocked him gently.
The back of his own eyes burned, but the tears remained unshed as they had since the moment the police had knocked on the front door and told him Jason was dead. Anger kept them at bay. At the driver of the heavy goods vehicle which had jack-knifed on a dry, clear day causing a horrendous pileup on the motorway. Jason had been in the middle lane preparing to overtake—according to the eye-witness accounts the police had related to the family—and had stood no chance.
Jack was furious with himself, too, for sending his brother on an errand he couldn’t be bothered to run, and at Jason for dashing off in that ridiculous bloody sports car he’d insisted on buying as an early mid-life crisis present. From the moment Jason had pulled up in the yard in the sporty red car, Jack had hated the damn thing.
A waste of bloody money—money that could have been invested in one of the new side-ventures Jack wanted to try but Jason had refused to consider—and completely impractical for driving up and down the dirt lane that led to the farm. Thanks to ruts left by their tractor and the thick mud that formed every time it rained, the stupid vehicle spent more time parked up than being used.
Noah’s sobs quietened into the odd sniffle, and Jack forced the anger back down once more. Touching a finger to Noah’s cheek, he smiled when the boy raised his head. ‘A bit better now?’ When Noah nodded, Jack lifted him onto the edge of the bed, so he could stand up. ‘Do you think you can sleep again?’
Noah’s bottom lip disappeared between his teeth. Recognising the precursor to more tears, Jack bent down to scoop the boy up. ‘Oof, you’re getting heavy, buddy, I’ll have to tell Nanna to lay off the cakes.’ In truth, Noah was a wisp of a thing, all joints and gangly limbs from a recent growth spurt which had burned off the last hints of puppy fat. He’d been such a roly-poly little lad, a miniature buddha, all smiles and sweet cuddles until last summer when he’d converted all that girth into height.
There was no mistaking him for anything other than a Gilbert, now. If he kept on growing like this, he might even outstrip his dad who’d topped Jack’s six-foot frame by a good inch. If it weren’t for the four years between them, Jack and his brother could have been alike enough to be taken for twins at first glance, and staring into Noah’s hazel eyes was like looking into a mirror of the past. Even the grief etched on his face was familiar, although Jack had been three times six-year-old Noah’s age when his own father had died.
There’d been mutterings of a family curse by some old biddy at Jason’s funeral which Jack had shut down with a filthy glare. People loved that kind of crap, though he hadn’t realised how much until his family had been on the end of the gossip.
Settling Noah on his hip, though he was almost too big to be held that way anymore, Jack pressed a kiss to his forehead. ‘How about some hot chocolate?’
Noah perked up considerably at the suggestion of his favourite treat and even managed a little smile by the time Jack negotiated his way down the steep stairs and into the square hallway on the ground floor. Wincing as his toes touched the chilly flagstone floor, Jack made his way to the large sprawling kitchen-diner that was the heart of the old farmhouse. He deposited Noah on one of the ladder-back