Except that somehow he had to make it happen.
The how of it was beyond him right now. So he just held her, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal, waiting for her to regain her composure.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling back a little self-consciously when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to take the opportunity she’d given him any further. ‘In my world rabbits are cute, cuddly things on birthday cards, not some sharp-toothed creature’s dinner…’ She wiped a single tear from beneath her eye that had nothing to do with the rabbit. ‘Lord, how pathetic am I?’
‘Not pathetic. Empathetic.’ And he rewarded himself with a comforting kiss to her forehead before he put his arm around her shoulders and walked her home. He unlocked the door, turned on the light. ‘You go ahead,’ he said, as she turned to see why he hadn’t followed her. ‘I’ll just look around, make sure all the outbuildings are secure.’
She lingered in the doorway, back-lit by the kitchen light, her face in darkness. ‘Mike…’ Her voice was as full of uncertainty and need as his own heart. They had been lovers until yesterday. What had changed, after all? Take it back a couple of months to the moment before he’d proposed… And suddenly he saw the point she’d tried to make about the job not mattering. There was only one problem with that: he didn’t want to go back to a point where it didn’t matter.
His proposal might have been provoked by her unwillingness to move in with him, but the feelings he’d had that night were as strong as ever. He wanted to wake with her beside him every morning for the rest of his life. Nothing else would do.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Willow.’
He knew she’d wanted him. Willow covered her cheeks with her hands. She’d thrown herself at him like a dehydrated duck diving into a muddy puddle. And he’d rejected her.
All that made her embarrassment bearable was her certainty that he hadn’t found it easy to walk away. Why else would he have decided to stay outside, checking up on the outbuildings, putting himself beyond temptation?
This wasn’t about a lack of desire, a lack of need for each other. That was as strong as it ever had been. It was about more fundamental problems that they hadn’t ever addressed.
She turned on her phone in case he’d sent a message. Nothing. She keyed in ‘Help!’
Then erased it.
Maybridge. That was where she’d find the answers to the questions that had kept her awake all night long. Willow stood back to get a better view of the wall she’d spent the morning retouching, but it wasn’t the paint job that occupied her. It was Maybridge.
‘You’ve done a good job.’ She turned as Mike joined her. ‘Coffee?’
‘Mmm, thanks.’ She took the mug and quickly looked back at the wall. His bare, sweat-slicked torso was far too exciting for ten o’clock on a Monday morning. Far too exciting for a relationship that had run its course and was going nowhere. ‘It’s a bit bare, don’t you think?’ Then she blushed, but Mike didn’t appear to notice her confusion as he stood back and contemplated her work.
‘It could do with something to break up all that blue,’ he said after a moment. ‘A few clouds, maybe.’ There was something about the way he said it that made her look back at him.
‘Into every life a little rain must fall?’
‘It seems to work that way, although I think the kids who come here will have probably experienced a deluge rather than a shower. Maybe they’d prefer a big smiley sun.’
‘If we had both,’ she pointed out, ‘we could have a rainbow.’
‘For hope?’
‘We all need cartloads of that.’ But what, exactly, was she hoping for? ‘A bright green hill with some daisies would be good, too,’ she said quickly, before the eager little brain cells, positively panting with hope, urged her to fling herself at him, tell him that she’d made a mistake, and didn’t care about her career, only about him. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who’d decided at the last moment that plighting their troth wasn’t such a great idea.
‘Just to be sure we keep our feet on the ground?’ he enquired, with the slightest hint of irony.
‘I think we’re probably the most grounded people in a hundred-mile radius.’ Why else would she be having such a civilised conversation with a man who’d jilted her? Who she’d jilted? ‘Maybe we should have a little hot-air balloon.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘Drifting over the hill.’
‘Why don’t you get Jacob onto it? I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige with all the hot air you can take.’
She restricted her response to a smile. Jealousy was good. Jealousy meant he cared. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted him to care…
‘I’d better check with Emily before I get carried away with the representational art. Meanwhile, I have to make a start on the kitchen if you’re ever going to get out of here,’ she said, unable to resist pushing the little green buttons a little harder.
‘No, first you have to drink your coffee. Bring it outside and get the smell of paint out of your lungs,’ he said, steering her towards the door. ‘You can tell me what you think of the shelves. Gently,’ he warned, as she reached out to run a finger along the smooth finish. ‘They’re just fitted together, not glued and screwed.’
‘I had no idea,’ Willow said, taking in the scope of the project. ‘I thought you were making some little shelf unit to hang on the wall. This will fill the whole of that end wall, won’t it?’ She glanced up at him. Then she said, ‘I love the way you’ve smoothed out the sharp edges.’
‘Kids horse around.’
‘It’s all so clean, so professional. I didn’t know you could do this stuff.’
‘I didn’t know you’d applied for a job on the Globe.’
She spun round. ‘But I did that before I met you.’
‘Ditto,’ he said. Then, when she was quite lost for words, he stepped back, tossed the dregs of his coffee into the grass and put down the mug. ‘I’ll need some more timber if I’m going to make a start on the storage seating.’
‘Yes.’ Her mouth felt like glue. ‘And I need to make some phone calls. The girl at the Globe told me to call Toby Townsend today.’
‘From St Lucia?’ he asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.
‘No, of course not—’
‘Don’t be defensive, Willow. A career girl has to make these sacrifices, even on her honeymoon.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Or maybe even last week you were beginning to have doubts about where your best interests might lie?’ Then he shrugged awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t blame you, really. I didn’t exactly respond like a “new man” to your big chance, did I?’
‘Not exactly. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe your flight from commitment was the result of a sudden blinding flash of insight at the chancel steps. Was it?’
‘Not entirely.’
When he didn’t elaborate, she carried on. ‘The only reason Toby is expecting a call from me this morning is because he was out when I rang last week. His assistant said I should call today and it seemed easier to say yes than go into details…’ That did sound defensive. And details would have been a heck of a lot easier than this. ‘So I wrote a letter,’ she added lamely. She had no reason to feel bad. But she did. She felt terrible.
‘And now you have to phone and explain that it was all a mistake. That you didn’t mean it. I guess it’s been that kind of week.’
‘Actually