The girls were on cloud nine. I hugged them both again and then retreated to the kitchen with Sal, who was making them a cake. “They’ve done really well.”
“They have.” Sal smiled fondly. “Don’t know how, though. They spend all their time here when they’re not at school. Their parents must’ve forgotten what they look like.”
I laughed. The younger staff seemed to work when I was busy in my room, but I often smiled when their laughter floated up to me. They ran rings around Joe, and the brotherly affection he gave them in return was wonderful. “It was nice of Joe to take them to get their results.”
“Tradition,” Sal said. “He’s taking Toby for his GCSEs next week. And I think the young ’uns like riding around in the van. Gives them street cred or whatever it’s called these days.”
I was willing to bet that it was the hottie behind the wheel that gave Toby and the girls the kudos in town, but I let it go. What did it matter? It had been a great day for the girls, and I was happy for them.
So happy, that the scent of whatever Sal was baking caught my attention. “What is that? It smells amazing.”
“Banana cake—it’s their favourite. Healthy, too, before you start lecturing me on saturated fat. It’s got olive oil and everything.”
“Not that bad, am I?”
Sal pinched my cheek. “’Course not. I’m only messing, luv.”
But her words stayed with me all the same. Preaching good nutrition was part of my job—a vital part—but balancing that with old demons was hard, and if Joe’s quizzical frowns around mealtimes were anything to go by, I was losing the battle.
Joe came in the kitchen. He didn’t look at me. Just kissed his mother and slumped at the table. I wanted to rub his shoulders, his neck, his chest. More. But I settled for ignoring the urge to retreat to my room and sat down next to him. I half expected him to ignore me. His leg curling around mine under the table made me jump.
Butgodit felt good. I ran my finger down his forearm until he looked at me. I smiled.
And he smiled too.
* * *
“You can’t stay up here all day.”
I glanced at Joe who was hovering in my bedroom doorway, like coming over the threshold would burn him alive. “I have to work, mate.”
“It’s nine o’clock on a Friday night. Give it a rest for the day.”
“What do you care?” I was joking, but Joe’s lazy grin dimmed. “I mean, who are you to comment on my unsociable working hours? You haven’t stopped all day.”
“That’s because I dicked around yesterday playing chauffeur to a bunch of schoolgirls and failed to fix the boiler in the bungalow. Besides, I’m done now. And so should you be. Mum reckons you’ll get square eyes.”
Joe tapped his beer bottle on the door and jerked his head to the stairs. When I didn’t respond, he rolled his eyes and walked away.
It was an hour before I was done enough with my work to shut it down for the day, and when I poked my head in the living room, Joe was asleep. For the dozenth time that day, I ached to touch him, to trace his chest with my fingertips, to bury my face in his neck, but when he seemed so peaceful, nothing on earth would have made me disturb him.
The landline phone by Joe’s head rang, taking the matter out of my hands. He snapped awake, bolting upright so fast he nearly tumbled from the couch. “Jesus.”
For a split second, our eyes met. The sleep-addled confusion in his expression melted my heart, but then the phone screeched again, and he turned away to answer it, swearing softly as he listened to whoever was on the other end. “We can’t take that many. To be honest, we’d struggle to take two right now, let alone six.”
My heart sank. It was a horse SOS, and by the slump of Joe’s shoulders, a bad one. I considered leaving him to it—getting out his way and letting him do his job, but I didn’t move, and I was beside him in a flash when he hung up the phone. “What is it?”
Joe looked at me, and the awkwardness of the last few days melted away. “Ponies. Six of them. There were ten, but apparently four of them starving to death is only just enough for a seizure order these days.”
“Are they coming here?”
“They can’t. I have nowhere to put them. We’re full, Harry. I don’t know what to do.”
“You can’t double up some of the others?”
“Not any more than they are already.”
“What about the donkey paddock?”
