‘All right, love? How’s Monty?’
Bella swallowed. She’d been intending to call Mollie later on to let her know that Monty had passed, not trusting herself not to cry if she had to give her the news in person, but it seemed that circumstances had caught up with her. She walked up the garden path, steeling herself to give Mollie the news.
Mollie’s expression was sympathetic as she reached out a hand and put it on Bella’s arm. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, love. But he was old, and he’d had a good life. He obviously knew it was his time.’
Bella nodded. ‘Noah and I buried him this morning. I hope he manages to find Jack on the other side.’ She sniffed.
‘I’m sure he will.’ Mollie paused. ‘I don’t want to pry, Bella, but what does that mean for you, now? Will you have to start looking for another place to live?’
‘I don’t know, Moll. I suppose so.’
Mollie gave Bella’s arm a squeeze. ‘I know I said space was tight, but I won’t see you without somewhere to go. You can have my settee if you need it.’
‘Thanks.’ Bella gave her a smile. ‘I might take you up on that.’ She glanced down the street as she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and realised that it was Noah coming back. She took a deep breath. ‘I suppose this is when I’ll actually find out how long I can stay here.’
‘If he’s any sort of decent fella, he won’t turn you out on the street,’ Mollie said firmly. ‘He’s a good’un. But the offer’s there, if you need somewhere temporary to stay while you find somewhere else.’
‘I appreciate it.’ Bella smiled. Mollie’s sofa was one step up from a park bench, but she figured she’d probably end up back in her old room at Marieke’s anyway. She’d just have to invest in a pair of industrial earplugs.
Mollie ambled away as Noah drew closer. Bella braced herself for what seemed like an inevitable conversation and said what any right-thinking person would say under the circumstances. ‘Cup of tea?’
Noah gave her a brief smile. ‘Sounds good.’
They trailed into the house.
‘So…’ Bella began, once they were sitting back at the table that had seen so much of the early phases of their relationship.
‘So…’ Noah echoed. She watched him take a deep breath and steeled herself not to say anything. She was tired of waiting for other people to take charge of her future: it reminded her far too strongly of what it had been like to be under the control of managers, promotors and industry professionals, all pointing her in the direction of a career she had never been certain about, but a bigger part of her needed to hear what Noah had to say about this mess they both now found themselves in.
‘I want you to know that I only ever had the best of intentions when it came to offering you a place to live,’ Noah replied. ‘Joel’s tried to paint it as a couple of things to get the upper hand – me manipulating you, and you doing the same to me. But I hope you know, Bella, that what he thinks is completely irrelevant, and untrue.’
‘I know.’ Bella stopped herself from adding more. She was so tempted to try to help Noah to justify himself and his actions, to allow him to excuse himself, but this time she couldn’t. She’d let people off too lightly in the past by helping them that way. This time she wasn’t going to do it.
‘And I don’t want you to think that, because Monty’s died, I’m going to kick you out. I want you to stay here for as long as you need to.’
‘But the work on the house will be done soon,’ Bella pointed out. ‘And then you won’t need someone to let people in and out, will you?’ She sighed. ‘You told me, as a way of getting me to agree to live here, that a place that looked lived in was more likely to get a sale. That’s not true, is it? I mean, I don’t know anything about selling houses, but it seems clear to me that anyone who looks around would prefer to imagine living here themselves without seeing lots of other people’s things all over the place.’
Noah nodded. ‘That can be true, yes.’
‘So why did you ask me to move in, Noah?’
The pause before Noah replied was so long that Bella nearly repeated the question. But in the end, he looked her straight in the eye and then began to speak.
‘Because,’ he said softly, ‘at first, I couldn’t let this place go. I didn’t want to sell it and lose the last connection with Grandpa. I wanted to keep the cottage for as long as I could, to keep it as a bubble of what it was like being here when he was still alive.’ Noah swallowed. Despite her determination to try to keep some distance between them, Bella reached across the tabletop and squeezed his right hand.
‘Go on.’
‘But then, as we started spending more time together, I realised it wasn’t about that any more. I wanted to be here these past few weekends because I loved being with you. It wasn’t about holding onto to the memories of the past, it was about wanting to spend my future with you.’ He shook his head. ‘I was so fucking angry with Joel for coming here, and angry at myself for allowing him to think that my motives for offering you this place were something awful, something manipulative, when all the time it was because, from the first time we met, you’d reached something in me that had been shut off for so long. I didn’t want to admit to it, but I knew I was beginning to fall in love with you.’
It took a lot to silence Bella, but Noah had managed it. She felt a rush of pure adrenaline at his words. Half of her wanted to get up from the table and run away into the woods that bordered Lower Brambleton, and further. The other half wanted, desperately, to believe Noah. But this was all happening so fast. She’d fallen for people before, given her heart too quickly at the first admission that they felt something, too. She couldn’t risk doing that again.
‘Say something, please, Bella.’ Noah gave a nervous laugh. ‘I feel like I’ve thrown my heart on the table, here.’
‘It’s been a day,’ she said eventually. The hand clutching Noah’s began to shake, and she clenched it in her lap. ‘And if I’m being honest, Noah, there’s a lot to process. You weren’t straight with me about your reasons for letting me live here. And if you weren’t honest about that, how can I trust that you’re being honest with me now?’
Noah began to interrupt, but Bella continued.
‘I moved in to help you out with the repairs on the cottage, and to look after Monty. What I feel about you, and what you feel about me… it doesn’t change that.’ She took a long, cleansing breath, aware that Noah wasn’t going to like what she was about to say, but knowing she had to say it anyway. ‘Joel was right. It wasn’t only about Monty and the cottage. And whether your real reason was to stay close to Jack a little longer, or to be with me, either way, you weren’t telling me the truth.’
