Page 23 of Christmas at the Home Farm Vets (Hartfell Village #2)
‘Hello? Have you met my shower?’ She’d wondered this herself, lying awake before he’d arrived. Worrying about seeing him again and yet afraid of passing up the opportunity.
‘So it’s all about the bathroom? You weren’t curious about me at all?’
‘Maybe a bit.’ She paused, the words that had been stuck in her mind since lunch finally bursting free. ‘I’m so terribly sorry about your mum, Oli, I had no idea.’
‘Thanks. Eventually you find a way to get used to it. I’m not sure the grief ever goes away though, I think you just learn to live with it. There’s still stuff I want to tell her, things I’d like to share.’
‘I’m sorry I let you down and wasn’t there for you when she died.’ Erin had failed him, and the realisation caught her breath. ‘Especially after what you did for me.’
‘It’s not a debt you have to keep on repaying, Erin.’ Oli was staring at the tiny puppies, content and dozing after a first feed. ‘I did it because I cared about you, even though I wasn’t brave enough to let you know how much. I think I was hoping somehow you’d realise.’
‘I sort of did. I was just scared of allowing myself to believe it.’
‘I sent you a message, the night Mum passed away.’ He eased out a sigh. ‘Or rather, I wrote you one, because I couldn’t send it. I assumed you’d blocked me for good after graduation because of the way things ended that summer.’
She had, and had gone so far as to evade university reunions and even the wedding of his best friend Rory in the Highlands.
Rory’s girlfriend had been part of Erin’s house share at Catz in those final two years.
When the wedding invitation had dropped into her inbox, she’d pleaded pressure of work, unwilling to spend the day avoiding Oli and whoever he was with at the time.
Her hand reached across Cleo to find his, and he let her hold it.
She stared at their hands resting lightly on his thigh; hers pale and small, freckled, her skin not as soft as she’d like with the constant washing and scrubbing.
His felt similar, rougher still, and his fingers twined between hers, stroking them absently.
All the years they’d known each other and yet they had barely touched.
He was the man against whom she measured every other one and she couldn’t help it; he’d been her first kiss and the best, her first love.
Even a friendly gesture like this, trying somehow to extend her sympathy for his loss, felt like so much more.
‘What did it say, your message?’
‘I wanted to tell you what Mum meant to me and how it felt in those first few hours to be without her. How shocking and sudden it was, and how lost I felt. I wanted to borrow a bit of your strength because my own felt so diminished. For you to tell me I’d find a way to be okay without her.’
‘Oh, Oli,’ Erin whispered, her fingers tightening around his.
‘I would’ve come if I’d known.’ The thought had never occurred to her and yet it was true.
She would’ve dropped everything if she’d understood what he was going through, just as he had for her.
She couldn’t imagine a life without her mum, and it was crushing to think that Oli had wanted her at his side when he’d lost his own.
‘It’s okay, I’m not saying it to make you feel bad.
I understand why you didn’t trust me, I knew we were fragile and needed nurturing.
I should’ve fought harder for you, for us, and then you wouldn’t have had a reason not to trust me.
’ Oli hesitated. ‘I know I let you down, Erin. I’m really sorry about what happened that summer.
The house was already booked when you and I got together, and I had no idea that Bella was going to be there. ’
Erin was still gazing at their hands fixed together, wanting to free herself and yet afraid to break the bond.
If they separated now then she might never know what happened.
The end of their first year at Catz at the ball was clear in her memory; the giddy excitement of all they’d achieved and the promise of more beckoning, a new love growing, thriving into the future.
Until it was obliterated by the photos she’d seen of him and Bella on holiday in France; Bella on his lap, her arms round his neck, splashing in the pool, heads together as they talked.
Their intimacy and the harsh reality of life with someone like Oli had floored Erin then, and the shattering of her heart had felt almost physical.
Blonde and beautiful Bella Browning, who understood his world perfectly because she’d grown up in it.
‘She’d just broken up with someone and she was fooling around, there was nothing in it.’
‘Nothing?’ The word was hollowed out with scorn. ‘And it never occurred to you how it would look to me, waiting for you to come home?’
‘Maybe this sounds naive, but no, because you were the one I was thinking about, Erin,’ he said simply.
‘You were the one I was missing, messaging every day. Bella came to my room one night and suggested we should get together, that we’d be the perfect couple.
’ Oli paused. ‘I told her no. I also told her about you and that’s why I wasn’t going to be with her.
I don’t know how you came to see those photos, but I can guess. ’
Erin’s stomach dropped and her hand in his trembled as he offered the explanation she’d never given him the chance to share before.
He’d messaged his apology right after she’d seen the photos and, numb with shock, she’d blocked him immediately.
Somewhere deep in her heart she’d been half expecting some reason why they couldn’t ever work, and she’d spent most of the summer pulling long hours on Carys’s farm in Wales.
When they’d returned to Catz for the second Michaelmas term, Erin had done everything she could to avoid him whenever possible.
He’d tried to talk to her and each time she’d refused to listen, aware the only way she could protect herself was to keep him at a distance.
Eventually he’d backed off and their friendship had faltered.
The following year he and Ingrid were together, and until now Erin had never doubted her decision.
‘I thought you’d kissed me at the ball and said those things for a laugh because you knew how I felt about you,’ she whispered sadly. ‘And that I was never the one you really wanted.’
‘How did you feel about me?’ Oli’s voice was low, uneven, and she caught the hurried plea in those few words.
‘I’m not going to spell it out, Oli.’ She owed herself that much dignity at least. ‘My father left us with nothing and I saw how hard my family had to battle to survive, so I wasn’t going to put my heart in the hands of someone I didn’t trust to hold it.’
‘Want me to say it first?’
‘Say what?’ She swallowed down her sadness, the desire to understand what had been in his heart then. ‘It’s pointless, it doesn’t mean anything now.’
‘If you think I kissed you and said those things at the ball to mock you then you don’t know me as well as I thought,’ he said roughly.
‘I did it for one reason only, and that was because I was in love with you. And I know you felt the same, you don’t even have to say it.
It was there every time we were together, and we only had to look at each other to know it was true. ’
She didn’t want to let his words settle inside her but couldn’t prevent it; they were warming her and hurting her all at once.
How much had they missed, how might their lives have been different if she’d allowed her mind to believe what her heart already knew?
She freed her hand from Oli’s and checked Cleo, focusing on her responsibilities and not their past. Their silence was broken by the puppies snuffling and squeaking, while Erin stroked Cleo as she battled to contain the feelings their conversation had stirred up.
‘Whatever happened then, we’ve both moved on, and we lead different lives now. If you hadn’t taken this job then we probably wouldn’t have seen each other again. It’s too late to go back.’
‘I don’t want to go back. Maybe I want to look forward for once,’ he said quietly.
‘And I know you’re not going to like this, and I’m supposed to back off where Jason is concerned, but I’d still be saying this if it was my sister or any other person I cared about.
’ He drew in a long breath. ‘You should end it with him. You deserve so much better, and he’s not for you. ’
Erin stood up awkwardly, her legs stiff after sitting on the hard floor, and fumbled for her phone. Cleo was more alert, and it was time to call her owners again and let them know they could collect her.
‘Whatever your intentions are for saying that Oli, our history doesn’t give you the right to comment on who I’m with.
Jason and I are fine as we are and I don’t need any more, I can look after my own future.
And your middle name is Cameron. Because it was your mum’s family name and she wanted you to have it. ’