It would be opening soon, with bookings coming in steadily through the website and repeat customers building up. The photos on the site were all out of date, but to be honest Tim hadn’t really kept up to it anyway, so the guests wouldn’t be disappointed at least. The shop and reception area were getting done, with new stock arriving all the time. It would be busier from now on, and he was looking forward to seeing people using the place again. Maybe Orla would come out of her shell more with the children that would be hanging around. Maybe it would do them all good to have a bit more life around here.
April had listened over their takeaway as he’d spilled his guts. About him and Tina meeting while he was working in Cornwall, how they’d gotten pregnant after just a short space of time, unplanned. He’d never regretted it. It was a shock of course, and they were not a lot more than friends with benefits, but the baby didn’t care about any of that. She was coming anyway, and Cillian had stepped up.
‘So you left here, to get better work?’ April popped a piece of prawn cracker in her mouth, leaning forward to pick up her wine glass from the coffee table. They’d finished all the food before his tale was done.
‘I worked away, short-term agency contracts. Tim was running this place poorly, and things were beginning to feel different. No stock being bought in, my hours getting less and less. He was winding down – I could see it. I went to London, laboured where I could. I’m a carpenter by trade, but I did pretty much anything I could to get the cash in. I guess that’s where it went wrong.’
It had been while he was away that Tina’s true struggles came to light. Struggling alone with a newborn unplanned baby, her boyfriend away in the week, the cracks soon became huge fissures. She blamed him for leaving her with Orla; he couldn’t get through to her that he was doing it for them. To give them the best start as a new family. They were laying the foundations, making the best of it. He had hoped that if they raised enough for a house deposit, things would settle down. It just hadn’t quite worked that way. Tina was a total stranger to him by then, and when she started drinking of a night, it was already over. No one had spoken the words out loud, but they both knew. What came after, leaving Orla on her own, had finally smashed them apart. He did get it, he wasn’t oblivious to what she had to do daily. Since raising Orla on his own, he’d realised how hard it was, how isolating. If he could calm down enough, he would tell her that. If she’d listen. Just to clear the air, to try to move on. For all their sakes, least of all the legal bills.
‘There’s no chance then, for you two?’
Cillian shook his head, clenching his jaw at the thought. They’d never been right together. He’d told April more than he ever had Tina. Maybe that was part of the problem.
‘Not a chance. I can never forgive her, even though I get it more now, and she doesn’t want to listen. For her, it’s about saving face, nothing else. She has things to lose now, her new life.’
April smiled at him, as if she wanted him to know she was listening. ‘So you came home.’
‘So I came home. I worked when I could, around Orla, but it’s been hard. She’s just started to settle into nursery now, and come September she’ll be full-time.’ Cillian explained how the nursery teachers had just begun to draw Orla out of her shell.
‘Do you think she’ll settle?’
He smiled back then. ‘Early days, but yes, I think so, and it means I can do more hours around here and not get choked with childcare.’
‘More time for me then,’ April said, grinning. Cillian’s eyes locked with hers. ‘Sounds great all round.’
‘More time for you, yes. I had thought of that, too. A lot.’ He didn’t look away, and April’s cheeks flushed. It made his stomach flip. She sure was something.
‘I meant the Pines, of course,’ she clarified, eyeing him over her wine glass. God, the woman was attractive. He’d started noticing little things about her. The way she blushed with any kind of compliment, the way she always covered her body. Loose-fitting clothes that didn’t so much hang off her curves as dwarf them. He couldn’t help wondering what her husband had looked like, how he had treated her. Did this lack of confidence stem from him, or somewhere else? He liked every inch of what he’d seen. His eyes couldn’t get enough of her.
‘Of course.’ He’d chuckled, draining his glass.
***
He heard a door creak open, his daddy ears springing to attention like a guard dog.
‘Orla?’ he whispered, fearful that she would sleepily head straight for his bedroom.
‘No,’ a whisper came back. ‘It’s me.’
April padded into the living room doorway. She was wearing a pair of his shorts and an old T-shirt that had never looked better than it did right now. He tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help taking in her long legs, her curves, now released from the confines of her baggy clothing.
‘My clothes fit you well,’ he called to her.
