A Forever Family: Falling For You

There had been a moment of elation, triumph when he’d picked up the deeds and tossed them casually to his company lawyer that even Robert Cranbrook’s outburst couldn’t sour. But while he was now the proud owner of the Hall with its leaking roof and crumbling fences, ironically, the only place on the estate where the paintwork was glossy and well cared for was the house he’d once lived in.

And it was Claire Thackeray’s unexpected response to his ill-advised kiss that was burning a hole in his brain; the memory of her slim foot, her ankle resting in his hands, playing havoc with his senses.

CHAPTER FIVE

CLAIRE stared at the screen.

Hal North had been turned off the estate by Sir Robert with nothing to his name but a motorbike and a bad attitude on his nineteenth birthday. Now he was back, the chairman of an international company. A millionaire. A millionaire she’d accused of fishing without a licence. A millionaire to whom she’d offered her last ten-pound note.

He must be laughing fit to bust.

Well, let him laugh, she thought, as she clicked furiously on the links, determined to find out all she could about where he’d been, what he’d been doing since he left. How he’d made his money.

She’d teach Hal North to make sarcastic comments about working for a local paper.

Human interest?

This was human interest in letters ten feet high. A story that she could write because she’d been there at the beginning. One that she knew hadn’t been told because it would have been a sensation in Cranbrook. A sensation in Maybridge.

Headline material.

Prodigal returns, buys up the big house and has hot, sweaty sex with the girl he left behind…

Whoa, whoa!

She didn’t write fantasy, she dealt in reality.

And she didn’t write gossip. She had been told to stay at home for the rest of the week and she’d use the time to get ahead on the G&D blog.

She was taking photographs of a particularly large slug—planning a piece on organic control—when her phone rang.

She took it out of her pocket, checked the caller. So much for putting her feet up…

‘Hello, Brian,’ she said.

‘Claire… How are you feeling now?’ he asked, all sympathy.

Having insisted that she was ready to come into work, she could hardly say she was hors d’combat. Not that he waited for an answer.

‘Any chance you could do a bit of research on the new owner of Cranbrook Park? Nothing you’ll have to leave the house for.’

Yes, well, she was the one who’d insisted that the Park was her territory.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘General background. Where he comes from, family, that sort of thing. I’ll send you what we’ve got. Unless it’s too much trouble?’ he added, apparently picking up on her lack of enthusiasm.

‘No, no, of course not. I was using the down time to catch up on my gardening blog, but it can wait.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Patronising oaf,’ she muttered, but only when he’d hung up.

Back in her office, she checked her email and, just in case she was in any doubt, there was the press release, embargoed until Monday, telling the world that Henry North had bought Cranbrook Park.

The moment it emerged he was local—and there would be plenty of people who remembered him—it would become obvious to Brian that she would have known him. He’d want specifics, details.

She opened up a new document and began to makes notes. Everything she knew about Hal. His parents, school.

She fired off an email to the recently retired headmistress of the village school to get a quote, called Maybridge High and spoke to the school secretary who pointed her in the direction of teachers who would remember him. She left messages for them to call her back. That done, she hit the internet in order to find out what he’d been up to since he’d left Cranbrook. How he’d transformed himself from disaffected youth to millionaire. That was the big story.

She ran into a blank wall.

When Ms Webb said that Mr North did not speak to the press, she hadn’t been kidding.

Hal wasn’t one of those CEOs who courted publicity. He didn’t date supermodels, big himself up on television talk shows, or appear in Celebrity magazine attending showbiz parties. Of course he didn’t. If he’d done any of those things she would, undoubtedly, have seen him. And if he was happily married with a parcel of children he’d kept that to himself, as well.

The kiss that still burned on her lips suggested otherwise. Or, if he was married, the relationship was clearly more of a hobby than a full-time occupation.

No.

Despite the endless stream of girls who had made his life sweet when he was a youth living on the estate, she didn’t see him as a man who’d play the field once he’d found his mate.

‘Oh, get real,’ she muttered.

She knew nothing about him. Only that he made the air sizzle. Made her pulse race, her heart pound. Which was as ridiculous now as it had been when she was a pre-pubescent fantasist who would have fainted if he’d as much as winked at her.

Okay. She had the boy, the youth and by the time she left to pick up Ally from school, she had school photographs, anecdotes from teachers and enough general background to email Brian and ask him if she could go to London on a quest to fill in the more recent past. The fact that he agreed so readily, suggested he had already drawn a blank himself.

She’d just opened the back door when she heard the crunch of gravel. Gary with her bike.

Not Gary.

Like iron filings, a gazillion cells turned in one direction as if someone had switched on an electro-magnet. That had to explain the sudden dizziness as Hal North rounded the corner of the cottage, stopped as he saw her.

‘You’re on your way out?’ he asked.

‘I was just going to pick up Ally from school,’ she said, banging the door behind her and heading for the gate.

‘How’s your foot?’ he asked, falling in beside her.

‘What? Oh, good as new,’ she said. Not. Her heel was throbbing and walking on the gravel was painful. ‘What do you want, Hal?’

‘To explain about your bike.’ He looked at her foot, clearly not convinced. ‘Can I give you a lift? We can talk on the way.’

There was an ancient estate Land Rover parked at the gate and he opened the door. It was high and as she put her weight on her foot to haul herself up, she gave a little gasp and he put his hands on her backside and gave her a boost up.

‘Okay?’

Okay?

You went eight years without a man’s hand on your backside and then it happened twice in as many days…

‘Fine,’ she snapped and reached to the seat belt, any excuse to look away.

He climbed in beside her, teased the cranky old machine into life, then turned it and headed into the village.

‘So? What’s the verdict on my bike?’ she asked.

‘It’s a mess,’ he said, above the noise of the engine. ‘You’re going to need a new wheel and front mudguard. I’m doing my best to locate one.’

‘You could have phoned to tell me that.’ Then, aware that she had sounded less than grateful, ‘I meant you didn’t have to come specially.’

‘I was at this end of the estate.’

‘Inspecting your domain?’

He glanced at her. ‘Something like that,’ he said.

Damn! There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask and she’d blown her chance with a snarky remark. But while it was easy enough to be focussed, professional when he was just a name, a face on her computer, up close and personal—with the imprint of his hand on her bottom still warm in the memory—it was difficult to be dispassionate. Professional. Cool.

‘When were you going to tell me that you’ve bought Cranbrook Park?’ she asked, doing her best to recover the situation.

‘Would you have believed me if I’d told you this morning?’

‘We’ll never know,’ she said, as he pulled up in front the school. Then, rolling her eyes she said, ‘Probably not.’

‘No.’ Her honesty earned her one of those rare smiles. ‘And I knew you’d read about it in the paper on Monday.’

A group of mothers turned as one to see who had arrived. Gossip city.

‘I’d better go. I’m supposed to be supervising some workmen.’

‘You’re going to be a hands-on lord of the manor, then?’ It had been a very long time since she’d given anyone anything to talk about so she might as well make the most of it.

‘Just taking a few days out to play with my expensive new toy,’ he said, with the merest edge of self-mockery in response to her sarcasm.

‘Expensive, I have no doubt, but Cranbrook Park is not a toy.’

‘No. Like all my investments, it will have to work for its keep.’

‘How? What are you going to do with it?’

He leaned across her, threatening a sensory overload as his arm came within a whisker of her breast and she had a close-up of his cheekbone, a lungful of the scent of his skin, hair as he opened her door. ‘I’ll have someone bring your bike back when it’s fixed.’

She slid down onto the pavement, turned to face him.

‘Ask Gary,’ she said. ‘He might even be able to straighten out the wheel. He’s like you, good with his hands.’ And she blushed.

‘Goodbye, Claire.’

‘Goodbye, Hal. Thanks for the lift.’

She slammed the door shut and watched the old Land Rover move away through the village leaving her engulfed in the scent of hot metal and diesel.

Work for its keep…

Was that a warning that her days of paying a low rent in return for keeping the cottage in good repair were running out?

He’d warned her not to spend money on wallpaper…

All her hard work would mean nothing to him. Her cottage was pretty, her garden was a showpiece. It would fetch three times the rent she paid on the open market.

It wasn’t just her job that was under threat, but she was being forced to seriously consider the possibility that she would lose her home.

‘Mum!’ Ally flung herself at her.

‘Hi, angel. I’m home early so I thought I’d come and meet you. Do you want to ask Savannah if she’d like to come to tea?’

‘Absolutely not. I am never talking to her again.’

Oh, terrific.

* * *

He could have phoned, should have phoned, Hal knew, but like coming back to Cranbrook Park, he was drawn to Claire Thackeray by something he couldn’t explain.

Robert Cranbrook was right, he had obsessed about owning the Park, it had driven him and he’d commissioned plans for its future long before it had been on the market. He’d known it was only a matter of time.

It had all seemed so simple; what he’d do, how it would feel but then, this morning, he’d seen that boy—so like himself at that age. No respect. Full of what the world owed him. It had been like a kick in the gut.

And then he’d been run down by the Claire and Archie double act and the kick had been physical rather than metaphorical.

Local Boy Saves Cranbrook Park

Solicitors acting for Sir Robert Cranbrook announced this morning that the Cranbrook Park estate has been sold to millionaire businessman, Henry North.

For Mr North, founder and CEO of HALGO, the international freight company, this is a very special homecoming. Born in Maybridge, both his parents worked for Sir Robert Cranbrook and he went to both Cranbrook Primary and Maybridge High Schools before leaving the area to set up his own business.

Mrs Mary Bridges, retired Head Teacher of Cranbrook Primary School remembers Mr North well, describing him as ‘full of life’ and he’s remembered at Maybridge High School as a promising student who, even as a youth, demonstrated a well-honed entrepreneurial spirit.

Former residents of the estate recall that he was a keen fisherman and he will no doubt take full advantage of the excellent fishing in the famous trout stream for which the Park is named.

Henry North started his own motorcycle courier service upon leaving school and he swiftly fulfilled his early promise, rapidly expanding his business to compete with major freight companies at home and internationally. When his company was floated on the stock exchange three years ago, his personal fortune was estimated to be in nine figures.

Rumours have been flying around all week, suggesting that the estate will be transformed into a leisure facility but Mr North, 33, divorced, is keeping his plans for the estate under wraps for the moment. He did however confirm that it would, like all his investments, have to ‘work for its keep,’ which sounds promising for local jobs.

—Maybridge Observer, Monday April 24

* * *

‘Excellent job, Claire.’ Brian leaned back in his chair. ‘Obviously we went to the internet, but it was pretty thin considering who he is and we missed the local connection. Of course you live on the estate. Did you know him?’

‘He’s a bit older than me,’ she said.

‘Of course. You must have been just a kid when he left. You did well to get hold of the school photographs so quickly.’

‘Thanks.’ She handed him her expense sheet for Friday. Her fare—cheap day return, receipts for copies of his birth, marriage and divorce certificates, as well her lunch in the café near his office.

She’d felt like a proper reporter as she’d struck up a conversation with the girl clearing the tables, pretending that she’d been offered a job with the company. As she’d hoped, most of his staff ate there at lunchtime and, no surprise, the women talked about their good-looking, eligible boss.

‘I kept my expenses to the bare minimum,’ she said, as his eyebrows rose at the amount. ‘Worth it simply for the information that he’s unattached, I’d say. How many copies is a front-page photograph of a good-looking, eligible millionaire in the neighbourhood going to be worth?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Women buy the local newspaper,’ she pointed out.

‘True, but how often can we use him on the front page? Until we know what his plans are he’s not going to be headline news.’

‘You don’t need headline news. I’ll give you stories,’ she promised. ‘All you need on the front page is a photograph and a caption leading on to page two. It’s how they use the royal family to sell papers.’

‘Shame he doesn’t have a title to go with all that money, but you can’t have everything.’ He grinned, signed the sheet and handed it back to her. ‘With the way circulation is falling, anything is worth a try, but no more trips to London.’

* * *

The phone rang once, twice, three times. He checked his watch. Ten on the dot.

He picked up the receiver, sat back in the leather chair worn smooth by generations of Cranbrook men. ‘What do you want, Claire?’

‘And good morning to you, Hal.’

‘Is it good? I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Shame on you. I was earthing-up my potatoes as the sun rose with a robin for company.’

He was at his desk dealing with the reports and emails that, these days, seemed to multiply faster than he could deal with.

‘I hope you weren’t late for work again.’

‘I was, but only because the bus was late. Any news on my bike?’

‘I’ll chase it up. If that’s all?’ he prompted, knowing full well it wasn’t.

‘How about an update on your plans for the future of Cranbrook Park?’ she asked, in a clear, bright musical voice that was inextricably tied into a burning sense of injustice, of longing for something beyond his reach. Was Robert Cranbrook right? Was this the end rather than the beginning he’d envisaged? ‘Just a little hint?’ she prompted. ‘Something I can use in tomorrow’s paper?’

‘It’s none of your business?’ he offered. That ‘boy’ in the Observer’s headline had been too reminiscent of Cranbrook’s bile.

‘No…I’m going to need more than that.’

Was she laughing?

‘It’s none of your business, Claire Thackeray?’ he offered, restraining the urge to join her.

‘Okay. We’ll leave that for now but I was hoping you’d explain to our readers why you’ve blocked off the public footpath beside the Cran?’

‘Do your readers care?’ he asked. ‘No one has complained.’

‘Clearly you don’t read our letters page.’

‘I don’t read the Observer,’ he lied, ‘but I have no doubt that “outraged of Maybridge” is an inside job.’

‘How cynical you are. People do care.’

‘No comment.’

‘So that’s a “no comment”, a “no comment” and a “no comment,” then. Okay,’ she said—definitely laughing— ‘That’ll do nicely.’

‘Claire… How’s your foot?’

‘I’m scarred for life. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers any day now. How’s your, um, rod?’ she asked.

‘I refer you to the answer I gave earlier.’

‘It would make a great story. Millionaire Landowner Mown Down by Tenant. Archie has form, you know. He ran some quad bikers into the stream last year. I’ll send you a link to the article.’

‘You wouldn’t rat on Archie,’ he said, as an email popped into his inbox. ‘How do you know my email address?’

‘No comment and no comment. It’s a good picture of him, don’t you think?’

He clicked on the link, looked at the photograph of Archie, the picture of sweet innocence as he peered over the hedge.

‘Believe nothing that you read and only half what you see,’ he replied and thought he caught a sigh from the other end of the phone.

‘Any progress with my bike?’ she asked.

‘Ask Gary. He’s working on it.’

‘I will and, Hal?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks for giving him a chance. The offer of a cake is still open. Any time.’

‘Just stop ringing me and we’ll be quits,’ he said, hanging up before he relented.

The estimate for re-leading the roof dealt with the smile.

* * *

‘Made the front page again, Claire?’

‘Homing instinct,’ she said, glancing at the pulls of the front page. The Maybridge Wish-List fairy might be draped over the masthead, but it was her story that was the lead. ‘“Closed for Fun…” It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’ she said, doing her best to sound enthusiastic.

‘It was a slow news day.’ Tim Mayhew, the sports editor, made a virtue of being a grouch.

‘This is Maybridge, Tim. It’s always a slow news day. The ambitious journalist has to get out there and create her headlines.’

That would be the journalist who was desperate to hang on to her job. The journalist who wished she hadn’t promised the news editor a constant feed of Hal North stories.

‘There’s nothing wrong with ambition,’ Tim said, ‘but you’re going to have to come up with something better than local landowner closes footpath if you’re going to repeat your local-boy-makes-good coup.’

She didn’t need him to tell her that. Brian was already on her case.

‘It’s not the footpath that makes the story, Tim, it’s the “new,” “millionaire” and “landowner” that does the business.’ Along with the tall, dark. The classically handsome element was cancelled out by rich and available.

‘People will soon get fed up of being fed a diet of Hal North stories.’

The sooner the better. She couldn’t wait to get back to the WI meetings, meanwhile…

‘I’ve just heard that he’s cancelled the traditional Teddy Bears Picnic. Just who the heck does think he is?’ she asked, trying to put some real feeling into it.

‘Henry North? New millionaire landowner?’ he said, quoting her own words back at her.

She stared at the front-page picture of the pile of scrap metal blocking the footpath across the Cranbrook estate.

The photographer had used a marker to write “Closed For Fun” on a piece of cardboard and propped it against a handy piece of junk. It made a great picture, she didn’t deny it. And Brian had found a photograph of Hal at a white-tie dinner. The juxtaposition suggested arrogance, distance, a man who didn’t care.

Tim grunted. ‘Personally, I don’t blame him for refusing to have dozens of kids running riot on his newly acquired country estate.’

‘Next to you the Grinch is warm and cuddly.’

Hal wasn’t like that.

She mentally rolled her eyes. She kept telling herself that ‘Hal wasn’t like that’; she hadn’t a clue what he was like. All she had was this fantasy figure she’d created in her head—a cross between Prince Charming and the Beast. And if she’d cast herself in the role of Beauty, it was because she’d been a kid and didn’t know any better.

What she did know was that it hadn’t been ‘Mr Henry North, millionaire businessman’ who’d mocked her, reminded her that she had once had a goal in life. A place at a good university, every advantage, and she’d wasted it. And it sure as heck hadn’t been ‘Mr Henry North, millionaire businessman’ who’d kissed her socks off. Well, her tights, anyway…

That had most definitely been Hal North, Cranbrook bad boy, doing what he did as naturally as breathing. She’d put his bad temper down to the fact that she’d run into him. That must have hurt. But having reinvented himself it must have come as quite a shock to discover that she was still on the estate and working for the local newspaper.

He’d got off lightly, she reminded herself.

She could have got a lot more quotes to liven up her original front page if she’d had a mind to, but she’d kept that to herself. She wasn’t about to annoy the man who had it in his power to put up her rent.

‘It’s really tough on the charity that relies on the event,’ she said. Concentrate on that. Not on Hal.

‘It must have come as a real shock when Cranbrook Park was sold overnight to a man who doesn’t buy into the whole noblesse-oblige thing.’

‘It was quick, wasn’t it?’ Almost as if Hal had been watching, waiting…

‘Once you’re in hock to the tax man you’re done for. They won’t wait for the market to pick up. As long as they’re covered they don’t care how cheap they sell. And it would need to be cheap. The place is going to take a fortune to restore.’

‘I suppose.’

‘No doubt North will finance it with a high-end executive estate on that meadow running beside the May. It’s a prime riverside location and out of sight of the Hall. Perfect.’

‘What? But that’s Archie’s meadow!’ she protested. He was right, though. It was perfect. Forget dancing on Sir Robert’s grave. How much more satisfying would Hal find it to make Sir Robert watch as he trampolined a thousand years of Cranbrook family history into the dirt. ‘He’d never get it through planning,’ she objected.

‘You think a man like North is going to let petty bureaucracy stand in his way? If the local planners prove obstinate, he’ll put in a appeal to the Secretary of State on the grounds of the local need for jobs, houses.’ He shrugged. ‘They’re probably mates. There’s a story for you.’

‘I can’t print that!’

She wouldn’t have to. All it would take was a photograph of them together and people would leap to their own conclusions. And there was nothing like a suggestion of dirty doings at the Town Hall to boost circulation.

She would be flavour of the month. And if it made her feel just a little bit soiled? The way she’d felt as she’d listened to gossip about him in the café near his office, well, it was her job. It paid the rent, kept Ally warm and fed.

‘Besides, what will happen to poor old Archie?’

‘Oh, please. If North has any sense that donkey was cats’ meat within a week of him moving in. You should sue him for not keeping him under control,’ he added. ‘Or are you saving that for another headline?’

‘Of course not. He’s always been a lamb with me.’ As long as she had an apple to buy him off. ‘Archie,’ she added, rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth. Hal North was something else…

‘Kebabs, then. Millionaire Makes Mincemeat of Maybridge Mascot…’

‘Shut up, Tim,’ she muttered as Brian walked through the office.

‘Children, children!’ Jessica Dixon, the features editor raised her head from her PC. ‘The only thing that should concern you on today’s front page is who is going to be this year’s Fairy Godmother. Or Godfather,’ she added, looking at Tim over her spectacles. ‘This is an equal-opportunity chance to volunteer.’