Primrose Island Novellas (7 book series)
One Spring at Tilladrum – Book 2, Primrose Island Novellas
Shy young gardener Wren and the strong-but-silent woodsman Seamus enter each other’s lives when they both take on roles at the glorious Tilladrum Estate.
The last thing either of them has in mind is anything whatsoever to do with falling in love. But then, neither of them is particularly used to having things go to plan…
Extract: Chapter One
“Rehab?”
Wren Collett’s tea went down the wrong way, and it was necessary to splutter and cough for a bit before she could progress her line of questioning any further.
“Did you just say rehab, Dad?”
Her father flushed. He was somewhat prone to mangling his words and Wren sensed — or at least hoped — that’s what was going on here.
“Rehab. Yes,” he said, blinking innocently. “Well, I mean, no. But also, yes…”
Colin Collett frowned and poured a little more tea into his daughter’s mug. “Sort of thing…”
“Rehab, Dad? Rehab. Me?” Wren took a gulp of her topped-up tea. “That’s just… Surely you remember the one time I tried–” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “–weed?” before carrying on in a normal volume, “Dad? That one time? When I was seventeen? Surely you remember? It didn’t go well. You held my hair…”
Her father grimaced at the memory.
“Anyway, the point being, I was a lightweight then and, guess what? I’m still a lightweight! I mean, for goodness’ sake! You’d think, wouldn’t you, that at this point I’d be all over the gins-and-tonics and the glasses of wine and the tubs of ice cream and the… the… Percy Pigs… wouldn’t you?”
She did love Percy Pigs.
“You’d think, wouldn’t you,” she went on, “that given the circumstances, I’d be all over anything that could take the edge off – if not obliterate completely – the brutal memory, the total and utter emotional carnage, Dad, of being JILTED AT THE ALTAR! Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”
Colin Collett squeezed his daughter’s hand even tighter.
“All right, all right. Don’t get in a tizz.”
A tizz. The apocalypse could be raining down upon them and her dad would still gently caution her not to get in a tizz.
“I’m not in a tizz, Dad!”
She was becoming quite exasperated, though.
“I’m annoyed at myself! I’m annoyed at my hopeless inability to drown my sorrows at the one moment in my life when they really need drowning! I’m annoyed about this weird, late-flowering streak of pure masochism that makes me unable to face even a single cheerful glass of red wine right now. Or a square of chocolate. Or a flipping Percy Pig! And I love Percy Pigs!”
Colin Collett had both of his daughter’s hands in his now.
“Yes. Yes, I know. I know…” he said, squeezing her hands reassuringly.
He gave it a moment, allowing the dust to settle.
“Rant over?”
Wren managed a half smile and nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Rant over. I’m just saying that you can probably remove rehab from your list of Things That Might Fix Wren.”
Her father gave her hands one last encouraging squeeze, then released them and topped up his own mug of tea. “You know very well there’s no such list,” he said pointedly, setting down the teapot, and generating a sound in his throat that was closing in on a harrumph. “You, Wren, are not someone in need of fixing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Wren stared down at her tea. She didn’t want him to see that she had tears in her eyes. Didn’t want him to know that someone had told her otherwise. In no uncertain terms. The someone in question being the man she’d thought she was marrying – on the day he’d been supposed to be marrying her.
For the millionth time, she pushed the memories of that day away.
“That said, however…” her father was venturing on, prompting Wren to look up and catch his nervous little eyebrow waggle, his nervous bit of finger drumming.
Here we go.
“That said… I do think a rehab of sorts would do you good.”
Gah. Wren plunged her head into her hands. Back to square one.
“Sorry, Dad. I’m really not following,” she said, closing her eyes. She was starting to get a headache.
Colin Collett needlessly rearranged the tea things laid out between them in the centre of their kitchen table.
“I don’t mean in the way of a clinic or anything,” he said tentatively. “You know, for drugs and alcohol and what have you. I don’t mean that. I just mean, well, a break, I suppose. A change of scene. Some time away. Somewhere nice.”
Despite the band of pain that was beginning to tighten around her skull, Wren doubled down on her efforts to get onto her dad’s wavelength.
A thought occurred. A little bit of sense – a little bit of light pushing through the clouds.
“But rehab Dad? Are you sure you don’t mean… retreat?”
Her father’s eyes lit up. He straightened in his chair and started pointing at Wren and waggling his finger like he did when they played charades and she’d just guessed the answer.
“Yes!” he said, sending tea sloshing over the top of his mug. “That’s it! That’s the thing, Wren! A retreat. A retreat is what I’m getting at!”
Wren studied his face carefully while making a distracted effort to mop up the spilt tea.
“Okaaay…” she said slowly, narrowing her eyes, feeling her way – because the jury was still out on what exactly her father was getting at, here.
But Colin Collett, emboldened by his daughter’s okaaay, was already reaching for his shirt pocket.
Wren angled her head and narrowed her eyes further. Her father had an expression on his face that she knew very well. An expression, entirely unique to him, of pure mischief mingled with a dollop of pride.
What was he up to?
