A Family Forever (4 page)

The car turned into the main street at Great Monkton and Adam slowed. "Which is your place?"

"There, with the green gate." As they approached, she tried to see her cottage through his eyes—tiny and a little shabby, she concluded. She didn't have time to keep the small front garden as neat as she'd like, although the rambling roses over the door were beautiful at this time of year.

He stopped at the gate, jumped out, and raced around the car to open the door for her. "Thank you. I thought chivalry was dead," she said, as he lifted the box from her lap and held it while she climbed out.

"Come on, Soph." She gestured for her daughter to hurry up and join her. Harry got out of the car as well.

"Can Harry come and help, Mum?"

Having a stranger help usually made the work take longer, but Victoria did not want to deter a young person who was eager to learn about hedgehogs. And it was great to see Sophie had made a new friend. "That'll be wonderful." She gave Harry a smile and he returned it shyly. She got the impression the boy was a bit of a loner. Spending time with Sophie would do him good.

Adam shut her door and locked his car. "I'll come and lend a hand too."

Victoria's eyebrows rose in surprise. With the huge project he was starting, surely he had other things to do than help her? Although, she was glad he was showing an interest. If she could educate him about hedgehogs, he'd be more willing to consider their needs.

They piled inside the tiny cottage, squeezing into the small kitchen that was really only big enough for two people along with the pine table against the wall. Victoria set the box down and unlocked the back door. "I'll treat and settle this little fella and do my lunchtime rounds."

"What can I do?" Adam asked.

"There's not enough room in the shed for all of us at once. I'll take the kids in to start with and you can come in later."

"No problem. It's a lovely day. I'll check out the garden."

They all traipsed down the concrete path and Victoria chuckled to herself when Adam stopped and gazed at the strip of overgrown lawn and the three sheds crammed in the narrow backyard. It was a far cry from the ten acres of beautiful gardens he owned at Larchfield.

Adam watched at the shed door while she transferred the injured baby to a clean box with a heating pad underneath and administered antibiotics to the new patient. Sophie showed Harry how to mix the dried puppy milk and measure it in the syringe to feed the young animals.

"Where's your lawn mower?" Adam queried.

"In the lean-to against the back of the house, beside the log store." He disappeared and Victoria took a moment to glance out the door to see what he was doing. He pulled out the lawn mower, and started it up.

Sophie came to stand beside her. "Is Mr. Cantrell mowing the lawn?"

"Looks like it."

They exchanged surprised glances. Women she knew always moaned about their husbands not helping out. Her father was certainly demanding and kept her mother busy, but then it wasn't his fault he was wheelchair-bound.

Perhaps being in a relationship with the right man might actually take some of the load off her shoulders.

Biting her lip thoughtfully, she returned to treat her tiny patients. It was a pity Adam didn't plan to stick around.

Chapter Four

Adam drove back from Salisbury, his rear seat crammed with sleeping bags, camp beds, and other essentials he and Harry needed to survive at Larchfield Hall for a week. He'd also picked up a map of the area to search for sites where Victoria might release hedgehogs. Beside him, two pizza boxes were stacked on the passenger seat and the delicious smell filled the car.

Harry had opted to stay with Sophie and Victoria instead of going with his dad. Adam wasn't often parted from his son and it seemed strange to be on his own.

When he arrived at Prickly Ball Cottage, he gathered the pizza boxes in his arms and knocked on the door. It wasn't only the name of Victoria's cottage that had a hedgehog theme. Numerous hedgehog garden ornaments peeped out from behind rocks and plants and lined the windowsills.

Victoria answered the door and grabbed the boxes from him. "Ahh. The smell of hundreds of calories waiting to find their way to my butt and thighs," she said. "You gotta love pizza."

Adam's gaze skated down her shapely figure, admiring her slim waist, heart-shaped bottom, and slender thighs. "I don't think you need to worry about calories." He grinned as she flashed him a flirty smile.

"Just as well. I'm starving."

He followed her through the cottage, ducking beneath the low door frames, which barely cleared the top of his head. The place was so small it almost gave him claustrophobia, every nook and cranny crammed with ornaments, books, and bric-a-brac.

They exited into the back garden. Victoria dumped the pizza boxes on a picnic table beside a mixed salad in a cut glass bowl and a stack of plates. She grabbed a can of kid's soda and held it out to him. "I should have asked you to fetch some drinks as well. This is all I have."

"Suits me." He was at ease and enjoying himself. It didn't matter what he drank.

They settled in lawn chairs on either side of the table and stared down the neatly mown strip of grass. Sophie was prancing about doing ballet steps while Harry photographed her.

"Ballet is Soph's latest craze. It probably won't last long before she moves on to something else. When did Harry get interested in photography?"

Adam sipped his orange soda and considered. "A couple of years ago. He's dead keen, but I can't imagine the career prospects are great, though."

"Oh, I don't know. That's what I do…or did."

"You're a photographer?" Adam had thought she spent all her time rescuing hedgehogs. But he supposed she had to earn a living as well.

"I'm a cameraman, actually—video, not stills. I specialized in working on nature programs. I've travelled all over the world filming wildlife. I had to stop when I was expecting Soph. Now I teach cinematography at the local art college."

"That sounds more like a vocation than a job. The sort of life some people dream of. You must have hated giving it up."

A wistful expression crossed her face. "I miss it sometimes. Often it was just me and a camera, watching and waiting, always dreaming of the next amazing shot. There was a real camaraderie in the production team that I miss as well."

She bit her lip as she stared at her daughter and a private smile touched her lips. "It was a great life while it lasted, but I'd give it up all over again to be with Soph. The joke is I avoided romantic entanglements so a man didn't tie me down, but in the end a man tied me down anyway, by giving me Soph."

"What happened to Sophie's father?"

"Nothing. He's still out there somewhere."

"But not in Sophie's life?" Adam shouldn't be pushing for information when he sensed she'd rather not talk about the man, but curiosity got the better of him.

"No." She sucked in a breath, released it slowly. "We were filming on the Great Barrier Reef. He owned a diving school and we used one of his boats. I had a thing with him for a couple of months. Neither of us intended the relationship to be more."

"He didn't want to be a father to Sophie?"

Victoria shrugged. "No. Anyway, he lives on the other side of the world, Adam."

Anger bubbled inside him to think she'd been left alone to raise Sophie and the guy hadn't been interested. Granted, he could see her point that it was difficult to be a long-distance parent. It was the same reason Adam's ex-wife gave for rarely seeing Harry. But parents had a responsibility to their children. It was a hot button for Adam after the way his parents had treated him. He knew he tended to overreact about the issue so he kept his opinion to himself.

He gazed at Victoria with a new kind of respect. Sophie's father might have shirked his responsibility to his daughter, but Victoria certainly hadn't. She was so much more than a pretty face and killer body.

"You know, I admire that you gave up what you wanted to do and put Sophie first."

A flattering pink tinge colored her cheeks. Their eyes met, and they shared a moment of understanding. Adam swallowed back a burst of protectiveness that surprised him. After all, Victoria and Sophie were little more than strangers.

He cleared his throat. "Perhaps you can give Harry a few tips on photography."

"I'll be pleased to. That DSLR of his has an excellent HD video capability. I know it's a stills camera first, but I actually recommend that model to my movie students. I've been watching him and he doesn't seem to use it for filming. Do you know if he ever has?"

"Not that I'm aware of. I let him work out how to use the camera himself. I thought it was a good challenge for him."

Victoria pursed her lips and he got the impression she disapproved.

"You think I was wrong?"

"If I bought Soph such an expensive piece of equipment, I'd want to make sure she understood how to get the most out of it."

Adam gazed down the garden to where Harry and Sophie were doing cartwheels on the grass. Perhaps he should have shown more interest in the camera. He tended to be busy and bought gadgets for Harry to keep him occupied.

He prided himself on spending plenty of time with his son. Unfortunately, for much of that time Adam was busy thinking about work, reading work-related documents, or on the phone. He'd barely seen his parents because they travelled all the time and left him behind with nannies. He'd promised himself he would not do the same thing with Harry. But maybe he was still guilty of not giving his son enough attention.

"Harry seems shy. How does he normally get along with other kids?" Victoria asked, breaking into his thoughts.

Adam shifted uncomfortably in his lawn chair. Her question hit a little close to home. He'd been thinking it was time to get rid of the personal tutor who often travelled with them and send Harry to school. The poor kid spent his life with adults and didn't have any friends his own age. But that meant Harry would have to stay in England while Adam travelled, and he did not want to be parted from his son.

"Yeah. He can be a little shy."

He was saved from saying more when the kids dashed up the garden and threw themselves down on a rug spread on the grass. "We're hungry," Sophie shouted.

"Let's turn down the volume a tad." Victoria gave her daughter a smile. "We're only a few feet away."

"Sorry, Mum."

Victoria handed out plates and let the kids choose a slice of pizza each. Then she offered the box to Adam. He grabbed a slice and started eating, watching Victoria as she did the same. She stuffed it in her mouth unselfconsciously, catching the melted cheese on her finger and licking it off.

She was so natural, so vibrant and full of life. Her long dark hair fell over her shoulders, those amazing blue eyes of hers sparkling. She had the sort of mouth that tilted up at the corners as though she was always on the verge of smiling.

He'd never met a woman he could imagine spending his life with. In truth, he hadn't been looking to settle down and stay in one place. Being here with Victoria, Sophie, and Harry was the closest he'd ever come to a real sense of home—and it wasn't even his place.

Sitting in lawn chairs eating pizza with the fading sun warming his skin, the kids chattering happily, and a group of curious cows watching them over the fence was better than eating in the best restaurant in the world.

The tension that normally rode his shoulders had drained away. For the first time in years, he was at peace. Part of him wished this evening would go on forever.

***

The front door of Larchfield Hall stood open when Victoria and Sophie walked up the drive on Sunday morning. Harry sat on the front step eating a piece of toast. He crammed the last of his breakfast in his mouth and ran to meet them.

"Hiya," he called and circled them, tweaking Sophie's pigtails. "Race you to the cow's fence, Soph. Last one there's a slimy slug."

Sophie took off after him, bringing a smile to Victoria's face. It was good to see her daughter having fun. Most of Sophie's school friends lived in Salisbury, and Victoria rarely had time to ferry her daughter back and forth to town to see them.

She stepped inside the hall and shouted hello.

"In the kitchen," Adam shouted back.

Victoria headed towards the back of the house, noticing two camp beds set up in the sitting room as she passed the open door.

Adam was leaning over a map spread on the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in his hand. He glanced up, his easy smile welcoming her. "Good morning." His gaze slipped past her then back to her face. "No Sophie this morning?"

"Harry's already grabbed her. They're out in the garden."

"I can't believe how much my son likes the garden." Adam shook his head. "I'll have to think about moving out of London to a place with some land."

A fantasy whispered through Victoria's head of Adam settling down at Larchfield. Although she was sensible enough to realize that it was unlikely to happen even if he didn't develop the property. Larchfield Hall had eight bedrooms—far too many for one man and his son. Anyway, a man like he would never be satisfied with living this far out in the boonies.

Victoria put down the folio case she held and slid out the plan of Larchfield Hall's grounds that she'd printed off, marking the positions of the hedgehog boxes. "I never got around to showing you this yesterday." She tapped the diagram. "The blue dots are boxes that are still used by the adults I released. The green dots are ones that contain babies, the number beside each box shows the litter size, and the red dots are empty boxes."

"Why are there empty boxes?"

"Every time I make a release, I leave a box, but the animal doesn't always keep using it. Sometimes they return to the box for a few days then leave. It's likely some of them have even wandered out of the garden and live in the surrounding fields. Once they vacate the box, I'm never sure where they go."

Adam brightened. "That's good news. I thought we'd have to move ninety animals. Fewer will make the job a lot more manageable." He ran his gaze down the list she'd laid beside the diagram. "So there are thirty-two boxes, six are empty, eight contain adults with young and the other eighteen just contain adults."

"That's right. I made a few calls last night and this morning. I have local places arranged to take six boxes, but that's all I could organize."

"So we need to find sites for twenty boxes."

"Twenty." Victoria gazed out the window at the ramble of greenery, a sigh rushing out between her lips. That didn't sound like many, but she knew from experience it was difficult to find safe places for the animals.

"Hey, don't worry. We'll crack this." Adam rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

At least she didn't have to do it alone. Her grandmother's old saying, "A problem shared is a problem halved," was true.

"I'm glad you bought this place."

Adam gave an ironic laugh. "I doubt that. My plans have caused you a lot of trouble."

"The situation could be much worse. Most developers wouldn't care less about the hedgehogs."

"I suppose you're right." He turned his attention back to the map, circling a finger over the rural area to the north of Great Monkton. "Shall we head up here to start with? There's a fair bit of woodland. I'm guessing that's good for small animals."

Victoria nodded. For months she'd intended to do more prospecting for release sites and knock on a few doors, but never got around to it.

"Anyone home?" a man's voice shouted.

"Ah, that'll be my rental car." Adam hurried out and Victoria wandered after him curiously. Why did he need a rental car when he already had a car?

Adam signed some documents and accepted the vehicle keys, then the man jumped in a small car and was driven off.

"This should do." He strode out and Victoria stepped into the open doorway to see outside.

A chunky four-wheel drive stood by the fountain. Adam opened the driver's door and checked inside. "I thought this would be better for what we have planned." He opened the trunk and beckoned her over. "There's enough room to carry the hedgehog boxes in here." He glanced across at his sleek, low-slung saloon. "My car's not designed for transporting livestock."

How nice it must be to have the money to order whatever you wanted when you wanted it. Not that Victoria was jealous. She loved her little cottage, her life with Sophie, and her hedgehog work, but juggling her tight budget to pay for hedgehog food, medicine, and boxes on top of everything else was a challenge.