Exiles (Aaron Falk #3)(83)

“Yeah. I have.”

He’d lain there with Gemma in the quiet and the warmth until the light changed. As the shadows grew across the room, she’d finally taken her hand off his chest and propped herself up on one elbow.

“I absolutely hate to say this, but—”

“It’s okay. I’ll head off now, before Joel gets back.”

“Is that all right? It’s just this is his home, too, and—”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s better. Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I’m on call for the festival all day tomorrow. I’ll try to arrange a couple of hours’ cover.”

“Great.” He smiled at her. “Although, I actually still don’t have your number.”

“I know.” She smiled back, then rolled over on the bed to reach her phone on the bedside table. “Let’s fix that.”

He had kissed her again at the front door, the sky already deepening above them.

Falk sat with Rita now, Gemma’s number saved on his phone, listening to the gentle nocturnal buzz of evening settling in.

“I say this with complete neutrality.” Rita was watching his face. “But if you were interested, Charlie would probably bring you in on this business—”

“Rita.”

“Aaron, I’m simply passing on the information.”

“Come on. Seriously. I can’t. You know I—”

“I do know, and that’s fine. It is. I have no stake in this, other than I care about you.” She fixed her large dark eyes on him so he couldn’t look away. “But supposing you could. Charlie would have work for you here.”

“Doing what? What on earth would I do here?”

“Everything. There’s a lot you could bring to this. The business has been too big for him for a while now. He’s looking for someone else. It doesn’t have to be you. But it could be.”

“Rita. Jesus.” Frustration with the situation was making him irritable. He could not open that door. “Please, can we not—”

“What?”

“Pretend that’s something I’m ever going to do. Please?”

“All right.”

She dropped it, as Falk had known she would. Instead, she simply reached out and rested her hand gently on his arm. He looked out at the night.

“I barely know her, Rita.”

“I know.”

They sat there a little longer, listening to the voices drifting from the house. Falk looked at the darkened barn, so still and silent compared with earlier. He thought back to lunch. It seemed a long time ago now.

“Charlie and Rohan are still on speaking terms, are they?” Falk said.

“After a fun little public dalliance questioning Zoe’s paternity? I think so. They’re as okay as they ever really are.”

“There’s nothing in it, I’m guessing?” Falk would be surprised. Zoe looked very much like Rohan.

Rita was already shaking her head. “I highly doubt it. Not just Zoe’s features now, but because Charlie’s right—Kim would never have done that to Rohan. It wasn’t in her nature.” She paused. “Not in Charlie’s, either, no matter what he says. It was all stupid, anyway. When Zoe was born she looked like Kim more than anyone. It’s just that Kim had similar coloring to Charlie and the rest of them.”

A babble of chatter rose from the house, and they both looked over. Falk could hear a voice that sounded like Raco’s, although it could have been one of his brothers’. He couldn’t make out the words.

“Greg’s worried, though,” Rita said. “About the whole thing with Kim.”

Falk frowned. “Yeah. It feels like it’s never sat right with him.”

“There’s something more, though. He’s mulling over things, I can tell. It’s been hard to find time to talk properly these last few days, but he’s got that look.” Rita swirled her water in her glass as she stared at the house. “He’s never liked the fact Kim left Zoe alone. He’s always thought that was out of character.”

Falk thought back to the festival grounds the day before. How do you get a parent to do anything? Threaten their child. Maybe character didn’t come into it. He looked over at Rita now.

“Were you surprised Kim would leave Zoe like that?” he said.

“The Kim I knew? Yes. Definitely. But I hadn’t seen her in person for a couple of years.” Rita frowned. “I’ll tell you this, though. Being a new mother can be very, very hard. We know Kim was already on medication for depression, and some babies are a nightmare. You’re not supposed to say it out loud, but they are. They wreck you. I mean, Henry’s quite mellow, but Eva?” She pressed her lips together. “And Kim had dragged her six-week-old all the way out here to see her teenage daughter, who had canceled on her, anyway. So she was probably feeling pressure to come to the festival, bring this baby along, and it’s noisy and crowded, and her husband’s heading off early to meet his parents. And suddenly she’s all alone in the dark, and maybe her medication is unbalanced after the birth, maybe she’s still in pain at times. And now she’s stuck with this baby who’s playing up yet again, and it’s all simply too much. So she goes for a walk on her own.”