All They Need(50)

Painfully aware that his father’s dignity depended on the illusion that he was in control of at least some aspects of his life, Flynn took a seat to his father’s left, while his mother sat opposite.

“So, where do we start?” his father asked.

Flynn rolled his shoulders. Then he opened the folder in front of him. “I think we should take this step by step. What needs to be done now, medium term and long term.”

His father nodded. “Agreed. You okay with that, Pat?”

“It makes sense.”

“So what are our short-term issues?” His father sounded utterly professional, as though this were any other meeting, yet his hands trembled as he shuffled his papers.

A sudden, white-hot surge of anger hit Flynn.

His father was a good man. He deserved far better than the fate that awaited him. He deserved some peace and pleasure, the chance to enjoy everything he’d worked so hard to achieve.

Instead, he was going to fall apart, cell by cell, memory by memory, until he was completely unravelled, his sense of self destroyed.

The urge to smash something, primitive and fierce, gripped Flynn. His hands curled around the chair’s armrests, tightening until his knuckles ached.



For long seconds he simply hung on, riding the wave of his rage. Then the moment passed and he registered that his mother was speaking, talking about ways of making the house safer without his father feeling under lock and key.

He let his breath out slowly and reached for his pen and started taking notes.





CHAPTER NINE



“THIS IS WHY THEY DON’T have girls on building sites. Grooming breaks.”

Mel rolled her eyes at her brother as she finished pulling her hair into a ponytail. He was standing next to the pile of railway ties she’d had delivered the previous day, a bored look on his face. Behind him, several cubic meters of topsoil formed a mound in the center of her lawn.

“You’re jealous because you cut all your hair off,” Mel said as she tugged her leather work gloves on. Once, a long time ago, her brother had had shoulder-length rock-and-roll hair that had been his pride and joy

“Wouldn’t go back there for quids.” Harry ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “No muss, no fuss this way. You should try it sometime.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s gonna happen. Not.” She already had man-shoulders and man-height. She wasn’t about to compound the issue with man-hair.

She bent her knees and got a grip on the end of the top tie.

“When you’re ready,” she said to her brother. “Take your time.”

Harry gave her a look before getting a grip on the other end. “One, two, three.”



They hoisted the beam, straightening their legs so they were both holding the length at waist height.

“Onto your shoulder,” Harry instructed. “Two, three.”

Mel felt the burn in her arms as she lifted the tie high enough to roll a shoulder under it. The weight settled heavily and she braced the beam with both hands, adjusting her stance to suit.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said.

They walked along the side of the house and into the garden, passing her father and her brother-in-law, Jacob, on their way to collect their next load.

“That’s my girl,” her father said approvingly, slapping Mel on the backside with his work gloves as he passed.

Mel grimaced and concentrated on where she was putting her feet. She would never admit it out loud, but there were times when she really, really wished she was a different kind of woman. The kind who was more than happy to kick back and watch men do the heavy lifting because she couldn’t possibly measure up. The thing was, she could measure up, and she’d never been content to let others do for her. She wasn’t about to start now—especially when the men in her family were giving up their weekend to help her. The least she could do was toil by their sides.

Harry led the way past Tea Cutter Cottage and into the clearing that would soon become her new garden. A dozen railway ties were already lined up to one side and she and Harry added theirs to the stack.

“Couple more trips should do it,” Harry said.

“Yep.”

Mel placed a hand on the small of her back and stretched. Her arms were aching, and her thighs felt a little shaky. And it was barely midday. She was going to be in all kinds of pain by the end of the day.

Harry had already started walking to the front and she trudged after him. They passed her father and Jacob coming the other way, a tie on their shoulders. Mel couldn’t resist mimicking her father’s gesture, slapping his butt with her gloves.