“Me too!” Ruby jumped up and down.
“We’ll all go, get your coats,” Julia announced as the children scattered.
“Do I get to go too?” Douglas asked as she approached the door. He was standing in its frame and had moved aside to allow the children to race through but he resumed his position when she came near him.
“No, not enough room in the car,” she lied. The Range Rover would easily hold them all. He smiled and she gave him a disgruntled look. “Anyway, you should be resting. What did the doctor say?”
“I’m fine,” he replied simply and she looked at him closely, narrowing her eyes.
She decided to let it go but he could tell it cost her and he grinned again.
Then she asked, “Do you want something from the chip shop?”
What Douglas wanted was a nice, juicy steak, cooked rare, potatoes dauphenois, asparagus smothered in hollandaise sauce and a huge glass of full-bodied, dry, red wine. Then he wanted to sleep for three days, preferably with Julia’s furnace-like body pressed to his side.
What he did not want was fish and chips.
“Yes, of course,” he said.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He wasn’t sure what to say. He’d never actually been to a chip shop. He figured his choices were either chips or fish and chips.
“Whatever you’re having,” he answered.
For a moment, Julia regarded him curiously.
She opened her mouth to say something when they both heard Nick’s voice. “How you doin’, mate?”
Nick was strutting toward them and with some disappointment Douglas had to turn away from Julia toward his friend.
He was tired of telling everyone he was fine so he didn’t say anything at all. Nick was used to him and didn’t mind not getting a response. What Nick could see was Douglas alive, breathing and standing and that was good enough for him.
“All right, Jules?” Nick asked and Julia gaze moved to him but her brows rose at the familiar use of her name.
Nick had a habit of either shortening someone’s name, if he liked them, or giving them a nickname, if he didn’t like them, usually something foul. Clearly, somewhere in their short acquaintance, Julia had passed the Nick Test.
Apparently, she accepted his shortened name and his silent offer of camaraderie after the tense night they all shared for she responded, “Yes, all right Nick.” Then she looked from Nick to Douglas and back again. Douglas had no idea what was going around in her head but he found he would give half his fortune to gain this knowledge. Fortunately, before he could make that asinine offer, Julia continued speaking. “I’m going to the chip shop. Are you going to be here for awhile?” she asked Nick.
“Don’t know,” Nick replied, rocking back on his heels and crossing his arms on his chest.
“Well I do, you’ll have dinner with us,” Julia returned firmly. “What do you want from the chippie?”
The chippie? Douglas thought and glanced at her, suddenly realising she was adapting quite well to her new environment. They didn’t have chip shops in America, at least not on every market street as they did in England. If they did, Douglas doubted they called them by the shortened “chippie”.
Then he realised she’d pulled off a nice manoeuvre. Company would mean she would have less chance of being alone with him.
This time he only nearly grinned. She was good.
“Battered sausage for me, make that two and don’t let them skimp on the chips,” Nick ordered, breaking into Douglas’s thoughts.
Julia nodded and left and he and Nick watched her walk away. She was wearing a pair of snug-fitting, fawn-coloured corduroys, a skin-tight black turtleneck and her spike-heeled boots. Douglas decided his second most favourite pieces of her wardrobe were her corduroys.
Or maybe it was her boots.
“Phwoar, mate. You can pick ‘em. Fire and ice in that one, more fire than ice, lucky for you.” Douglas turned to his friend and noticed that he was avidly staring at the space where they’d last seen Julia. Nick looked at Douglas, an approving gleam was in his eyes. “You really going to marry her?”
“Yes,” Douglas replied.
“Good luck, mate, that one’s gonna be a handful.”
“Precisely,” Douglas returned and Nick threw his head back and laughed with deep appreciation.
Douglas ignored him. “We need to talk.”
There was still mirth in Nick’s eyes when he said, “I figured that. Wasn’t keen on the events of last night, was she?”
“Not particularly, no.”
Douglas walked into the lounge and Nick followed while talking. “Been telling you, since your sister died and those kids came here, that you should quit the work.”
Douglas nodded and sat down. Until he was seated he didn’t realise how badly he needed to do it.
“You gotta take it easy, mate,” Nick noted softly, his words held grave meaning.
“I need you to move into the Gate House. I’ll ask Mrs. Kilpatrick to have someone come in and clean it for you. No one’s been there in awhile.”
Nick nodded, no discussion required, he knew what Douglas was asking.
“One thing, though. You seem determined you’re gonna marry her,” Nick was back to the subject of Julia, “but she doesn’t seem to agree.”
Douglas should have told him to mind his own business but he was still tired, hungry and his shoulder ached. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before, uncharacteristically, he shared.
“She needs a bit of convincing.”
Nick whistled. “There’s a woman out there who needs to be convinced to marry you?” he asked, clearly amazed.
“Apparently.”
Nick laughed again before saying, “I like her even more.”
And even though he’d never sought anyone’s approval, never asked for it, not since he’d given up searching for it from his father, he looked at his friend, who was his “bodyguard”, his comrade and his partner-in-crime, and said with feeling, “Good.”
* * * * *
Chaos ensued when Julia and the children arrived home, the children flying around and setting the table, introductions to Nick were seen to in short order and Lizzie prepared drinks, pouring the men’s bitters into chilled beer glasses.
As they settled in, Julia was still dumping fish and chips onto Ruby’s plate when Lizzie slid into the seat to Douglas’s left, glancing at him under her lashes. This left the seat to his right, the seat relegated to the lady of Sommersgate House, open for Julia. He didn’t react to what was, he assumed, his niece’s gentle matchmaking but was pleased to find he might have a surprising ally.