in this snow,’ Jasper interrupted. ‘And I’m sure they’ll all be as grateful as I am for it.’ Even if he still lusted after the steak and ale pie Tori had promised was the best in the county. Maybe he could come back another time and try it. In better weather.
‘Humph,’ Henry said again, but this time he sounded more mollified. ‘So. If you’re Vicky’s “colleague” what sort of work have the two of you been up to?’
He was in tricky waters here, Jasper realised suddenly. If Tori hadn’t been home for who knew who long—maybe since she first showed up at Flaxstone—then her aunt and uncle probably didn’t know she was working for the earl. Or that she had stayed so close to home. How much would she forgive him for giving away?
‘We were visiting a property that our…boss is looking to invest in, up at the north of the moors.’ That was neutral enough, wasn’t it? ‘Tori didn’t mention that she had family so close though, or I’d have suggested we stop by without the snow forcing us on you.’
Henry barked a laugh at that. ‘Which is exactly why she wouldn’t tell you, I’d wager.’
‘She does like to keep her cards very close to her chest.’ Jasper watched Henry carefully, looking for the right way in, to get the man to tell him something, anything, that would explain the strange feeling that had settled over the place since they’d arrived.
There was so much to this story that he didn’t know. And Jasper hated not being in full possession of all the facts, always had. Especially since everything had gone down with Juliet, and he’d discovered that everyone else in his world had known a lot of truths about her that he, as her boyfriend, also should have known—but hadn’t. How could he possibly make good decisions if he didn’t know what he was basing them on? Telling Juliet he loved her, for instance, had been a spectacularly bad one.
Especially since it had turned out she had been in love with his friend Fred, and everyone else had known it. At nineteen, it had seemed the worst thing that could possibly happen to a guy.
But right now, he wasn’t thinking about the past. He was trying to decide how far he could push Tori to tell him her story. To let him in.
Maybe it was just the residual instinct to push at those walls of hers, that instinct that had plagued him since they were both barely more than teenagers. Or maybe it was something more—the sadness in her eyes that he’d only really noticed since his return. Or the way she bristled whenever he said anything at all…
Whatever it was, he needed to solve the puzzle of Tori Edwards. And here was her uncle, holding the key.
But all Henry said was, ‘She has her reasons. Heaven knows the girl has never talked when she doesn’t want to. She’d always run away instead, even as a child. Hide in the strangest of places, until…well, until someone found her. Now, are you done with those boxes?’
Jasper nodded, his mind occupied with Henry’s words. And the certainty that he’d been about to say a name there, when he was talking about who usually found her. What had stopped him?
Or rather, who?
‘Let’s carry these up, then.’ Henry hoisted the first, heavy tray of ploughman’s lunch into his arms, and Jasper followed suit with the second. ‘We’ll come back for the soup.’
‘If my arms can take it,’ Jasper muttered, staggering a little on the stairs. But he knew he’d do whatever Henry told him to, really.
He’d do whatever it took to unravel the mystery of Tori Edwards.
The advantage of being on home turf was that Tori knew all the best hiding places. Add in the associated chaos of having far too many people crammed into the building, all needing something all the time, and keeping busy enough to avoid any difficult discussions with Aunt Liz and Uncle Henry, or questions she didn’t want to answer from Jasper, was almost too easy.
Henry had sought her out as she’d laid down bedding in the restaurant. He’d watched her from the doorway for a moment or two, she suspected, before she’d turned around and spotted him. Then, he’d thrown his arms around her and held her tight, whispering into her hair that it was good to have her home.
He’d smelled of spicy vegetable soup and the Moorside kitchens, and the scent was so familiar she could almost believe that she’d never gone away at all. Then he’d stepped away and headed back to the bar without another word, and suddenly she felt every inch of the gulf between her and her family all over again.
A gulf created by her own secrets, and their shared loss.
It had been eight years. Eight years since Tyler died, eight years since she left. Was it time to tell them the truth about why? Tori knew in her heart she wouldn’t. Too many painful memories for them all. The best outcome she could hope for if she did tell them about the last few months of Tyler’s life was that she’d end up tarnishing their memories of him, as well as giving them more reasons to be angry with her. Nobody won anything that way.
Better to keep all those secrets inside, where they couldn’t hurt anyone but her.
At least, with so many people crowded in eating their soup and ploughman’s, there was no need for a sit-down family meal and all the awkwardness that would follow—as much as Tori would have loved one of Henry’s home-cooked meals. She smiled at the sight of Jasper handing out soup from behind the bar, for all the world like one of the college students Liz and Henry used to hire to help out over the summer, before Tyler and then Tori were old enough to take their place.
There were about nine groups of people staying at the Moorside, she counted, watching over the bar. Mostly families of three or four, although there was one multigenerational set of seven, too. A couple of couples, and two sole business people—and Jasper and Tori.
She hoped they had enough beds.
As one of the children in the family nearest to her started yawning, then nodding off into her apple slices, Tori crouched down next to them and asked if they’d like to be taken through to get settled in one of the bedrooms. The largest guest room at the front of the inn would just about fit them all, she decided, and it made sense for those with younger kids to have the actual bedrooms.
The parents smiled gratefully and, clearing their dishes to the bar, followed her up the rickety stairs to the guest rooms.
Tori made a point of not looking down the narrow corridor that led to the family rooms as they passed. For all she knew, Liz and Henry might have converted her tiny single room—and Tyler’s slightly larger room, for that matter—into more guest accommodation, or even an office for Liz to do paperwork in. She’d never know, because she wasn’t going to ask and she definitely wasn’t going to go and look.
Too many memories down that corridor.
By the time she made it back downstairs, Liz had already shown most of the other guests to rooms upstairs, or to the makeshift dormitory in the restaurant. Jasper was wiping down the bar, and Henry was pouring himself a pint.
Tori’s heart contracted at the familiar sight of her aunt and uncle going about their evening, as if nothing had changed in the last eight years. Or even the last day, as the inn had been invaded by stranded travellers. Even Jasper seemed strangely at home in a place she could never even have imagined seeing him before today.
‘Well, I’d better go grab a bedroll in the restaurant before they’re all gone,’ Tori said, as cheerfully as she could. It was late, they were all tired. Surely no one would call her out on wanting to avoid Awkward Question and Family time right now, would they?
But Liz, glancing up from wiping down tables, gave her an odd look. ‘I’ve kept your old room free for you and Jasper,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not big, but it’ll be more private than sleeping with the hordes in the restaurant.’
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