Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange by Jenny Kane (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

‘And you didn’t. If Thea hadn’t, you would have gone to your tent and not worked out I’d been out until tomorrow. Or perhaps not even then as I have work in Taunton tomorrow morning.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Sam felt his voice rising and lowered it hastily as he remembered how sound travelled at night. ‘Thea told me you were asleep.’

‘After I’d gone, I assume. Not to worry the guests. Your business has to come first after all.’

Not missing how she’d stressed the word your, Sam said, ‘Our business. I said the other day…’

‘Oh I heard you. I even believed you for a while.’ Tina shook her head. ‘And yet it was just words. Something to say.’

‘I meant it.’

Tina bit her lip. Bert’s reassurance that she was allowed to be upset tripped through her head again. ‘Tell me, Sam, how does co-running a business work in your mind?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I have always been under the impression that discussion of ideas and decisions are part of any joint-run venture, or am I naïve in that assumption? Is it just Thea who gets that courtesy?’

‘I—’

Sam got no further. Now she’d started, Tina daren’t stop talking in case she lost her nerve and began apologising for being upset.

‘The deal was that I would carry on working for the Trust to keep the money coming in while we got established, then I’d give up and we’d be a proper partnership, running Mill Grange between us.’

‘And it still is.’

‘Yet in the past two days, while I was away from the manor, I discover you’ve invited another person to stay and you intend to design a certificated archaeology course, possibly sponsored by Landscape Treasures. Not only that, but you’re intending to employ an archaeology tutor to teach it. I wonder what you’ll have decided once I get home from Taunton tomorrow.’

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Tina was sprinting across the garden towards the gate, tears streaming down her face. Giving chase, he watched as she passed through the open kitchen door, safe in the knowledge that he couldn’t follow her.

Anger and frustration welled up inside Sam as he stood at the open doorway. Tina had already disappeared into the depths of the house.

He took a step forward. Sweat broke out on Sam’s forehead and he felt his lungs contract. Holding on to the sides of the doorframe he struggled to breathe, but he didn’t step backwards.

The attics, he knew from the video relays he’d shared with Thea, were up narrow stairs and ran along an equally narrow corridor.

Enclosed and narrow.

Nausea swam up his throat. A flash of orange crossed the backs of his eyes, sending Sam’s fingernails digging into the doorframe. Perspiration crept along his spine; suddenly his ponytail was sticking to his back.

‘This is ridiculous.’ He took another step forward. ‘I have to talk to Tina.’

The scent of burning was suddenly overwhelming. It filled his nostrils and coated his tongue. The kitchen table turned from solid oak to molten lava before his blinking eyes as the world turned green.

Twenty-Three

September 10th

Tina hadn’t let go of his hand. She wasn’t sure how Sam would react when he came round and found he was still inside Mill Grange.

Woody had found him sprawled across the kitchen floor, a hand at his throat, as if he was choking. They weren’t sure if Sam had tripped and knocked himself out or fainted, but as he’d fallen, he’d hit his head on the tiled floor. The wound he’d got in the process was slight; a small cut that would, in time, become the centre of an impressive bruise. Tina tried not to think about what Woody might have found if Sam had caught his head on the corner of the table as he’d fallen.

Her eyes were red from crying as she sat on the kitchen floor, next to Sam, who lay in the recovery position. ‘Do you think we were right not to call an ambulance?’

Replying with more confidence than she felt, Thea said, ‘Woody seems to know what to do. He said something about having done medical training before he dashed to fetch the first aid kit from the office. I wasn’t really listening. Anyway, Sam wouldn’t cope well in an enclosed hospital environment.’

Tina kept her gaze on Sam rather than Thea, who was sat cross-legged on the floor next to her. ‘This is why I never argue. It always makes things worse.’

Returning with an instant ice pack from the first aid kit, Woody passed it to Tina. ‘Place that over the bump. How’s his breathing?’

‘Steady.’ Tina swallowed. ‘It’s as if he’s asleep. Is that okay?’

‘If he hasn’t come around in another ninety seconds, then I’ll have to call an ambulance.’

‘But he’ll hate hospital. He’d really freak out.’

Woody placed a hand on Tina’s shoulder. ‘I know.’

Thea, her need for caffeine intense, spoke softly, ‘You didn’t do this, Tina.’

‘I caused it though. If I hadn’t got so upset and run away when Sam was trying to explain, then he wouldn’t have followed me, and…’

‘And he wouldn’t be inside.’ Helen, who’d been quietly moving around the kitchen, knelt down next to the others, a tray laden with hot buttered toast and marmalade in her hands. ‘I’m new here, you don’t know me, and I’m sorry you weren’t asked before I was invited to stay, but, assuming he’s okay, awful though this is, I think it needed to happen.’

‘What?’ Tina whispered as she soothed a palm over Sam’s forehead.

Instead of answering, Helen placed a slice of toast on a plate and passed it to Tina. ‘You have to eat. You’ll need to be strong when Sam comes around.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Someone has to run this place, look after three guests, and see them safely away from here tomorrow. This is your business too. Or was the argument you told us about just a fit of jealousy now you’re having to share Sam with other people?’

‘Helen!’ Thea took a sharp intake of breath.

Picking up some toast for herself, Helen sat