An Unwanted Inheritance by Imogen Clark

Author:Imogen Clark [Clark, Imogen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2022-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

32

Ellie stood and stared at their house before going in. It felt like a perfectly normal Sunday morning. James was on the drive, hosepipe in hand, cleaning his car. The girls were on the trampoline; she could hear their shrieks even though she couldn’t see them from where she was.

But nothing was normal. It felt as if someone had turned her upside down and shaken her.

James, somehow sensing she was there, looked up and gave her a wave. ‘You’re back soon,’ he said. ‘How did it go?’

Ellie had the strange, other-worldly feeling that she needed to decompress from one situation into the other before she could share what she’d learnt.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to make a cup of tea and then I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘Okay,’ said James cheerfully, turning the hose head on to a more vigorous jet, which he aimed at a white teardrop of bird poo on the windscreen. ‘I won’t be long.’

Ellie slipped into the house and immediately felt calmed by the familiar things that surrounded her. She breathed in the smell of their family, not really able to identify particular elements but recognising it as a whole. Her home. Her world. Safe, secure, slightly rocked by what she had just learnt about her father and brother, but still fundamentally unassailable.

As she moved about the kitchen making tea, she pondered what James was going to say about the money they had given Nathan. He’d be annoyed, she suspected. It was only ten thousand pounds but James didn’t like to be hoodwinked. It was going to leave a sour taste between her husband and her brother for a while. Ellie didn’t want that. The Frosts (she still counted herself in their number even though technically she was a Fisher) were tightly bound together, always had been. It was unthinkable that something like this would get between them. Yes, Nathan had been underhand, or actually downright dishonest, but what if he had other issues he was battling with that she knew nothing about? She and James should rise above it all and accept what he had done graciously.

The more she thought about this approach, the more she liked it. She could persuade James to go for it too, she thought. He liked to be magnanimous. And when she explained that Max hadn’t even been aware that Nathan had been sharking around for money, then James would be persuaded that they were at least less innocent than him.

Ten minutes later James appeared, slipping his feet out of his wellingtons at the back door and coming stocking-footed into the kitchen. His hands were red and mottled from long exposure to hot soapy water and he dried them on a towel before sitting down next to her.

‘That for me?’ he asked as he picked up one of the mugs of tea and took a drink. ‘Thanks. Just what I needed. So, what did your mum say? Could she cast any light on the money?’ His voice sounded eager, enthusiastic for news.

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