She was wan and deflated.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Oh, yeah, it was fine,’ Laurel said, pulling her lips into a tight smile. ‘Fine,’ she repeated, pouring a tiny drop of tea into her cup to see if it had steeped long enough. Apparently not.
‘Hey, if something is going on, you can talk to me about it if you want,’ he said, leaning towards her across the table. ‘I’m sorry about talking to Jack as well, didn’t mean to put my foot in it.’
It was an unthinking movement. He reached across the table to graze her arm with his fingertips. Laurel’s eyes rested where his skin touched hers, before flicking her eyes up to his. There was a swirling warmth in the pit of his stomach and a definite tightening of his trousers because the way her teeth sank into her bottom lip made all sort of dirty,filthy, things flash through his mind.
But this was Laurel, they were getting on, and he didn’t want to ruin that for a quick roll in the hay. He leaned back in his chair, picking up his coffee cup with both hands. No touching.
‘Yeah, don’t worry about it, you weren’t to know.’ She flashed him a tight smile. ‘It’s just money stuff. There’s never enough is there?’
‘No, there isn’t,’ he said.
‘Tell me about the site. Any finds? Do you think Alex will be happy? Is there anything I can do?’ Her brow creased anxiously and he frowned. He didn’t want her to worry about stuff like that.
‘Site is going well, we’ve got a few more finds, there’s definitely more under there. I’m having Harold back to expand the trenches soon,’ he said, sipping his coffee.
Laurel nodded and poured her tea. She looked up at him, as if wondering how much to tell him. With Rebecca and Jack’s minefield relationship, he was pretty sure Laurel wouldn’t want to burden them with whatever was going on, and she probably needed someone to vent to. He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
‘I need this to work,’ she started. ‘I need Alex to be impressed, I need his recommendations for funding.’
‘Is the farm in trouble?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she said with a smile. ‘It’s just not as financially healthy as I would like it to be, and that funding would be very welcome.’
Nate nodded for her to continue.
‘It’s like all businesses, I suppose. You never get all the money you ask for, and there’s always unexpected costs. We’re not developing the site field, we’re not getting as much income from the bunkhouses this year because we’ve given them to the dig at cost.’ She shook her head slightly. ‘It’s just tighter than I would like.’
He didn’t have any sage advice about running a business or a farm, so he wisely kept quiet.
‘Anyway,’ she said, swallowing. ‘Tell me about Alex tomorrow, what can I do to help?’
‘Alex is arriving about eleven. I’ll show him the site, we’ll have lunch here and then we’ll head up to your office, if you don’t mind, so we can go through some details?’
Laurel set her teacup daintily back in the saucer. ‘Yeah, of course. I’ll make myself scarce tomorrow afternoon.’
‘No, it’s okay, you should be there as well.’
Laurel’s nose turned up. ‘Okay, if you think so?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ Nate shrugged at her.
‘You guys still close?’ she asked, her face neutral.
Nate sipped his drink. ‘Not as much as we used to be. But yeah, I suppose.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyes flicked around the cafe before she sighed. ‘I mean, he was a bit of a dick when we were at university.’
‘I get what you mean, but he’s a good guy underneath. He really is,’ Nate said, unsure why he was defending Alex. Habit probably. ‘You should definitely meet him. You’re the face of Little Willow Farm after all.’
She nearly choked on her tea.
‘Oh god, am I? I’m pretty sure that’s my dad. Or Jack. It’s not me, is it?’
‘Of course it’s you.’ That much was obvious. Well, it was to him anyway. ‘You’re the lifeblood of this place. Absolutely nothing would get done without you.’
