Page 64 of A Winter Wish

“Got to be, hasn’t it?” They each opted for different cider to try, then headed outside to the sprawling alfresco terrace, taking a seat down on the lower part. One side of the terrace had a wooden wall, which had been painted a dark green, with different colored apples and pears against the backdrop. And above the pub stood a line of the Georgian buildings Bath was famous for, looking down at them against the evening sky.

Lexie took a sip of her cider and told herself to be careful—it was delicious and she could definitely get carried away and drink it too quickly. “So,” she said, keeping her bright smile in place. “How’s the house sale going?”

Rachel took a sip of her own drink. “Well, there’s a buyer interested, but it’s not gone through yet.” She set her pint down on the table. “But we don’t have to talk about it if you…”

“It’s fine,” Lexie said firmly. “Honestly.” They couldn’t just ignore it—and besides, these days she wasn’t entirely sure she had actually gotten the short end of the stick. She had to work for the company, yes, had to prove something, and the income wasn’t guaranteed—but the longer she worked there, the less black-and-white it had become, and she’d found herself questioning her initial idea that giving Rachel the house had been as simple as declaring her the favorite daughter. Richard had cared about the company, and he’d left it to her—that was saying something, wasn’t it? She wondered now if Rachel felt the same way. She’d never shown any sign of it—but had she ever felt bitter that Lexie had gotten half the company? She didn’t know how to ask.

“I guess I just feel weird about it,” Rachel said now. “Selling the house. It was his home, you know? And I’m just…” Rachel waved a hand in the air to finish the sentence.

“Did you ever visit him there?” Lexie asked.

“Yeah, all the time. He moved out nearly four years ago—after I left for uni—but because of, well, stuff with my mum, it sort of ended up feeling more like home than my own house, in the long run. Then Mum moved too, a couple of years ago.”

“After they got divorced?”

There was a beat while Rachel glanced at her, then away again. “They didn’t actually divorce.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I’d heard…” That he’d left her—left another family.

“No, I mean, they did separate, they just didn’t get the papers or whatever. I think maybe Dad thought it might not be permanent, but, well…” She tapped her fingernails—still bitten down—against her pint glass. “It’s been causing a few problems, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

Rachel shot her one of those surreptitious glances. Maybe she felt too awkward, talking about this. Really, Lexie, you could have picked an easier topic to kick things off.

“Mum thought the house would go to her,” Rachel said. “She thought she’d get more than she did, anyway.” Rachel closed her eyes. “That’s incredibly callous, I know.” Was it any less callous than Lexie feeling jealous that Rachel had been given the house, back in December? Her stomach laced with guilt, which sat there uncomfortably as she took another sip of cider.

“How come they didn’t divorce?” Lexie asked. Then winced. “Sorry, that’s intrusive.”

“No, it’s OK,” Rachel said, though her tapping on the glass became a bit more frantic. Lexie caught a glint of the same ring she’d been wearing last time—the beautiful sapphire. “It’s just complicated,” Rachel said eventually—and Lexie knew to let it drop.

“So how’s everything else?” she asked instead. “How’s…work?” She frowned. “Rachel—what do you actually do for work?” They caught each other’s eye, and both burst out laughing, easing the tension between them.

“I’m actually training to be a vet. So lots more studying still for me.”

“Wow. How did I not know this?” That was a silly question to ask, all things considered, and she decided to plow on. “So you’re super-brainy. Good to know.”

Rachel wrinkled her nose. “I think I just work hard. And luckily I’m good at exams. But I suppose we’ll see if I’m actually good at it later down the line.”

“I was terrible at exams,” Lexie said. She wondered where Rachel got it from. Had her dad been academic? She didn’t really know.

“My mum was very insistent on good grades and all that while I was growing up,” Rachel said, like she was reading Lexie’s mind. “Dad didn’t seem to mind, as long as I was happy, but she went on and on about the fact that I’d be closing doors if I didn’t get straight A’s or whatever.”

“She must be pleased you’re becoming a vet, then.”

There was a pause, where Rachel seemed to focus intently on one of the hand-painted apples on the wall. “Maybe she is,” she said eventually. “My mum and I…We’re not really talking at the moment.” Lexie desperately wanted to ask why, and how Richard factored into it all, but she also didn’t want to push. Rachel started to toy with the ring on her hand, twisting it one way then the other.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t—”

“It’s OK,” Rachel said. They were both being so careful around each other, Lexie thought. Like one false move might break this tentative step toward something. “Mum had already made compromises, or so she said.” She sighed. “Marrying a divorced man was not part of the plan, and she had a lot of guilt about the fact that she was the cause of that divorce, I think. She’s never actually said that to me—we don’t have that kind of relationship—but I’ve come to that conclusion after hours of therapy.” She shot Lexie a wry smile, and Lexie’s own lips twitched in response.

“I’d always assumed you were the well-adjusted sister.”

“Oh, you have no idea. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Quite the opposite—we’ll have much more in common this way.”

Rachel laughed a little. “Anyway, Mum dealt badly with all that—it’s probably why she stopped wanting you around.” Her voice was apologetic now, and Lexie remembered what Rachel had said when they met before, outside the abbey—that it could have been Jody who stopped Lexie going to Madrid. “She didn’t want the reminder that she was a home-wrecker.”