She must have been around my height so Nathan had to bend down to receive his mother’s embrace. “Good to see you, my darling,” she said.
“What are you wearing?” he asked.
She laughed and pulled back, glancing down at her apron. “You’ll never guess who bought me this.”
“Jacob is such a narcissist,” Nathan said. “Why does he want his face plastered all over your apron?”
“Wants to stay close to his mother. Nothing wrong with that,” she replied.
I closed my passenger door and Nathan’s mother snapped her head in my direction. She lifted her hands in a gesture of greeting and, if I wasn’t mistaken, joy. “Madison!” she said, rounding the engine and coming to meet me. “Thank you so much for coming.” She pulled me into a hug as if I were a long-lost friend.
“Thank you for having me, Mrs. Cove. You’re very kind to open your home to me.”
“Of course. Any friend of Nathan’s is a friend of ours. And I insist you call me Carole.”
I shot Nathan a look. Had he told them who I was, or did they think I was just a friend? Or . . . that kind of friend?
He just rolled his eyes and went to get our luggage from the boot. “You go inside,” he said.
“I’m baking,” Carole said as she led me inside. “So it’s a bit of a mess but come through.”
Terracotta tiles covered the floor in the large hallway that had a long dining table in it and led to a pretty, cream kitchen.
“You have a beautiful home,” I said.
“You’re sweet to say so. We moved in just over five years ago and haven’t even given it a lick of paint. I thought we were busy when we were both working at St. Thomas and living in Battersea, but there’s something about being in the country that means I never sit still. I’m always baking or going on walks, dealing with the dogs or Nathan’s father.” She pulled out a wooden chair from the kitchen table and nodded, indicating that I should sit. “Do you live in London?”
“Hampstead. I rarely make it outside the M25.”
She shook her head. “I was the same way. Can I get you tea or coffee?”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you.”
“Where are we sleeping?” Nathan called from the dining hall.
“Madison’s in the yellow room and you’re in the office,” Carole yelled and then turned back to me. “We’ve got a full house tonight. Which of course John will complain about, but he secretly loves having his boys back. I’d have them all move back in if it was up to me.” Her eyes sparkled as if she was letting me in on a mischievous secret.
A loud buzzer sounded and I jumped.
“Apple pies,” she said and spun around toward the Aga.
Nathan appeared at the door and looked between us. “Any chance of a cup of tea?” he asked.
“If you get the pies out, I’ll do the tea,” Carole replied.
I laughed as Nathan wrestled on the lobster-shaped oven gloves and took out two enormous, perfectly golden pies. “Are you expecting to feed the five thousand?” he asked, setting them on the wire racks beside the Aga.
“Just my five sons, a hungry husband, and Madison—finally another woman in the house—and me. That’s eight people in case you’re counting.”
Carole turned to me. “When this lot was growing up, I thought about giving up medicine and just throwing the doors open to tourists. What was a few more mouths to feed?”
“It’s not like you didn’t have unpaid help,” Nathan said, his hair ruffled, his navy polo shirt stretched across his chest as he moved toward the kettle and flicked the switch. Looks like he was doing the tea as well. He seemed younger here somehow. As if Norfolk were some kind of anti-aging machine on Beauchamp Place that could take ten years off you instantly. Did I look younger when I was with my mother? I doubted it. Perhaps it was because I’d never moved away and come back. Maybe it was just because life was so much quieter in our house, or that my mother’s work always created some kind of barrier between us.
“Hey kids,” someone called from the hallway.
“I should have put more water in the kettle,” Nathan said, pulling the jug from its stand and heading to the sink.
A very tall blond, who was one of those men most accurately described as a hunk, appeared at the door. “Hey, mum. I parked right up by the barn if that’s okay.”
“Of course it is, darling. Very thoughtful.” Carole pulled another of her sons into a hug.
“I brought some wine,” he said, holding up a bottle of red.
That reminded me. I’d brought a gift. From my jumbo-sized tote, I pulled a bottle of wine and a box of shortbread and put them on the side. “I forgot I brought you these,” I said.