"Won't it be ace to have a proper music room, finally?" Drew enthused.

"Yeah," Ned agreed, looking around the den. "It's the perfect size and all. And you know, if you'd a mind to, you could add on back here, make this into a mixing booth, you'd be set up with a real studio, like."

Drew followed him outside, to where the bins were kept.

Ned was right. The bins could easily be moved to the kitchen garden, then there'd be plenty of room for a booth here, it would just be a matter of soundproofing the den.

"Neddy, you're a genius," he declared.

"All I ask is that you acknowledge it," Ned quipped with a grin.

"I'm getting Lance out here today if I can to get going on this," Drew continued, pulling out his phone. "Maybe we could even do a little recording out here next summer, if it's finished in time."

"You want me to contact the other two?" Ned asked.

Drew nodded, his mind already focused on what he wanted to discuss with Lance, the technical advisor who was in charge of recording their last album. He'd know who to contact about remodeling and permits and all that.

"Gary and Luke can be here by week's end," Ned told Drew when he got off the phone. "Gars is in Los Angeles, and Luke is in New York, but both are just playing, so no worries."

Drew nodded. "Gary get that mess in Chicago all worked out?" he asked.

Ned shrugged. "Dunno. I asked him about it, but all he did was laugh."

Drew shook his head. "It's nothing to laugh about. Gary spends his money fastest of all of us, and that woman? What's her name?

"LeeAnne," Ned supplied. "LeeAnne Marcum."

"Right," Drew agreed. "She's asking for a lot."

"What do you mean? How much upkeep does one little baby need?"

They headed back to the kitchen to make tea and start breakfast as they talked. Drew knew that his mother would smell the tea and food and wake up and take over preparations, so he didn't really hurry.

"It's not about how much a baby needs, Ned, it's about how much it's entitled to or whatever." Drew filled the kettle and plugged it in. "If Gars didn't have much money, she wouldn't be asking for much, but even with how much he spends, he's loaded compared to your average bloke, so any child of his is entitled to live like the child of a wealthy person, see? And that's on top of her wanting all of her medical bills paid for and all."

"Well, what about her, doesn't she have to take responsibility for some of the financial burden?" Ned's green eyes were wide and questioning as he took sausages out of the fridge and lit the flame on the stove.

Drew gave him a look. "She's a what do you call it, one of those people who does people's nails--"

"A manicurist?"

"Yeah, a manicurist, so how much money do you think she makes?"

Ned made a face. "God, this is going to end up costing Gars a fortune, innit?"

Ellie entered the kitchen with her typical quick footsteps, looking like she'd already been up for hours. "Poor Gary," she commiserated. "Becoming a father should be a happy occasion, not some kind of legal contract with financial considerations and arbitration and lawyers and all this nonsense." She shook her head and motioned for Ned to hand her the spatula.

"I hope you boys have learnt your lesson from this," she admonished, her expression serious.

"No worries, mum," Ned assured her with a grin. "We always wrap our willies, don't we, Drew?"

"Oh, eww, it's too early for this kind of talk," Noah objected as he walked into the kitchen, curly blond head a bed-heady mess. "You lot need to ring a bell or something when you're going to get into this sort of rubbish before I've even had my tea."

They all sat down to eat with second cups of tea, appreciating the peace and quiet of the morning countryside. Ellie opened the windows and French doors to let in the fresh air.

"God, listen to those birds!" she declared. "And smell those delicious roses," she added, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

"I don't think a smell can be called 'delicious,'" Drew retorted, helping himself to more eggs.

"Shut up," Ellie said from her place at the doors without turning around. "This is just glorious. That girl is just a marvel at gardening, isn't she?" She returned to the table to nibble on some toast.

"Did you really tell her you were going to rip the roses out to put in a putting green or whatever?" Noah asked with his mouth full.

"No, I didn't," Drew responded. He looked at Noah as if the younger boy were too stupid to be his brother. "I said I was thinking about taking the roses out to put in a tennis court. Which is a whole different thing."

"Son, you didn't!" Ellie was horrified. "Even if you were considering such a terrible plan, why would you say that to her? It's obvious she loves the rose garden, loves tending it. Why would you go out of your way to upset such a sweet person?"

"Mum, I think you're missing the point, here."

"Which is?"

"If I want to tear up the bloody rose garden to put in a tennis court, it's my bloody prerogative, then, isn't it?"

"You'll take care to watch your language at any table where I'm seated, son, whether or not it's in a house you own," Ellie said, her voice stern and clipped.

Drew had the good grace to look apologetic.

"Sorry. But you see what I'm saying, don't you? Everyone's acting like the house is mine, but the grounds belong to her or something! And they don't! When I bought this place, I bought the whole of Langford Estate, all twenty four acres, which includes the house, all the outbuildings, the woods, and all the gardens." Drew was indignant.

"You wanted me to go apologize to her, and I did. I drove twenty miles to pick up the ruddy flowers and take them to her in the middle of the night, looking like I was mental, by the way, you could see it in her face when she opened the door in her pajamas.

"She was very rude to me the day we met, I'll have you know," he continued. "Even after she knew who I was."

"Oh?" Ellie's voice was mild. "That must've been quite a change for you."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Just what I said. You're so used to people having their noses up your bum, it must've been strange for you to have someone treat you in such a manner."

"It--it was," Drew acknowledged. "And now you're all acting like I poisoned her dog or something, instead of simply making a normal, rational decision to remodel a property that I've purchased."

He tried to drink from an already empty tea cup, and set it down with a bang. "Everyone seems to be forgetting that I am, in fact, in the right here! If I want to tear out the rose garden, I'm bloody allowed!"

He rose abruptly and left the table, nearly tripping over William Wallace, who was again hovering around, hoping for some kind soul to sneak him some scraps from the table.

"Wow." Noah was impressed. "Why does he get wound up so tight about this one thing?"

Ned shook his head, taking a sip of his own tea. "Dunno."

"He knows that, even if the facts are on his side, he's wrong emotionally, and that he's not being very nice to Chiara, and it's bothering him, because he's actually quite a nice person, that's all. He's not used to being accountable for his actions."

"What? What does that mean?"

"Never mind, son. Hurry up and finish eating so I can clean the dishes and we can get started on our day, all right?"

☀️🌳☀️🌳☀️🌳☀️🌳☀️🌳☀️🌳☀️

"Dad, no, wait for me, okay? Just give me an hour and I can go with you," Chiara begged.

"No, child, no need, I can get this done on my own, don't you know," Bert replied, pulling his hat on as he headed for the door. "Isn't this why we bought two trucks?"

"But it's too much work for one person, and if I'm with you, we can get it done in less than half the time. I just need to be here to sign for the order, and they're on their way, so just wait, and we'll go together, please?"

But Bert was grabbing the keys from the hook already.

"Then I'm coming as soon as I sign for the bark, okay?"

"No, like I said, there's no need," Bert repeated from the open door. "Since you're staying, you can get started sorting the supplies for tomorrow, when we have to go out, leave the development work to me. We've no business wasting petrol driving two trucks to the same job, have we?"

Reluctantly, Chiara nodded and waved to her father as he pulled out. What she wanted to say but didn't was that he was too old to be dragging all those heavy pots by himself, even with the help of a pushcart.

He had married late, and therefore had become a father late, and though Chiara knew this wasn't technically her fault, she worried when she saw how stooped he was becoming. Her friends' fathers were still relatively spry and in their forties, but Bert Cavuto was pushing sixty-five. His hair was already nearly completely white, and she was frequently mistaken for his granddaughter.

As she puttered around the shop and greenhouse while waiting for the bark delivery, her thoughts went once again to Drew Pennington and the pretty orchid which was still sitting on their kitchen table.

He wouldn't really rip out that beautiful rose garden for a tennis court, would he?

Some of those roses were old growth hybrids that weren't even available anymore, was he even aware of that?

God, Chiara, what a stupid question, of course he wasn't aware of that. He was only aware of what his hair looked like, and how many pretty girls he could shag, how much drugs he could do or whatever.

She knew she wasn't being fair. She'd never been super into pop music, and she didn't know much about him or his band, Manderley Dreams, but as far as she knew, he'd never been in trouble for illicit drug use or anything like that. Only one of the band members, Gary Pillsbury, who played the bass, was known for being a carouser, as far as she could remember.

The bark arrived, and she signed for it and supervised where it was offloaded.

Then, as she did the prep work for the next day, on a whim, she pulled up Manderley Dreams' most recent albums on her phone and listened as she worked.

Drew Pennington had a beautiful voice, sexy, deep and soulful, and their music had really matured, she reflected. And if that was him playing the piano, he was very talented in that respect as well. Their harmonies were impeccable, and they'd obviously spent a lot of time working on improving since their early days as a teenybopper boyband.

By the time she was finished, it was well into the afternoon, and oddly, because she'd spent the last few hours listening to their music, she felt like she'd spent the morning with Drew himself, and that it had been time pleasantly spent.

Very nice.