Face the Wind and Fly

Book 0: The Heartlands Series

by Jenny Harper

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

She builds wind farms, he detests them. Can they ever generate love?



After fifteen happy years of marriage, Kate Courtenay discovers that her charismatic novelist husband is spending more and more of his time with a young fan. She throws herself into her work, a controversial wind farm that¿s stirring up tempers in the local community. Sparks fly when she goes head to head against its most outspoken opponent, local gardener Ibsen Brown ¿ a man with a past of his own. But a scheme for a local community garden brings the sparring-partners together, producing the sort of electricity that threatens to short-circuit the whole system.

Release date: November 13, 2014

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 361

Sample

Chapter One

‘You’re late,’ Andrew Courtenay said unnecessarily as his wife Kate hurried into the kitchen, a blur of arms and legs and shopping. He had already changed into his dinner suit and was lounging against the island unit in the middle of the room sipping white wine, a perfect picture of relaxation and readiness.

Kate dropped the bags and stared at him.

‘What?’ He smoothed down his tie and patted his hair self-consciously. ‘Did I spill curry down my front the last time I had this on? Should I have clipped my nose hairs?’

Andrew cut a fine figure, but then, he always had done. When they first met, she had just graduated but he’d been a young-looking forty-one. Sixteen years into their marriage, he inhabited his skin with assuredness. Master and Commander. Her master. At least, the owner of her heart – but not, right now, of her affections.  Her mind still whirling with the news she’d been given at work she said, more curtly than she meant to, ‘I thought you said you’d drive.’

‘Ah.’ He studied the glass in his hand and then looked at the clock. ‘I forgot. I was in need. Martyne has been particularly difficult today.’

Martyne Noreis was the eponymous hero of Andrew’s bestselling medieval murder mysteries.

Martyne Noreis and the Circle of Fire

Martyne Noreis and the Woman in Scarlet

Martyne Noreis an d —

Nine of them, the tenth to be published shortly.

‘Martyne was difficult?’ she echoed, thinking of the project she’d just been handed and wondering what could possibly be so challenging about a character that had never existed.

Andrew wrote his novels in the small room next to the front door of Willow Corner, their home in the pretty conservation village of Forgie. His study overlooked the garden on two sides and had book-covered walls and a leather sofa. In winter, Andrew lit the fire. While Kate scurried into whatever the weather chose to throw at her, frequently with her hard hat in one hand and jacket and boots in the other, Andrew sidled down the comfortably carpeted stairs a civilised hour or so later, put a match to the kindling, and settled to his thoughts without ever having to put a toe out of the door. Where Andrew’s life was lived from the study, Kate spent much of hers at the top of some wind-blown hill staring at wind turbines, or where they would shortly appear.

Kate liked wind turbines, which was good, because her job was to build them, whole farms of the things. Now, though, standing in the kitchen in mud-spattered trousers and still with her high-visibility vest over her jacket, she wondered why the hell she’d picked engineering when there must be a hundred other less challenging careers she could have chosen.

‘I really could do with a— Oh, never mind.’

Sometimes she felt she had to fight with the fictional Martyne and his perfectly beautiful, perfectly sensible wife Ellyn for Andrew’s attention, but she and Andrew had agreed their division of labour years ago. She was to be free to pursue her ambitions as an engineer, he to follow his dream of writing and, because he worked from home, to look after their son Ninian. Somewhere in the small print of that agreement lay all the dull minutiae of daily tasks, negotiated and renegotiated across the years.

She crossed the room to kiss him. The wine on his lips tasted tantalising. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, memories of this morning’s difficult meeting fading as his arms came round her, ‘I’ll have some champagne when we get there. I can survive.’

‘No, I’m safe, this is my first. I’ll do my duty.’

‘Really? I don’t mind. He’s your son.’

Tonight they were going to her stepson Harry’s engagement party. It would be a celebration, of course, but she knew it wouldn’t be quite as simple as that. When your stepson is older than you are, nothing is ever straightforward.

‘Kate,’ Andrew said, his eyes deep brown and burnished, like chestnuts after roasting. Their expression as he looked down at her was at once amused and resigned. ‘I’ll drive. One drink and you’re dangerous.’

He knew her well. She was small and slim and alcohol hit her system quickly. She kissed him again and smiled. ‘Okay. Thanks. Is Ninian ready?’

‘He’s in protest mode.’

‘Surely he can wear a tie for once, for his brother?’

‘You’d think so. Will you try?’

Kate loved her son, but Ninian was now a teenager and therefore unfathomable. ‘Should I be stern or pleading?’ As if it would make any difference.

‘Jolly?’

‘Right. I can do jolly. ‘Could you—?’ She gestured at the shopping helplessly, thinking of the shower, and choosing a dress, and shoes...

He glanced at his watch.

‘I know, I know, I’ll be quick.’

She knocked on Ninian’s door as she passed it. ‘Nearly ready? Ten minutes. Do you want to borrow one of Dad’s ties?’

Another grunt.

‘Ninian? Did you hear me?’

‘Yeah, I heard.’ Gruff but not surly. At least that was a bonus. ‘You’re all right.’

She took this to mean ‘I’ll find a tie’, and turned to her own needs.

Short hair was a blessing. It received quick attention as she showered, and a rub with a towel was all it needed afterwards. Kate – slim, energetic and well organised – was mistress of the quick change. All she ever needed was a minute to assess her mood, because her mood dictated which scarf she would wear.  In the male-dominated, frenetically busy world she inhabited, the scarf was a small but defiantly feminine gesture and what had started as a quirk had become an addiction. She hoarded scarves with a passion. Her collection nestled in a special section of her wardrobe, outnumbering her clothes by a factor of twenty – she needed nothing more than a couple of well-cut suits and some neat shift dresses in black, or white, or a plain, bold colour, because the chosen scarf set any outfit off to perfection. Draped, wound round and round her neck, knotted, tied, looped through itself or thrown over her shoulders as the mood took her, Kate’s scarf was her weather vane and her security blanket.

She wriggled into a black Moschino shift and put on the pearl choker Andrew had given her for their tenth wedding anniversary, because tonight was a special occasion. A pair of improbable heels added height and sophistication. She closed her eyes. Which scarf? The Georgina Von Etzdorf pansy-printed velvet? The Versace with its bold Greek key-pattern half-border and riotous scarlet poppies? The Weston agate silk-satin, all pale blues and browns and white?

Her eyes snapped open. She had it.

Twelve shelves faced her, each stacked neatly and colour-sorted. Kate knew exactly where each scarf was stored. She reached in and pulled out one of her treasures, the fantastic hand-woven Botan Peony silk and cashmere gauze in taupe and black, by legendary Japanese tattoo artist Horiyoshi the Third. For a moment she fingered it lovingly, admiring the subtly-drawn flowers, then she draped it carefully round her neck, rearranging it to ensure that the pearls were visible.

A touch of smoky grey eye colour and a dab of mascara were all that was still needed. Elfin, her best friend Charlotte called her: ‘Audrey Hepburn in a hard hat.’ Kate surveyed herself in the mirror. No sign of Hard-hat Kate now, the transformation from business diva to soirée siren was complete.

She ran downstairs and opened the front door. It was April and all week the sun had been shining – Edinburgh had been hotter than Palma, Rome or Hawaii. Now, out of the blue, it had started snowing and the garden had turned white. She looked at it with dismay.

‘I should be wearing boots,’ she called to Andrew.

‘Wear boots then,’ he responded unsympathetically, then shouted up the stairs, ‘Ninian! We’re off. Hurry up.’

She knew it was too much to expect understanding, on this issue at least. All Andrew’s imaginative empathy was in the Middle Ages, where Ellyn Noreis would be prosaically practical about boots. She threw on a coat, put her handbag over her head to protect it from the spiralling snowflakes, and ran the few yards to the car. She really didn’t want to be late, she hated being late and the last thing she wanted was an excuse for Harry to pass judgement on her timekeeping.

Ninian bundled into the back of the car a moment later and slammed the door. She swivelled round to look at him and gave an appreciative whistle. ‘Wow.’

‘What?’ Her fifteen-year-old glowered warningly.

‘You look great, that’s all.’ She turned away, smiling. Ninian never wore a tie outside of the dreaded school uniform – and then usually knotted at half-mast – but tonight smartness was mandatory.

Andrew slid in and started to reverse the car down Willow Corner’s short drive. He swung left at the gate, down the hill past the church, and slithered into the outskirts of Hailesbank. Kate, usually talkative, was still thinking about work and besides, she was wound up about tonight’s celebration. Andrew’s first wife Val would be there.  Sixteen years had passed since Kate’s affair with Andrew had precipitated a bitter divorce and she was sure that Val had still not forgiven her.

They crossed the River Hailes and headed down to the coast. When they reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, they drove through Portobello towards the city. Here the snow eased.

‘So what’ll I do all evening?’ Ninian asked from the back of the car.

‘Talk to people. Be nice. You’ll enjoy it.’

He grunted. ‘Bet it’ll be boring. I won’t know anyone.’

‘Harry and Jane’ll be there. And Charlotte Proctor.’

Another grunt.

Ninian had been a delightful child, whose main challenges were not boisterousness and cheek but shyness and caution. Right now the hormones were kicking in. His voice had broken and his shoulders were getting broad, and the natural, unselfconscious charm of boyhood had been replaced with a gaucheness that Kate sometimes found hard to watch.

‘Will there be speeches?’

She swung down the vanity mirror and got out her lipstick. Under the pretence of touching up her make-up, she was able to sneak a look at Ninian without having to swing round. Her sandy-haired, gangly boy was growing private. Once, she used to delight in hopping into the bath with him, her special treat to both of them after she got home from a long day at work, her chance to catch up on ‘Mum’ time. That stopped without either of them really noticing when Ninian reached six or thereabouts and she had never found a way to replace the comfortable affinity of such moments. And now, she sensed, her child was beginning to slip away from her. She swiped the stick across her lips and pursed them together. ‘I’m sure Harry will say something.’

‘Harry’s always got something to say,’ Andrew commented as he turned the car into London Road.

She smiled, but was wise enough not to let Andrew see. Experience had taught her to avoid criticising her husband’s son.

‘Why does he want a party, anyway?’ Ninian grumbled. ‘We already had dinner out.’

She tried to read his expression in the mirror but he was staring out of the side window. ‘It’s a chance for our families to meet. Just be happy for your brother. Make it a night to remember. It’ll be your turn one day.’

Ninian snorted. ‘No way.’

Andrew turned his head to glance at her and she had to work hard to stop herself laughing. So far as she was aware, Ninian hadn’t woken up to the lure of girls yet, but he would. And when her handsome, funny, essentially likeable young son sloughed off the gauche trappings of the teenager and recovered his inherent charm – look out world.

She flipped the mirror up and settled back into her seat. Tonight would be another ritual dance in this complicated family of hers, and she needed to be ready.

Chapter Two

Kate knew as soon as they set foot in the smart surroundings of Edinburgh’s exclusive Abercrombie Club that it wasn’t going to be easy. It was too crowded, too full of people she had never met and had little wish to talk to. She was not generally antisocial – quite the opposite – and her apprehension surprised her. She was used to connecting with strangers. But then, this party was for Harry, and Harry and Kate tiptoed round each other at best.

Her stepson’s greeting seemed to confirm her fears. He was waiting at the top of the stairs to greet his guests, but as soon as he saw her she sensed a shadow passing across his face. Would he never forget? His father was happy now, after all. As Harry bent, dutifully, to kiss her cheek, the deep alarm she had felt at his abiding unresponsiveness when she married Andrew came flooding back. He’d made it so hard for her and though she’d understood how he must feel, the memory of those years was bitter. It was a complex cocktail of emotions – easy to mix, impossible to separate.

 ‘Hello Harry,’ she said, resolutely cheerful. ‘Where is she, this gorgeous woman who has captured your heart?’

She saw him trying not to wince and knew that yet again she’d hit the wrong note. She never got it right, not with Harry. But he smiled and, even through whatever it was he was thinking, pride of possession shone through. ‘She was here a second ago. Ah, there she is – Jane!’ He reached out and laid a hand on his fiancée’s arm. ‘Here’s Dad and Kate.’

Harry always called her Kate. What else should he call her? The age difference was such an awkward one. How had Andrew ever thought she’d take easily to motherhood?  She’d only just finished being a student, for heaven’s sake, just graduated from living in messy shared flats, clubbing, drinking, dealing in easy laughter and long lies and endless days of zero responsibility. Then there’d been Andrew Courtenay, and they’d fallen in love, and her life had taken a direction that hadn’t been anywhere on the road map she’d drawn for herself.

Jane said, ‘Hi!’ and air-kissed her. She was effervescent, as sparkling as the bubbles in the champagne she was holding, the perfect foil to Harry’s worthiness.

‘You’re looking beautiful!’ Kate exclaimed, and meant it. Her own gamine looks drew compliments but she still envied women with Jane’s conventional kind of prettiness.

‘Thanks. Got to shine tonight, haven’t I?’

For all Jane’s vivaciousness, she seemed to Kate to lack warmth. Or maybe she had just picked up on Harry’s coolness? Already talking was difficult over the noise of conversation, so she kept it brief. ‘I’m so pleased for you both, Jane.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Courtenay.’

‘Kate,’ she corrected automatically, as she had many times already.

‘Kate,’ Jane repeated and smiled again – but already her gaze was directed behind her, to Andrew.

Kate gave up.

‘Champagne, madam?’

The waiter looked little older than Ninian. She picked up a glass and looked round for them both, but they’d already been swallowed up by the crowd. She inched her way towards the window, where there was a magnificent view across the gardens to the Castle.

‘Fabulous, isn’t it?’

‘Amazing.’

‘How do you know the couple?’

‘I’m Harry’s stepmother.’

‘Really? You don’t look nearly old enough.’

The amazement was all too familiar. The nineteen-year age difference between Andrew and herself always took people by surprise and everyone reacted differently. Kate negotiated the conversation on autopilot while her mind flitted back to this morning’s meeting. She’d been drawing, she remembered, only half listening because she knew she wasn’t involved in the project under discussion. She’d dragged her pencil across her notepad and watched as a fine, flowing line spread itself from edge to edge. She’d drawn another, the exact mirror image. A blade of a wind turbine materialised, as beautiful and symmetrical as a petal on a dahlia. Another flick. Two. A stem for her wind-flower. Her turbine was complete, ready to make its magic of turning God’s breath into power. Bold. Ingenious. Controversial.

‘And finally,’ she remembered Mark Matthews saying, ‘we come to Summerfield.’

 There was a touch on her elbow. Jerked back to the present, Kate focused on the earnest stranger who was talking to her. ‘I said, such a happy occasion, isn’t it? You must be very proud.’

‘Yes. Happy. Proud.’

‘Oh, there’s Mrs Slater. Will you excuse me, dear? I haven’t seen her in an age. Do you mind?’

‘Not at all. Nice to meet you.’

She should find Ninian. Still, she hadn’t had a moment to think about the meeting. She’d finished her drawing, she remembered, because Summerfield wasn’t her project. Hills had appeared, tufts of grass, a cloud. Her pencil had produced a small bee and she’d added a frowning, anthropomorphic face.

‘So what do you think, Kate?’

Mark was seated at the head of the table and ten faces were all staring at her expectantly. There’d been something else there too. Surprise? Shock? What had she missed?

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. What did you—?’

‘Summerfield,’ he’d said, weightily.

‘Yes?’ Summerfield was Jack’s project.

‘I’ve decided it would be best if you take this one on. What do you think?’

‘Jack’s doing Summerfield.’ She’d fingered her Burberry scarf like a comfort blanket. It was one of her favourites, in royal blue and turquoise with a section in bold houndstooth check.

‘Yes. That was the plan.’ Mark had spoken with elaborate patience. ‘But I have been discussing it with the senior management team and we’ve decided to make this change.’

Kate had fought rising concern. Why had the executive been involved in a decision about the project management of a very small-scale wind farm?

‘You are familiar with Summerfield?’

She had a degree in environmental science and a Masters in renewable energy technologies – she was not only familiar with the project, she’d done much of the early planning for it. ‘Yes of course, you know I am.’

‘So I take it there’s no problem.’

He’d said it as a statement rather than a question and she’d realised that his earlier ‘What do you think?’ phrase had been in the same category: rhetorical. ‘What do you think?’ meant ‘starting Monday’.

Jack was avoiding her gaze, studying the table as though the graining on the cheap veneer held all the fascination of sixteenth-century Italian intaglio.

‘Summerfield? Me?’

‘I know you’re used to running things on a rather grander scale, but you know more about it than anyone. It makes sense.’

‘I couldn’t do it. Sorry. We discussed this, Mark. Behind-the-scenes work is one thing, but high visibility involvement is out of the question.’

Don’t argue with your boss. Not in public.

Too late.

‘Jack’s terrific, but we need your experience on this one. Sorry.’

Kate’s glass was empty again. How had that happened? She dumped it on a passing tray and picked up a glass of juice. It wouldn’t do to get tiddly tonight.

Summerfield! She paraded the difficulties in her head.

Summerfield was a small council estate that sat like a pimple on the forehead of the charming old village of Forgie, east of Edinburgh. Just twelve wind turbines were planned and by the time the public consultation was over, there would probably only be eight. They would sit on the hillside above the council estate. This aspect of the project was hardly problematic – AeGen would ensure that there would be significant community benefits to the estate and the residents of Summerfield would almost certainly be happy to accept the trade-off: a few wind turbines in exchange for a new community leisure and sports centre, additional home insulation or double glazing perhaps. No – the problem would be the residents of the small, pretty, historic and extremely well-heeled village of Forgie itself.

And Forgie was where Kate lived.

Local knowledge. They were anticipating trouble and were expecting her to draw on the bank of goodwill and friendship they assumed she must have in the village. Mark had handed her a briefcase full of toxins and she’d been forced to accept it.

Kate wiped a hand over her forehead. What a day. Someone near her said, ‘Isn’t that Andrew Courtenay over there? Harry’s father? The novelist?’

She followed the gaze and saw that Andrew was with a rather oddly dressed girl, maybe about Jane’s age, late twenties. When she drew close she heard Andrew say, ‘So he poisoned the woman using a concoction of berries of belladonna, stewed and stirred into hot ale.’

The girl looked rapt. ‘Really?’ 

Andrew loved to impress. Some novelists hid behind their laptops, but Andrew revelled in an audience. He’d been a teacher before he turned novelist, and the innate showman in him still survived. He took Kate’s elbow and drew her in. ‘Kate, this is Sophie MacAteer. She’s a cousin of Jane’s.’

‘And a huge fan of Mr Courtenay’s books. Really. I’ve read all of them.’

‘But that’s just the first murder in the latest novel.’ Andrew looked at Sophie indolently. Andrew’s lazy gaze could be intoxicating, as Kate knew from experience. She could see that Sophie was transfixed. She was wearing a cloche hat – or was it a headscarf? – pulled tightly over her hair and gathered into a knot on one side, just above her ear, completely concealing her hair so that she couldn’t be sure what colour it was. The thing was a statement, though quite what it was saying Kate wasn’t sure. Her skin was as pale and translucent as a baby’s, she had plucked her eyebrows and painted her lips dark red. She was certainly striking.

‘Does the woman die?’

‘Of course. Would there be a story if she didn’t?’

‘But does the boy get caught?’ she persisted.

Over the years Andrew had learned how to deal with admiring fans. ‘Well now,’ he temporised. ‘That would be telling. The book’s out next month. You must come to the launch party.’

He did it so easily. A fan delighted, another book sold. Tick. Job done.

Kate said, ‘Darling, I see Charlotte,’ and nodded in the direction of the stairwell, where Charlotte Proctor had just appeared.

Charlotte was Kate’s oldest friend. She’d shared a student flat with Charlotte and studied engineering with her husband, Mike. Kate had gone into renewable energy, Mike into oil and gas.

‘I’ll be over in a minute,’ Andrew smiled.

‘Hello Charlotte.’

‘Hi! You look fab.’

‘Where’s Mike?’

‘He’s offshore. Went yesterday. I’ve brought Dad instead.’

‘Kate!’ Frank Griffiths took her hands and kissed her ceremoniously, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek again. A gentleman of the old kind – courteous, affable, and erudite – he wore his dinner jacket and bow tie like a birthright. ‘You look supremely elegant, my darling, doesn’t she, Charlotte?’

‘Kate always looks magnificent.’

Compliments or no compliments, Frank was the chair of Summerfield and Forgie Community Council and an unrepentant opponent of wind farms. Kate foresaw trouble.

He leaned towards her and said, ‘This wind farm, Kate—’

Charlotte groaned and rolled her eyes. ‘Dad! Not here, please!’

‘—We’ve just been notified about the planning application.’

So I was right, Kate thought, it’s starting already.

In all their years of animated but affable conversations about renewable energy, Kate had never convinced Frank either of the need for it nor of the merits of new technologies and his reactions now were predictable. ‘The application’s just for a Met mast.’

‘It’s the first step to disaster.’

‘Hardly.’

Frank’s face was growing redder. ‘A wind farm above Summerfield would be a catastrophe for the whole neighbourhood.’

‘Dad!’

Frank stepped back. ‘I know it puts you in a difficult position, Kate,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone, ‘working for AeGen, but I’m sure you must have some kind of inside line that could help us in this consultation process.’

‘Inside line?’

‘You know, Kate, come on, some stuff on the QT, some facts and figures. Something that’ll help us fight the damned proposal. I know it’s your job but you can’t really want the blessed things hovering above Forgie, be truthful.’

‘They’ll hardly be visible from Forgie village.’ Kate decided to get it over with, risk swift execution rather than death by a thousand cuts. ‘Frank, I think you should know that I’ve been put in charge of the Summerfield project – so we’ll have plenty of opportunities to discuss this properly.’

He was clearly thunderstruck. Kate felt nothing but empathy, because his reaction exactly mirrored hers at the meeting that afternoon, but she could hardly show it.

‘Now,’ she said with forced cheerfulness, ‘come and let me introduce you to Jane’s parents, they’re right over here.’

Kate sat down for dinner and readjusted her scarf. Although the room was hot, the top table was by the window and she could feel a slight draught at her back. She draped it round her shoulders like a shawl, and took stock. Harry and Jane had seated Andrew next to Val, a small piece of manipulation she found unsettling. Andrew and his first wife had learned politeness, but a whole evening was a long time to sustain it. Harry was making a point with this arrangement and rightly or wrongly, Kate took it personally. Across the room, she saw Ninian, hunched over, his shoulders slumped. Was it just because he was finding the tie disagreeable, or had he found no-one to talk to? Harry was so inconsiderate, he should have seated Ninian here, with the rest of the family. She watched her son as he raised a pint glass to his lips. Had he drunk beer before? Not in her presence, certainly. Could he cope with the alcohol? The tables were so tightly packed there was no way of reaching him.

Ninian glanced across at her. She raised her eyebrows and picked up her own glass, tapping it queryingly then pointing at him. Ninian, in return, gave his innocent ‘What?’ look. She knew it well. ‘What me? Would I? As if!’ More often than not it concealed mischief of some sort. She frowned at him but he grinned and shrugged, draining his glass. It was impossible to do anything, she was completely boxed in.

After dinner, Harry stood up. ‘I’d like to say a few words.’ There was laughter, and comments – A few? That’ll be a first! and Go, man!

Across the room, Ninian was looking queasy. She’d find him as soon as she could.

But when the speeches finished and the throng of guests made their way out of the dining room, Ninian and Andrew had both disappeared again. Kate drifted from one group of guests to another, smiling vaguely, then finally spotted her son slipping back into the supper room. From there, glass doors led to a balcony. Perhaps, sensibly, he was looking for some air.

The room was dark. Ninian had crossed to the far side. Kate was about to call out to him when she saw him pull up sharply and stare at the balcony. There was someone out there. She couldn’t make out who, she just saw shadowy shapes, half hidden by the blinds at the far end. She started to pad across the carpet towards her son.

‘Oh, fuck!’ Ninian swivelled round and covered his hand with his mouth. It was a futile gesture. He threw up, violently, all over the plush carpet.

‘I haven’t been so embarrassed since you bared your bottom to the bishop when you were four,’ Kate said after the staff had masterminded the clean-up discreetly. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’

‘No, you’re all right,’ he muttered, not looking at her.

‘Are you ill? Or w. . .