Unless the rain was a deluge, she made the effort to get outdoors every day, pulling on the pair of sturdy gumboots she’d bought in the market town, with a thick waxed jacket and a scarf to hold her hair down in the wind that blew in from the west, whatever the weather. She tramped down the muddy lanes and across fields, where incurious cattle continued to graze, and weather-beaten sheep lifted heads to stare unblinkingly at her as she crossed their domain.
The bleakness all around her echoed her own.
How long had she been here now? The days had merged one into another, and then into weeks. It must be four, five weeks already.
But time had no meaning for her. She was living in a world of her own, bare and bleak, but it was what she wanted. What she needed.
She crossed to the log-burner and crouched down to feed it. She’d mastered the art of keeping it alight, damping down all night, then building it up again in the morning. Now, by midday, the little sitting room was warm, despite the raw cold outside and the sodden, chill air.
Closing the door of the log-burner, she straightened. And turned her head sharply. She could hear a car approaching.
It was a car, definitely, not the tractor in which the local farmer sometimes lumbered past the cottage on his way to his fields. Warily, she crossed to the little deep inset window and peered out across the lane. A huge four-by-four was drawing up, its sides covered in newly spattered mud from the unmetalled lane, its wheels half a foot deep in a waterlogged rut.
Was this the letting agent? The local farmer? Someone who was completely lost down this dead-end lane? Someone was getting out. She heard a car door slam, but she couldn’t see from this side. She quit her post and headed for the front door, pulling it open.
And froze.
Disbelief drowned her. She could not be seeing what she was. She couldn’t…
It can’t be him—it can’t, it can’t! It’s impossible. Impossible! He can’t be here. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t!
But he was. Striding up to her.
Her vision swam, and she clutched at the doorframe to steady herself. He stopped in front of her. Tall. Overpowering.
Intimidating.
A shot of emotion bolted through her. It wasn’t fear—it couldn’t be fear, surely it couldn’t be fear? But it was strong, and sharp and it seized her lungs.
‘Alexa.’
It was all he said, standing there, confronting her.
‘How—how did you…?’ Her frail voice failed.
But he didn’t answer, merely steered past her, going into the cottage. Numbly she followed him. He seemed far too tall for its low-pitched confines. He strode into the living room, where the log-burner beckoned, and positioned himself in front of it, looking around the room. Then his gaze swept back to Alexa, standing frozen by the doorway. His eyes glittered.
‘Why?’
A single word, but to Alexa it held a universe of demand. Shock was still seizing her, but she’d gone into that ultra-calm that accompanied the condition. Everything seemed to have stopped around her.
‘Why?’ she echoed. Her voice seemed calm too. Preternaturally calm. ‘Why what, precisely, Guy?’
‘Why did you run?’ His voice was less controlled than hers. Deeper. Harsher. And his eyes still burned green.
Alexa tilted her head. Very slightly, but discernibly. ‘What did I have to stay for? Your…offer…didn’t appeal.’
His eyes narrowed, pinpointing her with laser focus. ‘No? That wasn’t the message I got when I had your body beneath mine. You gave me a quite different message then, Alexa.’ His voice caressed her like the tip of a whip.
She felt colour flare in her cheeks. ‘That shouldn’t have happened.’
‘But it did. It did, Alexa, and now I want an explanation of what the hell you think you’re doing!’
He was angry. He was actually angry. Alexa stared at him. Inside, she felt a leashed, powerful emotion at seeing him standing here, in the very place she had sought refuge from him. But she would not let it loose. She would keep it smothered. Controlled.
‘How did you find me?’ Her voice was clipped. ‘No one knows I’m here.’
‘Your letting agency knows. I found them through the tenants in your flat.’ His tone was offhand.