The first time they’d make love had been a little uncertain, venturing onto new ground with all the excited tremor of discovery. With the second time came a sudden realisation that the first hadn’t been the kind of one-time experience that couldn’t be repeated. When they woke early, and Jon made love to her yet again, it was a return to that blissful place where only they existed. Lost in each other but knowing that his smile was the only compass she needed.
They were on the road a little later than they’d anticipated. He’d held her close in the bright glow of dawn. Breakfast in bed, hot chocolate and croissants, couldn’t be rushed when it was eaten with Jon, and neither could the steaming bathtub, big enough to take them both.
But the road beckoned. As Jon settled into the driver’s seat of his car, he quirked his lips downwards. She felt it too. Last night had been special, but they were leaving now.
‘Back to reality, then.’ He twisted the key in the ignition. ‘You know where we’re going?’
Chloe reached forward, taking the folded map from the glove compartment. She knew exactly where they were going.
* * *
The cabin could only be reached by walking through the woods. No roads, no other buildings. Just the sound of their feet on the mud path and a flock of geese, squabbling on the lake.
‘How on earth did you find this place?’ Chloe hadn’t said where they were staying tonight, and Jon hadn’t asked, but her air of excited anticipation had told him she had something up her sleeve. When they’d drawn up at the farmhouse he’d thought that this would be an idyllic place to spend the night, but the place they were actually headed to was beyond all his expectations.
‘We came to stay here for three weeks one summer when I was a child. Marie-Christine and I were the same age and we made friends. We’ve kept in touch ever since.’ The young woman who’d welcomed them had greeted Chloe with a hug and a kiss, and they’d linked arms, talking together as the three of them walked past the stable block, converted for holiday lets, and across the fields to the edge of the wood.
‘They don’t advertise the cabin for let. It’s just for friends and family.’ I gave Marie-Christine a call and she said we could have it for tonight. It was a piece of luck.’
‘It’s fantastic. I didn’t think you could find anywhere quite as special as the chateau, but you proved me wrong.’ In truth, anywhere that Chloe allowed him to lie next to her was special.
‘I thought about what you said—about pacing myself.’
He put his arm around her shoulders, feeling the soft rhythm of her body against his. ‘And this is you pacing yourself? Give me a call when you decide to go into overdrive.’
She chuckled. ‘I love this place. Holds a lot of happy memories.’
‘Your father brought you here, but he never took you to his home?’ They only had another hundred miles to drive tomorrow before they reached the village where Hannah was staying.
/> ‘No, he never did. I never really thought about it, growing up. He never spoke all that much about his childhood, and you know how it is when you’re a kid. You just accept what you’re told and don’t think to ask.’
‘But Hannah wants to know where he came from?’
‘I want to know too. I used to think about it a lot after my parents died but life kind of took over. There was Hannah to look after and my studies and then I became ill. It all became swallowed up.’
‘But now Hannah and you have some time to explore.’
‘Maybe. I hope so.’ She opened the door of the cabin. One large room served as a kitchen, dining room and sitting room. ‘It’s just this room and two bedrooms. There’s no electricity and you have to pump whatever water you need.’
‘And you cook outside on the barbeque?’ He gestured towards the large double barbeque built under the eaves of the cabin.
‘Yes. Or if it’s raining, we can go to the farmhouse.’
‘Or get some bread and cheese. Fresh fruit and a bottle of wine...’ He put their bags down on the floor, folding his arms around her shoulders. ‘Just the two of us.’
‘That sounds so good.’ Her fingers traced fire across his chest, bringing back exquisite memories of last night and the promise of another, just as explosively sweet.
‘So...’ She glanced at the two doors at the far end of the main room. ‘Which bedroom are we going to start with?’
* * *
They’d travelled three hundred miles in three days. And Chloe felt as if she’d stepped away from her life, surfacing from all the worries and pain that had submerged her and finally taking a deep breath. Perhaps the first since her parents had died.
If she’d made this journey on her own she would have covered the distance, but she would have brought along most of the old familiar baggage. But with Jon that was impossible. It wasn’t just the sex, which left her unable to think about anything other than his touch and the urgent need to keep breathing, just so she could feel it again. It was him. Sitting with him in the car, feeling the miles roll by. Eating with him. Talking with him, when there was nothing much to say but they both wanted to hear the other’s voice.
And now, driving through the village that spread lazily across the landscape, as if it were basking in the afternoon sun, she felt like a child, pressing her face against the car window, anxious to see everything. In truth, it was unremarkable, not particularly pretty but not completely ugly either. If it had been any other place she would have let it just slip by, but she gazed at every shop in the main street, each café, everyone who walked along the pavement, because any one of them over about fifty might have known her father.
‘That woman...’ She indicated a woman with a baby buggy outside the small supermarket, whose mid-brown hair was about the same colour as her own. ‘She could be a second or third cousin, for all I know.’