But my throat still feels like there’s a fist in it, and my heart beats erratically.
“Now, I want you to inhale slowly – a long breath while I count to seven. One, two, three…”
My chest fills with air.
“Hold it there.” He keeps the slow circles between my shoulder blades. “Good, now exhale slowly while I count to eleven. Good, keep it slow. Five. Six. Seven. Eight…”
He makes me do it again and again: breathe in for seven, out for eleven, and again until the tightness in my chest releases. I don’t know how, but he makes the swelling panic dissolve. When I finally lift my head and straighten up, he curls his arm over my shoulders and squeezes me to his side for a moment, then lets go.
“Better?”
I nod, wishing he still had his arm around me. “Sorry, it was just a bit… I don’t know what happened.”
“Panic attack?”
“Yes.”
“Seen it lots of times before. Hits like an ambush, doesn’t it?”
An ambush, exactly. “Sorry.”
“Want to talk about it?” His face is so full of tenderness and understanding. I have the strongest urge to move into his arms and hold him to me.
I turn slightly to glance up at him.
His body widens. The way men’s bodies do when they’re about to open their arms and embrace you. As if shaping himself to fit around me.
I almost step into him when my mind screams.He’s married,he’s married.
Quickly, I convert the move into an awkward brushing of my hand through my hair and bending down to dust the knees of my jeans which are perfectly clean.
When I look up, he’s moved back a step, away from me. “Shall we go downstairs?”
“Sorry, of course. Good idea.” My words stumble over one another.
Chapter Eight
We head downstairs, through the house to the terrace. The air is fresh and smells of trees. A smell that always makes me feel better.
Osian drags over a couple of garden chairs, the plastic kind you get from B&Q. We sit in silence, and he just waits for me and watches the wilderness. My wilderness. The one I promised to transform. All ten acres of it.
“My first customers of the day.” A cheerful voice.
I look up and see the woman from my interview, soft blond curls gathered in a loose ponytail.
“Hi Leonie,” Osian says. “You’re open already?”
“Are you joking? I have to make breakfast for the Squad.”
“When do they wake up?”
She raises her eyebrows in a ‘who knows?’ expression. “I have to have their breakfast trays ready early just in case.”
This means far more to them than me. “Who are the Squad?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Leonie flashes me a radiant smile. She really is extraordinarily beautiful. “They’re our senior residents. They used to live in a care home nearby but now they’re here. The JackBevan Retirement Community . You’ll meet them soon; they are wonderful.”
“Bread basket?” Osian asks in a suggestive tone.
