On the arm of the chair next to her was a folded blanket that reminded him of one of his mum’s favourites. She’d had enough of them – all sorts of colours and textures and patterns. Some of them left bits everywhere, others were itchy; she’d been quite the collector. And they were all still stored in space bags beneath the bed in the room where he slept now, waiting to be sorted and either kept or got rid of.
Sitting at the other end of the sofa, Morgan curled her legs beneath her, facing him, and tilted her chin upwards towards the shelf. ‘Hasn’t fallen yet.’
He looked up too and saw he was in the firing line; she was enough to one side that she wasn’t. He reached out, grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. ‘We’re both testing it,’ he insisted and he didn’t miss the colour that came to her cheeks at the intimate exchange of hand on hand.
He jumped when Marley leapt up onto his lap and settled there as if he didn’t want to miss out on the fun. ‘Hey, you.’ He stroked Marley. ‘You being careful crossing roads?’
‘I’m keeping a close eye on him,’ said Morgan. ‘He likes you.’
‘I think you must be right.’ He kept on stroking but told Morgan, ‘Jeremy still feels bad.’
‘I keep telling him it wasn’t his fault.’
‘So do I. But he was still going on about it earlier, although now they’re all at the pub debating whether or not he should give up driving. He’s in really good spirits about it all.’
She smiled. ‘I thought you’d been to the pub.’ Awkwardly she added, ‘I could smell beer on you when you arrived.’
Her comment had him realise he’d noted the smell of her too. Whether it was perfume, shampoo or a soap she’d used, it didn’t matter. Whatever it was had assaulted his senses as he checked his handiwork with the shelf one final time and she put her pot plant back on top. And the fresh scent made his way over to him again now, taunting him.
‘How’s your dad’s wrist?’ Morgan asked. Her hand was running from Marley’s head to his tail and every time she did it, her fingers grazed Nate’s arm and he wondered how long he could hold himself together because with every stroke, it reminded him of the way he felt about her: as more than a friend.
‘It’s fine… he enjoyed getting a bit of attention at the dinner but he wasn’t happy I made him go to hospital.’
‘You did the right thing. I’d have done the same.’
‘The dinner really opened my eyes, you know. The friendships across all ages with everyone seated around that table.’ They held one another’s gaze for a moment. ‘It floored me a bit. All those people, not family, but people who live in the one village, different circumstances but looking after each other.’
‘It’s really quite special, isn’t it? It was one of the things Mum loved about Little Woodville. I don’t remember any of this from my teenage years. But what teenager would? You’ve got enough going on of your own with adolescence.’
‘I remember it painfully well,’ he admitted. With the warm, summery air drifting in from the outside through the open windows, he was enjoying being with Morgan a little too much.
Awkward when it felt as though they were sharing another moment like the one outside Snowdrop Cottage, he eyed the laptop on the table. ‘Have you got plenty of work on?’
‘It’s steady at the moment, the best way.’
‘Do you still enjoy it?’
‘I do. I always loved the fact I could work anywhere. I wasn’t fixed to one location.’
‘I can see the appeal. See the world a bit that way. Have you?’
‘Sure,’ she claimed as though she was about to reveal she’d worked in a multitude of exotic locations. But instead she told him, ‘I’ve worked from my flat in London and the sofa in Little Woodville. Perhaps I should contactNational Geographic,see if they’d like me to do a piece on the writing life in far-flung destinations.’
‘Might need a bit more research.’
‘You think?’ She grinned.
‘So will you be off to Scotland soon?’
After a brief hesitation, she told him a company in Scotland had been interested in her. ‘It was for a content editor position; it would’ve been an office job with a steady income. I had to pass up the opportunity when I came back here to be with Mum. I emailed them recently but haven’t heard anything back yet.’
‘Well, you never know.’ It pained him to say it almost as much as it hurt every time he saw the ring on her finger or caught a glimpse of the book about Scotland.
‘Yeah. Only time will tell. If my mum was still around, she’d get very impatient with me; she’d want me to push a bit harder, make something happen.’ And then she spotted something on the blanket that was lying across the arm of the sofa. ‘She’d also tell me off for spilling cola on her favourite blanket.’ She groaned at the brown circle that had soaked into one of the paler, frayed edge pieces of the navy and caramel lambswool blanket where she’d rested her can.
Morgan went to the kitchen, came back with a cloth and wiped at the spill a few times. ‘It’s not coming out and unfortunately it’s dry clean only, so I can’t even throw it in the washing machine.’ She did her best and at least the mark wasn’t quite as noticeable when she’d finished. ‘Mum loved her blankets.’
‘Really?’ Her own memory warmed him. ‘Mine was the same. Mum had far too many of them, although of course she would never admit it.’
