Reaching the clearing took me by surprise. One minute I was in the middle of a forest and the next the darkness from the trees was lifted as I drove into a large area which had been cleared of tall firs. There were two buildings here. One was a single-storey cabin-style lodge with a wraparound porch, which reminded me of saloon bars in old Westerns. On the far side of the clearing wasanother, much larger building which appeared to be a workshop. From within it I could hear the faint buzz of an electric saw. I switched off the engine, with fingers that I noticed were shaking.
Fletcher had jumped to his feet the moment we’d come to a stop, and I could feel his breath hot on the back of my neck as he looked through the windscreen. No doubt he too was wondering why on earth his owner had brought him here.
‘At least I know we’ve arrived at the right place,’ I told him, as I unclipped his harness and peered at the words ‘Wildwood Furniture’ that had been carved into a beam above the open barn doors. I was still looking at the opening when a figure appeared within it.
He was staring in the direction of my car with a fierce scowl on his face. Was this how he greeted all his visitors? Slowly, feeling like I was one hundred years old, my hand went to the door handle.
Josh had changed since the last time I’d seen him. His hair was longer now, falling across his forehead and into his eyes. He was also leaner and yet curiously broader than he had been. He looked muscled and strong and right now incredibly pissed off, as he strode out into the falling snow and headed towards my car. He was wearing jeans and a thin T-shirt, but didn’t appear to feel the cold, whereas I was shivering like crazy. But that could have been nerves. My legs felt far from steady when I asked them to support me for the first time in hours as I climbed out of the car.
‘What are you doing here?’
It was virtually the same greeting he’d given me twenty years ago, when I’d climbed up to join him in the Bakers’ tree.
‘Hello, Josh,’ I said quietly.
‘I mean it, Lily. Go away.’
I hadn’t exactly expected a warm reception, but the hostility in his eyes, his voice, in every single fibre of his body, shook me a little.For a man who’d once claimed to love me, he certainly seemed to hate me right now.
I gave a small, nervous laugh. ‘I was just in the area, so I thought I’d pop in and say hi.’
Humour had definitely been the wrong way to go, and the tightening of his jaw and the angry glitter in his eyes lit a flare of fury within me.
‘I messaged you yesterday, Josh. Three times.’
I fully expected him to deny all knowledge of my attempts to contact him, so it was a bit of a shock when he replied, ‘I know. I ignored them all.’
‘That was rude,’ I couldn’t help shooting back.
‘Perhaps it was my way of telling you that I didn’t want to speak to you. Something I’m pretty sure I made perfectly clear several years ago.’
He was breathing harder and faster now, as though he’d been running, and yet nothing about him had moved. He was like a statue, standing there with his arms crossed, his body language so eloquent he had no need to confirm in words that I wasn’t welcome here.
From behind me in the car I heard the scrabble of claws against glass. Fletcher had jumped into the front seat and was trying to get out.
‘Can I let him out?’ I asked, nodding towards the car.
‘No,’ Josh replied, shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe I’d had the nerve to ask such a thing.
I ignored him and sprung open the door. A very grateful Fletcher headed straight to the bushes to relieve himself. It had been a long time since we’d last stopped and it occurred to me that I was in similar need of a bathroom.
‘Look, I know my presence here isn’t exactly welcome,’ I began.
‘You don’t say,’ Josh interjected with a sardonic note that I’d never heard in his voice before.
‘But I really do need to speak to you.’
‘We have nothing to say to each other. We said it all six years ago.’
Finished with his business, Fletcher bounded up and went straight to Josh. He was always the most sociable dog in any park I took him to, with an almost pathological need to befriend everyone. He wasn’t used to being ignored and clearly couldn’t comprehend why the man standing before him had no desire to pet him. That made me even angrier. Josh could be as rude as he liked to me, but blanking Adam’s dog was a step too far.
‘Look, do you think we could get out of the snow and go inside for a minute?’
‘No,’ Josh said. It seemed to be his new favourite word.
‘I have been driving for many hours to get here—’
‘That was entirely your decision, not mine,’ he pointed out.
