Josh had a retro, battery-operated radio in his kitchen, the kind I hadn’t seen in years, and I spent a long time twiddling the dials until I finally landed on a music station that wasn’t a mass of distorted crackles. I’d been hoping to find a news report or at least a weather forecast, which I grudgingly admitted would have been a useful plan twelve hours earlier. But the only station I could find among the static was a country music channel.
‘Really?’ I asked out loud. Country music wasn’t a genre I’d listened to before meeting Adam. In the early days of us I’d teased him endlessly for his love of all things ‘country’, but over the years he’d whittled away my resistance, until I found my toes unconsciously tapping along to the beat of his favourite songs. In the past twelve months I’d determinedly not listened to a single country tune, because I wasn’t sure my fragile heart could do so without hearing Adam’s slightly off-key voice singing along in my head.
Out of all the radio stations I could have stumbled across, what were the chances that I’d find one playing my late husband’s favourite songs? I stared with unseeing eyes out into the storm and wondered how many more ‘signs’ it would take before I acknowledged there were things at play here over which I had no control.
As the music played quietly in the background, I found my eyes continually drawn back to the clock. An hour, Josh had said. It didn’tsound long enough to travel from ‘concern’ to ‘panic’, but I could see myself heading that way as we crossed the forty-five-minute marker.
Picking up on my nerves, Fletcher followed me anxiously around the shadowy kitchen until I eventually found a bowl and shook a sizeable amount of kibble into it. Thankfully I’d thrown a full-size bag into the holdall, but it wouldn’t last forever. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to feed dogs rice pudding or tinned tomatoes, and I really hoped I wouldn’t be here long enough to find out.
Josh’s kitchen was surprisingly well stocked for a man who seemed to rely largely on canned goods to survive. I found a heavy cast-iron pan and tipped three tins of stew into it, stirring it with my eyes on the clock and my heart in my mouth. Seventy-five minutes after he’d left, the fear that mine wouldn’t be the only accident the forest saw that day had crystalised into a horrible certainty.
I wondered if I should set out to look for him, but how would I know where to start? Even so, I was on the point of lifting the heavy pan off the wood burner when headlight beams speared through the kitchen window.
By the time the storm had blown Josh back to the cabin, and he’d stamped a melting puddle of snow from his boots, my features were suitably rearranged as though they’d never given in to escalating panic.
Josh’s face looked pinched by the cold as he shrugged out of his outer clothes and lobbed them over the back of a chair. I stepped out of his way as he strode across the room to the wood burner.
‘You made it back then.’
‘Did you doubt that I would?’ Josh asked, turning his face towards me. His hands were extended as close to the stove as he could get them.
I gave what I hoped was a nonchalant shrug. ‘How did you get on?’
‘Your car’s out of the ditch,’ he said succinctly. Before I could ask anything further, I caught sight of the raw cuts and grazes criss-crossed over his knuckles. They hadn’t been there when he left.
‘Your hands!’ I exclaimed, unthinkingly reaching for the one nearest to me.
He jerked back from my touch as though I’d poured lemon juice on his wounds.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, determinedly ramming both hands into the pockets of his jeans.
‘You should put something on those ... they could get infected.’
Josh stared at me for a long moment. ‘I do worse than this in the workshop every day of the week. I don’t need you fussing over me.’
Even though I shouldn’t care,didn’t care, the sharpness of his tone cut like a blade. It wasn’t the way someone who cared about you would ever speak. It was a timely reminder – if one was needed – that it was a very long time since this man had loved me.
Fletcher inserted himself between us, like some sort of canine referee. He made a big show of sniffing the air, which provided a much welcome diversion.
I nodded towards the stove. ‘I’ve heated up some canned stew. As per instructions.’
Josh chose to ignore the irritation in my voice. ‘Great. I’m starving,’ he said, crossing to the sink and plunging his wounded hands beneath the jet from the tap.
While he washed the forest from his hands, I reached for the bowls I’d found earlier and began ladling piping-hot stew into them. It was no wonder Fletcher’s nose had been twitching, it really did smell good.
Josh delved in the fridge and emerged with two bottles of beer. He cracked them both open, without bothering to ask if I wanted one.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ I said, halting the bottle he slid towards me.
‘I’ve got some wine somewhere if you prefer. Merlot, I think.’
The air was suddenly charged with old memories. Was he thinking back to that night of the university party when a bottle of Merlot had been partly responsible for how everything had nearly changed? I truly hoped he wasn’t, because I made a point ofneverthinking of that evening at all.
‘I’d just prefer to keep a clear head,’ I said, which even I had to admit sounded unnecessarily prissy. Josh lifted his bottle in a silent toast before bringing it to his lips. I turned my attention to the bowl in front of me, moving the stew from one side to the other as though forensically examining it for evidence, but the scratch of a match made me look up. Josh was lighting two candles, and as the flame touched the first wick, I fought an irrational impulse to blow it out. Candlelight brought an unwelcome date-like atmosphere to the meal that didn’t sit comfortably with me. Never had I missed harsh electrical lighting as much as I did in that moment.
The stew was surprisingly delicious, although having eaten nothing since leaving the B&B that morning, even Fletcher’s kibble had smelled worryingly appetising. For several minutes the only sound in the kitchen was the scrape of cutlery on bowls and the howl of the wind outside. Then, as though we’d received a silent prompt, Josh and I both spoke at once. We gave the kind of nervous laugh that strangers exchange. It was yet another reminder that we really didn’t know each other very well anymore.
‘After you,’ Josh said politely.
