Something inside me shifted as I listened to their good-natured banter. I’d feared Josh lived a solitary and potentially lonely life in his forest hideaway, and while it shouldn’t have mattered tome in the slightest that he had good friends up here, I was glad that he did.
The men left the kitchen in a clatter of work boots and the quiet fell like a curtain as I stood at the window and watched them disappear into the trees. The day felt flat, and I knew I was in trouble when even the bacon sandwiches failed to lift my mood.
Beneath the hot jets of Josh’s shower, I should have felt relaxed in the knowledge that he was unlikely to unexpectedly return. But when I studied my reflection in the steam-free oval I cleared in the mirror, it was like looking at someone I’d never met before. ‘Because him catching me naked would be a bad thing, right?’ I asked the woman looking back at me in the glass. She blinked slowly, and there was something in her eyes that troubled me. Had she seen something in Josh last night that I’d missed? Could a spark from a single kiss actually reignite a long burnt-out fire?
Fletcher was clearly delighted with the extra-long walk we took to pass the time. Although he kept trying to tug me in the direction of the treehouse, I managed to distract him with an energetic game of fetch that my shoulder would probably protest about tomorrow.Tomorrow ... when I’ll be miles away from the forest and back where I belong.
Back at the cabin, with my bags already packed, there was far too much of the day to fill until Josh returned. I didn’t like the way things had been left between us after last night. Our friendship had been all but destroyed by an argument a long time ago. It wouldn’t survive a second onslaught.
It was already fully dark by four o’clock, and I hadn’t seen a soul or been given an update all day. A loud thumping on the cabin door,the kind that threatens to loosen screws from their hinges, had me scurrying into the hallway with Fletcher at my heels.
Stamping snow from his boots on the wraparound porch was the farmer who I’d worked out must be Rory.
‘Well, hen, the road is finally clear for you to be on your way.’
I wondered what the appropriate facial expression should be to that comment, because none of my features seemed to know which direction to go in. Rory didn’t appear to notice, as he was too busy looking curiously beyond me into the shadowy corridor. ‘Tell Josh he owes me more than a few jars for this one.’
I looked behind me, as though I too was searching for the cabin’s owner.
‘Isn’t he with you?’ For some reason, a quiver of fear slid through the armour I’d forged around my heart.
‘Nah. Is he heck. He buggered off as soon as the hard work began. Typical carpenter.’ He grinned broadly enough for me to count all of his missing molars. ‘Said he had something he had to do today.’
‘Did he say what?’ I asked, uncomfortably aware that I sounded like an anxious wife, something I’d strangely never been whenever Adam was late home. But then my husband would always message me if he’d been delayed, while Josh’s phone was infuriatingly still plugged into its charger in the kitchen. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d deliberately left it behind so Icouldn’tcontact him.
Rory gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘No, he didn’t. Mind you, I was kind of busy with a chainsaw at the time.’
With a perceptiveness I hadn’t expected, Rory laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. ‘Don’t go worrying about Josh now. He knows these woods like the back of his hand. Going off grid is just something he does.’
That was probably meant to comfort me, but it had the exact opposite effect.
‘You don’t think something could have happened to him?’ For some reason the image of the frozen lake popped into my head and refused to disappear.
‘No. I don’t. He’ll come strolling up anytime now, you mark my words.’
I did mark them. I marked them when I dragged my bags into the hallway in preparation for leaving, I marked them when I fed Fletcher his evening meal, and was still marking them when I reheated the leftovers of ours in the oven. The aroma of beef and wine was mouth-watering, but I already knew I couldn’t stomach a single bite.
Panic is a strange dish that goes from a moderate simmer to a raging boil almost without you noticing.
Fletcher looked up at me reproachfully as he watched me pull on my boots and Adam’s heavy coat.
‘I won’t go far,’ I promised him. ‘I just want to check the surrounding area.’
Of course, if this had been a film, I’d be taking my dog with me so he could follow Josh’s scent, but the only thing Fletcher could reliably follow was the smell of kibble, so it was wiser to leave him behind.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ I assured him. ‘I won’t get lost.’ And just to ensure I didn’t, I dropped a pin in my location so my phone could lead me back to the cabin, which was a far more reliable tool than leaving a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest, and could have saved Hansel and Gretel no end of grief.
The cold stole my breath away as I stepped on to the porch. Had Josh really believed I’d leave without saying goodbye, I thought angrily as I stomped my way across the clearing? If he was expecting to find his home empty when he eventually returned, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Besides, Rory’s parting words were still ringing in my ears.
‘If I were you, I wouldn’t be thinking of heading back south until daylight, hen. Some of the roads are still pretty hazardous, especially in the dark.’
It didn’t take long to check out Josh’s workshop, not when I was almost certain I wouldn’t find him there. Yet I still looked around hopefully as the fluorescents flickered into life, throwing light into every corner. I walked between the benches, pausing only once beside the one with the unfinished crib. Despite the urgent feeling that I needed to press on with my search, I paused to lift one corner of the dust sheet, smiling sadly at the abandoned commission. Josh might not have finished it, but I saw he’d carved the same curious symbols on one of the crib’s runners that I’d found on the underside of my crutch. I never had got around to asking him what they were. A sudden fear that I might never get the chance to rose uncontrollably within me. Ever since Adam had got sick, my fear of losing the people I loved had a habit of blindsiding me.
I was heading back towards the workshop doors when my steps faltered as I realised where my thoughts had unexpectedly taken me. Was my escalating fear for Josh’s safety telling me something my head refused to acknowledge? Did I still care about Josh? I swallowed uncomfortably, shying away from the word ‘love’ as though it could destroy me.
Those wereoldfeelings, ones that I’d neatly parcelled away. I’d deliberately kept them shut in the dark, until they’d suffocated from lack of air. I didn’t love Josh. I couldn’t love him ... could I?How was that even possible when I was still so very much in love with Adam?
I walked fast across the clearing as if to outrun my disturbing thoughts, but they trotted alongside me, matching their pace to mine. Without conscious thought I was heading for the frozen lake. Josh’s cautionary tale about someone falling through the thin ice had haunted me, and even though I was certain he wouldn’t have done anything stupid, like trying to cross the lake, I had to go there.
