‘Thanks – I haven’t had anything for hours, and I’m parched. I don’t suppose you could put some booze in it?’
Zoe got up to put the kettle on.
‘How are things here? Billie and Louisa all right?’
‘They’ve gone to bed. They’re both a bit shaky and hot and cold, but they’ll live. Louisa seemed a lot brighter than she had been, but she might cause a handkerchief shortage.’
He gave a thin smile. ‘That’s good.’
‘Billie apologised for us falling out this morning, but I think it’s me who needs to apologise to you both. I’m not myself right now, and?—’
‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘Let’s not go over that again – it’s all water under the bridge. In fact, it feels like years ago.’
‘A lot has happened since, I suppose.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ He let out a long sigh and laid his forehead on the table. ‘What am I going to do? This could ruin me before I’ve even begun.’
‘You don’t know anything right now. You don’t know that they’re going to try to get compensation – things are said and done in the heat of the moment…people calm down and they change their minds. I bet they’ll want to put this behind them after the next few days. It’ll probably become a funny story, one of those holiday disaster stories they tell every year.’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not really funny, is it?’
‘They never are.’
He placed his hands on the back of his neck and let out another sigh. Zoe put her fingertips to his head and stroked his hair until he looked up at her.God, she loved him. Even now, even after all they’d said to one another that night, she loved him so much it hurt. It was true, she’d never loved another man like she loved him, and she knew now that she never would. What if she lost him? How could she live in a world where he wasn’t beside her? And to see him now, so uncertain, to see the fear in his eyes that all he’d worked so hard for might be snatched away…
‘You’re right,’ he said finally. ‘You’re always right. Everyone was emotional tonight, and by tomorrow they’ll have calmed down. I’ll go over to the field and see about this hole and maybe take some legal advice just in case. The insurance company have a helpline – they might be able to give me some pointers. Things seem like a mountain now because I’m tired and it’s all just happened.’ He wrapped his hand around hers. ‘What would I do without you?’
‘I hope we never have to find out…’ Zoe pulled away and went to make his tea, realising that her statement was more charged than it had needed to be. She couldn’t help it because her every waking thought over the past few days had involved him leavingher, and no matter how unlikely she tried to tell herself that scenario was, her thoughts were constant and horrible. They pestered her, skewed her judgement and sucked the happiness from every interaction. Not that there was much happiness to be had at Hilltop right now. They weren’t married, but the rules, as far as Zoe was concerned, were the same. They’d committed to one another, and thick or thin, Zoe would be there for him. She only hoped he would feel the same when it was her turn to need support and understanding.
‘Thanks,’ he said as she put his tea down in front of him and went to the cupboard for some brandy.
Zoe woke far earlier than she needed to the following morning and far earlier than she wanted to. The sun hadn’t yet risen and she was tired, but there was no way she’d be able to go back to sleep. Alex, however, was already missing from the bed, despite the hour and despite the fact that he had no employer to report to. He’d often said how much he enjoyed the fact that he could work when it suited him, but it seemed that those days of freedom, now that his business was up and running, were over.
She pulled on a dressing gown and went downstairs to find him already at the kitchen table with a lukewarm coffee in front of him.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he said as she walked into the room, barely looking up from his phone.
Zoe peered over his shoulder. ‘What are you reading?’ she asked, though she could see for herself that it was some sort of legal advice.
‘I thought I’d do some research.’
Zoe nodded. She knew all about that – she’d done enough of her own over the past week or so, and she wasn’t altogether sure whether the sort of research Doctor Google offered madethings look better or worse. She’d discovered for herself that sometimes the information being presented was questionable, and when she’d mentioned it to Simon, he’d reminded her that anyone could put anything online, and because there were so many people in the world who thought they were experts at everything, or who wanted everyone else to think that, it was no wonder such a tool as the internet made it far too easy for them to indulge their fantasies.
‘Has it helped?’ she asked carefully as she checked the water level in the kettle.
‘I’m not sure. It’s hard to say until I’ve had a proper look around. As soon as it’s light, I’m going to walk over and take a look. Hopefully the guests won’t have got up to pack yet…I don’t fancy running into any of them this morning. I’m not sure I have the mental energy to cope with that kind of conversation.’
‘You said yourself they’ll have probably calmed down now they’ve been able to sleep on things.’
‘You’d think, but who knows? All Idoknow is that people who’d seemed friendly and reasonable suddenly turned into litigious Rottweilers at the mere sniff of the possibility to sue me.’
‘I’m sure that’s not how it was. I bet nobody was thinking straight because of the accident.’
‘Maybe…’ With his elbows on the table, he rested his chin on his hands and stared into space. ‘But the more I go over it, the keener they were to make it all as traumatic as possible. I get that the guy broke his leg pretty bad, but everyone getting so hysterical that they announced they had to leave right away? It’s like they’re trying to make their holiday as ruined as they can so they can use that to add weight to a legal case or something. I had this mate once who claimed for whiplash when a car went into the back of his, and his dodgy lawyer egged him on to add psychological trauma and all sorts of other crap to his list ofsymptoms. The truth was, he had a stiff neck for about a week. This whole thing stinks of that same opportunism to me.’
‘You really think that’s what they’re trying to do?’
He looked up at her. ‘I don’t know. Am I being unreasonable?’
