I really didn’t want to go there again. Even if it was Gideon asking. I didn’t want to taint our limited time together with my old wounds.
So, I mumbled an excuse and ran away to the ladies’ room. When I returned, several splashes of cold water and deep breaths later, Gideon was talking to a vaguely familiar woman about landscaping her garden.
‘Really? You again?’ the woman huffed, her sharp voice immediately identifying her as Jen, the Changeling who’d accused me of spying.
‘Oh, have you already met Sophie?’ Gideon asked, ignoring the sudden dip in temperature.
‘Twice.’
‘So, how do you two know each other?’
There was a prolonged silence while the Changeling’s eyes darted around the room as she opened and closed her mouth again. Just as I nearly cracked and said that we’d met in the café, she blurted out, ‘I’m a menopausal woman, and I’m no longer ashamed to say it!’
Before Gideon could choke on his mouthful of beer, she’d disappeared out of the door.
* * *
By the time we set off for home, the temperature had plummeted to freezing. As we huddled together for warmth, our torches glittering off the frosty path, he asked another question that sent my stomach halfway up my throat.
‘The day I showed you around Riverbend…’
Ugh. Here it came…
‘When you left, quite suddenly, you looked distraught. Had I said something to upset you?’
The silence hung heavy between us as we continued down the footpath providing a shortcut back to Riverbend.
‘No. It wasn’t you.’
‘Okay. That’s a relief.’ He tugged gently on my gloved hand, but the conversation wasn’t over. ‘I had wondered if it was a panic attack. I mean, don’t talk about it if you don’t want to. I don’t want to pry, or make you feel uncomfortable…’
‘What, and make me panic?’
I felt his smile through the shadows. ‘Precisely.’
I took a few more strides to decide how much to tell him. I wanted to tell Gideon everything. But the way my heart flinched at the question – I simply wasn’t able to let him into such a fragile part of me, when in a few weeks, I’d have to push him out again.
‘It was a sort of panic attack, yes. They don’t happen very often, and I can usually handle them. I’m hoping the art sessions with Hattie and the Gals will help. Honestly, just being here seems to help.’
‘What, here?’ Gideon asked, grinning as he opened the gate leading through the Riverbend boundary wall.
‘Or here?’ In one deft movement, he pulled me through the gate and into his arms.
‘Both.’ I giggled, stretching up on my tiptoes to kiss his ice-cold lips.
We tightened the embrace as what I’d intended to be a peck rapidly deepened. I still held back, could not open up and show this man the depth of passion he sparked within me, but with each date, he coaxed me into revealing that little bit more.
‘I have a really great suggestion, given that being here, with me, helps so much,’ he whispered against my mouth. ‘Stay.’
The moment broken, I stepped back into the increasingly cold and lonely place that was not-with-Gideon.
He screwed up his face. ‘I know it goes against our deal to even mention it but it is so hard not to try and fight for this. For you.’
‘If you want to fight for us, you need to go slower.’
He shook his head, clearly frustrated. ‘What I want is to not be the only one fighting for something that we both know is worth it.’
I pressed both hands over my face, unable to cope with the intensity in his gaze. ‘Right now, the only thing I’m fighting is another panic attack.’
