After fetching in some essentials, I’d spent an hour in a sunken Jacuzzi bath before climbing into the four-poster bed. I’d stayed in several large houses over the years. Some of them draughty, or stuffy, or somehow both at the same time. Others full of sleek, shiny edges, or creaky and crumbling. One or two had been lovely, the kind of house I might dream about if I ever dared to dream again. But Riverbend was different from all of those. It was like a hug in house form. Peaceful and comforting. Light and fresh yet cosy and sumptuous. My bedroom was full of welcoming touches – a patterned bowl brimming with chocolates on one bedside table, a matching one containing dog treats on the other. Not just the basic toiletries but a whole hamper including face packs, skin treatments and scented candles. Beside a kettle and coffee machine on an oak chest of drawers, a tin of homemade shortbread was tucked in with the tea, coffee pods and luxury hot chocolate.
Once I’d dragged myself out of bed, I sat in a squishy tweed armchair wearing the fur-lined socks I’d found on the bed, a soft, woollen blanket over my knees, and wept, clutching a mug of Earl Grey as I gazed through my tears at the fields and forest beyond the sash window. Why did this haven cause me to cry, for the first time in so long? Perhaps it was the bone-deep weariness from years spent trying to ease other people’s suffering. Or because this place had dislodged memories of the time when loneliness was an alien concept and home was taken for granted, along with yet another jolt of awareness that my current way of living was not normal, or easy. I had missed being loved and cared for with an ache that reverberated deep inside.
I wondered if the warmth of this beautiful place could start to melt the sheet of ice I’d carefully constructed around my heart.
That thought was terrifying and wonderful at the same time.
For the first time in forever, I dared to think I might be brave enough to linger long enough to find out.
* * *
I couldn’t linger too long today however, despite how much I savoured the fluffy robe, fancy tea and moment of emotional self-indulgence. Muffin had been increasingly restless, wondering whether there was going to be any breakfast. She had now resorted to resting her head on my knee, staring up with a look that conveyed how utterly, wretchedly starving she was.
I changed into jeans and a dark-red jumper and headed downstairs, cringing slightly at how formal I’d looked the night before compared to Hattie’s jeans. I’d left Muffin’s food in the boot room, beside Flapjack’s things. By the time she’d gobbled down her bowl of kibble, the house was still quiet, so we slipped through the front door and I fetched my walking boots and a grey corduroy jacket from the motorhome.
‘I know!’ I grinned at my dog, who was skipping with excitement at the thought of meeting a Sherwood Forest squirrel. ‘Isn’t this amazing?’
The air was clear and still, carrying the faintest hint of spring, and it was impossible not to feel a fizz of anticipation at the potential adventures ahead.
We walked across the gravel at the front of the house in the opposite direction to the archway we’d driven through, towards the treeline in the distance. Beyond the driveway, a footpath led across a lawn to an iron gate in another wall. A sign by the gate read that this was the kitchen garden, which didn’t seem like the best place to take a dog bursting with pent-up energy, so we continued on. After a minute or so, the wall curved around, leading us past a large greenhouse and a rickety outbuilding. As soon as I rounded the curve, I had to stop at the view in front of me. With it being February, the trees were mostly bare and the undergrowth scrubby, the ground more mud than grass, but winding through the midst of it all was the river. Not great or grand but sparkling and burbling with joy as it carried along the rain from the night before in a wide arc that must have inspired the house’s name. I let Muffin off the lead and she raced to where the bank formed a small beach area. While she spent a glorious few minutes splashing in the shallow water lapping against the sandy dirt, ignoring the ducks quacking at her from the safety of the deeper water, I took the opportunity to soak up the surroundings and take a few deep breaths of countryside air.
Once she’d got herself thoroughly sopping, I called Muffin on, and we turned to see where the river would take us. The forest lined the far bank, so we’d need a bridge or a boat to reach it. The riverside footpath led in either direction and I assumed that one of them must end up at the boathouse that Hattie had mentioned. I’d prefer to avoid stumbling onto her aunt’s property, but the bushes and trees prevented me from seeing anything beyond the river’s bend.
‘Which way next, then?’ I asked Muffin, her guess as good as mine. Better, given her powerful nose. She trotted off and I ambled behind, watching my step as I squelched along the muddy footpath, while also trying to keep one eye on the stunning river and trees beyond.
It was so peaceful here, the only interruption the occasional bird call, the only creatures in sight a squirrel darting up the trunk of a chestnut tree to escape Muffin, and another cluster of ducks sailing past. The questions about Hattie’s project and the more troubling ones that had surfaced during my crying session earlier softly sank back into my mind’s murky depths as my senses relished the wonderful feast of nature.
As another bend emerged up ahead, I decided we should probably turn around and start heading back. However, at that same moment, Muffin stopped her detailed investigation of a clump of reeds, stuck her nose in the air, then suddenly darted forwards, whizzing down the path to where it veered out of sight. I tried calling her back a couple of times, but once her hunting instinct locked onto something, it was almost impossible to change her mind.
Praying she’d merely sniffed another squirrel or a rabbit nearby, but aware it could be something else, I followed, picking up speed until I ended up hurtling around a large rhododendron bush too fast to spot the giant puddle hidden on the other side. Or to see the man, sensibly skirting around the edge of it.
It took three galumphing strides before I skidded to a stop, right in the deepest part of the puddle, my arms windmilling as I fought to stay upright.
Of course, three strides were more than enough in half a foot of water to splatter both me and the man with thick, brown sludge.
I sploshed around to face him, cringing in embarrassment, but before I could utter an apology, two dogs came racing out of the undergrowth, the smaller one jumping up at the man, covering his jeans in pawprints, the larger one launching itself at me, knocking me straight onto my backside in the freezing water.
‘Flapjack!’ the man ordered. ‘Get off her!’
Flapjack was about as obedient in that moment as Muffin, who, having said a thorough hello to the stranger, proceeded to join her enormous friend, now pushing his nose into my face while trying to climb onto my submerged lap.
I was a micro-wobble away from tumbling flat on my back when, to my relief, the man grabbed Flapjack and somehow managed to yank him out of the puddle. A moment later, he did the same for me, only holding my hands rather than the scruff of my neck.
It was as I lurched to my feet, taking a few stumbling steps onto slightly drier land, that it happened. I jerked to an abrupt stop about eight inches in front of him, his hands still gripping mine. He was a fair bit taller than my five foot five, but was bending slightly, presumably for balance, and as my head tipped up, our eyes met.
Honestly? If he weren’t holding my hands, I might have toppled back into the mud.
I’d never believed in anything as fanciful as love at first sight.
Lust at first sight – I knew whatthatfelt like, and it wasn’t this.
The jolt that ripped through me when this person’s eyes – the exact same blue and brown flecks as the February river behind us – hit mine was far deeper than a physical reaction, mere chemicals spurting into my bloodstream.
This was everything the sappy paperbacks that my sister had devoured as a teenager described. My knees turned to water. Breath stuck in my chest. My heart began pounding like a jackhammer. But my head? My head felt clearer than it had in months. Years.
It was aknowing. A realisation. As if I’d been waiting to look into those eyes all my life.
And in that crazy, all-consuming moment, I could swear that those eyes had been waiting for me.
