Chapter Seventeen
After the initial panic of finding me on the snowy ground, Josh went into ‘take charge’ mode. He headed for the lounge and set me down on the sofa beside the now-dwindling fire. With a gentleness I hadn’t expected, he slid the coat from my arms and extracted me from it.
‘Lie down, Lily,’ he instructed, repositioning a pile of scatter cushions to support me.
‘I’ll make the covers wet,’ I protested with a shake of my head, a move I instantly regretted. Tears of pain flooded my eyes. I was one blink away from letting them fall.
‘Fuck the covers.’
For the second time that day he slid his fingers through my hair. This time he parted the long chestnut strands at the back of my head. His sudden indrawn breath did little to calm me.
‘What is it? Is it bad?’
‘You’ve got a small cut and a not-so-small lump back there. I’ll get some ice for a compress.’ His fingers felt warm as they brushed against the nape of my neck before he let the hair fall free again. I shivered and Josh reached for a couple of logs from the pile beside the fire and threw them on to the glowing embers.
He returned a short while later carrying a far more comprehensive first aid kit than mine. With a patience I would never have suspected, Josh gently cleaned the head wound before turning his attention to my ankle. Worryingly, it appeared to have swollen even more, pressing against the leather of my boot as though it was preparing to Incredible Hulk its way free.
I’d already eased down the zipper, but one half-hearted tug confirmed I wasn’t going to get the boot off without Josh’s help.
‘I’ll try once more, but if it won’t come off, we’ll have to cut you out of it,’ Josh said, reaching into his back pocket and extracting a penknife that looked exactly like the one he’d had all those years ago in the sycamore tree.
‘Please don’t cut them. They’re . . . they’re special,’ I begged, wiping away the film of sweat that had gathered on my upper lip after our two previous attempts.
‘I don’t care if they’re expensive,’ muttered Josh. ‘We need to get that boot off.’
‘It’s just . . . they were a gift.’ They were Adam’s last gift to me, given on our final Christmas together, and the thought of destroying them felt like losing yet another piece of him. And I’d lost so much already.
With surprising intuition, Josh seemed to understand. ‘Okay. Let’s try one last time,’ he said quietly.
He was as gentle as he could be, or I was better at hiding just how much it hurt. With a little more tugging and twisting, the boot finally came off. For a moment we both stared down at my swollen ankle, its bruises perfectly matching the one on my temple.
‘Can you move your toes?’ Josh asked.
I think we were both holding our breath until we saw my crimson-painted toenails waggle back and forth.
‘Good,’ Josh said, and there was no disguising his relief. ‘I don’t think it’s broken. It’s either a sprain or – if you’re really lucky – just a nasty twist.’
‘And they teach you all this at furniture-making college?’ I asked, not sure why snarky was my go-to reaction. Perhaps I could blame the adrenaline that was still coursing wildly through my veins.
‘No. I taught myself basic first aid. I’d be crazy to live somewhere this isolated and not know how to cope with an emergency.’
For the next twenty minutes Josh put that first aid knowledge to good use as he tended to my head injury with competence and detached efficiency. I kept sneaking furtive glances at his face as he worked, but it was blank, totally devoid of emotion. His eyes never met mine and his jaw was tightly locked in a way that didn’t invite conversation.
But the atmosphere changed when he asked me to remove my jeans. I knew it was necessary, but taking off my clothes in front of Josh was the last thing I wanted to do.
He turned around, giving me an illusion of privacy, but after a couple of failed attempts I realised I needed his help.
‘You’ll have to pull them off me,’ I said.
Josh cleared his throat several times, as though the objections he wanted to raise were stuck there.
It was the most awkward I’d ever felt in his company, with his hands on my hips and his breath – which seemed to be coming a little more roughly than usual – fanning my face.
I tilted my hips and tried not to remember the last time Josh had pulled a pair of jeans from my body.
I didn’t see the expression on his face as he slid the garment down my legs, because I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the flickering flames in the fireplace. Perhaps that’s why my cheeks felt like they were burning as he finally freed me from the Levi’s. I had no idea what made him draw in a sudden intake of breath as though he’d been burnt. Perhaps it was for the best that I didn’t know.
‘You’re still here. Why?’
My voice sounded thick and fuzzy, as though someone had stuffed my mouth with cotton wool balls while I slept.
In the flickering glow of a storm lantern, Josh jolted upright in the chair he’d dragged in from the lounge to watch over me. His startled grunt revealed I hadn’t been the only one who’d been napping.
It was pitch black beyond the bedroom window, except for the eerily luminous glow of moonlight on snow. The storm had finally abated, but I had no idea if it was late afternoon or the early hours of the morning. My head felt weirdly disconnected from my neck, but at least it wasn’t hurting quite so much. Like a drunk trying very hard to appear sober, I repeated my question, carefully enunciating every word. The vowels felt impossibly large on my tongue. This is what happens when you take someone else’s prescription medication. I should have known when Josh tipped two enormous horse-size tablets into my palm that they’d be strong enough to fell an ox.
‘I’m not sure something that large is actually intended for oral consumption,’ I had grumbled. ‘Did you read the instructions?’ His lips had twitched at that.
‘I did and they are,’ he’d assured me. ‘I took them last winter after hurting my back.’
Dubiously, I’d taken the glass of water he was holding out. To be honest, my head and ankle were so painful, I’d probably have swallowed a glass of hemlock if he’d told me it would help.
Josh unfolded himself now from the chair that looked far too small and uncomfortable for the length of his limbs.
‘How long have I been asleep?’ I asked, not liking how disoriented and vulnerable I felt.
‘About four hours,’ he replied. ‘How’s your head? Any dizziness? Do you feel sick?’ He sounded like a doctor, but he looked more like a lumberjack in the fleece check shirt and black jeans he’d changed into while I slept. He could have stepped straight out of a poster for the Canadian Tourism Board.
I tested my head, moving it cautiously from side to side and gave a grateful sigh when the pain remained in the ‘manageable’ sector.
‘Better,’ I replied. ‘ See . I told you it wasn’t a concussion.’
‘That’s precisely what someone with a concussion would say,’ Josh replied, spinning me back to hundreds of infuriating squabbles when we’d each fought to get the last word in. Thankfully life with Adam had never been that volatile or competitive.
‘I still think sitting there watching someone sleep is creepy.’
Josh shrugged off my words.
‘How’s the ankle?’ he asked, changing the subject.
I looked down at the pile of pillows on top of which my left foot was resting. Nervously, I flexed my ankle. It still wasn’t right, but the inferno of pain had been tamped down to a low smoulder.
‘Well, I won’t be tap-dancing for a while,’ I joked, ‘but I should be able to walk on it.’
‘Sure,’ Josh agreed equably, covering the width of the bedroom in two easy strides. ‘In a few days.’
‘I can’t sit around on my backside for a few days,’ I immediately protested.
He cocked his head, looking so much like teenage Josh, I lost my train of thought.
‘Got somewhere else to be?’
As if I needed reminding, his gaze went to the curtainless window and the snow-covered clearing beyond.
‘Anywhere but here,’ I said, frustration making me unreasonable.
Josh shot me a look at my childish response. To be fair, I was acting like an irrational pre-schooler.
Josh gave an immensely annoying chuckle. ‘I thought I’d remembered everything about you, but I’d forgotten what a pain in the arse you can be when you’re hungry. I’m going to heat up some soup for you.’
I would have protested, but just the mention of food made my very empty stomach rumble like a freight train.
‘I might be a tad peckish,’ I conceded, telling myself the warm glow I felt was due to the prospect of food rather than a remembered echo from the past.
I flopped back against the pillows as soon as he left, wondering if he realised how much he’d inadvertently given away with his parting words.
‘I knew you hadn’t forgotten everything,’ I whispered triumphantly in the shadowy room. ‘And if your recollection goes back that far, then I’m sure you remember exactly what Adam sent me here to find out.’
I managed most of the bowl of minestrone before the second round of painkillers Josh had insisted upon kicked in. One minute the spoon was in my hand, and the next I heard it clatter back on to the bowl. Fingers rough with calluses were gentle as they released my hold on the tray and lifted it from my legs.
It felt like an old dream as I was eased back on to the pillows and the heavy comforter was tucked beneath my chin. As I teetered on the edge of sleep, I lifted my face, waiting. Before turning out the light, Adam would always kiss me goodnight and then run the pad of his thumb lightly over my cheekbone. My lips parted in readiness, but they didn’t feel the touch of another’s. And yet as I loosened my grip on reality and fell into slumber, there it was: the lightest of grazes across my cheek.
‘Goodnight, Adam,’ I mumbled sleepily.
There was no reply.