Always You and Me

Chapter Twenty Nine

There were voices coming from the kitchen. I only recognised one of them – Josh’s. The others had thick Scottish accents that I thought I might need subtitles to decipher. I lifted my head off the pillow, but the heavy hangover of a largely sleepless night was hard to shake off.

The smell of frying bacon and the sound of laughter travelled down the corridor to the bedroom. It was followed by a series of sharp, excited barks. It sounded like the kitchen was the place to be, despite the ungodly hour. Although, when I checked my phone, I saw it wasn’t early at all.

I wasn’t surprised I’d overslept, having spent a large chunk of the night staring at the bedroom ceiling, thinking of all the things I should have said following the kiss. They’d ranged from pithy to pathetic, and in the cold light of morning, it was probably just as well I’d been too shell-shocked to deliver any of them.

I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and ran a comb through my tangled hair. The kitchen appeared to be full of men, and all of them were laughing when I entered the room. The amusement died away the moment they saw me and was immediately replaced by an air of sheepish embarrassment. I truly hoped it was because someone had just told a dirty joke, and not because Josh had shared with his mates what had happened between us the night before.

I searched the room for his face among the strangers and it answered my question. From the way he flinched as our eyes locked, I instinctively knew he hadn’t told his friends a thing. Of course he hadn’t; not while he was still desperately trying to forget it had ever happened at all.

I took a deep breath and pasted what I hoped looked like a natural smile on the lips Josh wished he’d never kissed.

‘Good morning . . . everyone,’ I said, making sure my greeting encompassed the three burly farmers in the room, who had apparently all received the same memo to dress in a plaid shirt, dark jeans and heavy work boots.

Josh, however, was dressed all in black, which felt oddly symbolic.

He cleared his throat. ‘Lily, this is Rory, Giles and Cameron.’

The men chorused a hello, giving me no opportunity to work out which name belonged to who.

‘Guys, this is my . . . This is Lily.’

If any of them noticed the stumble as he failed to find a label to fit me, they were too polite to show it.

‘They’ve come to clear the trees that came down,’ Josh added unnecessarily. Did they know him well enough to realise he was feeling uncomfortable? Because to me it was glaringly obvious.

‘Trees? In the plural?’ I asked.

One of the interchangeable farmers replied, and as hard as I tried, I only managed to catch every other word.

For the first time since I’d entered the room, I saw an almost relaxed smile on Josh’s face. ‘Don’t worry, they’re used to having to repeat things for me. It took almost two years before I could make out what people were saying. God knows what I agreed to in that time,’ Josh said, earning himself a hefty shoulder-shove from the man beside him that would probably have toppled someone less muscular.

‘Cheeky bugger.’

That one I got.

Everyone laughed and I joined in, because these men were here today to help me leave, and it wasn’t their fault that I wasn’t entirely sure now whether I was ready to go.

Josh drained the contents of his mug and placed it on a grease-stained plate. ‘Giles said they discovered more trees that must have come down after we drove back on the night of the storm.’ He looked rueful. ‘I had hoped we’d be able to get you on your way this morning, but Rory thinks it might take a little longer.’

I gave what I hoped looked like a casual shrug. Could Josh make it any more obvious that he wanted me gone?

‘Aye, well, we’d better get at it. Pleasure meeting you, Lily,’ said the oldest of the three men, carefully enunciating each word as though I was a foreigner.

‘There’s coffee in the pot and I’ve left a couple of bacon sandwiches in the warming drawer for you,’ Josh advised, reaching for his coat.

‘Oh. Are you going with them?’ I asked as he pulled on heavy work gloves.

‘I am.’ Josh’s eyes were shuttered. It stung that if I’d woken up five minutes later, the cabin would probably already have been deserted.

‘He’s just going to get in the way,’ muttered Farmer Number Two.

‘Or be trying to make a chair out of every branch we cut off,’ his mate joked back with a hearty laugh.

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 to me 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 I couldn’t contact 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 were old feelings, 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.

Our footprints from the previous day were still visible in the snow, making it easy to find my way. But that didn’t calm the jittery feeling swirling in my stomach as I walked through the trees.

Using the torch I’d brought to light the trail, I reached the lake sooner than I’d expected. The moon was playing hide-and-seek in a sky of scudding clouds, making it difficult to check the lake for the jagged-edged hole I’d half convinced myself I would see in the ice.

My hands were shaking so much it made the torchlight difficult to follow as I swept it across the lake. It took several attempts before I was satisfied the icy surface was intact. I let out the breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding.

Now that my worst-case scenario had been eliminated, the sensible option was probably to return to the cabin and wait for Josh. But this wasn’t a night for being sensible.

There was only one other place I felt confident of finding in the dark. The treehouse. As I stood indecisively on the shore of the lake, I felt something pulling me there. Hadn’t Fletcher literally tried to do just that earlier today? Had Adam’s dog been trying to tell me that Josh was in trouble there? That was either miraculous or totally ridiculous, and how bad was it that I couldn’t work out which?

This time it took me longer to find our footprints in the dark. Each time I felt sure I’d gone wrong, I would spot the distinctive imprint in the snow from Josh’s work boots, like a tiny Timberland signpost.

The moon had obligingly found a clear piece of sky to settle in, and when I eventually emerged from the dense thicket of trees my relief was so great my knees were in danger of buckling.

I’m not sure what astounded me most: that I’d actually found the treehouse, or that my instincts had been correct, and this was where Josh had headed. I knew he was there from the flickering light filtering down through the branches above me. There was an orange glow dancing behind the treehouse windows, too bright for candles, too fluid to be a torch. It looked like the light from the storm lanterns we’d used when the power had been out.

I took a deep, steadying breath and made my way to the foot of the tree. That’s when I got my next shock of the evening. A solid, rustic-style handrail had been constructed and was securely fixed to the floating steps I’d climbed the day before. And at the base of the tree trunk was a new deck-like platform. Josh must have worked flat out from the moment he left the others this morning to have done this. Part of me wanted to ask why he’d done it. Another part already knew.

Even with the handrail, the climb still managed to quicken my heart rate as I ascended the tree. The wooden treads deadened the sound of my approach and, unaware that he was no longer alone, I got a truly unguarded glimpse of Josh through the large picture windows. He was facing away from the door, sitting on the floor and leaning against the timber wall with a six-pack of beers beside him.

His head was bowed, and there was something about him that looked defeated. I took a tentative step closer to the door and he must have heard the creak of the platform beneath me, for his head spun around. I saw it all on his face in those first few seconds before the shutters came clattering back down. I saw a depth of sadness I recognised only too well; it had been in every mirror I’d looked in since Adam’s death. And then, before he blinked the emotions away, I saw something that answered the questions as to why this treehouse had been built and why Josh was sitting in it in the dark the evening before I was due to leave.

I hadn’t seen that look on his face since the night six years ago when he’d pleaded with me not to marry Adam, declaring that however much my fiancé cared for me, he’d never love me as much as he did.

The past was spinning through my head as I reached for the handle and opened the door. Josh was working hard to rearrange his features, but it was too late. I’d already seen the truth . . . and he knew it.

‘You lied.’

I hadn’t known I was going to lead with that. The words seemed to come from a place where I had relinquished all control and good sense to what I was feeling in this moment. They were the same feelings that had shaken me six years ago when Josh had told me I was about to marry the wrong man.

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t even ask what I was talking about. In this one moment, more than any other between us, we were so totally in tune that he knew exactly what I was talking about.

‘I had to.’

‘Why?’

He shook his head. He might not be able to control the truth his eyes had revealed, but he was keeping a closer guard on his tongue.

‘ Why isn’t important. I had my reasons.’

‘You didn’t change your mind. You did love me back then.’

There was a raw anguish on his face that he didn’t bother trying to hide.

‘I did.’ He swallowed as though his throat had suddenly tightened up as it attempted to silence what was coming next. ‘I still do.’

I forgot to breathe for what seemed like minutes. My head felt like an impossible weight that my neck was incapable of supporting. My knees were similarly affected as they folded beneath me until I was also on the floor, kneeling beside him. My hand reached out for his shoulder, before it froze in mid-air.

‘But it makes no difference, Lily. What I feel about you isn’t the problem. It never was.’

My arm felt heavy, suspended in between the here-and-now and the what-could-have-been. I lowered it slowly to my side.

‘I don’t understand.’ My voice was small and sounded almost as lost as it had when he’d told my fifteen-year-old heartbroken self it would be best to forget all about him when he moved away.

Except I never did. Even in the Adam years, Josh was always there, locked away in a hidden part of my soul.

His hand reached for mine. I was shocked to see his was trembling.

‘I’m not the man you need in your life, Lily. I never was.’

‘Wasn’t that my decision to make, not yours?’

He winced, and I knew my words, like tiny darts, had found their target.

‘Would you honestly have walked away from Adam, from the perfect wedding, the fancy reception, and the big white dress, just because some loser from your past had finally realised he’d been running away from the best person he’d ever known for most of his life?’

‘You weren’t a loser,’ I defended loyally.

His smile was bittersweet. ‘I wasn’t the right guy. I wasn’t even close. You wanted the whole package. You deserved a guy who dreamt the same dreams as you: who wanted a family, a dog who came running to meet him at the door every night. You wanted someone who would be a father to the kids I knew you were desperate to have. That was never me. But it was Adam. Even if I hadn’t told you that I’d changed my mind, that I didn’t love you after all, you would still have chosen him.’

His words were tearing into my heart, ripping open a thousand scars.

‘I guess neither of us will ever know what I might have said, because you never gave me the chance.’

‘If I could go back in time, Lily, I’d do it all exactly the same. There’s no future for two people who want entirely different things in life.’

I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears that were determined to escape. But they still managed to squeeze their way from beneath my closed lids. I felt the work-roughened skin of Josh’s fingertips gently brush them away.

‘Don’t cry, Lily. I don’t want to remember you like this whenever I climb up here to feel close to you after you’ve gone back home.’

I opened my eyes, blinking several times until he came into focus.

‘This is my treehouse, isn’t it?’

I would remember that half smile until the day I died. ‘You know it is.’

I didn’t plan on making the first move, but my body was already leaning in, leaving my brain far behind. Not that it would have protested too much even if it had caught up.

Still on my knees, I moved in closer and wound my arms around his neck. My lips were on his before he had the chance to protest or push me away. I wanted to think he’d have done neither. This kiss was different from the one the night before. This time I was the one kissing him , and it was conscious, and deliberate, and in that moment it was all that I wanted or needed. And it didn’t feel as though I was betraying Adam, because perhaps this was why he’d sent me here. It didn’t matter if Josh wouldn’t reveal whatever secret Adam had wanted me to know, or even if there was a secret at all. Adam had wanted me to fix things with Josh . . . and in this moment, in this perfect treehouse fantasy, it felt as if this was always meant to be.

When I twisted to sit on Josh’s lap, his arms went around me, and he deepened our kiss. As his tongue caressed my mouth, I still loved Adam every bit as much as I had ever done. But I also loved Josh.

We kissed like the teenagers we’d once been. And then the hunger and urgency intensified, and I was back there in my student bedroom, wanting nothing more than to feel his naked body against mine. There had been too many moments when we’d almost had this and then let it slip away. But not this time.

My fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. I’d undone three of them before his hands came over mine and halted me.

‘Lily,’ he said regretfully.

He’d stopped me before. But tonight was different.

‘It’s okay, Josh. You’re not taking advantage of me. I know what this is.’

He was shaking his head, his eyes troubled. ‘I don’t want to mislead you. I can’t give you what you need.’

‘I know that.’ My voice was surprisingly calm for someone who had so little control over her emotions. Every nerve ending in my body was cleaving towards him. ‘But you can give me what I need tonight,’ I said, slightly shocked by the brazen admission. ‘I need you, Josh. Please don’t turn me down again.’

Passion blazed in his eyes. ‘I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to, and God help me, I don’t want to.’

This time when I reached for the next button on his shirt, he didn’t stop me. He looked down at my hands, his eyes heavy with desire as I pulled the garment free from his waistband and set to work on the heavy buckle of his belt.

He didn’t help me. Perhaps he was still giving me time to see if I wanted to change my mind. I didn’t. When I’d disposed of the belt, I undid the button on his jeans and reached for the zipper. I paused for a second, my eyes going to his. I didn’t realise I was asking for his permission until he gave it with a slight inclination of his head. The sound of the zip was a soft purr, followed by Josh’s low moan as my hand slid into the opening.

He was hot and hard beneath my fingers, and as I found a rhythm his breathing grew faster and more urgent as he continued to kiss me.

‘You should slow down,’ he groaned against my lips. ‘If we’re only going to do this once, I want to do it right, and if we carry on like this, you’re going to be really disappointed in about ten seconds or so.’

I laughed softly, even though his words had lasered through the passion. This was a one-time thing. This would never happen again. Tonight we’d let our bodies say everything they’d kept secret for so long, and then tomorrow I would get in my car and drive away from this place, never to return.

I paused for a moment. Josh wasn’t wrong. We were doing this to finally answer the question of what might have happened if we’d gone down another road. But life doesn’t let you rewrite history. If all we had was tonight, then I could make my peace with that.

‘It’s not too late to change your mind, Lily,’ Josh said, his fingers threading through my hair and holding my face close to his. ‘It’s your call.’

‘I want this, Josh. We need this . . . for closure.’

His jaw tightened. ‘Just one chance to get it right,’ he murmured, his hands sliding down to my waist. They slipped beneath the hem of my jumper, and I gasped as his work-callused palms moved slowly up my ribcage and cupped my breasts. This time I was the one who groaned. He released me from my bra and then the rest of our clothes were being tugged and yanked off, to end up all over the treehouse floor.

He was as perfect as a sculpture, and when his eyes travelled over me, I’d never felt so beautiful, because I don’t think anyone had ever looked at me the way that Josh was doing.

‘Tell me what you want,’ he said, his voice hoarse with desire. I ran my hands down his back. And I didn’t compare the breadth of his shoulders or the muscular contours to the man I’d chosen to marry instead of him.

‘I want everything. I want a whole lifetime of making love to you in this one night.’

I loved the way his eyebrows rose at that.

I loved the way he grabbed a handful of sheepskin rugs and laid them on the wooden floor, before gently pressing me down upon them.

I loved the way his fingers found the place that was hot and wet and so ready for him. Sanity returned for one brief second as he positioned himself between my thighs. ‘Condoms,’ I said, hating to shatter the moment, but knowing I had to.

‘We’re good,’ Josh said, his fingers still driving me half-crazy with desire. ‘I took care of things several years ago.’

I knew that should have saddened me, that he felt so strongly about having children that he’d made that decision, but all I could think of was the burning need within me. A need that made me cry out like a wild creature when he finally entered me.

It was everything I had imagined.

It was like nothing I had ever imagined.