Chapter Thirty Eight
The holiday cottages were described online as being an ideal honeymoon location, and as I swept past the main farmhouse and down a winding drive to the four converted outbuildings, I could certainly see why. The Grade II-listed cottages were perfectly located for privacy and were set like tiny Monopoly houses against a backdrop of brilliant green rolling fields.
There was a lot to be charmed by as I approached The Old Dairy, where Josh was staying. Propped up against a post and rail fence was an old-fashioned bicycle, its panniers overflowing with wildflowers and a hand-painted sign attached to its frame, confirming I’d found the right location. It looked like a place where memories would be made.
I pulled up beside Josh’s rental vehicle and drew in a deep breath. My windows were wound down and yet my car was still fragrant with the sweet smell of warm croissants and cinnamon buns that I’d collected as soon as the bakery opened.
I was far too early. Josh wasn’t expecting me for another two hours. I crunched a pathway through the deep shingles to The Old Dairy’s entrance, where late-flowering roses clung to a trellis, scenting the air with their perfume.
As I waited for Josh to answer the door, I took a moment to savour the peace and tranquillity of the surroundings. This hideaway was so romantic that what I was about to do felt like pouring lemon juice on a cut.
He didn’t answer my first knock, and I shifted my weight nervously from one leg to the other before trying again, more insistently this time. There was a huge window at the front of the property, but I could see no movement from within. Was he still asleep in the rustic four-poster bed I’d seen in the gallery of photos on the website? The image of his naked limbs entangled in crisp white sheets was infuriatingly difficult to evict from my head.
I jumped guiltily when Josh opened the door, as though my thoughts were written all over my face.
‘Lily.’ There was both surprise and delight laced around my name. ‘Am I running ridiculously late, or are you early?’ He glanced down at his wrist as though to check on the watch he wasn’t wearing, while I tried very hard not to react to the fact that actually he wasn’t wearing much of anything at all, apart from a pair of faded jeans that he’d obviously pulled on so hastily the top button was still undone. That metal fastener drew my eye like the worst kind of magnet.
‘Sorry. I was still getting dressed,’ he added somewhat unnecessarily, as the morning sun caught his naked torso.
‘It’s my fault. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d just . . .’ My voice trailed away. I took a step back off the flagstone doorstep on to the shingled driveway. ‘I’m sorry, Josh. You weren’t expecting me at the crack of dawn. Why don’t I go for a walk or something, while you finish getting ready.’ As though it was a peace offering, I thrust the bag of warm croissants towards him.
‘No, don’t be daft, come in,’ Josh said with an easy smile. He took the bag of pastries and couldn’t resist having a quick peek inside. ‘Besides, if you leave me alone with these, I can’t guarantee there’ll be any left by the time you get back.’
The front door opened into the dairy’s open-plan accommodation, which was currently bathed in buttery yellow morning sunlight streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I loved it all, from the uneven brick floor to the criss-crossed beams that were so low Josh must surely have had to duck to walk beneath them.
‘Let me grab a t-shirt,’ he said, turning towards a door that presumably led to the bedroom. ‘There’s a coffee maker in the kitchen, but I think you need a degree in rocket science to make it work. But if you’re feeling brave . . .’
‘Always,’ I said, as though I wasn’t literally trembling with fear at the thought of the conversation I was about to start. The one that was likely to end us.
As he moved past me towards the bedroom, my attention was drawn to the tattoo inked beneath his right shoulder. I’d seen it for the first time during our night in his treehouse, but for reasons that still made my pulse quicken whenever that memory came up, I hadn’t paid much attention to the details of the inking. But I did now. The tattoo covered an old burn scar he’d always had; a scar he’d never wanted to talk about.
With fingers that should have known better, I reached up and lightly traced the outline of the shapes. They looked vaguely familiar. He jerked at my touch and drew in a deep breath, and it took all my control not to run my hands over the warm skin of his back.
I dropped my hand with a mumbled apology. ‘Sorry. I just noticed something – your tattoo is the same as the logo you carve on to your furniture, isn’t it?’
He turned around and there was an odd expression on his face. It wasn’t quite embarrassment, but it was certainly a close relative.
‘I could lie and pretend it was all part of a corporate branding plan, but the truth is the tattoo was a late-night drunken impulse when I was travelling through Asia.’
‘Oh,’ I said, standing on tiptoe to study what I now realised were Chinese characters. ‘What does it say?’
‘No idea. I picked it from a chart on the wall because I liked the shapes. But if I had to take a guess, it’s most likely Chinese for “Stupid drunk idiot”.’
‘But then you used it for the Wildwood logo?’ I asked, unsure why he still looked uncomfortable. Lots of people got impulsive tattoos; it was hardly something to be ashamed of.
‘Like I said, I liked the shape of the symbols.’ He reached for the door handle beside him. ‘Let me finish getting dressed and maybe we can figure out the coffee maker together?’
By the time he reappeared, wearing a soft grey t-shirt and with his jeans thankfully securely fastened, I’d made us coffee and practised at least half a dozen segues for how to go from Do you want milk with that? to It’s not you . . . it’s me.
‘You’re a genius,’ he said, dropping an unexpected kiss on my cheek.
After the intimacies we’d shared, that shouldn’t have flustered me. But it did.
‘Not really,’ I mumbled, opening the fridge and hoping the cool air would chill the blush from my face while I feigned a hunt for the butter that was right there on the shelf in front of me. Beside it was a bottle of champagne and some orange juice.
Josh leant across me, his arm inadvertently brushing against the swell of my breast. Fireworks that had no business being there ignited in every single nerve ending I possessed.
‘These were in the welcome pack,’ Josh explained. ‘Do you fancy a glass with our breakfast?’
His question spiralled me back to the test I’d taken just hours earlier, the one that was going to change everything.
‘It’s a bit early for me.’
‘Maybe later then,’ he said with an easy smile.
I tried to smile back, knowing that for us there probably wouldn’t be a later.
We ate at a scrubbed pine table beside the enormous window. Or rather, Josh ate, while I systematically deconstructed my pastry into a messy pile of golden flakes.
‘Not hungry?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing in concern.
‘Not really,’ I said, drawing in a deep breath because I knew the time was finally here. ‘Shall we take our coffees outside? I think we need to talk.’
He followed me out of the front door to a nearby wrought-iron bench draped with a sheepskin throw. The fur had been warmed by the sun, and in other circumstances it would have been the perfect spot to sit and enjoy the September morning.
Josh’s expression had changed from the carefree one he’d worn throughout our breakfast. His brow was now furrowed, and his eyes looked troubled.
‘I can’t help thinking I’m going to regret passing on that champagne. You look like I need a drink to hear this.’
I bit my lip. ‘I think maybe you might.’ I drew in a steadying breath. ‘There’s a lot about you and me that feels like we were always meant to be,’ I began. Josh looked as though he was about to pull me into his arms, but I held up a hand to stop him. ‘But there’s also a lot that doesn’t.’
I paused, like an assailant about to deliver a fatal blow. ‘I’ve always seen children in my future. And you don’t see them in yours.’ I sounded ridiculously like a fairground clairvoyant.
His eyes were soft, kind, and that somehow made it all worse because there was still hope in them.
‘I’ve always known how you felt about having a family, Lily. I can still remember you saying, “ There’ll be a girl called Scout and a boy named Todd and they’ll be the best kids anyone has ever had. ”’
I stared at him in amazement, hearing my teenage dreams being quoted back to me.
‘How on earth did you remember that?’
‘I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything you’ve ever said to me. Because back then, when you talked about the family you wanted to have one day, it seemed like the best fairy tale in the world to a battered and scarred teenage boy who’d never known what that kind of love felt like and didn’t believe he’d ever deserve it.’
My heart broke a little at his words, because you could see that the old pain hadn’t entirely gone away. Maybe it never would.
‘But things got so much better after you came to live with Gordon and Janette,’ I reminded him.
The smile that lit his face was filled with poignant nostalgia. ‘They did. Thanks to them I got a glimpse of how it is to be a parent. And it didn’t hurt that there was a really cute girl who lived next door.’
Crazily, I could feel myself blushing again.
But when he went to continue, I knew I couldn’t keep putting this off, there had been enough secrets. I had to think for more than myself now, so when Josh reached for my hand again, I pulled away. I couldn’t be touching him when I said this. I just couldn’t.
‘Josh. I’m pregnant.’
I knew that, for the rest of my life, I’d never forget the kaleidoscope of emotions that travelled across his face at my words, each one worse than the one that had come before. Shock, followed by pain and then regret, before finally, dragged up from some deep well within him, a look that did a fair impersonation of happiness. If you hadn’t known Josh since you were eleven years old, that is.
‘That’s fantastic news, Lily. Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?’ The sun was in his eyes, but I don’t think that’s why they suddenly looked watery. ‘I’m so happy for you, I really am.’ With what seemed like a Herculean effort he put a smile on his face. ‘So, who is this new man? Tell me all about him.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that, Josh. There is no one else. I meant what I told you last night.’ My hand went unconsciously to my stomach, and I could feel my features softening. ‘This is Adam’s baby.’
The incredulity was back on his face, but I could hardly blame him for that.
He was silent while I explained the path Adam and I had gone down before his treatment had begun.
‘We had all these plans and dreams that he never got to live long enough to see. So now I’m going to see them through alone. But I’m flying blind, because I have no idea if that’s what he’d want me to do. There are so many things I still don’t understand, so many questions I’d ask him if only I could.’
Josh got to his feet and looked down at me with an expression that hovered somewhere between guilt and remorse.
‘Wait here.’
Before I had a chance to ask where he was going, he was heading towards the cottage in long confident strides. He was back in less than a minute, an envelope in his hands.
‘This is for you,’ he said, holding out the white oblong towards me. The sun was low, dazzling me, as I reached to take it from him. Was this the speech he kept telling me he’d written? But as his shadow fell across the envelope, I saw my name written on the front, in handwriting I would recognise for the rest of my days.
‘He sent me this and asked me to give it to you after you’d learnt the truth.’ Josh shook his head. ‘It was wrong to keep it from you, I know that, but it felt just as wrong to destroy your memories of him.’ Josh bit his lip. ‘I was damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t.’
The letter was still in that no man’s land between us, but as it transferred from his hand to mine it fluttered wildly in my suddenly trembling fingers.
‘I’ll go for a walk and let you read it in peace,’ Josh said gently. ‘We can talk later, when I get back.’
He turned towards the gate, and I watched Fletcher trot up and fall into step beside him. My eyes followed them until they disappeared from sight, before looking down at the envelope once again. I brushed my fingertips over the ink that had long since dried. I lifted the envelope to my lips and kissed his familiar script, somehow knowing that he’d have done that too before sending the letter on to Josh.
‘Just you and me, one last time, my love,’ I said to the envelope, before slowly turning it over and ripping open the seal.