Chapter Nineteen
There was a woodpecker in Petra’s dream. It was summertime and she was in the churchyard at the top of the hill, sitting on
the grass and leaning against the sunbaked wall, which was warm against her back. She was alone but—somehow—not lonely. The
dream—and she knew it was a dream—felt so vivid that she could feel the sun’s rays on her face and hear the woodpecker tip-tapping
away in the ancient yew tree by the church. For reasons she could not grasp, the sickly anxiety of recent days had dissipated,
and she was bathing in a newly acquired serenity and calm—a feeling of absolute safety and quiet happiness.
And then, as her sleep phase lightened, her conscious mind, worrying at the puzzle of this new mindset, insisted on flooding
her mind with brutal lucidity, and she groaned with dismay as the delightful dream rushed away from her.
She lay, unmoving and unwilling, with her eyes still closed but—dammit—that woodpecker was still tapping like a mini pneumatic drill.
What the hell was that? Could it be that the little flat at the top of Capelthorne’s had deathwatch beetles in the roof timbers?
She had read somewhere that they were audible in the spring, tapping their way out of the wooden beams. She should let Jules know.
Groaning again audibly at having to impart bad news, thereby ruining someone else’s day as comprehensively as her own, she reluctantly opened her eyes.
But what was this? The curtains at the window were blue linen, not the blowsy rose chintz pattern she had gotten to know so
well. And the window was smaller too. Lower. With an entirely different view of grazing black-and-white cows rather than the
Portneath rooftops. Where the hell was she?
At least the tapping had stopped.
“Morning, Rip Van Winkle,” came a deep, familiar voice.
The feelings of absurd happiness and security returned in a rush.
“Um,” said Petra, turning over in bed to see Ross sitting in a little armchair in the corner of the room, his laptop on his
knees.
Ah. The tapping noise explained. Typing.
“What do you remember?” he asked. “About last night?”
“Er . . . not sure,” said Petra, playing for time. She definitely now remembered the sensation of being in his arms. It had
been lovely, but—like everything else—the circumstances were a bit hazy. She peeked under the bedclothes. Fully clothed. Hmm.
“Did we . . . ?”
“God, no,” Ross replied. “I mean, I would never . . .” He gestured. “I’m not massively into necrophilia, for a start.” He smiled
self-deprecatingly. “Also, I’d like to think it would at least be a little bit memorable.”
Petra chuckled. “You’d like to think,” she teased. And then the despair of last night filled her again—more an emotion than
a memory.
“I found you on the bench at the top of the hill,” he said.
Petra stared ahead, frowning. It was coming back to her now. “I went up the hill after work,” she said. “I needed to get my
head straight.”
Ross nodded. “And then?”
“It got misty,” she admitted. “So I couldn’t really see where I was going. Somehow, I came off the path. Then it was dark
as well—I didn’t have my phone, so I had no light—I went back up to the top again so I could find the path. Then I realized
I was going to have to wait ’til dawn . . . I think I went to sleep.”
“Not sure sleep is the right description,” said Ross evenly, but then his frustration overcame him. “What kind of an idiot
are you, going off walking at that time of day, anyhow? And with nothing on you? When I found you on the bench, you were freezing.
You wouldn’t have made it ’til morning!”
“Sorry,” said Petra in a small voice. “Sorry to put you to the trouble. You could have hurt yourself.”
“I would have done worse to myself than that if I hadn’t been there to bring you down safe,” said Ross in a low voice, rubbing
his temples distractedly. “Petra, I—”
“—I did some thinking,” said Petra, interrupting. Not wanting to let him say it. “While I was walking last night. And I realize
I do want to represent you. More than anything.”
That was a lie. If she were doing what her heart was telling her to do, she would be refusing to work with him, choosing to
have him in her life in an entirely different way. But then the world would never read that beautiful book. And he would never
have the chance to shine again. If she cared about him less, she would be happy to deny him that.
“But I’ve been thinking too,” said Ross. “And I don’t want you to do it. Not anymore.”
Petra nodded slowly, catching her scurrying thoughts. That was fair enough. He had had time to reflect and—naturally—decided
that appointing her as his agent would be disastrous. Career suicide. As if things hadn’t been bad enough already for him.
“Then, of course, I will do what I can to support you in finding someone else,” she said, trying to sound measured but unable
to suppress the wobble in her voice. Rejection was rejection, however you looked at it. And she had had more than her fair
share of that in the last few months.
“Yes, good, thank you,” said Ross. “Obviously, I would have loved for you to do it—and I appreciate it would have been good
for your career, so I am hugely sorry about that.”
Petra made a dismissive gesture.
“But,” he went on, “I really can’t allow myself to break my rule of mixing business with my private life. You have to trust
me—it’s a really bad idea.”
“Oh, okay, so . . .” Petra was struggling to keep up, her brain felt foggy and full. “Does that mean that we . . . ?”
“If you want to give it a go?” said Ross anxiously, coming over to the bed and pulling her into his side. He gazed down at
her, a sweet smile spreading across his face.
“I think we could ‘give it a go,’” said Petra, sighing a happy sigh.
And then, oh so slowly, Ross bent his head down and brushed her lips with his own.
Petra gave fleeting attention to the thought that she very likely had smudged mascara, bird’s nest hair, and morning breath, but then she dismissed her chattering negative brain, allowing those delightful feelings she had experienced in her dream to suffuse her body once again.
And there was more. A warm glow started in her core and spread as she pushed herself against him, deepening the kiss, and reaching up to run her hands through his thick silky hair, pulling him down against her.
For a long while they communicated without words, exploring and basking in their physical nearness. Touch was enough. It was
as if the months of growing friendship had been missing this one piece of their relationship, and now their need to catch
up was a gentle but persistent hunger.
Eventually it was Ross who pulled away, sitting up and resting Petra back against the pillows. “You need to take it easy,”
he told her as he got to his feet. “I’ll get us some food.”
Disappointed, and not at all feeling like taking it easy, Petra gazed after him, yearning for him to stay near, but comforted
to hear the everyday sounds he was making in the kitchen below.
She was no longer in any doubt about how close she came to losing everything the night before, and that realization drove
her to a revelation. She had to lose no more time living her life to the full. Books were great, work was—well—becoming a
little more attractive, but this? This meeting of minds and bodies had had “inevitable” written all over it, right from the
moment they met on the station platform, if only she had known . . .
It would be like this now, she told herself, astonished that her happiness could be so profound and yet the feeling should
exist with this calmness she felt—a quiet “rightness” that she had never experienced before. So, this was what it felt like.
This was “true love,” not the edgy, anxious excitement, the stomach-churning roller coaster of her past relationships, but
this.
This.
Ross returned with a laden tray. There was fresh coffee, a pile of hot sourdough toast, a jar of thick-cut marmalade, and
a pat of daffodil yellow butter.
“I wasn’t expecting guests,” he grinned. “I didn’t have a lot in. But get this into you and maybe later I’ll let you get up.
We can go to our café and have bacon and eggs.”
“Our café,” said Petra dreamily, spreading her toast thickly and taking a huge bite. She was suddenly starving.
“I thought love was supposed to make you too preoccupied to eat,” she said apologetically. “I’m going to get massive at this
rate.”
“Good,” said Ross. “I don’t think real love stops you from eating. Sounds like something else does that . . . And also,” he added fiercely, “eat whatever the hell
you like. I’m not in love with your backside being its exact current size,” he went on. “I’m just—well—in love with your backside
generally . . .”
“Such a way with words,” teased Petra.
“And it’s not just your backside either,” Ross went on. “I’m in love with all of you.”
Suddenly he was serious. He held her gaze. “I’m in love with you, Petra,” he said quietly.
“I’m in love with you too,” she replied with a happy sigh.
Later that day, Flo texted Petra to ask after her and to confirm (insist, really) that she was taking charge of the shop until
Petra was up to it.
Ross went to Capelthorne’s to collect some bits and pieces for her, having made it quite clear to Petra—and also to Flo—that
he and Petra would be living together at the cottage from that day onward.
By Wednesday morning, Petra was raring to get back to work, insisting that she walk back down to Capelthorne’s in time to open up.
There was a delivery due that day, and she didn’t want Flo humping boxes around.
Plus, she had a meeting scheduled with Jess about the literary festival in the shop after closing.
She was determined not to let her new friend down.
It was a late spring morning, and it felt as if the world had been unwrapped all brand-new just that day. The sky was cerulean
with cartoonishly perfect fluffy white clouds, and the birds sang so loud in the churchyard that they drowned out the sound
of cars beginning the rush to work.
Petra walked down the main street, reveling in the warmth of the sun on her back. Portneath felt like her town now. There
was the little flower shop, with the lady owner placing tall galvanized buckets filled with blooms on the pavement outside.
There were bunches of bright tulips, the last of the narcissi, and early apricot-colored roses unfurling and releasing their
heady scent into the air as Petra passed by. The chocolate shop was still dark and shuttered, but the windows of the bakery
next door were piled high with fresh crusty loaves and trays of huge croissants. A short queue had formed already as retired
people collected their bread along with their newspapers and milk from the corner shop farther down.
The windows of Capelthorne’s winked in the sunshine as Petra slid the key into the door. She knew its foibles now, a little
twist to the left, a push, a twist around to the right, and the door opened sweetly for her, not like her precipitous entrance
that first evening just a few months before.
Walking in, and humming contentedly, Petra whizzed around the shop, switching on lights, firing up the register, running her eye over the displays to make sure all was as it should be. Flo had been in the day before, so everything was—of course—perfect.
Petra cast an eye over the receipts. Once again, it had been a good day’s trade yesterday, she noted with satisfaction. The
little shop was doing well under her care, despite her initial morose predictions.
Petra was in the habit of sending Jules and Roman a brief weekly update, and they had been professing themselves delighted
with her work too. Not for the first time, Petra wished her six months’ stewardship was not whizzing by quite so quickly.
It would be summer soon, and time for her to leave. And now, with Ross in her life, what would become of them both? Okay,
so he had professed his love, but would it be enough to persuade him to leave this charming town and come with her?
Would he even want to go to London?
Would she?