Chapter 2
2
Despair washed over Harper as she glared at the corner of her phone screen. Despite dragging her suitcase through more pine needles and squelching mud, plus collecting what she could only assume by the occasional waft of bad stench was fox poo on the bottom of her boots, she still hadn’t stumbled across a hotspot, nor a way out of these woods.
The afternoon light waned through the trees, casting eerie shadows that stretched endlessly through the forest. She shivered both from the brisk cold and the panic jangling her nerves, her breath a visible cloud in front of her.
“This is why I wanted a nice city break, by the way!” she shouted into the deserted forest. Prague had been her first choice, if only because Kenzie was always talking about how much she wanted to go, but she’d forgotten to renew her passport last year. She was officially about to lose her mind, and nobody would ever find her. She would be destined to wander this forest for the rest of her lonely life. She would become a myth, a legend. Maybe they would call her the Wailing Witch of the Woods. Or maybe she would get attacked by wolves, or Highland cows, or bears . Her half-eaten carcass would be proof that there was no right answer to that “man versus bear” debate she’d seen on social media. Like most, she’d decided that to be left in the woods with a bear was the lesser evil, but that didn’t mean she liked the sound of either.
A fence caught her eye, fairly new judging by the bright brick-red paintwork.
A sign of human life! Oh, thank god . She scurried over with her suitcase, then leaned against the fence to catch her breath. If she’d known how exhausting this ordeal would be, she wouldn’t have quit those spin classes after the first painful, sweaty session a few months ago.
All right. That was a lie. No level of fitness was worth the chafing on her undercarriage from the cycling chair. But maybe if she ever got out of here, she’d consider getting a gym membership.
She checked her phone again, as though the fence might transmit the 4G she desperately needed. Or 3G. She’d settle for 3G. But the signal remained non-existent, and she let out a loud groan. The time on her screen read five-thirty. Already ? Would anybody even be able to offer her a room this evening? It was October. Daylight was a thing of the past, especially this far north. It would be pitch-black soon, and then she really would be in trouble.
She massaged her throbbing temple, anger bubbling inside her where once anxiety had simmered. She should have been curled up by a lit hearth with a strong cup of tea by now, editing her photographs to post on Instagram before she opened her newly bought leather-bound notebook and got down to business. She deserved more than just a refund for this.
Exhaustion weighed on her joints as she began to inspect the fence, searching for a gap or a gate, anything that would lead her out of Mother Nature’s torture chamber.
Her spirits lifted at the sight of moss-eaten eaves and wooden panels through the slats of the fence. A house! Or… a shed, maybe. But it was something! It was walls that real humans had built!
A heavy slam beat out a rhythm somewhere nearby, and she warily wondered if she was better off carrying on down the footpath. What if it was a man ? Like most women and queer people, she barely felt safe walking through the crowded streets of Manchester. Approaching a cabin, where a loud noise was emanating, sounded like the beginning of a horror movie.
She stepped back, warming her cold hands in her jacket pockets as she considered her options. She’d been walking for over an hour and hadn’t found this supposed town Darren had directed her towards. As much as she wanted to be careful, she also didn’t want to die of frostbite and starvation.
She’d watched a few videos on self-defence. She could probably risk a peek at the cabin of horrors…
Harper walked further around the fence, but it was impossible to see much more through it beyond trees and shrubs. She came to a gate, finally, and breathed a sigh of relief, but when she tried to open it, she found it bolted from the inside.
Her teeth chattered as a particularly harsh wind blew through the forest. She was about to head back to her suitcase when it began to rain. Heavily.
This, she had been expecting. Living in the north meant always waiting for the next sudden change in weather.
The rain pelted, making the collar of her woollen shacket chafe uncomfortably against her neck. Her raincoat was in the suitcase, tucked deep beneath autumnal dresses and cosy jumpers that she’d spent yesterday coordinating with the right accessories and shoes.
“Oh, bollocks to it.” Harper was done traipsing to a town that, for all she knew, might not even exist. Whoever was in this shed surely couldn’t be any worse than the Airbnb host who had left her in this position.
She rubbed her hands together as she beheld the fence. It was at least a foot taller than her, but she could get a decent foothold. Hopefully.
She hooked the muddy toe of her boot between the slats and grabbed the sturdiest part she could find. When splinters dug into her palms, she winced, but she kept her fingers wound tight. Damp hair clinging to her face, she squinted through the droplets hanging on her lashes and stepped onto the next slat.
Immediately, she slipped and fell ass-first in the mud.
She wanted to scream.
“It’s fine, Harper,” she whispered to herself, remembering the TikTok tutorials she’d watched on how to gentle parent oneself through stressful situations. “Just get back up and try again.”
She couldn’t bear to look at the state of her jeans as she skidded and stumbled back to her feet. All she knew was that she was caked in muck to the point where somebody might mistake her for Bigfoot. I hope this town has a bloody laundrette.
This time, Harper used a low tree branch for purchase. The fence scratched her other palm as she slowly wriggled her way up it.
“Okay,” she whispered between heavy breaths. “Well done, Harper. You’re doing it.”
And she was … sort of. She faltered a few more times before finally reaching the top.
Only when she got there did she wonder how on earth she would haul herself over it.
But she’d come too far to go back. She cocked her leg over the other side, holding on to a leafy tree branch for dear life as she shifted her weight. Somewhere, a dog began to bark, and she wondered again if she was jumping to her death. “Ohgodohgodohgod—”
“What the hell are you doing?”
The new voice made her flinch, and her grip was lost all at once. She fell to the ground with a thump and an “Oof!”, the wind knocked out of her. Spotted yellow leaves rained down around her, the branch she’d used as support bending at an odd angle over the fence. Flattened spiny thistles clung to her clothes, and she groaned to discover that she’d narrowly avoided a patch of stinging nettles.
“Jesus Christ!” the man swore loudly, and then capped work boots rushed towards her sprawled figure.
Harper was certain that, if she was a cartoon character, there would have been stars haloing her head now. Dizzy, she forced herself into a seated position and sucked air back into her lungs. Her entire body smarted against the impact of the fall – and it was only made worse when a heavy lump of fur pounced on her, wet tongue swiping across her cheek.
“No! Don’t attack me! I come in peace!” Harper screeched, waiting for the snarls and the pain and the blood. Had she found the man and the bear in one fell swoop?
But the creature just kept licking until he was shouted off by that same booming voice. “ Bernard ! Off!”
The dog – it must have been a dog, thank goodness – finally surrendered and trotted away, and the brown fur and amber eyes of a Border Collie took form.
Then her vision cleared as the man crouched over her. He was objectively gorgeous, with blue eyes framed by thick lashes and flecks of red peppering his otherwise dark stubble. His chiselled features were creased with concern, and only then did Harper remember that she was sitting in the mud, in the rain, after climbing over what must have been his fence.
“Shite, are you all right?” He scanned her body for injury, a firm hand finding her shoulder. “What the hell were you doing, climbing over the fence like that?”
“It’s a very, very long story.” She was still breathless, and also very embarrassed. He was ridiculously attractive, but had she noticed that already? A damp, coppery strand of hair fell into his eyes, and the ends curled just above his chin. His square jawline, though half-hidden by a thick promise of a beard, was sharp enough to cut paper. To make matters worse, ink curled around his muscular biceps and into the sleeves of his dirty white shirt. Tattoos guaranteed Harper’s attraction to anyone, and the universe knew it. The shirt in question clung to his toned chest and abdomen, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. She could see more ink trying to peek through the wet, translucent fabric, and had never wanted so badly to disappear from humiliation.
He looked at her like she was mad, which she probably was. She cleared her throat and dared to look down at her ruined clothes.
She was a mess. She’d come here to reinvent herself, to become a better version of herself than the one who had lost her job and her relationship, and instead, she’d stooped to a new low. In front of a handsome stranger.
She wished she could go home. Not to her flat in the centre of Manchester, but to her parents’ house just outside of it. She wished for a warm bath and to be smothered in towels and blankets, to be told, “It’s okay, chicken. Everything will work out in the end.” She wished to curl up on their sofa, surrounded by memories of childhood, and not have to endure this deep shame and helplessness.
But then her parents would know that she was not, in fact, a strong independent woman, rather just a lost fool who smelled of fox dung.
“I’m really sorry.” She used the fence to pull herself up on shaky legs. He rose with her, arms still outstretched as though ready to catch her. He was even more good-looking when standing, if that was a thing. If it wasn’t, Harper was officially dubbing it a thing. Of course, it might be related to the fact that he towered over her, denim jeans ragged and torn over long, stocky legs.
This was just another test, she decided. She’d survived the devastation of her cancelled booking and fought her way through the forest. Now, she just had to deal with the flutters in her stomach as she faced what might have been a literal Scottish god. She might have been pathetic and dirty, but she was still here, and that had to count for something.
If she just kept pretending, maybe she could get out of this semi-unscathed.
“Are you apologising for trespassing, for breaking a branch of one of the forest’s oldest oak trees, or for crushing my saplings?” The man cocked his head and folded his arms over his chest.
“Huh?” Harper looked down. Green sprouts had been flattened beneath her boots. “Oh, gosh. For all of those things. I’m so sorry!”
His jaw remained tensed as he nodded. “Come on. Let’s get out of the rain, shall we?”
She rocked on her heels nervously. “Are you going to murder me if I come with you?” On this side of the fence, she could see the cabin better. It was certainly no Heatherly Lodge, the wooden walls faded with rain and age and paint peeling from the window frames. But if he did turn out to be a psychopath, it was… adequate as a hostage prison. A weathered blue shed leaned to one side behind the cabin, fixed with a solar lantern that made it look teleported from another time.
“I’d have to catch you first. Clearly, you’re skilled at fence-vaulting,” he said.
When she didn’t laugh, he pursed his lips and seemed to shrink just a little, taking a step back to give her space. “You’re fine. Promise.”
Harper supposed she couldn’t do much else other than trust him.