Chapter 4
4
‘Oh! That wasn’t exactly what I thought you’d be putting in.’ I looked at the windows now lined up against the wall. They were nothing like original Victorian-style sash windows and, although I was a total newbie at this, even I knew they were going to look hideous.
‘You said you wanted it done quickly. These are the ones we’ve got in stock that fit the measurements. You didn’t say anything about having fancy ones put in.’ The man shoved his hands in his pockets and gave me a shrug. ‘It’s these or nothing.’
I looked out at the once more darkening sky. Every other supplier I’d rung couldn’t do anything for weeks yet, so I’d ended up going with this company that I’d finally found buried several pages in while trawling the web. A voice in my head that sounded remarkably like my sexy neighbour’s told me this might not have been such a great idea.
‘What’s the verdict, love?’ He sounded tetchy now. ‘If you don’t want them, plenty of others will and hanging around here doesn’t pay my bill, if you know what I mean.’
Definitely not such a great idea. But what could I do now? They were here. They had new windows and I had completely rotten ones. How bad could it be? At least when I went to bed tonight, I’d be warmer.
It turned out I wasn’t warmer. I could hear the wind whooshing through gaps between the building and the window frame. Not to mention it looked hideous. The existing windows had been ropey but were beautiful period sash ones, perfect for my romantic vision. Now my bedroom had one basic, white uPVC one that, weirdly, only opened a couple of inches. The fitter had said that was normal until it bedded in. He’d seemed to know what he was doing so I’d taken his word for it. In the end, he’d had to leave the other one as, once again, the heavens had opened and trying to fit any more had been impossible. I’d suggested paying for them all together but the man had insisted he be paid for the work he’d done and that he’d arrange with me to come back when the weather was more conducive. He and his mate were both big blokes and, unlike Jesse, who never appeared to use his size as a threat, there was something about these two I hadn’t felt comfortable with. In truth, I’d been regretting the whole thing. I’d paid them for the bedroom window in cash as requested, locked the door and waited until the van was out of sight to let out the breath I hadn’t even realised I’d been holding.
And now, here I was, under a mountain of blankets, listening to the wind howling through one rotten window and one new but badly fitted one. I’d spent the last couple of hours on my laptop trying to find suitable house insurance, something that was proving difficult given the current insecure state of my house. But eventually I’d given in to the weather and snuggled down in the bed, trying to get warm. At least the old window had kept out the worst of the rain but I could hear the tap tap tap of raindrops on the floorboards under the newly fitted one. I’d put a bucket down earlier but now I could hear a new spot letting in the weather. Perfect! If Jesse knew, I was sure he’d be laughing his arse off and telling me he’d told me so. Which he had.
A loud crack outside made me squeak in shock. Another was emitted as the sound was followed immediately by a crash. Was that a tree? The wind was hammering into the farmhouse, thumping against it like a solid force. Branches from another tree scraped and tapped at the glass, reminding me of a ghostly Cathy from Wuthering Heights , begging to be let in. I pulled the blanket over my head. Was the place actually haunted? It was old enough to be. People used to die at home in the Victorian era when the house was built, didn’t they? Oh God, was I trying to sleep in a room where someone, or more than one person, had taken their last, rattling breath?
I shoved the blanket back sharply. This was ridiculous. I didn’t even believe in ghosts! It was just a bit of weather and I was working myself up into a frenzy about it because I was already running on Stress Level Defcon 1 – at least! I flipped the switch for the bedside lamp and pushed myself up the bed. Leaning over, I could see the puddle forming under the nearest edge of the window while the other side was still dripping steadily into the bucket. And then the thunder started.
‘Great.’ I sighed and swung my legs out of the bed. I was out of buckets, having only found one, but I could mop up the mess and then put another towel down to soak up the leak until I could get hold of the fitters again in the morning to redo the appalling job. The thought of them coming back didn’t exactly warm the cockles of my heart. Maybe I could ask Julie if she’d be able to take a bit of time off from the café to be here too, just so that I wasn’t alone. No, that was ridiculous. I’d done everything on my own for decades. I wasn’t about to start relying on others now. Apparently my independence was something that had appealed to Adrian. Or so he’d said. I guess it had left him free to do his own thing. Like get cosy with heiresses.
‘Right!’ I slapped my thighs and stood up. As I took my second step, an enormous clap of thunder rolled around the building, shaking it, and me, to its core. The lights flashed then everything went dark as a cave. That was another thing, along with the assorted smells, none of the many property programmes mentioned about moving to the countryside. It was dark. I mean, properly dark by 4p.m. Having always lived in the city and surrounded by streetlights, this was still taking some getting used to.
Outside, another deafening crack was followed by a second loud crash, at the same time as lightning lit up the room like a flare. The thunder followed immediately, competing with the wind as each tried to drown the other out. The wind slammed into the house once more and blew the new window from its poor fixings. the frame catching me on the temple as it fell to the ground, taking me and a glass side table with it. As it landed, glass sprayed everywhere, the shards lit up like a glass fountain by the next flash of lightning.
I lay where I was, stars tumbling in front of my eyes in the pitch black, my head already beginning to thump. Another sharp crack outside brought me back to the present. I made to push myself up and promptly put my hand on some glass.
‘Shit!’ Snatching it back, I stayed where I was, waiting for the next bolt of lightning to illuminate the area so that I could at least get to my phone and use that as a torch. As the next flash lit the room, I groggily stepped back and reached over the bed to grab my phone, almost overbalancing as I did so. Steadying myself on the bed, I switched the torch on, revealing a blood-red handprint on my ridiculously expensive cashmere blanket.
‘Fantastic,’ I said, focusing my anger on that in an attempt to keep the rising panic at bay. My house was falling apart around me and I was leaking blood from at least one part of my body. My head was pounding and my right foot was stinging too so I wasn’t putting either of those in the clear either. I turned the torch onto the floor where the shattered table and broken window frame lay, then followed the spray of glass as the shards caught the light way across the room, twinkling back at me like tiny, vicious stars. I sat down heavily on the bed.
I looked down at my phone. Who did you call in this situation? A family member, a friend, the police? No, that was ridiculous. What the hell could the police do? Hello? I’d like to report a rogue window. More like rogue window fitters. As for the other two, I didn’t have any family and the only friends I did have were miles away back in London. Not that anyone had called to see how I was. I’d always been too busy to nurture any real friendships, and perhaps a bit suspicious. Trust wasn’t exactly something I excelled at and I’d been with my ex for a decade so his friends had become my friends. Or so I’d thought. I guess in the end, they were just his friends after all.
I took a deep inhale, tried to ignore the creak and groan of the tree just outside the window and turned to bum shuffle across the bed. The longer I stayed here, the colder I was getting. My teeth were already chattering as I grabbed the bloody throw from the bed and wrapped it around myself. It was already ruined so in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. I pushed myself up and tottered unsteadily towards the door, my hand stretched out to feel for the doorframe. As I grabbed it with relief, a loud crack reverberated around the room, the rain lashing in through the gaping hole where there had once been a window. I turned back just in time to see a huge branch tear through the roof and land sprawled on my bed, its end sticking out through the wall. My room, my house, was totalled but all I could do was stare at the huge log that now rested in the same place I had been just seconds ago.
* * *
Through the howls of the wind, I heard another noise. Still stunned as I stood staring at how much closer than planned I suddenly was to nature, I didn’t react. The noise stopped. Almost immediately, it started again. Finally the familiar sound jolted me out of my stupor and I put the phone to my ear.
‘Hello?’ I answered without checking the screen.
‘Felicity?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Jesse. Are you all right up there?’ His words were quick and sharp, tension resonating through them.
‘Umm…’
‘OK. That’s not the positive reply I was hoping for.’
‘There’s a tree in my bedroom.’ My words sounded oddly calm.
There was silence on the line and I went to drop my hand, assuming the storm, not content with crapping on my house, thought it would round out what I hoped was its finale by destroying my only contact with civilisation.
‘Felicity?’
I lifted the phone back up. ‘Sorry. I thought we’d got cut off.’ My words were as casual as if I’d been on a train and gone through a tunnel.
‘No. I was just… Did you say there’s a tree in your bedroom?’
‘Yes. I think I’m going to need a new roof. Actually, I think I’m going to need a new house. In fact…’ reality was peeling back the layers of shock and waving enthusiastically ‘…I could really do with a new life. This one’s rather turned to shit.’ And then I hung up because I felt the tears, frustration and downright fury about to blow and I had no desire to embarrass myself in front of my handsome, disapproving neighbour any more than I already had.
I was about to do what he’d likely expected me to in the first place. Something I’d never done in my life before, no matter how hard things had been. But right now, as I sat on the landing of my partially destroyed house, I couldn’t see any other way. I was going to give up. There was no way I was going to make my money back on this place, especially with its impromptu roof garden, but I’d take what I could and get the hell out of here.
For a while, I’d thought I could do it, thought I could make that shift from city living to the country. The quiet was definitely growing on me and I’d sort of made a friend in Julie, who didn’t appear to want anything in return – which in itself had been novel. But I couldn’t win against this. Where did I even bloody start when there was a sodding tree lying on my bed – or at least the remnants of the beautiful, period-style bed I’d bought with the insanely expensive mattress and seven-star hotel-quality sheets? The one bit of comfort in this disaster of a so-called house and it was smashed to pieces and sodden.
I screamed with frustration at the tree, the wind, the storm and life in general. Everything I’d done, everything I’d battled and won and worked for. Where the fuck did I go from here?
A hefty gust blew through. The painting on the wall next to me that I’d hung myself – thank you, YouTube – slammed against the wall then lifted and crashed to the floor, glass splintering everywhere, the paper inside already crumpling in the rain. I let out another lung-busting scream that encompassed all the feelings I couldn’t even begin to put into words.
‘Felicity?’ The shout came from outside and I snapped my mouth closed. ‘Felicity!’
I staggered upright, gripping the wall as heavy footsteps came racing up the stairs, torchlight dancing in front of them. Jesse. His arms reached for me and I let them. Suddenly, the muscles in my legs that I’d trained at the gym religiously four times a week felt like blancmange.
His gaze left mine momentarily to take in the surroundings. ‘Jesus. Are you all right? Are you hurt?’
I shook my head.
‘You screamed.’
I shook my head again. ‘I’m all right. Honestly.’ I looked down, suddenly embarrassed at the thought that he had heard my screams of frustration, despite the fact that they had oddly made me feel a little better.
His hand caught my face. There was a slight roughness to his skin, a man who used his hands. This was in contrast to the men I usually associated with, some of whom had a better hand and nail regimen than I did.
‘You’re sure?’
I nodded against his hand.
‘OK. Can you—?’ As he stepped back, glass powdered under his boot. ‘What’s that?’
‘It blew off the wall.’ I pointed to the sad, crumpled, soggy mess that had once been my favourite painting, surrounded by splinters of wood and glass. Jesse looked down at my feet.
‘We need to get you out of here.’
I went to step forward but suddenly, one strong arm was under my knees and I was scooped up and resting comfortably against a very solid chest. ‘Apologies but if that’s smashed, there’s glass everywhere.’ He looked up as another flash illuminated the room. ‘You also appear to be missing a window.’
‘I think that’s the least of my problems right now,’ I replied, looking up at him. I couldn’t see his expression but I felt his arms tighten a fraction.
‘Buildings can be fixed. People are more important.’
‘If you’re going to be nice to me, you need to put me down right now because I’m in a very emotional state and I refuse to cry in front of you.’
‘You’ve every right to be emotional,’ he said, turning towards the stairs and making his way carefully down them, his arms solid and reassuring around me. ‘But I’m not putting you down until I know your feet aren’t going to be cut to ribbons. Besides, we need to get you out of this house.’
‘I can’t leave it!’
‘You have to, Felicity!’ Jesse said. His torch sought out a pair of my shoes, which he picked up and placed in front of me, and then he put me down so that I could step straight into them.
‘No, I don’t. I’m sure the storm will be over soon and I need to be here to assess what the damage is once it’s light and then sort out getting it back on the market.’
‘Wait, what? The market?’
‘I’m done! If there was ever a sign that I am most definitely in the wrong place, then I’m pretty sure this is it!’ I flung my arms wide. ‘The sooner I get out of this, and back to civilisation, the better.’
‘Right. Well, in the meantime, this house isn’t safe for you to stay in. We don’t know what structural damage that tree has done and the storm isn’t over yet. The safest thing for you to do now is get out of here and come back in the morning when it’s light.’
‘Fine!’ I grabbed my keys from the bowl and marched to the door. My foot and hand stung and I had a splitting headache but I was getting out of here.
‘Felicity, wait. I’ll drive you.’
I yanked a coat off the hook, shrugged violently into it and pulled open the door, mentally adding ‘more substantial lock’ to my shopping list bearing in mind how easily Jesse had got in. ‘Thank you, but I’m quite capable of… You have got to be fucking joking!’
Jesse took the keys from my now limp hands as they hung at my sides, gently moved me outside and locked the door. I was still staring at my car. At least what was left of it. The universe, or whoever the hell was in charge, not content with letting me ruin my career and jettison everything I’d worked for in order to come to this disaster zone, had not only sent a tree through my roof, barely missing reducing me to a pile of goo, but had also aimed a whole tree at my car and dropped it right down the centre. I now, effectively, owned two cars. Or at least two halves of the same one.
I felt my body sagging. I’d thought I was done before but apparently not. Now, though, I was utterly, totally and completely done. I began to slide to the ground.
‘Upsy daisy.’ Jesse’s arm was back round me, holding me up. My feet felt leaden.
‘Just leave me here. Please.’ My voice sounded small.
‘Not going to happen.’
I wriggled out of his arm. ‘Why?’ I stepped back, suddenly finding my voice again. ‘What are you even doing here? Why do you care if I stay here or not? You know what?’ I yelled against the weather. ‘I wish I’d never moved! I wish I’d stayed right in that bed when that bloody tree came in!’
Suddenly, I was back up in his arms, back against that chest. ‘We’re going home.’
‘This is my bloody home.’ I kicked my feet and one of my shoes flew off. Of course it did. ‘Put me down!’
‘I’m about to.’ He pulled the handle on his truck door, kicked it open and deposited me inside, not especially gently, then slammed the door shut. He’d left the lights of his pick-up on when he’d come in and I saw him cross their beam, his eyes squinting against the driving rain, mouth set in a grim line. Then he pulled himself in behind the wheel, the engine bursting to life, and the truck cut through the quagmire that was officially my drive. In the light of the truck’s interior, I could see the tension in his face. Well, good, because I was angry too.
‘You know this is kidnapping.’
I caught the tiniest headshake.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘There’s clearly something. Where the hell are we going anyway? You do realise I have absolutely nothing with me?’
‘I’ll ask Jules to drop something round in the morning.’
‘Drop something round where?’
‘My place.’
‘Erm. Thanks, but no, thanks. I’ll stay at the hotel if I’m staying anywhere.’
‘It’s the middle of the night, Felicity, and we’re not in London now. There’s no twenty-four-seven service in the village hotel. The owners are asleep.’
‘I’m sure they’d be happy to wake up at the prospect of trade.’
‘No. They wouldn’t. They’ve got a kid who’s only just started sleeping through the night so sleep probably wins out. Not everyone is driven by money alone.’
‘I suppose that’s a dig at me?’
He let out a long breath through his teeth. ‘Look. I’ve got a guest room with its own en suite. I’ll send Jules a message explaining what’s happened. You’re about the same size from the looks so she’ll drop something round for you in the morning. That way, we don’t have to bother anyone else tonight. Then we can go back to your place in the morning and assess the damage.’
‘We?’
He turned briefly to face me. ‘Yes. We.’ He cleared his throat. ‘If you want.’
I looked out of the window but all I could see was rain streaming down the glass and my own tear-streaked face reflected in the low light of the cabin.
‘I’m sorry… I’m… Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’