Chapter 35
NOW
Jake was calf-deep in snow. Everyone on the site had been taken unaware by the amount of snow dumped there overnight.
The site was bang in the middle of the Hadrian’s Wall Walk. The views were stunning out across the fields – on a clear, warm, sunny day, you could trace the people walking along the dip of the hill.
On a day like today, it was not such a wonderful place to be. But there was a café on site, and, fuelled by cooked breakfasts and the promise of hot coffee afterwards, as many people as possible were out with shovels, making pathways and clearing a way out of the place to help everyone.
Jake now knew what the flashing lights in the sky had been the other night: thundersnow. Someone had mentioned it – apparently, it was a rare phenomenon.
‘First time I’ve seen it,’ said the young man who told him. ‘Impressive.’
‘So I wasn’t dreaming it?’ Jake asked.
‘Nah. It was real.’
Jake felt better that the snow and the lightning were real, but that didn’t explain the woman standing in it. He would just have to push the image to one side and hope that she had been a trick of the lightning.
His phone rang, and he paused to fish it out of his pocket and answer it, tearing his gloves off with his teeth as he struggled to swipe the screen.
‘Violet! Hello.’
‘You’re muffled,’ said Violet.
‘Glove in my mouth. Hang on.’
‘Most people put gloves on their hands.’
‘Funny.’
‘I thought so. Do you need rescuing?’
Jake looked around and saw the team of people digging and shovelling. It would be so easy to tell Violet that he’d meet her on the main road, and she could pick him up, but…
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, genuinely meaning it. ‘Don’t really feel like I can slope off right now. Everyone is out clearing the site.’
‘Oh, okay.’
‘Where were you thinking of going? What’s on your itinerary?’
‘I’m not really sure – maybe Newbrough. It wasn’t in my original plan today, to be honest, but I think I kind of want to look at her cottage again…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘“Her” being Meggie.’
‘Yes.’
There was a pause. Jake wasn’t entirely sure he wanted Violet wandering around a condemned old cowshed, but who was he to stop her? It was better than her tramping through the snow to that bloody Well. Which, by the way, he had begun to hate.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Stay safe. Will we talk later?’
‘Yes. We’ll talk later.’
‘Great. I look forward to it.’
He tucked the phone away again and dug into the snow with renewed vigour. After all, the sooner he did this, the quicker he’d be away and be able to join Violet.