Chapter 26 #2
A sudden burst of unexpected birdsong rang out, and I spotted a wren with its tail high in the air as it sang its heart out on a nearby tree stump.
The sound was unexpected because the tiny bird had no need to draw attention to itself now that the breeding season was over, and I couldn’t help thinking, as I watched it, that it was singing just for me.
This was, without doubt, going to be my last visit to the woods, and the wren wanted to send me off with a happy memory.
‘Tilly,’ James frowned, when he spotted me approaching and opened the cabin door. ‘Are you okay?’
I thought I’d swallowed my emotion away, but something about my expression must have alerted him to the fact that I was upset.
‘I’m just feeling a bit overtired,’ I told him. ‘These last few weeks have been a lot, haven’t they?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, and closed the door behind me, so Buddy, who was currently engrossed in demolishing a chew of some sort, couldn’t run off. ‘They’ve been too much in so many ways.’
I wondered if he included us getting together in that statement.
‘So,’ I asked. ‘What happened last night?’
James puffed out his cheeks and then a smile lit up his face. For a moment, I thought he was going to tell me Constance had changed her mind, but the alteration of expression was nothing to do with his aunt.
‘Hey,’ he said, taking a proper look at what I was wearing. ‘I recognise that dress.’
‘You do?’ I frowned, glancing down at it.
‘You were wearing it the day we met, weren’t you?’
I tried to think back, but I couldn’t in all honesty remember what I’d travelled to Willowell wearing, even though I hadn’t had many options at the time.
‘I remember the buttons.’ James continued to smile.
‘Then you’ve got a better memory than me!’ I laughed, though when I came to think of it, I could remember every detail of what he’d had on that day.
‘Oh my god,’ he declared, before clapping loudly and running his hands through his hair. ‘I think this is it! Yes, this is it! This is the moment!’
‘What are you talking about?’ I demanded. ‘What’s got into you, James? Are you so sleep deprived that you’re becoming delirious?’
It was most likely exhaustion coupled with all the emotion that had shoved him off on a tangent.
‘Tilly, do you believe in love at first sight?’ His question stunned me. ‘I didn’t,’ he quickly carried on before I’d answered. ‘I thought it was nonsense, far more to do with lust than love, but then…’
‘But then?’ I frowned.
He took a step closer.
‘But then I saw this woman jump out of her car in a dusty lay-by and chase down a hat with this determined look on her face,’ knowing he was talking about me, I tried not to imagine how mad that must have looked, ‘and I just knew…’
‘Knew what?’
He took a deep breath and said, in all sincerity, ‘That was what love at first sight felt like.’
I felt my own breath leave my body as he closed the gap between us and wrapped his arms around me.
‘And there was me thinking it was lust,’ I whispered, as I looked up at him.
‘There was plenty of that, too,’ he smiled. ‘But after we’d gone our separate ways, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and not only in a lustful way.’
My heart was racing, and I was sure he must have been able to hear it.
‘And I even came back here on the off-chance of seeing you again after that first encounter where I’d made a random detour just to drive through the village because we were almost in the area,’ he continued. ‘Much to the annoyance of my colleague.’
‘Your non-hat wearing colleague?’
‘That’s the one! And then when I did amazingly see you again the second time, by the time I’d driven up the road and turned my car around, you’d gone.’
‘You came after me?’
‘Of course I did.’
Ironically, he most likely hadn’t been able to track me down, because I’d turned up the drive to Fernside.
‘Well, thank goodness for dodgy air con,’ I smiled.
‘And business meetings in pubs,’ he added.
I was beginning to think that my mention of love the evening before hadn’t put him off me after all…
‘So, what exactly are you saying, James?’ I asked, even though I now had a pretty solid idea.
‘I’m saying,’ he said, as he rested his hands lightly on my waist, ‘that I’ve fallen in love with you, Tilly, and it happened that very first day we met.
That first moment I saw you, in fact. And I’m so sorry that I’m trying to deny you the future you were planning to establish here.
Of all the people in the world I don’t want to hurt, you’re right at the top of the list.’
‘Oh, James,’ I breathed.
‘Do you hate me?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ I said and softly kissed him. ‘Of course I don’t hate you. I love you, too.’
I couldn’t be sure how the next few minutes would have played out if Buddy hadn’t finished eating his chew and nudged his way between us, but there was plenty of lust as well as love in the air when we finally broke apart.
‘What do you want?’ James pretended to tell his beloved dog off.
Buddy woofed and rested a paw on James’s leg.
‘The same thing as me, I daresay,’ I smiled. ‘Some attention from you. He must miss you when he’s with the sitter.’
‘Yes,’ James agreed and squatted down to give Buddy a big fuss, ‘I think he does.’
He got up and walked over to his rucksack and pulled out a bowl and bottle of water. Within a few seconds, Buddy was noisily drinking and James looked back at me and smiled. I realised then how tired he looked.
‘Constance hasn’t changed her mind, has she?’ I sighed, knowing we couldn’t put off talking about the elephant in the room a moment longer, though I would have loved to.
James’s unexpected declaration had made my heart soar with happiness but there were complications that came with it, too.
I remembered Dad always said that love conquered all and that nothing else was as important.
I hoped he was right. For the moment it seemed to be overriding my upset about losing the woods, but would that last?
‘She hasn’t changed her mind yet,’ James amended.
‘But I’ve asked her to give me time to prove that I can still make the current situation work.
That’s all I can do really, and it’s why I drove up last night, to try and fix a date and get her to commit to it.
I obviously didn’t expect to find the two of you having a public showdown in the garden. ’
‘No,’ I said wryly. ‘I hadn’t been expecting that to happen, either.’
‘And you hadn’t told me your brother was planning to visit,’ he added.
‘Because I didn’t know. I did tell you how flighty he is though, didn’t I?’ I reminded him. ‘He turned up with no warning, but I’m so excited that he’s here and actually, I’m not so sure he is flighty anymore.’
‘You look like each other, you know.’
‘Do we?’ I frowned.
‘You do.’ I’d have to look in a mirror to see if I agreed with that. ‘And what about the others? I know Rick was there, and Carter, I think, but the other two…’
‘We’ll get to that,’ I told him. ‘Right now, I’m more interested in your plan to get Constance to keep this place. What exactly are you planning to do before this date you’re trying to get her to stick to?’
He walked back over to where I was standing, and I pulled him close.
‘First thing on the agenda is getting back into a decent work routine,’ he explained thoughtfully. ‘That will show my aunt that I can manage the workload. And if I stop taking the pro bono cases for a while, that will get my boss off my back and help with that, too.’
‘I’m amazed he’s given you time off to visit today.’
‘The celebrity client you might have heard me mention before is refusing to work with anyone but me, so it’s given me a bit of leverage.’
‘That’s a bit of luck.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew who it was,’ James grimaced. ‘I’m not feeling lucky that I’ve got to work with them. Far from it. And my boss reckons if I win this case, there’ll be more high-profile clients to come.’
‘And will you have to deal with those, too?’ I asked. ‘That will be a far cry from doing the work you love, won’t it?’
Given what James had just said about not taking more pro bono work on, I could imagine his boss capitalising on that and the percentage of time he’d previously allowed for it diminishing for good.
My phone pinged with an incoming notification before James had given me his answer and opinion on the situation.
‘Do you want to check that?’ he asked.
‘I suppose I should,’ I said as I pulled my phone out of the dress pocket and unlocked it. It was an Instagram notification telling me that Woodland Adventures had just posted. ‘Oh wow!’ I gasped, as the images popped up.
‘What is it?’ James asked.
‘Something stunning on Insta from the place I used to volunteer at.’
‘Show me then,’ James requested and I turned my phone around.
‘Isn’t that gorgeous?’
‘Wow,’ he smiled, ‘that’s absolutely beautiful. It’s called a mandala, isn’t it?’
‘That’s it,’ I nodded and swiped to the next image, which was equally as impressive.
‘Where is this place?’ James asked, as we admired the images of different coloured leaves arranged in beautiful patterns. ‘Woodland Adventures. I’ve never heard of it, but it looks right up my street.’
I looked at him and shook my head.
‘And the prize for the most ironic statement of the day goes to!’ I said, giving him a nudge.
‘What?’ James frowned.
‘Never mind,’ I smiled and turned my phone off again.
‘No,’ James insisted. ‘Go on. Tell me.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘It’s a place that offers outdoor wellbeing workshops and helps people reconnect with nature in all sorts of ways. Woodland Adventures was the inspiration for the business I wanted to set up here.’
James looked taken aback.
‘You knew I was planning something outdoorsy,’ I told him. ‘We talked about that ages ago.’
‘But we never got into the details,’ he said. ‘What else were you planning?’
‘If I had my notebook,’ I told him, ‘I’d be able to give you all the details, but I’ve abandoned it now.’
‘Then tell me what you can remember off the top of your head.’
‘Why?’ I shrugged. ‘What would be the point?’
James pulled a picnic blanket out of his rucksack, spread it out, sat on it and refused to budge until I agreed to share each and every one of my business details.
He even made me try and pull up the Woodland Adventures Insta account again, but the phone signal had dropped out, so along with my notebook, the visuals were absent, too.
None the more for that, I did an excellent job of explaining what I had been planning. I even remembered Carter, Rick and Melody’s involvement and, of course, Helen’s assertion that she was certain the plan would be approved.
‘So,’ I finished up as my tummy gave the loudest rumble and I remembered I hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast, ‘you can see why this place beats any other hands down. The woodland is perfect,’ I reeled off, ‘there’s off-road parking, a building already on-site and there’s been a business here before.
It’s a prime location and,’ I added, getting completely carried away as I always had when I talked about it, ‘it’s in my favourite part of the world. ’
James was staring at me intently and it seemed to take him a moment to realise that I’d stopped talking. When he did, he sprang to his feet and began to stride about.
‘James—’
He put up a hand and shook his head, then continued to pace.
Buddy, who had been sound asleep, suddenly woke up and, thinking this was some great game invented for his benefit, leapt up and began to scamper around, almost tripping James up on more than one occasion.
I sat and watched them and wondered what source of entertainment was going to come next. I didn’t have long to find out.
At the end of the next lap, James came over, pulled me to my feet and kissed me firmly on the lips.
‘Tilly—’
Buddy’s sudden barking cut him off and it made me jump. It wasn’t his usual friendly sort of yap, but a protective deep rumble I wouldn’t have thought him capable of. When James managed to quieten him, I cocked an ear and could hear a hammering sound.
‘Can you hear that?’ I asked James and he nodded. ‘What is it?’
He quickly attached Buddy’s lead.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and find out.’
We grabbed his things, locked the cabin and followed the noise to the car park. There we found a truck, two men, a ladder and a huge sign.
‘Is that a for sale notice?’ James bellowed, and the guys ignored him but carried on driving the posts into the ground that they were going to attach it to.
‘Looks like it to me,’ I shouted over the din, and Buddy started to bark again. ‘And James, look! It says the site has already been sold!’