Coming Home to Cuckoo Cottage

by Heidi Swain

  ‘Yes,’ I croaked, ‘thanks.’ I was surprised by how organised he was.

  ‘I thought I’d better do it quickly in case the power goes off.’ He smiled. ‘We can’t have you going home in my bathrobe, can we?’

  ‘No,’ I sighed. ‘I guess not.’

  Given how soft and comforting it was, I wouldn’t have minded if I never took it off again.

  ‘So what is this?’ I said, peering into the depths of the glass of amber liquid he handed me.

  ‘Whisky,’ he said, as another rumble of thunder ripped through the ground. ‘Neat, single malt. It’ll warm you from the inside out.’

  Personally I couldn’t help thinking I already had enough fire in my belly, but I knocked it back in one and began to splutter.

  ‘You don’t have to neck it!’ Will laughed. ‘You’d better just sip the next one.’

  Given the way my throat was burning, I didn’t much want another one. I was just about to say as much when the room was lit up and then plunged into darkness.

  ‘Damn,’ muttered Will. ‘That’s the power out then. I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for your clothes after all. You aren’t in any rush to get home, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. The last thing I wanted was to be home alone with the fuse box from hell. ‘As long as I’m not in your way.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It’s actually nice to have some company, although I think you could have timed your arrival a little better.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, when I first saw you on the doorstep,’ he grinned, pointing back towards the bathroom, ‘just for a split second I thought you were here to get your own back.’

  ‘As if,’ I gasped. ‘How could you think such a thing?’

  Will wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and reached for his phone.

  ‘Bugger,’ he muttered, throwing it back down again. ‘No signal. Will you be all right if I just nip out?’ he asked, reaching for a fleece that was hanging next to the door and pulling on a pair of trainers. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Funnily enough I didn’t feel daunted by the thought of being alone during the storm in Will’s place at all.

  ‘Just down the road to check on George,’ he said, dashing out into the rain. ‘I know he won’t thank me for it, but I just want to make sure he’s OK. You never know, he might even want to come here and see the storm out with us. Make yourself at home, won’t you?’

  ‘OK,’ I nodded, biting my lip. ‘Thanks Will.’

  Chapter 20

  Will wasn’t gone for long and I wasn’t at all surprised that he came back on his own.

  ‘So how did you find him?’ I asked, as he kicked off his trainers and disappeared into the bathroom for yet another towel to dry off with.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, rubbing his head until his dark hair stood up in all directions. ‘Well, apart from being furious that I’d gone down to check that he was all right, of course.’

  ‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ I smiled.

  ‘And he was pretty cross with you, of course.’

  ‘What on earth made you tell him what I’d done?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, but he didn’t sound sorry at all. ‘It just kind of slipped out.’

  Given that he had just saved me and Minnie from certain hypothermia, I thought it best not to grumble about his lack of discretion.

  ‘And what about Mags and Ed?’ I asked, remembering that they lived in the house next door to George.

  ‘Not at home,’ said Will. ‘I did go round and check. I should think they’re still at the nursery. Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I tutted, ‘I’m not likely to go helping myself to the contents of your fridge, am I?’

  Will shrugged, suggesting he wouldn’t have minded if I had.

  ‘To be honest,’ I said, stifling a yawn and feeling more relaxed than I ever had when faced with a wall of lightning, ‘I haven’t budged from this spot. I’ve been too mesmerised by the light display in front of me.’

  ‘Much better watching it from the safety of the sofa, isn’t it?’ he teased.

  ‘Definitely.’

  Will’s barn was immaculate and beautifully finished and I had felt perfectly safe cosseted in the cushions of his massive sofa, even though he had left me all alone in the middle of such a tempestuous storm.

  He busied himself in the kitchen and a few minutes later presented Minnie with a dish of what looked like succulent steak cut into tiny pieces and me with a huge slice of chocolate cake.

  ‘Obviously I can’t give you anything warm now the power’s out, but I thought this might fit the bill. It’s Jemma’s finest and I don’t think the extra sugar will do you any harm, given everything you’ve been through.’

  ‘Oh wow,’ I said, ‘thank you. It looks great. She’s an amazing baker, isn’t she?’

  ‘The best,’ Will nodded, through the first mouthful of his own delicious slice. ‘Although I have to say she’s not so great when it comes to helping me keep the pounds off.’

  He had looked fine to me, standing in the doorway all taut and toned in his towel, but I thought it best not to comment.

  ‘I’ll have to run this off later,’ he said, taking another massive bite.

  ‘Do you run a lot?’

  ‘I try to,’ he nodded, ‘but I’m probably not as disciplined as I should be.’

  ‘I suppose you had to be pretty disciplined when you were a soldier, didn’t you?’

  Will nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘You weren’t very happy when George let slip at the party that you’re ex-military, were you?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about the role of the vet in the armed forces before,’ I carried on, not yet picking up that he still didn’t want to talk about his life before Wynbridge. ‘But I suppose there are plenty of animals that need looking after, aren’t there?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there are.’

  ‘Dogs and horses,’ I blithely carried on as I took another mouthful of the velvety cake.

  ‘Lottie,’ he said, putting down his plate and turning to face me. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, especially as this is the first time we’ve actually managed to spend some proper time in each other’s company without falling out, but do you mind if we drop it?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I blushed. ‘I was just trying to make conversation.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I don’t talk about it with anyone, so please don’t think I’m being awkward. It’s just a part of my life that I’ve moved on from.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why don’t we talk about you instead?’ he suggested. ‘Tell me about your life before you moved to Cuckoo Cottage.’

  I looked across at him and bit my lip.

  ‘Well,’ I sighed, suddenly remembering how difficult it was to talk about things that made me uncomfortable now he had served up a dose of my own medicine. ‘I suppose I didn’t really have one.’

  My mind flitted back to my telephone conversation with Matt. How on earth had he managed to get me talking about my childhood and absent parents? Was it because it was a phone call rather than a face-to-face conversation? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it made me feel rotten about not being able to tell Will.

  ‘But you must have had a job?’ he tried again. ‘Some sort of career?’

  ‘I had a job,’ I said unhelpfully, ‘a job I loved, but it wasn’t a big career like you had.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘OK.’

  ‘But that’s all about to change,’ I announced, thinking back to the vans and the idea of setting up my own glamping site. ‘Thanks to Gwen I’ve got great plans for the future now.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘I have,’ I sighed then quickly added, ‘but I’m not going to tell you what they are, not yet anyway.’

  ‘Crikey,
’ smirked Will. ‘First I don’t want to talk and now you don’t. Aren’t we the life and soul of the party?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, biting my lip, ‘perhaps you aren’t the only one with a past that’s tough to talk about.’

  ‘And perhaps we’re a lot more alike than I first thought,’ he smiled kindly.

  ‘Perhaps we are,’ I smiled back.

  ‘Do you miss her?’ he asked, pulling me out of the dream state I was falling headlong into. ‘Gwen, I mean.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  I hadn’t realised I had been holding my breath.

  ‘So how come you hadn’t visited her for so long?’

  His tone was far from accusatory, but even so, I could feel the familiar old remorse rearing its ugly head. My colour deepened and my throat tightened as guilt wrapped around my heart and gave it a long, hard squeeze.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Will. ‘That’s absolutely none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything, Lottie,’ he insisted. ‘Especially as I haven’t told you a thing about me.’

  ‘Honestly,’ I began, thinking I could at least talk about this if nothing else, ‘it’s fine. I couldn’t visit for a while because if I wasn’t working I was looking after my gran who had suffered a massive stroke, and to be honest, after she died I just couldn’t face coming back.’

  Will nodded and I got the impression that he understood.

  ‘I thought there were too many memories wrapped up in this place and I had no idea that I’d be living here one day, but Gwen and I used to talk on the phone all the time and I was just beginning to think that I should come and see her when . . . ’

  My words trailed off and Will nodded again. It was the first time I’d suggested to anyone how guilty I felt and I realised I hadn’t let much go in the way of emotional baggage yet. That was probably why I was so determined to make something of my life at Cuckoo Cottage. I owed it to Gwen to make her efforts to put everything in place for me worthwhile.

  ‘And she never spoke to you about me?’ Will asked.

  ‘Never,’ I said, shaking my head.

  Now I was finally getting to know him properly I think I was just as surprised about that as he was.

  ‘I can’t say that isn’t a blow to my overinflated ego,’ he smiled, puffing out his chest.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think she left you out on purpose,’ I said, giving him a nudge. ‘My guess is that she was waiting until I came to visit to introduce me to you in person. Perhaps she didn’t think describing you on the phone would do you justice.’

  Will laughed.

  ‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘Now you’ve met me, what do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ I said carefully, looking everywhere but at him, ‘that if I answered that question you would have an overinflated ego.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he beamed, jumping up, crossing to the window and neatly changing the subject. ‘I think we’ve seen the worst of this storm now.’

  ‘By the looks of that sky,’ I sighed, standing up and looking at the lightening clouds, ‘I think you could be right. Your poor roses have taken a hell of a battering, though.’

  Will shook his head as he surveyed the damage.

  ‘Haven’t they just?’ he tutted. ‘And they were so good this year. Sometimes I wonder why I bother to grow them when the weather can decimate them in one afternoon.’

  I thought back to my plans for the caravans and hoped that the Fenland thunderstorms weren’t going to batter those as well.

  ‘Is this kind of thing a regular occurrence?’ I swallowed. ‘I’m sure it never even rained when I was here on my holidays.’

  ‘From what I’ve experienced since I’ve moved here,’ said Will, ‘we do get a few storms, but they aren’t normally this bad. Quite often they seem to miss us altogether and track the river. I’d say what you’ve endured today has been pretty unusual.’

  I smiled up at him, relieved to know that what I had witnessed was the exception rather than the rule.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re smiling,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘You could have been fried out there.’

  ‘I know,’ I breathed, feeling that there was a part of me that had been hit by a lightning bolt the moment I crossed the barn threshold.

  I tried to look away but found that I couldn’t. It was Will who eventually broke the moment and only then because he had spotted something in the garden.

  ‘A hare!’ I laughed. ‘I don’t believe it. Do I keep seeing the same one or are there lots around here?’

  ‘Oh, there’s a fair few all right,’ he said. ‘Far more now the police have finally cracked down on the coursers.’

  ‘I guess a lot of people don’t think there’s all that much to this landscape, do they?’ I mused. ‘But they couldn’t be more wrong, could they?’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I sighed. ‘Every evening now when I take Minnie for a little wander I spot something new.’

  ‘And what about Grace?’ Will whispered.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Grace, have you spotted her?’

  ‘Who’s Grace?’

  ‘She’s the barn owl who lives and hunts in your field.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, wide-eyed. ‘No, I had no idea. How wonderful.’

  ‘She and her partner have raised broods in the nest box on the end of the small barn I use as my garage over there,’ he said, pointing, ‘for the last couple of years.’

  ‘How exciting,’ I gushed. ‘Gosh, you’ve kept that quiet, haven’t you?’

  ‘Well, I try to,’ he said seriously.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because not everyone with a so-called interest in ornithology has the most honourable of intentions, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Sabotage,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Sabotage,’ I frowned back.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I work closely with the local barn owl charity and I’m sorry to say it isn’t unusual to come across nests that have been raided. Sometimes it’s the eggs that are taken, sometimes the chicks.’

  ‘But that’s appalling,’ I gasped. ‘Who in their right mind would do that?’

  ‘You have a lot to learn about wildlife crime,’ said Will. ‘The stories I could tell would curl your toes, Lottie, and not in a good way.’

  ‘Well, as awful as that sounds, I’m honoured to have Grace flying on my land,’ I said, ‘and I hope that she and her partner will be there for a long time to come.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Will. ‘I’m pleased that you feel the same way.’

  I was delighted to know that Cuckoo Cottage was a sanctuary and a stronghold for Grace and her family and I hoped that what I was planning to do with the field wouldn’t disturb or unsettle her. It was my hope that my ideas would work with the landscape and the wildlife that inhabited it, rather than against it.

  ‘Will?’ I said, thinking that I was going to have to tell him what it was I had in mind for the place now.

  ‘Yes?’

  He was standing so close I could feel his breath moving the top of my hair.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, breathing deeply.

  ‘And if I do, do you promise it won’t go any further?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, sounding concerned, ‘whatever is it?’

  I looked up at him and, not realising he had bent down to hear what I had to say, suddenly found my face dangerously close to his.

  ‘What?’ he whispered, the trace of a smile playing around his full moist lips.

  I had absolutely no idea what it was I’d been going to tell him, the inside of my head had turned to mush and something wriggly had crawled inside my stomach and was doing cartwheels.

  I was just about to give in to temptation and lean in when the lights came back on, the washing machine began to spin and the re
frigerator kicked into life.

  ‘The power’s back on,’ I swallowed.

  ‘So it is,’ he smiled.

  Chapter 21

  Convinced that it was the electricity between us that had sparked Will’s appliances back into life, I thought it best to keep my distance until my clothes were dry and then hastily dressed in the bathroom. I hung the bathrobe on the hook on the door and tried not to think about what I would have happily allowed to happen had the gods of the electricity company not seen fit to intervene.

  I had been completely naked under that robe and every erogenous zone in my body had been yearning for Will to undress me, just as he had when I arrived on his doorstep, soaked through and terrified. Considering I had found him both infuriating and incendiary up until a few days ago, my body was certainly going out of its way to convince me that I’d got him all wrong. Not that I needed a relationship right now, of course, or even a brief encounter for that matter. I was fine on my own and knew it would have been foolish to complicate things.

  ‘You all set then?’ Will asked when I eventually left the sanctuary of his bathroom.

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, ‘I think so, and I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done today, Will. I was an absolute fool to think I could get to George’s place before that storm hit.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘you were.’

  I couldn’t argue with his response.

  ‘I don’t quite know what you would have done if I hadn’t been here.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ I said, biting my lip as I imagined myself cowering on his doorstep with Minnie in my arms.

  ‘Well, I’m pleased that I was here and that you’ve felt safe,’ he said, then added awkwardly, ‘you know, if you’d have called, I would have come and picked you up. I know Gwen always kept my number in that address book of hers on the hall table.’

  ‘I didn’t think of that,’ I admitted, feeling more ridiculous by the second. ‘I was so intent on making it to George’s before disaster struck that I completely forgot I’d have to pass you first.’

  ‘Don’t you mean, before lightning struck?’ he said, reaching for his keys.