Faith (71 page)

A dark blue estate car was parked by the croft, so she pulled over by the copse and got out.

Stuart must have heard the car engine because he turned, holding on to the chimney pot with one hand. The sunshine on his hair turned it to burnished copper, and although it was no longer the length it had been all those years ago, the image was still the same.

‘Laura?’ he called out tentatively.

She giggled with nervousness. ‘Surprise, surprise,’ she called back.

He sat down and slithered down the roof towards a ladder, and a second or two later he was on the ground and bounding towards her. There was no doubt she was welcome for he opened his arms wide and ran the last few steps to her, picking her up and swinging her round.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he said breathlessly. ‘How did you find me?’

When he put her down she was so dizzy she nearly fell over, stopped only by him catching hold of her.

‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ she gasped. ‘Look for the nearest pub by Loch Awe and ask if anyone had seen you.’

‘In Taynuilt?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I haven’t been in there.’

‘But a man who delivered timber to you was,’ she giggled.

She felt like a teenager. Although he hadn’t actually said he was glad to see her, she knew he was. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘Every chance, but what made you come?’

‘Unfinished business?’

He cupped his two hands on either side of her face and rubbed his nose against hers. ‘Does that mean what I hope it means?’ he whispered.

She was tingling all over, her heart beating so fast it felt it might burst. ‘You’d better tell me what you hope for,’ she whispered back.

‘That you want me,’ he said softly.

She put her arms around him and lifted her face to be kissed.

The years fell away as she was enveloped by the sweetly familiar smell of timber on his working clothes. Then as his lips came down on hers and his arms almost crushed her, she was transported back to that first kiss in Castle Douglas, and the passion that had erupted like a volcano.

But there was timidity on her part now. Back then she’d known she was beautiful and desirable, she had no fear of rejection or of adventure. Even as his lips were devouring hers, she was aware that she was middle-aged, that her flesh was no longer as firm and supple. She wanted him, but she was also afraid.

He broke away first. ‘I’d better make you a cup of tea,’ he said. ‘If someone comes along and sees us snogging like a pair of teenagers the news of it will spread faster than a forest fire.’

Taking her hand, he led her round the side of his cottage, stepping over pieces of timber, fragments of glass, old tree roots and broken fencing. ‘Sorry it’s such a mess,’ he said with a faintly embarrassed chuckle. ‘I had hoped to get it all straight before I came for you.’

They got to the back of the cottage, and before them was an overgrown garden which clearly had once been well tended for there were rose bushes, brick paths and the remnants of a lawn. Beyond that was the loch, just twenty or so yards from the back door.

‘You were intending to come for me then?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Of course I was,’ he said and sounded surprised she had to ask. ‘I just thought you needed time to get yourself together, to find out if you had room in your new life for me.’

Laura held on to
before I came for you
, it sounded so masterful, so right. Her eyes swept around the neglected garden and she noted a wooden bench under a rowan tree, an upturned rowing boat with long grass almost hiding it, a chicken coop and a large rabbit hutch. She could almost see the old couple who had lived here, and sense the love that they’d felt for the place.

‘I was intending to go back to London and start a new life with Meggie and Ivy,’ she said carefully, afraid to say anything which would make her sound pushy or clingy. ‘But first I went out to Barney’s grave, and I ran into Ted.’

‘How was he?’

‘Sad, but okay. He’s been looking after the grave, and that was very touching. We had a long chat, and things he said made me feel I should take the chance and come up here and see you first, before returning to London.’

‘I’m very glad you did. But I intended to come down there and take you to a few swanky places,’ he said.

In a flash she guessed what had been going on in his mind. Finding this croft, doing it up, living in a wild place, fishing, shooting, that was the kind of life he always wanted for himself, but he believed it would hold no attractions for her. He thought she needed city life, smart clothes, luxury, fancy restaurants and sophisticated people.

He had learned so much about her since he’d come back to help her, yet he hadn’t taken on board that all those experiences had given her a different perspective.

‘I’d rather walk these lanes than go to swanky places,’ she said simply. ‘Now, can I see inside?’

It was a hideous mess. Four dank, dark rooms with plaster falling off the walls, window frames with gaps around them, and the kitchen had nothing but an ancient sink with a rusting tap. The whole place smelled of rot and decay.

‘Enough to put you off?’ Stuart asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically.

‘It’s very Third World,’ she laughed, noting he had a camp bed, a camping stove and a box of groceries. ‘But it’s got great potential. Look how big the rooms are! The fireplaces are lovely, the floors could be stripped and varnished, and if you extended the two back rooms, and had French windows opening out on to the garden and the view of the loch, it could be heaven on earth.’

He beamed at her enthusiasm. ‘There’s only an outside toilet, full of spiders, the wiring is dangerous, and if I don’t finish the roof this weekend the whole place will be awash when it rains. But I just keep looking at the view and telling myself I wasn’t mad to buy it.’

‘Of course you weren’t,’ she laughed, filling up the kettle and putting it on the camping stove. ‘And don’t let me stop you doing the roof. I could be your labourer and pass things to you.’

He looked astounded. ‘It doesn’t make you want to run back to civilization then?’

‘Not one bit,’ she laughed again. ‘But if I am in your way you can tell me to push off.’

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just stood in the doorway watching her as she rinsed out two mugs, found the tea bags and sniffed the milk to check it hadn’t gone off.

‘What?’ she said.

‘I can’t believe you are actually here, making me tea,’ he said. ‘Just a few hours ago I was thinking about you, wishing I hadn’t been so pathetic on the day of the hearing.’

‘Whatever do you mean? You weren’t pathetic!’

‘Well, maybe intimidated then! You see, you looked so beautiful, but so self-contained. Meggie and Ivy were wildly excited about the place in Bromley, and all their plans included you. I thought they were trying to tell me diplomatically that I was to butt out, that you had no need for me any more.’

‘Oh, Stuart,’ she exclaimed, ‘nothing could be further from the truth. If I seemed self-contained it was only because I didn’t want to look needy. And when you told us about the work you’d got up here and buying this place I was sure you felt you’d done your job getting me free, and it was time for you to move on.’

‘So we were at cross-purposes?’

Laura nodded. ‘But not only that, I felt I had no rights. I was the one who screwed things up all those years ago. I became someone you wouldn’t have liked, and I’m ashamed of that. All that stuff I’ve revealed to you weighs heavily on me. I suppose I don’t think I deserve a second chance.’

‘Everyone deserves that.’

‘Maybe, but I’m scared, Stuart. Even now, I can’t be sure my feelings for you are real, or whether they’re just some fantasy brought on by gratitude and good memories.’

He looked a little disappointed at that. ‘Well, I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes,’ he said with a shrug.

The kettle boiled and Laura made the tea and handed him his. She felt she had to explain further, but she wasn’t sure she knew how to. ‘This is a bit like a re-run of that first day in Castle Douglas,’ she said. ‘Only I’m not so reckless any more, and I don’t have a blow-up bed in the boot of my car.’

He smiled, put his tea down on the floor and pulled her into his arms. ‘Maybe another kiss might bring on a little more recklessness,’ he said softly. ‘I want you more now than I did then, but I’m more patient. I’m grubby, sweaty and unshaven and I could wait for a night in a hotel. But a kiss would tide me over while I finish the roof.’

His lips came down on hers and his arms tightened around her. Laura closed her eyes, let her anxieties go and gave herself up to the bliss of being kissed. All those long months in prison she had squashed down all thoughts of lovemaking, for even before she was arrested it had been three or four years since she’d last been with a man. She had believed she was incapable of ever wanting one again.

But as his tongue insinuated its way into her mouth, and his big hands caressed her back, she found this wasn’t so. She was trembling with wanting, long-forgotten feelings rushing to the surface, pushing out all the doubts and fears.

‘Well?’ he said, kissing her eyes, her forehead and her cheeks. ‘Any of the old magic still about?’

‘I do believe there is,’ she said lightly. ‘But you must get back on the roof and finish it. It might rain tomorrow.’

Half an hour later, with Stuart up on the roof again, Laura had a plan. The terrible state of the toilet had given her an idea, and she called up to him to say she was going to drive back to the village shop and buy some bleach and other cleaning materials for it.

‘Don’t you go running out on me,’ he called back. ‘Another couple of hours or so and I’ll be finished up here.’

It was well over an hour before Laura returned to the cottage, and she was giggling to herself because her mission had been so successful. She had the cleaning materials, bucket and rubber gloves she’d gone for, but a lot more besides. A double room was booked for the next two nights in the guest house she’d stayed at before, and she had a picnic in a box, including a bottle of wine and two glasses, candles, firelighters and a bag of logs.

She called up to Stuart and waved the bucket and bottle of bleach at him to put him off the scent. Once he was back working she quickly got the other things out of the car boot and hid them behind some bushes in the garden.

While the kettle was boiling, she went back down the garden and found a perfect spot under a tree where she gathered up heaps of dry leaves to act as a mattress, then covered them with some of the blankets from his camp bed.

There were plenty of old bricks lying around, and she made a crude sort of fireplace close to the blanket, yet hidden from Stuart’s view. It was already nearly three, and the light would be fading before long. She placed the picnic box and the candles by the blanket. Collecting up twigs as kindling, she placed them over the firelighters, with the logs close by. Satisfied, she returned to the cottage to do some cleaning.

Stuart came down from the roof a couple of times while she was scrubbing out the toilet, and seemed amused by her zeal, but without any suspicion she had anything else in mind.

‘I’m just putting the last tiles back now,’ he yelled down a bit later. ‘It’ll be pitch dark soon, so we’d better find a bed and breakfast for you.’

Laura liked his assumption that she wasn’t ready yet to leap into bed with him. It seemed to point out that he was thinking long term.

The toilet was finished, looking remarkably spruce and hygienic, and smelling a great deal better, so she nipped down the garden and lit the candles. They were the garden kind in pots so they wouldn’t be blown out by the wind and hopefully they’d keep any stray midges at bay too.

Kneeling down, she lit the firelighters and blowing gently on the twigs as they caught fire, she soon got a blaze going.

‘What are you doing?’

She jumped at Stuart’s voice right behind her. She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t heard him come down the garden.

‘Party time,’ she said. ‘Come on in and sit down! I’ll just put a couple of logs on the fire.’

Laughing, he bent down and crawled on to the blanket, patting it appreciatively.

Laura joined him and opened the box of goodies. ‘Ta da! A bottle of wine, glasses and a corkscrew,’ she said. ‘You open that and I’ll get out the food.’

The light was fading fast, but there was enough from the candles to see how dirty his face and hands were. She took out a packet of baby wipes and leaned forward with one to clean him up.

‘Looks like you thought of everything, you scheming minx,’ he said teasingly.

It was remarkably cosy as the bushes around them were keeping off the wind and the smoke from the fire was going straight up. Stuart handed her a glass of wine.

‘Are we staying here all night?’ he asked.

‘I think we’d be frozen solid by morning.’ She giggled. ‘Trust me, I have a contingency plan.’

She laid out the crusty rolls, pâté, cheese, a packet of butter and a jar of olives. ‘One borrowed knife,’ she said, brandishing it. ‘We’ve got to return it.’

He was just looking at her, the candle and firelight softening his features. Putting down his glass, he reached out and took her hand, rubbing her fingers with his thumb. ‘This was a beautiful thought,’ he said.

She just smiled. She couldn’t explain that she hoped it would whisk them back to where they started, or that she wanted him to see the girl in her hadn’t gone entirely. She had to trust that would be evident.

They began to talk as they drank the wine and ate the picnic. Not about the experiences of the past weeks, or the past, but about the cottage. ‘I’ve got an architect drawing up some plans,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to alter its character, just extend it to put a garage on the side and a bathroom behind it. But until I’ve got the plans approved, I can’t do anything more than make it watertight.’

‘You can’t intend to live here all through the winter,’ Laura exclaimed.

‘I did intend to,’ he said ruefully. ‘But that was before I discovered how bad the wiring was. The last two nights were misery without lights, I couldn’t see well enough by candlelight to make myself some food, let alone read. But I start the job in Oban on Monday, and they’ll let me have a room out there.’