Hearing Jenny coming, Ross hurriedly said, ‘Yes, I will. Got to go now, Suzy. See you soon.’
Jenny came in, her eyes enquiring, anxious. ‘Any news?’
He shook his head. ‘Work, I’m afraid. I had to ring a colleague.’
Jenny frowned. ‘How can you even think of work at a time like this? Anything could have happened to Dylan...yet you still have work on your mind! Sometimes men make me so angry...’
Placatingly, Ross asked her, ‘Is that my sandwich? Looks great—what’s in it?’
‘Everything,’ Jenny said, distracted, as he had hoped. ‘Ham, tomato, lettuce, hard-boiled egg, cheese, all bound together with mayonnaise—cheese doesn’t keep you awake, does it? Take it out if you’re not happy eating it.’
‘It never bothers me. In any case I doubt if I’ll get much sleep tonight.’
‘No,’ Jenny said, sighing. ‘Oh, where can she be, Ross? I mean, if she did have an accident, why haven’t the police heard about it?’
He finally persuaded Jenny to go to bed at midnight, but he sat up in front of the TV until he fell asleep, shallowly, fitfully, in a cramped position, and dreamt of making love to someone: a silky body in his arms, smooth thighs which parted to allow him into a hot, pulsing heaven.
Shuddering and groaning, he woke up to find it was dawn, a strange, white dawn, the reflected light of snow flickering across Ross’s eyelids. Morning! He looked at his watch and saw it was seven o’clock. Sitting up, body stiff, mouth dry, he remembered the dream with guilty intensity. His body and his mind seemed to exist on different planets. How could he have dreamt like that when he was feeling so bad about Dylan?
On tiptoe, making as little noise as possible so as not to wake the others in the house, he collected his overnight bag from the hall and went into the downstairs cloakroom to freshen up. Ten minutes later, in a clean shirt, faced shaved and washed, hair combed, feeling a little more human, he went into the kitchen to make himself some black coffee and a slice of toast.
By seven-thirty he was creeping out of the house, leaving a note for Jenny telling her he was going to drive up to the M6 motorway exit Dylan would probably have used to see if he could find any trace of her or her car. He couldn’t believe that a vehicle like the flower wagon could vanish without trace. Someone would have seen it.
At first he stayed on main roads, which had been swept by snow ploughs that morning and had a covering of grit; Ross glanced up side roads as he slowly drove by, but reached the motorway exit without any sighting of the flower wagon.
At nine o’clock he stopped to buy a local map in a garage and asked the man behind the desk if he had seen a very pregnant woman driving a car covered in flowers.
He got a very odd look. ‘Covered in flowers? A hearse, you mean?’
Ross laughed curtly. ‘No, I meant a car painted with a lot of flowers, all the colours of the rainbow.’
‘Oh, I get you—no, can’t say I have. Think I’d have noticed if a car like that had come in for petrol.’
A postman had come in to hand a packet of mail over. He turned to stare at Ross with curiosity.
‘I saw a car like that, half an hour ago—abandoned just outside Stonelee. Stolen, was it? Looked to me as if whoever was driving it had crashed.’
Ross felt his heart stop and then start beating again, so fast he was giddy. ‘Crashed?’ he repeated hoarsely.
‘It had been driven into a wall. Don’t worry, the damage isn’t really serious, I’d say—scratches and bumps, mainly.’
‘Can you tell me where to find it?’ Ross opened the map he had just bought and spread it on the counter, his hands shaking. The postman leaned over to point.
‘Down that road—it’s a tiny lane, and still icy, so be careful. I’m not surprised they crashed your car; I nearly crashed myself. I skated down rather than drove. Lucky my brakes are good.
Ross thanked him and hurried off. He found the flower wagon twenty minutes later and parked behind it. Getting out, he looked around, and immediately noticed the lines of footprints in the snowy field, leading down to the house. He couldn’t walk across there in shoes, he would ruin them, and his trousers, too. Opening the back of his four-wheel drive, he fished out the boots he always carried; when you worked in the country you needed to be well prepared for any eventuality.
Locking his vehicle a few minutes later, he set off down towards the house. As he passed a shed he heard a loud crashing sound, a high-pitched cry, and froze.
That surely wasn’t...? Dylan couldn’t have spent the night in there?
Hurriedly he opened the door, and reeled back as something rushed out, butting him out of the way. Ross grabbed the door to stop himself falling over, glad he was wearing lined leather gloves.
A goat! he thought, staring after it, then shut the door again before following the previous inhabitant, who by now was down in front of the house, staring through a glass door.
Joining it, Ross stared too, into a pretty kitchen. Was anyone in? he wondered, and tapped loudly on the glass.
There was a blur of blue in the room, someone in a velvet dressing gown walked towards him, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe; he felt sick and famt.
She opened the door and stared at him, her eyes wide in surprise.
‘Ross!’
He was so relieved he put his arms round her, held her tightly, against his heart, his face buried in her sweet-smelling hair, reminded by the shampoo she had obviously used of the scent of his forest in summer, of pine and fern in sunshine.
She didn’t put her arms round him, but her body softened, leaned on his yieldingly, her face against his coat.
But then his mood swung violently. For hours he had been thinking the worst, his head awash with terrifying images of what might have happened to her. He had been rent by guilt and fear. There were so many horrific possibilities—she might have been seriously hurt in a crash, might lose the baby, be maimed, dead, or dying.
And while he was going through hell about her, out of his mind with panic, she had been safe, here, in this cosy house, all the time.
Angry blood rushed to his head. He reddened, pushed her away and stared down accusingly, shouting at her. ‘How could you be so stupid? What on earth possessed you to drive all this way, on one of the worst nights of the winter, in that silly little car of yours? It’s a sardine can, even if it is painted with flowers—just a flimsy piece of tin, that damned car! You could have been killed. God knows why you weren’t!’
‘Don’t yell at me!’ Dylan threw back, just as furious, just as flushed, and trembling because a moment ago she had been in his arms again, had felt his mouth moving against her hair with a tenderness he had not shown her for a long, long time.
‘What do you expect when you behave like a halfwit!’ he muttered, staring at her in that soft blue velvet which made her eyes look bluer than ever, the deep warm blue of summer skies.
She was round and swollen as a pumpkin, but she was still very beautiful: her curly hair tied back from her face with a blue velvet scrunchie, her fine features so mobile and expressive that you could read every thought, every emotion unless she deliberately hid them.
He remembered how, when she danced, her body reflected her face, mood and reaction flowing through her throat and breasts, down her arms to her delicate, elegant hands, down through waist, hip and thigh to the long, slim legs. Every inch of her had been eloquent. Then. Until she became pregnant, tethered to the earth, slow-moving, heavy.
He had done that to her. His face darkened with rage and pain and Dylan read his reaction and shivered, looking away. Did he hate her now? Huskily, she asked, ‘How did you find me?’
He swallowed, his throat moving visibly. ‘Pure coincidence. Jenny rang me in York, because you hadn’t arrived at her place, so I drove over here last night. We were up half the night.’ His dark grey eyes were glittering points of ice. ‘Jenny is out of her mind with worry over you, by the way.’
Her lower lip trembled. ‘Oh...poor
Jen... I tried to ring but the phone lines are down here.’
He ignored that. ‘At first light I started driving around looking for you, and I just happened to meet a postman who had noticed that crazy car of yours!’ His tone sharpened to a knife-point. ‘Which you had crashed into that wall up there—what were you trying to do, kill yourself and the baby?’
‘Don’t be so cruel! What a wicked thing to say . . . even think!’ Half in tears, half hating him, she turned on her heel and walked away into the kitchen.
Ross followed, banging the door behind him so that it rattled, but not doing so fast enough. Fred had got in, too, and was making for the heat of the range, standing in front of it, shaking himself.
He lowered his head to enjoy the warmth while showering the entire room with water from the snow that had been drenching his coat as if he had bathed in it. Maybe the stupid animal had rolled in snow, thought Ross, wondering how on earth they would get the goat out of the house.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Dylan wailed. ‘Shoo... Fred... you can’t come in. Go out. Shoo.’
Fred ignored her flapping hands and agitated cries, didn’t even glance at her.
‘He’s dripping all over the floor!’ she complained. ‘And so are you! Take those boots off, for heaven’s sake!’
Ross grabbed Fred’s leather collar and heaved him towards the door, with Fred wriggling and digging his heels in every inch of the way. Ross was stronger, however, he finally pushed Fred out, slamming the door behind him. Fred glared viciously over his shoulder, his yellowy-blue eyes homicidal, then charged away, up the garden, and butted the shed walls, making them shiver violently.
‘You just have to be firm with animals,’ Ross said.
Dylan grabbed a mop from a cupboard and dealt with the wet marks of Fred’s hooves and Ross’s boots. ‘If Ruth gets back to see her floor in this mess she’ll be furious. Fred isn’t allowed indoors; he eats everything, even dishcloths.’
Ross took the mop away from her and finished the work. ‘You shouldn’t be doing that, not in your condition... and who’s Ruth?’
Crossly, Dylan said, ‘I’ve been doing my housework all through my pregnancy—I’m not going to collapse because I mop a wet floor! And, will you please take those boots off?’
He rinsed the mop out in the kitchen sink, shook it, then put it away in the cupboard where she had found it, the wet head upwards. Then he pulled off his boots and stood them on the kitchen mat by the door.
Dylan sat down by the table, trembling and feeling sick. ‘This is Ruth’s house. After I crashed she took me in—she’s a very nice woman; she’s been very kind to me.’ Her blue eyes lifted to his face, dark with reproach, telling him silently that he had not been kind yesterday morning, before he left for York.
Ross felt a familiar stab of guilt, but anger drowned it out. She had risked her life and that of their baby in a fit of temper because he had gone away for one night—if anyone felt guilty it should be Dylan herself. It was only by pure luck that she had survived that crash. It could have been fatal.
‘Does she live here alone?’
‘Yes, she isn’t married. She lived here with her widowed mother until the mother died—poor Ruth. I think she must be very lonely; she doesn’t seem to have any friends. Her phone was out of order all night, or I would have rung Jenny, to tell her what had happened. It’s still dead this morning, so Ruth is walking to the village to try to get the garage to come and get my car back on the road.’
‘The roads are like ice rinks,’ snapped Ross. ‘Let’s hope she makes it safely to the village. I suppose it never occurred to you that that walk could be dangerous for her? How old is she, this Ruth?’
Dylan bit her lip, knowing there was some truth in what he had said. She should never have let Ruth leave.
Defiantly, though, she told him, ‘She’s not old! In her forties. And of course I tried to talk her out of going! You don’t think I asked her to go? I told her it would be better to wait until the phone was working again, but she had run out of bread and milk and she said she would have gone to the village even if I hadn’t been here.’
‘And you really think she was telling the truth?’ he grated, frowning. ‘Anyone with any sense is staying indoors this morning and waiting for a thaw. That’s where I would be if you hadn’t forced me to come looking for you!’
‘Don’t tell me you give a damn what happens to me!’ she muttered, not looking at him. ‘If you had cared you would never have left me alone in that house!’
He ran a hand through his thick dark hair, face tense with guilt and anger at himself which somehow converted into anger with her. ‘Dylan, it was an important meeting. I needed to be there. As it was, in the end, I had to leave before it started, to come searching for you! So you won—okay? You won! I hope that makes you happy.’
She looked at him with angry reproach in her eyes. ‘It wasn’t a win-lose situation, Ross! I was scared; I needed you.’
He groaned. ‘I’m sorry, Dylan. I believed the forecasts. I didn’t think the weather would deteriorate so fast. I wish I’d listened to you.’
‘You only had to look at the sky, those clouds, feel the way the temperature was dropping!’
‘I know. I admit it. You were right; I was wrong. Your instincts were better than mine, as far as the weather was concerned.’ He was trying to soften her mood, but his anxiety and fury with her surfaced again a second later. ‘A pity you were so stupid about not staying put in the house!’ he burst out. ‘You were much safer there—what on earth put it into your head to drive off to visit your sister without even letting me know you were going?’
She looked bitterly at him, eyes dark as night skies. ‘Does Suzy mean anything to you?’
‘Suzy?’ he repeated, face changing, no doubt with consternation. He didn’t say anything else—he was giving himself time to think, not sure how much she knew.
‘Oh, don’t bother to lie! She rang you on your mobile just before lunch yesterday. Of course I answered it, and before I got a word out she was talking. Purring, actually, like some cat on heat.’ she bitterly imitated the other woman, her face flickering with pretended sweetness. ‘“Ross, darling, Alan hasn’t left yet so I can’t get away to meet you!”’
It hadn’t occurred to him that Suzy might have rung him earlier, especially on his mobile—she hadn’t mentioned having done so when they’d talked later on the hotel phone.
Eyes hard, grim, he bit out, ‘So you jumped to the worst possible conclusions, decided I was having an affair? But you didn’t ring me at the hotel in York—you didn’t wait to ask me what was going on? You just walked out on our marriage. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘What marriage?’ she fiercely counter-attacked, leaning forward over the kitchen table, trying to disguise the shaking of her body.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how hurt and jealous she was, for one thing, and for another her back was aching badly, a deep, persistent, nagging pain which was getting worse by the minute and making it hard to think. Backache had been a frequent part of being pregnant this last few months, but it had never been as bad as this before.
Bitterly, she asked Ross, ‘When was the last time you kissed me? Made love to me? Even held me? Is that what you call marriage?’
He exploded. ‘For God’s sake! You’re heavily pregnant, Dylan! I was trying to be thoughtful...’
‘Thoughtful?’ she threw back at him, laughing hoarsely. ‘You’re kidding! Is that what you call it? You think it’s thoughtful to treat me like a leper just because I’m pregnant?’
He was as angry now as she was, his voice harsh. ‘Ella warned me not to try to make love to you in the last few months. She said you wouldn’t feel like it and it might harm the baby!’
Dylan sat very still, staring at him, mouth open incredulously. ‘Ella said what?’
At that second they both heard footsteps outside, boots crunching on the crystal surface of the snow. Looking round, they s
aw Ruth staring at them through the glass door, great white flakes of snow blowing behind her.
Dumbly Dylan thought, ‘It’s snowing again. That’s all I need.
Opening the door, Ruth asked sharply, ‘Who’s this, Dylan? What’s he doing here?’
Realising Ruth suspected Ross of being an intruder, Dylan stammered, ‘This is my—my husband, Ross. Ross, this is Ruth Nicholls.’
Ross offered Ruth his hand. ‘Hello, Ruth. Thank you for taking such good care of my wife—we’re very grateful for everything you’ve done for her.’
Ruth inspected him curiously, eyes still cool and speculative. ‘Hello. How did you find out she was here? Is the phone working again, Dylan?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Dylan found it hard to concentrate on anything. Her back hurt too much. And she kept thinking about what Ross had told her just before Ruth arrived. His sister had told him not to make love to her? Ella had had no business saying any such thing.
‘I started looking for her at first light,’ Ross said. ‘And after a few hours I met a postman who, amazingly, had noticed her car up there on the lane. It was an astonishing stroke of luck.’
Ruth laughed. ‘Country districts are like that—everyone notices everything. I’m afraid I couldn’t get the garage to come and look at her car. They’re run off their feet today. Dylan wasn’t the only one to have a crash, and the garage are dealing with their own customers first, but they promised to try to come tomorrow, if the roads are clear around here. At the moment, the back roads like this one are all no-go areas, I’m afraid.’
‘And I see it is snowing again. Is it heavy?’
‘I’m afraid so. It looks to me as if it is going to go on all day.’
‘Well, I think we should go at once, then,’ Ross said flatly. ‘Dylan’s sister lives about eight miles from here. Not far in normal weather, but in heavy snow it could take an hour or so.’
Dylan stood up shakily. ‘I’d better go and dress, then.’ Ruth had brought her case in from the flower wagon just after breakfast, so she now had fresh clothes to put on.
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