Page 40 of New Beginnings on Railway Lane

She had also been the first person that he had cooked any kind of Italian food for since returning to Cranfield. He supposed it shouldn’t be that significant given her extremely poor cooking skills and yet he had been able to relax and feel the joy of cooking return the previous evening.

‘Yeah, well, once we’ve finished clearing the station, she’ll be leaving anyway,’ muttered Ryan.

Joe laughed. ‘So you want the attractive lady out of your apartment as soon as possible? How many beers have you had already tonight?’

‘This will hopefully be the first of many,’ said Ryan, holding up his pint glass. ‘Anyway, it’s not her attractiveness that’s in question.’

And she was very attractive, he thought. That glossy hair of hers, the smooth skin and blue eyes all had a way of making him lose track of his thoughts sometimes.

He blinked back to life and found his friend watching him.

‘Be careful,’ said Joe, with a grin. ‘Last woman who made me feel like that turned out to be the love of my life.’

Ryan watched his friend smile to himself and was pleased for them both. Ryan liked Harriet. She was sweet-natured and always kind to everyone. He was glad that the lavender spa business was going well, too. Joe had already created a brand-new website with photographs from the summer’s success with the lavender fields in full bloom. In addition, they had already added an online shop to help create more sales. The future was looking very bright for the lavender fields, despite the rest of Cranfield being in more serious need of help.

After a very agreeable evening with Joe in the Black Swan Inn, Ryan could feel himself feeling more positive for the first time since he had rushed home from Rome. His dad was progressing well in hospital and they were all hoping that he would be home after the weekend.

Best of all, when he had cooked the previous evening, he had felt like his old self once more. It had come so naturally to him that he found himself wanting to cook for Katy again before she left, despite his nerves at cooking professionally at any time in the future.

* * *

The following morning, Ryan got up early to head into Cranbridge. The corner shop there had a great line-up of local produce and Ryan was itching to experiment with some different flavours.

Despite his own reservations about cooking in a restaurant again, he was planning to cook for Katy again that evening. It had filled a yearning deep inside of him. Cooking was a part of him, a necessity that he just couldn’t leave. Perhaps it was just because Katy was so hopeless at cooking that he felt at ease with her and could relax in the kitchen. Either way, it was good to be back in the kitchen once more.

When he returned back to the apartment mid-morning with shopping bags full of fresh produce, he was surprised to note that the station downstairs was still locked up.

All was quiet in the apartment as well. At first, he wondered whether Katy had gone to the farm to see Flora. Or even to the lavender spa to visit Harriet. She had said she’d enjoyed the gin night at Harriet’s, although she had been a bit quiet when she had come home last night and had quickly gone to bed.

In the end, he began to wonder whether she was still in her room. Just how many of Libby’s gin cocktails had she drunk? As far as he could remember, they were fairly lethal in their dose.

Beginning to feel concerned, he went to stand in front of her bedroom door, which was still closed. He hesitated before knocking firmly and then waited. After no reply, he was just about to head inside when the door finally opened a fraction.

‘Who is it?’ said Katy in a croaky voice, peering through the small crack. Her blue eyes immediately widened as she stared up at him.

‘Just thought I’d make sure you’re okay,’ said Ryan, suspecting that something was very wrong.

As she turned away, he decided to follow her inside and make sure that she was all right.

The bed was unmade. She had obviously only just got up, which was odd considering she was usually an early riser.

He turned round and found Katy still holding the bedroom door open but staring at him in a kind of daze. She was wearing an oversized grey sweatshirt over cotton pyjama shorts with thick fluffy socks. He could see that she was trembling.

Staring down at her, he could also see how pale her face was. He reached out to feel her forehead and found it clammy and hot.

‘How long have you been like this?’ he asked.

‘All night,’ she told him, with a shiver. ‘I don’t know what Libby put in that cocktail.’

‘I don’t think it’s the gin,’ he told her, suddenly feeling cold.

With a shiver, he looked around. He hadn’t really been inside Ethan’s tiny bedroom for a long time. Years, if he thought about it. It was a box room, but more than that, for the first time he realised that it didn’t have a fireplace. Whereas his and his dad’s bedroom both had open fires which were frequently used to warm the rooms up, this room had none. It was freezing in there.

‘I think you’ve caught some kind of chill,’ he told her, looking back at her pale face. Her blue eyes stood out in the whiteness of her skin.

A draught whistled somewhere nearby and he searched for the source until he saw a gap in between the top of the wall and the roof.

The guilt flushed through him. She had worked so hard for no financial reward and had been sleeping in this terrible room for the past week, where it was really cold.