Page 48 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“I can’t think of anything else,” he said, his eyes narrowing in concentration. “Right, let’s go there,” he said, setting off, but Flo grabbed his arm.

“My car is just over there,” she said. “We’ll drive.”

After a million years of dull, cold, exhausting effort, the slope became gentler in a way Petra recognized. The summit at last!

She numbly reached for the bench in the darkness, lowering herself onto it stiffly, a single tear leaking from her eye. She sniffed. Now was not the time for self-pity. This was their bench. The location of many happier times, just her and Ross. At that thought, the misery of her current situation consumed her again. She allowed herself a minute of weeping, wearily wiping her running nose on her sleeve.

Sheesh, it was hot now. The climb to the top of the peak must have raised her body temperature, unlikely though that sounded, as she was still unable to feel her hands and feet. It was really boiling, though. The thin jacket and sweatshirt she was wearing suddenly felt unbearably constricting.

In a near frenzy, she tore them both off, dropping them on the ground at her feet before lying down stiffly on the hard bench. She needed to rest. Just for a minute. And then—she promised herself—she would start the slow descent.

Time drifted.

Her cheek was painfully cold, resting against the bench as she gazed dully at her clothes on the ground. The thought of using them as an impromptu pillow arrived slowly and the impetus to enact the thought was even slower. She balled up the fabric and then lay back down again, snuggling into the softer surface. That was better.

Petra closed her eyes.

There was no sign of Petra at the cottage. Ross groaned in worry and frustration. He imagined he could feel her presence close by as he stood, indecisive, willing her to put into his mind an image of where she was. Flo was standing at his elbow, looking equally concerned.

And then Ross knew. “She’s gone up to the bench,” he said.

“Where?”

“Top of the hill, the bench on the summit, she—we—go there . . .”

“You can’t go up there in the pitch black,” Flo told him.

“I damned well can,” he said as he let them both into the cottage. If she were indeed at the bench, then she was up there in the pitch black without even the flashlight from her phone. She could be injured. Or ill. Either way, she needed him.

“Wait here,” he instructed Flo, chucking another couple of logs into the stove to keep her warm while she waited. Digger was already settling on the hearth, lying down and resting his head on his paws, his eyes swiveling anxiously to Flo and Ross in turn.

Ross grabbed a blanket from the back of the sofa and then dived into the cupboard under the stairs, coming back out with a huge black waterproof flashlight.

“I’ve got my phone,” he told Flo as he went to the door, tapping the screen to add a new contact. “Quick, shout out your number? I’ll call you.”

Flo obliged. “If you can even get a signal,” she added, anxiously. But he was already gone.

Ross’s mind was spiraling into various disaster scenarios as he half-walked, half-ran up the steep slope, his thigh muscles burning, although he was barely aware of the pain. It was all his fault. He had been an idiot, thinking they could morph like that, from friends—more than friends—to just another business relationship. Faced with the horror of losing her, he realized Petra was so much more than that to him. He knew that now.

He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

The flashlight illuminated swirls of freezing mist in front of him, casting the rest of the landscape into velvet black darkness. His breath came in heavy plumes, and he could discern a sparkle to the gray-white tussocks of grass. Frost. In May. Unlucky, but not that unusual. If she was lying somewhere injured, she would not last long in these temperatures. The thought spurred him on even harder. What if he walked straight past her, unaware? He began to call her name, punching it out into the void, and then listening, trying to hold his breath, terrified he would miss any faint reply.

He was nearly at the summit now. Just one last push. If he got there without having found her, he didn’t know what he would do next. But he couldn’t afford to worry about that now.

Calling and listening was slowing his progress. He stopped briefly to push his screaming muscles into a final effort and then . . . he was at the summit.

Just for a second or two, he leaned forward panting, his hands resting on his agonized thighs. The bench was just yards away now but all the flashlight would show him was the swirling fog.

Hardly daring to breathe, he walked the last few steps, the high back of the bench blocking his view.

She was there.

In his relief, Ross nearly collapsed to the ground, his legs like water. As he gazed down at her sweet face, illuminated by the beam, her cheek cupped in one hand, eyes closed with her lashes fanning her cheeks, another unspeakable thought struck him. Why had the light not woken her?

“Petra? Petra!” Now his knees did buckle beneath him, and he found himself kneeling beside her, unable to take a breath, unable to make a further sound. He took her hand in his—so cold!—and stroked her cheek with the back of his other hand.

And then she stirred.