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He took her bag upstairs, showing her to a comfortable, elegant room with French windows opening onto a balcony and an en suite bathroom. It was clearly appropriate that he should make cocoa, since it seemed cocktails were reserved for the London flat. He took off his jacket, sitting down on one of the sofas while Alex curled up on the other.
‘I’m really sorry about tonight.’ A shadow passed across his brow. ‘Didn’t really go to plan, did it?’
‘I suppose not. But what were you going to do—let the man bleed to death?’
‘No. But if he had to chop his finger off, I wish he’d done it some other time. This Saturday was intended to make up for rushing off last Saturday.’ His phone was on the arm of the chair and he was turning it over and over restlessly.
‘You don’t have to make anything up to me, Leo. Is life usually so eventful with you, though?’
He laughed, shaking his head. ‘No. I seem to be having a busy period at the moment. Usually, I can go for weeks on end without people keeling over in my vicinity.’
‘That’s good to hear. I was beginning to worry that I might be next.’
‘You won’t be.’ A pulse beat suddenly at the side of his brow, as if he was going to prevent anything from happening to her by the sheer force of his will.
‘I know. I was just joking.’
‘Yeah. I wasn’t.’
How could she explain to him? She’d been proud to be part of the difference that Leo had made tonight. And somehow, when they were working together with a shared aim, it felt as if their connection was strongest. Work was his way of forgetting the incessant tug of the past, and living only in the present.
She drained the last few mouthfuls of cocoa from her mug. Leo was the best man she’d ever met. And the one she could never have because his attention would always be somewhere else.
‘It’s late. I should go to bed.’ There was nothing more that she could say.
‘Yes. I’ll be turning in soon. Sleep well.’ He reached for the slim leather laptop case that he’d brought in with the bags, and left on the coffee table.
If it wasn’t a patient, it was his phone. And if it wasn’t his phone, it was emails to read or papers to review. Leo just couldn’t switch off.
‘Hasn’t your battery run down yet?’ Alex suppressed the urge to snatch the laptop from him and pour the rest of his cocoa into the keyboard.
His lips twitched into a smile. ‘I always carry a spare.’
‘Too bad. Goodnight.’ As she walked up the stairs, she heard a quiet tone from the sitting room as his laptop booted up. However late it was, it seemed there was always one more thing that couldn’t wait until the morning.
* * *
Alex always knew when she was in the country as soon as she woke up. Even with the windows tightly closed against the chill of the morning outside, she could still hear the faint chirrup of birds, and still smell the clean scents that reminded her of home.
She’d left the curtains open, knowing that she’d wake with the dawn. As light began to filter through the windows, she rolled to the edge of the bed.
This was the time in the day when she felt loss. A new day, new challenges, the sun rising outside her window. But, instead of rising to meet it, she had either to crawl or do as she was doing now, lean down to reach the collapsible crutches that were stowed in her travel bag and snap them into rigid supports. Soon enough, she’d go through the morning ritual of rubbing cream into her residual limb, checking it for any skin abrasions or blisters and pulling on the thin fabric sock which acted as a liner for her prosthesis.
But, for now, there was something missing. She couldn’t tumble straight out of bed to face the bright morning that was outside her window without pausing for a moment.
It was a small thing. At first, she’d mourned her leg in the same way that she would have mourned a death. But that had eased, and if each new day brought a moment of remembrance then perhaps that was what it was supposed to do. A moment when she could remember how things were and how she’d turned that around.
She swung her body between the crutches, over to the window. The shadows she’d seen outside last night were now a deep balcony, big enough to sit on and have breakfast in the summer. When she craned round she could see that it ran along the whole of the back of the house, and that there were doors leading onto it further down. Leo’s bedroom, maybe.
She could imagine him walking along the balcony to tap on her window. Climbing up with a rose between his teeth. Alex grinned at the thought. Maybe not between his teeth—that was a little makeshift for Leo. It would have to be his buttonhole.
And on summer mornings maybe he sat out here, watching the sun rise. Coffee and orange juice, alone with the sounds of the countryside.
She stared at the frost-sprinkled fields on the horizon, allowing the balcony to drop into soft focus. Morning was the time when loss might be touched and then left behind. But she couldn’t touch Leo and then leave him behind.
The view from her window would still be here when she was washed and dressed. Alex made her way into the shining, white-tiled bathroom and opened the door of the shower enclosure, ready to contemplate her next move.
A non-slip mat. Good. A couple of grab rails. Not all that common in a private house, but even better. S
