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Rafe nodded.
‘I’ll get you a towel...’ She walked out of the room, reappearing a few moments later with a clean towel and putting it on the bed. ‘Bathroom’s all yours.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Have you...’ She frowned as if she’d forgotten what she was about to say. ‘Is there anything you need?’
‘Go to bed.’ He could have slept on a washing line at the moment, and Mimi looked as if she was half-asleep already.
‘Yeah.’ She swayed a little as she turned, and Rafe wondered whether he should follow her to make sure she got to her bedroom without falling asleep on the way. Then she left him, closing the door behind her.
Rafe waited until he heard the door of the main bedroom close and then walked the few steps across the hallway to the bathroom. He showered off the bits of river mud, revelling in the hot water, and then made his way back to the spare room.
He had neither the energy nor the inclination to worry about what he was doing here, or how awkward things might be when they woke. Rafe loosened the towel from around his waist and crawled into bed.
* * *
He woke slowly, knowing that he wasn’t anywhere familiar but unable for the moment to work out exactly where he was. In fact he probably wasn’t awake at all because he could smell the citrus scent of Mimi’s favourite soap. Rafe considered the possibility of lucid dreaming and whether he could control what happened next. Then he opened his eyes.
Not bad for a first try. Mimi wasn’t draped over the end of the bed, wearing black lace. On the other hand, the smell of cooking was wafting up from the kitchen. Bacon sandwiches would be his second choice of things he most wanted to wake up to at the moment.
He tried again and failed. He must be awake. Rafe stumbled out of bed and drew the curtains, looking up at the sky. It was iron-grey and threatening, but at least it wasn’t raining.
Turning, he caught his breath. If none of the rest of Mimi’s house held any memories, this room was full of them. The walls were a plain cream colour, and the pale blue patterned curtains and bedding were unfamiliar, but the bed was the sturdy pine one that he and Mimi had shared. And against the far wall was an old mahogany wash stand.
The memory hit him like a punch to the chest and Rafe wondered for a moment whether his heart had really stopped or it just felt that it had. They’d found the washstand in an auction, sitting unwanted in the corner and covered with grime. But Mimi had seen some virtue in it and so Rafe had put in a bid and secured it for her. When they’d got it home, she’d gone to work on it, carefully polishing up the wood to reveal an age-old patina, removing the brass handles and making them shine. It had sat in the corner of their bedroom, transformed from a piece of junk to something precious.
He supposed that Mimi’s ruthless purge of the cottage had been tempered by practicality. Here in the spare room, she didn’t have to look at the furniture all that often, and so the few things that reminded her of him which she hadn’t wanted to throw away had been consigned to this room, where she could shut the door on them.
The bed, rumpled on one side only, filled him with an unexpected sadness. He’d told himself that he was over Mimi. That had been a mistake, but he could rectify it. Last night had given him hope that perhaps they both might find some closure.
He wondered briefly whether he should pull some clothes from his overnight bag to make the three strides across the hallway to the bathroom door, but the towel was large and thick and it was easier to just wrap it around his waist. From the mouth-watering smells coming from the kitchen, Mimi was downstairs cooking, anyway.
He opened the bedroom door at almost exactly the same time as hers opened. Rafe caught a glimpse of her startled face, her green ambulance uniform, and then the door closed with a loud slam.
‘Sorry. You first...’ Her voice came from behind the door.
Rafe called back a thank you, wondering how she could be in two places at once. This was nothing she hadn’t seen before, more times than either of them could count. So why had her sudden startled look sent an electric pulse travelling across his bare shoulders? And why had she slammed the door with such agitated force?
He padded across the hallway, shut himself in the bathroom and locked the door, switching on the shower. Clearly he had some more thinking to do before he could work out what either he or Mimi really felt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
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MIMI HAD WAITED until she heard the shower running and then gone downstairs to see how Charlie was doing with the breakfast and put away the shopping he’d brought for her. When she heard Rafe’s footsteps again, and the door of the spare room close, she ventured up to the bathroom to empty the washing basket.
‘Doing his washing, now?’ Charlie raised an eyebrow.
‘Oh, be quiet.’ The thought had already occurred to Mimi and she was trying to ignore it. ‘He’s meant to be staying at the hospital and he can’t get these washed there. And we don’t have time to visit the laundrette...’
She pressed her lips closed. Charlie was grinning, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender, and she was protesting far too much. Mimi dumped the pile of clothes on to the floor, almost glad that the nasty-smelling mud on the legs of Rafe’s jeans was enough to overwhelm his scent.
Automatically, she felt in the pockets. A little loose change in one, and in the other... Held securely in his pocket by a clip, Mimi knew what it was before she even drew it out.
‘What’s that?’ Charlie’s question made her realise that she was staring at the watch, running her thumb slowly across the face of it.
‘He must have taken his watch off last night, so it didn’t get caught in anything.’ It was an expensive watch, but that wasn’t what made it special. It wasn’t obvious at first sight but, when you looked more closely, an old silver sixpence was set in the centre of the dial, behind the hands.
