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Hannah hadn’t touched sugar for almost a year. She’d hoped her new regime might help her sleep, but it had made no difference. The only time she slept was when Adam stayed over. “I ate on the flight.”
“Then take a nap, or something. You look tired.”
“I don’t sleep well.” Why was she discussing her insomnia issues with her sister?
Posy strode to the door of the lodge, opened it and put Hannah’s cases onto the floor. “Have you tried counting sheep?”
“What?”
“Sheep. You should count them. It’s what people do to help them sleep.”
“I wouldn’t even know how.”
“You could look out of the window,” Posy said. “Plenty of sheep out there just waiting to be counted. You’re in the turret room. Come to think of it, I should take your cases up.” She carried Hannah’s luggage upstairs with no apparent effort and reappeared moments later. “There are fresh logs in the basket, so light a fire if you’re cold. Mom has festooned the place with lights, so try not to electrocute yourself. I’ll see you later, and make sure you water Eric.”
“Eric?”
But Posy had gone, already halfway to her car.
Hannah closed the front door, peeled off her soaking boots.
The slate floor was heated and for a moment she stood still, allowing the warmth to slide into her freezing limbs.
Semi-recovered, she went upstairs to the turret room.
The bedroom had a high, conical ceiling and tall windows that offered a spectacular view of the loch and the mountains beyond. Following the curve of the window was a seat, padded with a nest of soft cushions that invited the occupant to snuggle and relax.
The room was cozy, thanks to crisp white linens and the stylish use of plaids and tweeds.
Even without Posy’s warning, Hannah would have known who was responsible for the tiny lights that framed the window and the hearth. Suzanne hated the dark. She hung lights in places other people wouldn’t think to hang them and burned them in rooms she wasn’t going to use.
Hannah glanced at her case and decided to unpack later.
Instead she walked to the window, wanting to soak up the last of the natural light before it faded for the day.
In a moment she’d take that test to the bathroom and find out once and for all, but for now she wanted to savor this one last moment of not knowing.
Kneeling on the window seat, she stared out across the valley.
The sky was a rose-tinted pink, the sun low in the sky.
This place shouldn’t trigger memories for her, and yet it did. It was the mountains, she decided. Their jagged edges glinted under the fading sun, just as they had that day when she’d stood in the window and watched and waited.
These weren’t even the same mountains. Nothing bad had happened to her here, but still the ghosts of possibility haunted the fringes of her imagination.
Turning away, Hannah set up her laptop on the small table near the fire.
Alongside the lamp, there were several new notepads and fresh pens, no doubt courtesy of Suzanne, who thought of everything.
For once, the internet connected immediately and she checked her emails, more from force of habit than any desire to work. Concentration proved elusive and she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for the hundred emails that had landed in her inbox during her flight. Only self-discipline and force of habit made her deal with them and she worked through them methodically, responding to some and forwarding others to the appropriate member of her team.
One email she ignored.
It was from Adam, sent half an hour earlier, and the subject line simply said Call me!
She closed her laptop and stood up, noticing the Christmas tree for the first time.
Eric.
