Coming Home

I stared at him. Perhaps there were worse places to be completely stranded, but I still felt trapped. I realised I was utterly at his mercy for every little thing. ‘I haven’t even got a toothbrush.’ I tried to keep my voice from trembling.

‘I’m not sure that counts as a life-or-death emergency,’ he said with the beginnings of a smile. ‘I’m sure Tara will be able to find you one from her store of “just in case” items. Tara seems to live in fear of the world ending at any time and society being plunged into chaos.’

‘Tara seems very much part of the family,’ I put in tentatively. ‘She tells me she’s been here since Jadie was a baby.’

‘Yes, she was doing her nursing training back then, and came to work for us a few hours every week to help fund her course. Cheryl needed someone to help when we realised both children were ill, and we gradually relied on Tara more and more. She eventually gave up her training and her job at the hospital to work here full time. Tara might not be a fully qualified nurse but we couldn’t do without her, despite her little quirks.’ Vincent gave me a brief smile. ‘I’ll ask her about a toothbrush.’

I returned the smile, feeling a connection with him. He immediately broke eye contact and turned to rummage with some papers on his desk.

‘Thank you.’ I wondered vaguely why Tara hadn’t volunteered a toothbrush last night if she had a stock of things like that. But on second thoughts I couldn’t see her putting herself out on my behalf; I remembered the feeling I’d had that there was more to her devotion to this family than just her job and I risked another appraising look at Vincent as he fiddled with a pen. Tara had already admitted to loving Jadie as if she were her own child, and she certainly hadn’t liked either Maria or me getting anywhere near her employer. I wondered about the sacrifice she’d made in giving up her future as a qualified nurse to stay here. The sooner I was gone the better Tara would like it, of that I was in no doubt at all.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_e2525b2f-c03f-5006-9220-040f97a44b69)

I excused myself from Vincent’s study and was making my way back down the corridor when a knock sounded at the front door. Hurrying into the living room, I looked about, expecting Tara to come grumbling or even Jadie to wander in to answer it, but there was no one. The knocking sounded again. I looked back towards Vincent’s study but he had closed his door and was obviously expecting Tara to see to it. At the third knock, I pulled back the draught-excluding velvet curtain and opened the door.

A man stood there holding a pet carrier, the cat peering out at me from behind the wire mesh. The caller was tall, maybe just over six foot, in his early thirties, bundled in a dark padded jacket, his extremities swathed in wool cap, scarf and heavy-duty gloves. He moved from one green-booted foot to the other, obviously trying to keep his feet from freezing. The neighbouring farmer, I assumed. Behind him stood a black and white Collie dog, mouth open and panting, despite the cold.

The man gave me a hesitant smile from deep brown eyes. He had a pleasant face—what I could see of it from under the cap—cheeks and nose reddened from the cold and with a rugged jaw line covered with what could be described as designer stubble.

‘Hi.’ His breath made clouds of vapour in the ice-cold air. ‘I’ve brought your cat.’

‘You must be, um…’ I paused, trying to remember the farmer’s name while the sound of feet pounded down the stairs behind me.

‘Sorry, I was making the beds, I only just realised…Adam!’ shrieked Tara, hurrying across the room to push me out of the way. She took one look at the pet carrier and gasped, ‘You can’t bring that thing in here! What were you thinking? I’ve told you Jadie can’t go anywhere near animals; it’ll bring on her asthma.’

There was a sudden embarrassed silence. Seconds stretched away as if we’d stepped into some sort of time warp. Tara had planted herself defiantly to guard the doorway, her lips pressed tightly together. The man called Adam hovered undecided, still shifting his feet on the partially snow-cleared path, and I just stood, grounded to the spot as tightly as if I’d been fixed there with super glue.

Jadie appeared and pushed her way past Tara and me to look into the cage. She reached out a finger and poked it through the mesh front of the box. The cat sniffed at her finger and then rubbed her pink-tipped nose against it.

The spell was broken as Tara yanked Jadie backwards. ‘Don’t touch it!’ she yelled. ‘Go and wash your hands and fetch your inhaler from the kitchen, quickly now.’

Adam had begun to back away from the door, still clutching the carrier. ‘I’m sorry, Tara, I forgot. I was just bringing the cat back to your guest; Vincent rang last night and it sounded pretty urgent.’

But Tara had followed Jadie to the kitchen and wasn’t listening. I watched the man take another backward step. ‘Please…don’t go.’ I found myself at a bit of a loss as to how to treat this stranger who had obviously walked goodness knows how far in terrible conditions to bring the cat to me. As a guest in Vincent’s house I didn’t feel that I was in a position to invite him in but I knew I shouldn’t let him just turn right round and trudge all the way home again.

Fortunately Vincent came up behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder. It was a possessive gesture, which rather disconcerted me. I knew he considered himself in debt for getting Jadie to speak, but I was still a virtual stranger to him. I turned to look questioningly up at him. Was it possible that he too had felt something of that intense feeling when he’d carried me back?

‘Hello, Adam,’ Vincent said. ‘I don’t know what pandemonium’s going on in the kitchen but do come in and have a warm-up by the fire. Come on.’ He reached out to take the offending cat box. ‘Don’t mind Tara; you know how protective she is of Jadie.’ He leaned right across me to take the box from his neighbour and I felt the warmth of his body pressing against my back. He seemed to hover there for a little longer than was necessary.

‘Should you bring the cat indoors?’ I asked, anxious not to risk making Jadie ill after my earlier mistake of taking her out in the snow.

‘I’ll take it to the boot room,’ Vincent said. ‘Jadie will just have to stay away from that end of the house for now.’

He peeled himself from me and turned away. Adam followed him into the house, pulling off his boots and removing his hat and gloves while Vincent carried the box off down the passage.

I watched as Adam walked over to the fire and held out his work-roughened hands to the heat. He looked different without the hat, his cheeks glowing from the cold. He smelled of hay and fresh air. His hair was a deep glossy brown curling onto the collar of his work shirt. He rubbed his hands together for a second or two, then turned slowly, straightened up and regarded me with interest.

‘Vincent tells me you can’t remember who you are.’ It was said matter-of-factly. ‘I read about a man who was found wandering on a beach once and no one knew who he was or where he’d come from. He couldn’t speak, though, rather like young Jadie.’

‘This little miracle worker has got our Jadie talking, would you believe?’ Vincent cut in, coming back into the room minus the cat carrier and smiling at me.

‘Really?’ Adam looked at me with undisguised curiosity. ‘How did you manage that?’

I shrugged, feeling like a fraud. ‘I didn’t do anything; she just talked to me.’

‘Maybe she felt there was something special about you.’

Adam said it quietly but there was a catch in his voice that made me look more closely at him.

Vincent sprang into action, becoming the solicitous host. ‘Let me get you a beer, or a cup of tea perhaps?’

Adam looked at his watch. ‘I won’t stop, thanks. Lad and I still have to go and check for missing sheep and lambs. They’re struggling a bit in this snow even though I’ve brought most of the flock down to the near field now.’

‘It’s a bit cold for them to be outside at the moment, isn’t it?’ I asked.

‘They’re surprisingly hardy,’ he said easily. ‘As long as they don’t get buried in the snowdrifts and I can get to the ewes with some extra feed, they’re fine. What I have to look out for are any newborns the mothers might have rejected or that have strayed. It wouldn’t take them long to die out there in the cold, so I’ve brought the ewes that haven’t lambed yet into the barn to be sure.’

‘It was really kind of you to bring the cat over for me when you’re obviously so busy.’

He shrugged as if struggling miles through deep snow meant nothing to him. ‘It sounded as if you were pretty worried about her. I thought you’d like her with you, especially when Vincent told me you’d lost your memory. I thought seeing the cat might help you to…remember.’ He took a deep breath, then added, ‘It was no problem at all. I was out this way anyway.’

‘Well, it is a problem now.’ Tara had returned from the kitchen with a towel in her hands. ‘We can’t keep the cat here, not with Jadie’s asthma.’

‘I’ll take her back then,’ Adam offered simply. ‘The cat’s no trouble. She slept in the kitchen last night. I’ve got one of the old stable cats living indoors at the moment so there’s a litter tray and everything. She won’t have to go outside with the rest of the farm cats.’

Tara picked up Adam’s coat and held it at arm’s length, eyeing it distastefully. ‘This is probably covered with animal hairs; I’ll put it in the boot room out of Jadie’s way.’

‘Don’t worry, Tara,’ Adam said. ‘I’m not staying.’

Vincent turned steely eyes on his housekeeper. ‘I know you’re only thinking of Jadie, Tara, but the cat’s safely at the other end of the house.’

‘If she gets a bad asthma attack while the roads are closed—’

‘I’ll get the cat,’ I put in hastily. I turned to the farmer. ‘If you’re really sure you don’t mind keeping her for a bit longer…?’

‘I told you, it’s not a problem.’ Adam was still looking at me speculatively.

I supposed the presence of a young woman found wandering in the snow with amnesia wasn’t an everyday occurrence. I smiled to myself and, leaving Tara and the two men staring at one another in a kind of stand-off, I walked along the corridor to the boot room. I expected to see the cat peering at me from the carrier but as I approached my heart missed a beat and I sucked in an anxious breath. There, sitting on a rag rug on the quarry-tiled floor with the tabby in her arms was Jadie. She had her back to me and was whispering to the cat. I heard the name Amber, but I couldn’t detect what else she was saying. My first instinct was to prise the cat from her arms, but then I watched her cuddling the cat and my heart softened. The cat was purring so loudly I could hear it quite plainly from where I was standing and Jadie was stroking its back and chatting away as if she’d been talking all her life.

A movement behind me made me jump and I looked over my shoulder wondering if Vincent or Adam had followed me, but unfortunately it was Tara, still holding Adam’s coat. She let out a screech, dropped the coat and lunged towards Jadie and the cat.

‘Put that thing down!’ she yelled. Jadie started guiltily and the cat shot from her arms, bolting past me and Tara down the passageway in fright. Tara hustled Jadie into the nearby loo and I could hear the sound of gushing water and Tara telling a protesting Jadie to hold her hands out for the soap. I turned on my heel to hurry in the direction the cat had taken off in. By the time I reached the sitting room Adam had already scooped it into his arms and was looking questioningly towards me.

‘Jadie had her out of the carrier,’ I explained breathlessly. ‘She was cuddling her and now Tara is scrubbing Jadie down.’ I looked apologetically at Vincent who had visibly paled, but he seemed in no hurry to rush to check on his daughter. ‘I’m sorry the cat has caused all this commotion, but Jadie seems all right, honestly.’

Vincent leaned a hand on the back of the sofa, seemingly needing the support, then ran his other hand over his face. ‘It’s like living on a knife edge,’ he confided. ‘We never know when she’s suddenly going to take ill. It’s either the risk of coughs and colds or some outside influence that could affect her breathing.’

I glanced towards Adam, who was still holding the cat. I wondered what he was making of all this drama.