LITMIR.BIZ

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felt numb that she couldn’t, after all, confide in her sister. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘Forget I mentioned him. Tell me about Willow and Daisy, how are they getting on? How’s the pond? Is Willow still frightened of the frogspawn?’

      Tessa stared at her, then wiped elegantly at her cheek and slipped into a familiar, if stilted, monologue about her happy family life.

      Abby tried not to let sadness creep in. She’d been expecting Tessa – who was always so adamant Abby needed some romance in her life – to dispel her fears about Jack and encourage her to take a risk. But instead her sister had warned her against pursuing anything with this violent man, and while Abby knew that was a ridiculous summary of Jack, she couldn’t help but feel that, at least on some levels, it was true.

      Getting involved with Jack Westcoat was a bad idea. Her heart might be clamouring for him, but common sense – and now, as if hammering the nail in the coffin, her big sister – was telling her to stay away.

      They settled into a rhythm that wasn’t quite normal, and Tessa made her excuses and got up to leave just after ten o’clock, giving Abby a sweet-scented hug on the doorstep, and promising to call her in the next few days, their earlier conversation avoided as if it had never happened.

      Abby stood on the doorstop long after she’d driven away. It was cold and misty, the streetlights turned soft-focus by the haze.

      ‘Fancy a quick walk before bed?’ she asked Raffle. ‘Yeah, me too. Come on then.’

      She had something to do that, considering her argument with Tessa, she was even more nervous about than usual.

      She’d last seen Jack two weeks ago, on his birthday, when Octavia, Rosa and Jonny had crashed their badger vigil. Since then there had been flurries of texts, interspersed with the notes that were becoming the highlight of Abby’s days.

      He had continued to deliver them to the reserve, despite her warning that she was never left to read them alone, and now each time they arrived, Abby’s anticipation was mingled with trepidation, because the notes were becoming more and more personal.

      At first she hadn’t believed that he would be happy to lay himself bare in front of an audience, but then she realized he enjoyed it – just as he’d enjoyed their sparring matches all those months ago. She was waiting for one of the almost writtens, for him to slip in something too intimate to be easily explained away. It hadn’t come yet, but it was a close-run thing.

       Dear Abby,

      Bullfinches in the garden today. I still think they’re like robins on drugs, but they are brightening up the place while the daffodils struggle to break through the frozen earth. I’d like to talk more about their finchy peep soon if possible.

       Yours, JW

       Dear Abby,

       The tributaries have been particularly interesting today – throwing up some unexpected things. Hard to balance when you’re peering into their murky depths, I find. What about you?

       Yours, JW

       Dear Abby,

       OP in touch today. Is it normal to be terrified about a library event? I’ve talked on much bigger stages than this one, but Octavia and her chapel library put the fear of God in me (pun intended). Will you be there to hold my hand?

       Yours, JW

      Abby had been lucky that Octavia hadn’t been present for that one, and Rosa had made sympathetic noises when she’d read it over her shoulder.

      It was the latest one, however, which Abby couldn’t stop thinking about, and which was probably part of the reason Penelope had given her a thinly veiled talking to today, as she’d been there when it had arrived at the reserve.

       Dear Abby,

       I’ve been thinking a lot about our badger vigil, and what we missed out on. Are close calls such as ours normal, or is it usually more satisfying than that? It’s been on my mind.

       Yours, JW

      Abby knew he wasn’t talking about the badger, and Penelope wasn’t stupid; Abby was sure it was no coincidence that she had allowed Jack to come into the conversation earlier that day.

      She knew she was treading on thin ground, unable to resist answering Jack’s texts at work, finding herself thinking about him and staring into space when she should have been ordering more membership forms, but she couldn’t stop. She picked up the letter she had written before Tessa arrived, and closed her front door quietly behind her. Jack would still be up, she was sure, and as she approached Peacock Cottage she was rewarded with the welcoming glow through the thin curtains of the living room window.

      She tiptoed quietly up the path, slipped the note through the letterbox and hastily retreated, hurrying back towards Warbler Cottages, skirting past the tall, imposing walls of Swallowtail House. Recently, when she’d passed it, she’d had the eerie sense that the house was watching her, as if now she’d been inside she was irrevocably tied to it. In the dark, that sense was increased tenfold. She was relieved that she had Raffle with her, the husky enjoying the jog at her side, his head lifted high to sniff the night-time air.

      She silently recited her note to Jack, wondering if he’d found it yet.

       Dear Jack,

       Close calls such as ours are, indeed, very rare, and – in this case especially – much lamented over. And to answer your earlier question, handholding is one of my specialties, but not one I give out freely. In this case, the severity of your situation makes it acceptable to offer my services. OP reminded me that it was T-minus ten days. Hold on to your hats!

       Abby

       PS. You will ace it, have faith in yourself. x

      When she got home she distractedly put more water down for Raffle, gave him a goodnight cuddle and then got ready for bed. She stared at the dark ceiling, trying to put Jack out of her mind so she could get some sleep, but then her phone beeped, and even before she picked it up she knew who it was.

       Why didn’t you knock?

      Abby’s fingers hovered over the screen. Even though the truth was far from simple, she didn’t want to lie – she found that being honest with Jack was easier than it was with Penelope, Rosa and, after today, Tessa. Somehow their discouragement made her feel closer to him, as if he was the only one she could confide in.

       I’m afraid of what might happen, but I do want to see you. Talk after the library event? x

      The reply was almost instantaneous.

       I feel the same. After the library event can’t come soon enough, for all sorts of reasons.

      Abby drifted off towards sleep with a smile on her face, Tessa’s warnings and her worries about Meadowsweet temporarily forgotten.

       Chapter Two

       Frogspawn might look strange, like clumps of jelly, but it’s an amazing thing to have in your pond, because it means you’ll soon have lots of tadpoles, and then frogs, in the garden. You can tell the difference between frogspawn and toad spawn because frogspawn is in little clusters, and toad spawn is in long strings, like a bead necklace.

      — Note from Abby’s notebook.

      T-minus ten days for the library event soon became T-minus ten hours, and as Abby arrived at the visitor centre that morning, twenty minutes late and flustered, Octavia was waiting to pounce on her. Her red hair was hanging untidily over her shoulders, and her jumper was unironed.

      ‘Abby!’

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