Faith - Lesley Pearse [250]
‘Don’t you go running out on me,’ he called back. ‘Another couple of hours or so and I’ll be finished up here.’
It was well over an hour before Laura returned to the cottage, and she was giggling to herself because her mission had been so successful. She had the cleaning materials, bucket and rubber gloves she’d gone for, but a lot more besides. A double room was booked for the next two nights in the guest house she’d stayed at before, and she had a picnic in a box, including a bottle of wine and two glasses, candles, firelighters and a bag of logs.
She called up to Stuart and waved the bucket and bottle of bleach at him to put him off the scent. Once he was back working she quickly got the other things out of the car boot and hid them behind some bushes in the garden.
While the kettle was boiling, she went back down the garden and found a perfect spot under a tree where she gathered up heaps of dry leaves to act as a mattress, then covered them with some of the blankets from his camp bed.
There were plenty of old bricks lying around, and she made a crude sort of fireplace close to the blanket, yet hidden from Stuart’s view. It was already nearly three, and the light would be fading before long. She placed the picnic box and the candles by the blanket. Collecting up twigs as kindling, she placed them over the firelighters, with the logs close by. Satisfied, she returned to the cottage to do some cleaning.
Stuart came down from the roof a couple of times while she was scrubbing out the toilet, and seemed amused by her zeal, but without any suspicion she had anything else in mind.
‘I’m just putting the last tiles back now,’ he yelled down a bit later. ‘It’ll be pitch dark soon, so we’d better find a bed and breakfast for you.’
Laura liked his assumption that she wasn’t ready yet to leap into bed with him. It seemed to point out that he was thinking long term.
The toilet was finished, looking remarkably spruce and hygienic, and smelling a great deal better, so she nipped down the garden and lit the candles. They were the garden kind in pots so they wouldn’t be blown out by the wind and hopefully they’d keep any stray midges at bay too.
Kneeling down, she lit the firelighters and blowing gently on the twigs as they caught fire, she soon got a blaze going.
‘What are you doing?’
She jumped at Stuart’s voice right behind her. She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t heard him come down the garden.
‘Party time,’ she said. ‘Come on in and sit down! I’ll just put a couple of logs on the fire.’
Laughing, he bent down and crawled on to the blanket, patting it appreciatively.
Laura joined him and opened the box of goodies. ‘Ta da! A bottle of wine, glasses and a corkscrew,’ she said. ‘You open that and I’ll get out the food.’
The light was fading fast, but there was enough from the candles to see how dirty his face and hands were. She took out a packet of baby wipes and leaned forward with one to clean him up.
‘Looks like you thought of everything, you scheming minx,’ he said teasingly.
It was remarkably cosy as the bushes around them were keeping off the wind and the smoke from the fire was going straight up. Stuart handed her a glass of wine.
‘Are we staying here all night?’ he asked.
‘I think we’d be frozen solid by morning.’ She giggled. ‘Trust me, I have a contingency plan.’
She laid out the crusty rolls, pâté, cheese, a packet of butter and a jar of olives. ‘One borrowed knife,’ she said, brandishing it. ‘We’ve got to return it.’
He was just looking at her, the candle and firelight softening his features. Putting down his glass, he reached out and took her hand, rubbing her fingers with his thumb. ‘This was a beautiful thought,’ he said.
She just smiled. She couldn’t explain that she hoped it would whisk them back to where they started, or that she wanted him to see the girl in her hadn’t gone entirely. She had to trust that would be evident.
They began to talk as they drank the