‘Where did you think I was?’
She could see from the cynical look in his eyes that he was making the connection himself and knew it was far too late to talk her way out of the situation. She’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about him; one that didn’t paint him in a very happy light.
She shrugged.
‘On your way to Barbados,’ she said. ‘I assumed the airport must have reopened-’
‘And that I’d just had what I wanted from you and left without a word. Treat you with zero respect. Get you back for Devon, right?’
Her cheeks felt hotter than ever. He was annoyed. And really, he had every right to be.
‘You were the one that walked out back then,’ he pointed out unnecessarily. ‘I didn’t leave you hanging then and I wouldn’t now. I let you sleep in, I didn’t see the need to disturb you when all my stuff was in my room. And the conclusion you jump to, without so much as checking, is that I’d run out on you. Well, I’m not that kind of person.’
And by implication of course, he clearly meant she was.
‘Why didn’t you call my room?’ he went on. ‘Or check in with Reception if you were worried?’
She hadn’t done either of those things because she hadn’t needed to, so certain was she that he’d gone. She had a lifetime of experience to back up her jump to that conclusion and to hear it as concrete news from the receptionist would have made it all seem far too real and wounding. Better to just gloss over the whole thing as if it never happened.
Clearly she was insecure to the point of irrationality.
Her brain now told her to carry on as she had been doing, to just leave him and his insane feed-an-army breakfast and head off shopping. He hadn’t behaved as she’d expected and she didn’t need this, didn’t need the unpredictable caring of it.
Yet at the same time she felt absurdly, uncharacteristically touched by it. His thoughtfulness in not wanting to wake her, the over-the-top but no less sweet for it gesture of surprising her with half the breakfast menu.
Really, how was he meant to know he was dealing with a basket case here?
She crossed the room to the table, unwound her scarf, and sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. Plates of food, teapots and cutlery covered every inch of it. She glanced up as him as he joined her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she offered. ‘I thought—’
‘You thought I’d run out on you,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you if I’ll still be in the country tomorrow. Fantastic as I am, I can’t actually control the weather.’ He reached across the table for her hand and her stomach began to flutter as his fingers closed over her own. He held her gaze in his. ‘What I can promise you is that I won’t drop off the planet without saying goodbye.’
She felt so childish now, like a kid running away to avoid getting in trouble, that the urge to offer some kind of explanation, however crap, was irresistible. That in itself rang alarm bells. Why, if she didn’t care what he thought of her, should she feel any need to justify herself to him?
‘I just have this thing,’ she said. She took a slice of toast onto her plate, began to spread it with butter, so she wouldn’t have to look him in the face. It felt somehow unreal to have gone against her instincts to bolt. ‘About goodbyes. I hate them. I avoid them wherever possible.’
‘I had noticed,’ he said.
She gave him a wry smile that lifted his spirits. For a moment there he’d thought she was going to leave him to the heap of food and disappear. That she’d decided to stay and talk, felt like a victory. It was certainly further than he’d got with her last time around.
‘With me it’s the other way around,’ he said. His appetite seemed to be non-existent, but he went through the motions anyway. The meal was the background he needed to keep her here, keep her talking. He uncovered one of the hot breakfasts and cut half-heartedly into a slice of bacon. ‘However much I might want to run away sometimes, I can’t.’
She looked at him, a light questioning frown creasing her forehead and he shook his head at her.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
She picked at her toast.
‘I don’t understand. What could you possibly want to run away from? You’ve got it easy. Your life is charmed.’ She put her elbows either side of her plate and began to count off on her fingers. ‘Successful doctor, supportive family you love you to bits, holiday home in Barbados, family home in the Cotswolds, no money worries…’
He held up a hand to stop her. With every new point she made the weight of it all bear down on him. And the worst of it was the guilt it invoked. She was right. He was selfish for wanting to follow his own dreams.
‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said. And maybe it was the knowledge that this was just a blip, something that wouldn’t exist beyond the next couple of days, that she was someone who didn’t know his family and could never communicate to them his hideous selfish disappointment with his own life. ‘But you don’t understand how it is with my family. And my work.’
He finally gave up on the cooked breakfast and pushed the plate to one side. His appetite showed no sign of returning.
‘For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a doctor,’ he said. ‘I’ve always looked up to my father, and the medical practice was such an integral part of our lives that it would probably have been weird if I’d wanted to do anything else. There was never any question in it for me. My grandfather was a doctor too, same town. And his father before him. There’s been a Henley as the doctor in our town for over eighty years.’
And if he had a quid for every time he’d been given that piece of information he could retire right now.
‘Of course these days it’s not just one village doctor doing the rounds. We have a proper medical centre that services some of the surrounding villages too. My father is senior partner.’ He took a sip of his coffee. His mouth felt dry. ‘For now at least.’
‘What do you mean ‘for now?’
‘He isn’t well,’ he said. ‘I thought there would be time for me to build my own experience as a medic. The idea of settling down as a village GP seemed so far off that it never bothered me, I knew that’s what my family expected me to do eventually and I guess I saw it as something I’d do when I settled down with a family. In another ten or fifteen years maybe.’
‘That’s why you seemed fine with it the last time we met,’ she said. ‘You told me about the practice then, but I’ve got to be honest, you seemed a shedload more positive about it all then than you are now.’
He nodded, offered her a rueful smile.
‘Last time we met I was just qualifying. I was so wrapped up in that I wasn’t really thinking ahead. Since then I’ve done foundation training, had time working in A&E, as much on the frontline as you can be in this country. ‘It confirmed my own ambitions.’
She was looking at him steadily.
‘You
