Dry bracken, it turns out, burns fiercely and far too quickly, but as we’ve got so much of it, Tom risks putting a couple of the drier logs on the fire while I run back and forth to what was our bed and bring more each time the last lot burns out.
It feels like a losing battle and the fine mist is seeping into my clothes on the outside while on the inside I’m building up a sweat with the workout.
Unlike last night, when the fire was our friend, this morning it’s the enemy determined to outwit us. A voracious thing that refuses to be fed. The water in the billycan isn’t even steaming yet but I refuse to give up. One of the logs begins to burn … well, smoke, really. Thin wispy tendrils of grey rise up from it and then give up the ghost in the fine wet drizzle.
My hands are cold and the scratches from yesterday, when I gathered the bracken, are sore.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ says Tom, when I’m down to the last armful.
‘That log is starting to burn.’
‘It’s too wet.’
‘Look, it’s red, there are embers.’
He gives me a hard look. ‘It’s never going to heat the water. We might as well give up.’
I put frond after frond of bracken one at a time into the fire, praying it will catch properly, but they curl up in an instant flame that quickly burns itself out.
Tom sighs. ‘You really know how to flog a dead horse, don’t you?’
‘And you know how to give up without trying.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I defy anyone to get a fire going with wet wood. We did our best.’
He lowers the billycan into the smouldering ashes next to the wooden branch that isn’t smoking anymore. I dunk a finger in the water. Not even tepid.
‘If we leave it to sit in the warm ashes it might heat up.’
Tom gives me a dry look. ‘Yeah and look at that – a whole heap of pigs flying by.’
‘You’re such a defeatist.’
‘And you’re such a deluded optimist. You just don’t know when to give up. It’s like when we were in Barcelona. It was a cut and dry case. Visiting the site was a formality but you had to go poking about, winding the guy up.’
‘I was following protocol,’ I snap at him. ‘Making sure there would be no comeback. It’s called being thorough. It’s called doing a job properly.’
‘Are you saying I don’t know how to do a job properly?’ He drops his voice into a husky purr, damn him, and his eyes lock on mine.
Oh shit. A familiar curl of heat coils between my legs. I glare at him. Bastard. I have no comeback. If we’re talking orgasms, then he bloody well does know.
I snatch up the coffee sachets. ‘We won’t be needing these this morning.’ Childish, I know, but he brings out the worst in me. I march back to the tent and kneel on the floor, stuffing them back into my rucksack in exactly the same pocket as they came out of. Tom Dereborn will not be laying another hand on me ever again.
Chapter Twelve LYDIA
‘Lydia! Lydia!’ His urgent call sends adrenaline flooding through my system. Oh my God, have they found us?
I scramble out of the shelter and find him crouched on the floor beckoning me. What?
‘Come see this,’ he says, his words insistent and fast.
I cross to him and get down on my knees to peer at the patch of ground.
‘Start scraping the soil away as if you’ve found something,’ he says leaning forward to speak very quietly into my ear.
I have no idea what is going on but he’s no fool, there must be some reason for his insistence, so I do as I’m told. He has that coiled spring tension about him, it’s vibrating from him in waves. I scrabble in the dirt for a full minute and I’m aware of his watchfulness. Every bit of him is alert, as if he’s ready to spring into action.
‘Keeping doing that.’ He stands up and moves away, head down as if he’s looking for something. Suddenly he grabs something and hurls it over my head. It’s too high to hit me but what the… It does hit something, and that something comes crashing down nearby.
‘Got it,’ says Tom with satisfaction.
I realise it’s a drone and my stomach cramps in fear. I hadn’t heard it over the sound of the rain and the rushing water.
‘They found us.’ He grabs my hand and hauls me to my feet. ‘We’ve got to go.’
I pull away and run to the shelter, grabbing his rucksack and pushing it towards him, along with the sleeping bag.
‘Fuck’s sake, we’ve got to go,’ he shouts. ‘Leave the rucksack.’
‘No!’ I shout back as I frantically wriggle into the straps and pull it onto my back.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he repeats, but he copies me.
‘This way.’ He yanks my arm and I follow as he leads me into the trees. We run under the low branches. The canopy above is thick. Clever Tom. If they have another drone can’t see us in here. But they know where we are.
My heart is pounding so hard I can hardly catch my breath, but I keep running. Tom is holding my hand and pulling me along, guiding me around logs and tugging me over tree roots. I stumble multiple times but manage to stay upright. I don’t even ask where we’re going, he seems to know what he’s doing. In a rare moment of insight, I realise I trust him. He will look after me. Despite my comments yesterday, he didn’t leave me behind, he walked at my pace. And last night, hell, he definitely looked after me.
We come out of the trees onto a small, single-track lane, the houses of the village just ahead of us.
