My silence must have alerted him to my discomfort, because he took his eyes off the road momentarily to return my look.
‘Hey, don’t look so worried,’ he said lightly. ‘I’m quite harmless, I promise!’
The Sunday traffic was light through the town, and we were soon heading out into the rolling countryside. I stared at the familiar landscape: the green Downs, the trees beginning to turn red, gold and brown, the imposing white bulk of the Grandstand dominating the scene.
‘My car’s over there,’ I said, pointing.
Dan navigated the short distance to where my small blue Fiesta was parked unobtrusively among several other cars in a small car park and drew to a halt nearby.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take you right home?’ he said as he turned off the engine and sat looking at me with a concerned expression on his face. ‘Do you feel well enough to drive?’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ I said, returning the look. ‘You have been great, honestly. But right now I’m feeling fine. I just want to go home with Frankie and lick my wounds, so to speak.’
Dan opened his door, walked round the back of the Shogun and let Frankie out of the boot space. She came leaping round to see me as I struggled upright, so I grabbed her collar and walked her towards our car. She jumped onto the back seat and sat watching me expectantly as I threw the sick-bowl onto the front passenger seat.
Dan came up behind me and handed me the flowers, which I placed next to the bowl.
‘They’re lovely,’ I smiled, straightening up. ‘Thank you for everything.’
‘Here’s my telephone number,’ he said, pressing a piece of paper into my hand. ‘Please ring if you need anything, or just to let me know you’re okay?’
‘I will,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
Still he hovered, until I went round to the driver’s side and climbed into the car. The Fiesta started first time, despite having been out in all weathers since the previous day. It was used to it, as it usually stood outside what had once been the front of a large house until it had been converted into flats.
I wound down the window.
‘Bye,’ I called, and drove out of the car park, leaving Dan standing watching after me, his hand raised in farewell.
Typical, I thought wryly, as I drove carefully out of the car park and onto the road. I hadn’t had a proper boyfriend in two years, partly because I’d been telling myself I didn’t have the time for romance with my hectic schedule and long hours at the solicitor’s office, and partly because the last man in my life had turned out to be a two-timing cheat and a liar. It was almost as if my heart had been protecting itself from falling in love; every time I met a man who seemed attractive I found a reason not to date him. I didn’t have time; he wasn’t that good-looking anyway; he was married; or one of my friends liked him too. I spent evenings in the company of men when my friends and I went clubbing, of course, but none of them had seemed worth the risk of opening my heart to the possibility of finding true love or making a romantic commitment. Not until now.
I pictured Dan as I had seen him up on the Downs, and then again at the hospital, and smiled ruefully. At last I had bumped into someone who might actually be worth the time and possible risk of letting my guard down…just when my body felt bruised and battered and my mind was churning with confusing images and strange dreams.
Shaking my head in frustration, I turned the car into the parking space outside my flat. Once inside, the place was exactly as I’d left it the day before when I’d set out to give Frankie her extra-long Saturday afternoon walk. No sign of intruders in the sitting room, where several pairs of my shoes lined the wall. Nothing seemed out of place in the small, homely area, with its profusion of pot plants and scattered books. The kitchen was as generally untidy as I had left it, with yesterday’s clean washing-up still stacked on the draining board and Frankie’s bowl of dog biscuits permeating the small room with the aroma of meat and bone meal.
I put the flowers in a vase, made myself a quick meal of scrambled eggs on toast, then sank down in an armchair to eat it on my lap, after which I realised I felt totally exhausted. Checking the clock, I found it was nearly half past two in the afternoon. I took a minute or two to change out of my jeans and sweater, donning a comfy tracksuit, then returned to my armchair. Frankie was stretched out on the carpet at my feet, snoring gently. I curled up in the chair, my feet up under me, closed my eyes and nodded off to sleep.
I roused to the feel of someone pulling at my hand, and I stirred slightly.
‘It’s all right, Lauren,’ said a voice in my ear. ‘I’m only disconnecting the drip. The saline’s finished.’
My eyes flickered open, but there was nothing but a shadowy shape in the darkness. I shivered slightly and curled into a tighter ball, willing the dream to go away.
‘There, all done. Go back to sleep, dear,’ soothed the voice. ‘See you in the morning.’
The dream was still with me when I awoke an hour later, disconcerting me. Frankie was curled obediently at my feet. I knew she wasn’t asleep, but just being quiet for my sake, and I reached down and patted her head. Getting up, I stretched, then went to the telephone and dialled my parents’ number.
Dad answered, and his familiar voice was somehow calming.
‘Hello, Jess lovely; how are you?’
I found myself smiling at the warmth in his voice. He’d called me his ‘lovely’ for as long as I could remember, and I was eternally grateful no one was confusing me with a mother of four called Lauren. ‘I’m fine, Dad.’
We chatted for a while about his garden and the village show, where he was hoping to win best marrow competition, and then I said hesitantly, ‘I had a bit of an accident yesterday.’
‘What do you mean, an accident?’ Are you all right?’
‘I’m okay now. Did you and Mum have a storm down in Somerset on Saturday afternoon?’
‘We had a bit of rain, not what I’d call a storm. Why?’
‘I was walking Frankie on the Downs when a storm blew up. There was thunder and lightning and I was caught out in it.’
‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ he butted in. ‘I heard on the forecast that there were going to be pockets of severe storms dotted across the south-east during the weekend. What happened?’
‘You’re not going to believe this but I was actually hit by a streak of lightning. I’m fine now,’ I added hastily in response to his exclamation of horror. ‘I was taken to hospital but I’m okay now, honestly.’
I could hear Mum in the background asking what he was exclaiming about.
‘Your mum’s trying to take the phone from me. I’ll hand you over and you can tell her all the details…’
‘Jessica? What’s this about you being hit by lightning?’ My mother’s anxious voice came through the receiver loud and clear. It sounded as if she was only in the other room.
‘I was walking Frankie yesterday afternoon when a storm blew up,’ I explained. ‘The lightning struck me on my shoulder but that old coat of yours took the worst of it, and although I ended up in hospital I’m virtually unscathed.’
‘Virtually?’ she repeated, picking up on the word immediately. ‘So why did they take you to hospital?’
‘I blacked out,’ I confessed. ‘A dog-walker who was caught in the storm with me took me to hospital in his car. They kept me in