Page 34 of The Wedding Game

I lie back on the pillow, holding the note and smiling with contentment. I can’t stop smiling. I wonder if I smiled even in my sleep.

I shower and dress in jeans and a T-shirt. If Josh is on the farm, then this feels like the most suitable attire from my bulging suitcase of options. I pull on my trainers and head back into the kitchen, where Josh has left a selection of breakfast goodies on top of the warm Aga: bacon, fried eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms. I spoon some onto a clean plate that he’s left on the table for me. There’s also fresh juice and I spy a coffee machine with warm coffee still in the pot. I glance around at this set-up. Josh lives very well. He’s also organised and thoughtful – whipping all this up for me at the crack of dawn before taking himself off to work.

I send Scarlet a picture of the kitchen set-up; she’s obviously still asleep and offline and I don’t get a reply yet. I remember the message from Chris, which I opened on thetrain, but didn’t reply to yet. I wonder what I should do about that. I might just leave it a bit longer. I feel bad keeping him hanging, but I also don’t want to make a snap decision I’ll come to regret.

After I’ve eaten, I leave the house and pull the door closed behind me. Presumably Josh has got his key. He’s trusting, leaving me here like this.

Now it’s daylight, in the distance I see large metal farm buildings, and I’m halfway there before realising my wellies might have been a better choice of footwear. The whiter-than-white trainers I’m wearing are starting to suffer.

I stand at the open door to the building and look inside. It’s a hive of activity, with two men moving around checking machinery. Neither of these men is Josh and I don’t want to interrupt them, but one turns to me anyway. It’s wet inside this building and I can’t really enter without flooding my trainers. I feel silly now.

‘Josh!’ one of the men yells. He wanders over to meet me.

‘Hiya, you must be Lexie,’ he says in a West Country accent. ‘I won’t shake your hand as I’m covered in muck.’

I look at his glove. He is. ‘Hi.’ I reply.

Josh appears around a corner and meets me with a grin. ‘You’re up! Did you find the breakfast I left you?’

‘I did, thank you.’

He moves forward to kiss me, before introducing me. ‘This is Tony.’

Tony grins and says hello before turning off to continue his work.

‘Want to meet everyone else?’ Josh offers.

‘Sure.’

‘Shall we start with humans or cows?’ he teases.

‘Ha! Humans, please.’

Josh calls over to another man in his thirties, who’s had his back to me in the far distance, and he turns, squints a bit, smiles and shouts hello. I wave back, say hello and then turn to Josh.

‘What time did you get up?’

‘Five-thirty, as usual.’

‘Ugh!’ I calculate: it’s 10 a.m. now. ‘You’ve been up hours.’

‘I have. Remember it’s my cardio?’

‘Oh yeah,’ I smile at him, and his gaze holds mine before he dips his head and kisses me briefly.

‘Did you sleep OK?’ he asks.

‘Like a baby,’ I reply.

‘Babies sleep terribly, don’t they? Screaming and crying?’ Josh says knowingly.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve no clue how babies work.’

He opens his mouth, looks as if he wants to say something and then stops himself at the last second. I’m desperate to know what he’s thinking. Josh looks down at my feet and raises his eyebrows. ‘I thought you said you’d brought wellies?’

‘I didn’t know I’d need them the minute I stepped out the front door,’ I wail.

‘I should have said,’ he tells me. ‘Well, if you want to come and meet the cows, you can trek up to the house and swap your footwear or I can carry you over the threshold …’ He looks around us at the state of the freshly washed and veryflooded floor. ‘Or around the whole building. What’s it going to be? Leap into my arms or head back to the house?’

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