Page 1 of Finding Love at Roseford Blooms
1
‘Which part of “I never want to see you again” do you not understand?’ Lizzie Warner wished she were speaking on a landline instead of her mobile, just so she could have the satisfaction of slamming down the receiver. Somehow, ending the call with a voice command didn’t seem to cut it. She gazed gloomily at the traffic ahead of her, wishing for the thousandth time that she’d elected to have this meeting on Zoom instead. But she’d needed to get out of the office, away from Paul and the inevitable conflicts that working with and loving the same person had created, ever since he’d decided to pull the rug so spectacularly out from under her feet.
That was the third call since she’d left, she realised wearily. And there had been plenty of ‘discussions’ before then. But it was no good. The writing had been on the wall long before Paul had decided that he wanted not only to sign over the business they’d set up together to a larger firm, but also to spend several nights with the gorgeous lawyer whom he’d engaged to negotiate the contract. The marketing firm that had been their dream was effectively over. Not to mention their relationship. Although he couldn’t proceed with the sale of the business without her say-so, in the end, it had just been easier to agree. After all, they’d both walk away with a lot of money in the bank, and, in theory, they could both start afresh. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Seven years of their life together had been spent building the business, forming a client base and becoming one of the most talked about marketing businesses in the country. Warner-Basset had been all over social media, with a client list that many larger firms had envied. In tandem with their commercial success, Lizzie and Paul had discussed marriage, but it had always been an ‘in the future’ kind of decision. Now, both marriage and the business were off the table, and, despite the boost to her bank balance that selling her half of the partnership would net her, Lizzie had never felt more insecure.
As the traffic picked up, Lizzie glanced at the screen of her phone to double-check her route. Her final client before she signed on the dotted line was based in Hindhead, a fair drive from the offices in London, and she’d never been completely comfortable with driving the route from memory. The sudden onslaught of a summer rainstorm added to her anxiety, and she scrabbled to switch on the wipers and de-mist her windscreen. The dust that seemed to habitually cover her car in the summer obscured her vision even further for a long moment, until the road ahead became clear again. She swore when she realised she’d missed the turning she needed. The ETA on Google Maps already told her she was going to be ten minutes late, and now she had to make an unexpected detour.
As Google’s soothing map voice told her to take the next left, she drew in a deep breath. It didn’t really matter, she thought. This was a handover, not a pitch. It was just that the client had been one of their first, and Lizzie had always been the main contact for them. She felt she owed them a final face-to-face meeting. However, as the rain got heavier, she felt herself beginning to regret that decision.
Proceeding cautiously down a dark tunnel of trees, Lizzie tried to bring her mind back to the imminent meeting. The stuff with Paul could wait. Everything else could wait. She used to laugh when her sister, Georgina, had told her to live in the moment more. Now, the moment seemed the safest place to be. The past was too painful, and the future too uncertain for her to feel at home in either.
At least the heavy tree cover was keeping the rain off. It hadn’t rained for weeks, and Lizzie could feel the tyres of her Ford Kuga gripping the slippery surface of a road covered with weeks of dust and oily emissions. The rain was making the surface treacherous, and Lizzie slowed her speed a little, nervously aware that she wasn’t a terrific driver at the best of times, and these conditions weren’t making her any more confident.
She pulled closely into the hedge as a huge Range Rover Sport came hurtling in the opposite direction, so close to her own car that it set off the proximity sensors. Just in time, the Range Rover slowed, narrowly avoiding taking her wing mirror off.
‘Calm down,’ she muttered to herself. With a bit of luck, she’d be off this lane soon and back out onto the main road.
As she emerged from the tree-lined tunnel, to her relief, the next turn put her on a wider road. Glancing at the clock on her dashboard, she pushed her foot down harder on the accelerator. Hopefully, if she got a move on, she’d only be a few minutes late. The rainstorm had abated and the sun had re-emerged from the bruised purple-black clouds above her, bathing the road in a mirror-like sheen. If she’d been in a better mood, she’d have taken in the quaint, chocolate-box prettiness of the village she was driving through, its red-brick houses and green spaces all beautifully representative of the charming Hampshire landscape, but she was too concerned about making this last appointment on time.
As she accelerated on reaching the faster speed limit sign on the outer edge of the village, the phone rang again. Glancing down at it, she reached to block the call, but as she looked back up she saw a large roe stag haring across the carriageway not twenty metres ahead. In a blind panic, Lizzie slammed on her brakes, forgetting that the surface of the road was like turkey fat in a roasting tin as a result of the rain. As her back wheels spun out towards the white line, and the front end of the car hurtled towards the chevrons marking a harsh bend, Lizzie screamed. The car, lacking purchase on the slippery surface, turned over and hit the bank at the side of the road, which caused the airbags to detonate. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was the stag, jumping over the green bank that eventually stopped the progress of her spinning car.
2
When she regained consciousness, the first thing Lizzie noticed was that her phone was ringing. And that the world was the wrong way up.I must stop that phone, she thought irrationally. But as she reached out to silence it, an excruciating pain in her left clavicle stopped her. As she yelled out in response, Lizzie’s breathing started to get shallower, and she felt the panic rising. What if she was stuck here for hours? What if she already had been and just didn’t know it? What if the car was going to explode with her in it? All of the most terrible scenarios from the worst car crashes in the direst films and TV shows she’d ever seen vied for dominance in her confused mind until she was shaking all over, not just from pain but from sheer, blind fear.
Lizzie could hear her engine ticking over still and forced her mind to slow down. Even if she couldn’t get out, surely if she could switch the ignition off, that would minimise the risk of a fire? Reaching out her right hand, which, thankfully, didn’t cause any additional pain, she burrowed under the hanging remnants of the deployed airbag and found the ignition key, remembering, eventually, that, because she was inverted, she’d better not drop the keys. With a shudder, the engine cut out and Lizzie breathed a trembling sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about.
She was starting to get a headache from hanging upside down in the car, and her left shoulder was throbbing. Raising a hand to her face, she could also feel the beginnings of a nasty bruise on her cheekbone, presumably from the force of the airbag. Then the phone cut into her consciousness again.
‘Just fuck off!’ she screamed at it, the tears starting to drip, irritatingly, into her hair.
‘Can you hear me, love?’ A voice came from the passenger’s side of the car. ‘Are you awake in there?’
Lizzie’s head shot to the left, and through the glass on the passenger’s side of the car she could see a concerned face peering in at her.
‘I’m awake,’ she said quickly, relieved beyond measure to see another human being.
‘I’ve called 999 and they’re sending someone out. Shouldn’t be too long.’ As Lizzie focused on the face, she could see it was that of a kindly looking white-haired older man, old enough to be her grandfather. She thought she could hear the creak of his knees as he adjusted his position so she could see him better from where she was hanging in the upside-down car.
‘Thank you,’ she stammered. ‘I saw a deer and just panicked.’
‘They’re responsible for a lot of accidents on this bend,’ the old man replied. ‘A law unto themselves, they are.’ His voice was steady, reassuring, and Lizzie realised that he must be trying to keep her calm, too.
‘Should I try to get out?’ she asked him.
The old man furrowed his brow. ‘Have you been through a check on yourself?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you checked to see if you’ve got any obvious injuries?’
Lizzie ran through a quick mental head-to-foot check. Having someone there with her, even a stranger, was helping her to keep focused. Her head hurt, and her cheek, and one side of her collarbone was excruciating, but her back felt fairly normal, even though her neck hurt from the impact.
‘I think I’m OK, apart from my collarbone,’ Lizzie concluded.
The old man looked kindly at her. ‘I used to be the local copper around these parts. I’ve seen a few of these in my time.’
