Page 27 of A Spell of Midlife Mayhem

But Raven... with his leg muscles, he could walk up and down all day without tiring.

A long breath left me. Yesterday, he’d climbed the stairs right in front of me, providing me with the perfect view. I’d never even glanced at another man in all the years I’d been married to Terry until then. Maybe it was a sign that I was moving on from that tired relationship, from the cheater who took advantage of me in so many ways.

I entered the downstairs bedroom. It was stuffy, so I opened the window. The sheets appeared fresh, so I left the bed untouched and opened the drawers of the dresser and examined the wardrobe. Those were empty. Good.

Returning upstairs, I paused at the top to catch my breath. While I’d recovered from the operation, I wasn’t as fit as I had been prior to that. Though I could never have called myself fit. Maybe a three out of ten. Now I was over the operation, it was more like a two out of ten. Or one. Oh well, going up and down the stairs would help.

I made several trips with armfuls of clothes from Aunt Ruth’s old room—now my room—apart from a few things I’d borrowed until my luggage turned up or I bought something to replace it. It took the best part of an hour before I’d finished putting them into the dresser and wardrobe downstairs. Photos and other personal items took another fifteen minutes, and I was getting exhausted by then, but being on a roll, I didn’t intend to stop until I was done.

A tall wooden-framed mirror leaned against the wall in the bedroom. While I wanted to keep it for my own use, it would be fair to swap it with the much smaller one in the downstairs bedroom. Aunt Ruth would surely want her own mirror rather than one of the guest ones.

I slid it along the bedroom carpet and out onto the landing. It was heavy. There was no way I could carry it downstairs without risking life and limb. I might overbalance or trip over it. There had to be an easier way.

Raven was busy, and I didn’t want to bother him again. I lay the mirror on its back so I could slide it down the stairs. But now what? Should I go first and ease the mirror down after me, or lower it from above? Both were tricky manoeuvres. If I went first, the mirror would crash down on me if I lost control of it. That was too dangerous, so I slid it down the top steps from the landing above.

And it slipped from my grasp.

‘Shit!’ I snatched at it with one hand, the other hanging onto the top balustrade for safety, but I was too slow. The mirror slid down the carpeted stairs, accelerating towards the bottom. The leading edge caught on one of the lower steps. The mirror somersaulted and smashed onto the wooden floor of the entrance hall with a rattle of wood and an explosion of glass. Shards flew out in all directions.

I facepalmed.

Raven came through the dining-room door in a flash. ‘What happened?’ he cried out before taking in the mess at his feet.

I unpalmed my face and gestured at the damage. ‘I dropped the mirror. That’s seven years’ bad luck, I suppose.’

He frowned. ‘It’s a big mirror. I’d say you’re looking at fourteen, maybe twenty-one years’ bad luck there.’

Yeah, maybe. A small puddle of blood forming by Raven’s bare left foot caught my gaze. ‘You’re bleeding!’

He looked down. ‘Damn. I must have stepped on some of the glass.’

‘Wait there. Don’t move. I’ll get a bandage.’

I fetched first-aid stuff from the main bathroom upstairs and made my way down to Raven, who was leaning against the doorframe of the dining room.

‘Take a seat somewhere. I’ll clean and bind the wound.’

He hopped to the nearest chair in the kitchen, apparently to avoid getting blood on the wooden floorboards.

I pulled a triangular shard of glass out of his foot, and it began bleeding more heavily. I wiped it clean, sprayed it with antiseptic and bound it with a bandage, leaving his foot wrapped like an Egyptian mummy’s.

Raven eyed my handiwork with a bemused expression. ‘Looks like I won’t be going out for a run today.’

‘Best not.’

‘Do you think you might have overdone the wound care a little? It had almost stopped bleeding.’

My cheeks heated. Maybe I had. ‘I wanted to be sure you wouldn’t bleed out.’

He chuckled. ‘No danger of that from this slight scratch, Heather, but thank you for the attention.’

I left him to return to his study and went in search of a dustpan and shovel. It took a few minutes to sweep up all the glass fragments after I’d put the mirror frame away in the cupboard under the stairs. I’d have to get it repaired as soon as I had my first pay from Chirtlewood House. Hopefully, it wasn’t a family heirloom. Might Aunt Ruth be upset?

Clearing up involved dumping several dustpans of shattered glass into the rubbish bin before I could put away the brush and pan. Tiredness swept over me. I’d started out with good intentions, but it hadn’t ended well. Should I move any more furniture? What if I broke something else?

I shook my head. I’d ask Raven for help some other time.

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