Page 66 of Falling in Love at Pennycress Inn

‘Of course it is. You don’t need to ask. Take as long as you need.’ Squeezing her around the shoulders, Laura stood up and disappeared back inside.

Lowering the hot mug to the wooden step beside her, Nicola hugged her knees and lowered her chin to her arms. She’d done this, she’d broken up with him, but they’d both known there would be no happily ever after. She knew there was no truth in the fairy tales of her childhood, the ones her mum used to read to her right here on the decking of a late summer’s evening.

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Crouched on the rug, Nicola held her breath, watching and waiting. The baby bird Trixie had brought in half-fluttered and half-hopped across the floorboards from its hiding place behind the sofa, heading towards the TV cabinet on the opposite wall. As soon as the bird had reached the halfway point, Nicola made her move and leapt forward, cupping her hands around the fluffy feathers.

‘That’s it, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.’ She could feel the small beak pecking furiously against her skin. The poor thing must be petrified.

Opening her cupped hands ever so slightly, Nicola peered into the handmade cocoon. It was a house sparrow, a fledgling judging by the look of its feathers.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I bet you were just learning to fly when Trixiebell caught you off-guard.’ Nicola glared towards the hall door where she’d sent Trixie for some time out.

Trixie scratched against the door as she wailed, desperate to reach the prey she’d hunted down and brought in and baffled why she wasn’t getting to enjoy her prize.

‘Stop it, Trixie.’ Nicola sighed. ‘You’re in my bad, bad books. Not just my bad books, not today, Trixiebell. After getting through work without crying, all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa, and yet, what do I come home to find? The big bad cat chasing this poor petrified baby around.’

She wasn’t sure how she’d got through the day. Despite Laura’s desperate attempts to send her home, she’d stayed there until five. She’d needed to. If she’d come home, all she’d have done was curl up and cry and, yes, that’s what she was planning on doing now, but she knew she couldn’t have spent the whole day doing so.

Just as she began to stand up, Trixie’s paw arched around the edge of the door and the cat sprang into action, racing across the floorboards towards her.

Startled, Nicola staggered to the side, reaching her hand automatically across to the sofa to save herself and in turn letting go of the fledgling.

With a loud hiss, Trixie jumped towards the baby bird, which darted beneath the sofa with only seconds to spare.

‘Trixie!’ After steadying herself, Nicola leaned down and grabbed Trixie, shoving her back out into the hallway and checking that the door was closed properly, twice this time.

Kneeling beside the sofa, she looked underneath. She couldn’t see the poor bird. It had probably scooted to the back and was hiding in the shadows, petrified it’d end up as Trixie’s dinner.

‘Fine. We’ll just wait it out. You can come out when you’re ready.’ Nicola sat down heavily on the sofa. She didn’t have the energy to pull the sofa out and retrieve the poor bird. Besides, it would only scare it even more. No, she’d wait. It’d come out soon enough. And Trixie could wait too. She could do with the time to realise her actions had consequences.

Slumping against the back of the sofa, Nicola pulled a cushion onto her lap and hugged it. She was so tired. She’d barely slept a few hours since Charlie had broken the news two evenings before. And she still couldn’t quite believe it. He was really gone. He’d left and returned to his old life.

She glanced at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It was half-past six. Charlie would have been in London for hours now, settling back into his apartment. Fetching groceries or cleaning the dust which would have inevitably covered his furniture in the months he’d been away.

Or maybe he had gone straight into work. He might be in a meeting right now, discussing the best strategies to be used to regain the lost client.

He might be booking his trip to New York, buying plane tickets, changing money from pounds to dollars. Packing.

She swiped at her eyes as fresh tears began to fall. Why had she let herself believe him when he’d reassured her? How hadn’t she realised quite how impossible their relationship had been?

How hadn’t he?

Nicola watched as the small bird ventured out from beneath the sofa and hopped across to the rug. It stood there, its tiny eyes darting around the room before taking a leap and flying up to the coffee table.

With a few little hops, the bird pecked at last night’s chip wrapper, the cold chips still sat in the pool of vinegar and salt, mostly untouched. Having bought them as she hadn’t had the will to cook, she not been able to stomach them after all. The bird was welcome to them.

As it grew in confidence, it pecked at the stale food, seemingly enjoying them more than Nicola had.

Holding her breath, Nicola leaned forward and, in one swift motion, cupped the bird between her hands again. This time, she stood up quickly and hurried to the back door, thankful that she’d left it open in the hopes the fledgling would find its own way out.

Once outside, she walked towards the back of the garden and placed the baby bird on the garden table. Looking bewildered to be back out in the open, the fledgling perched next to the citrus candle she kept outside.

Nicola looked at the two empty glasses still sitting on the table, the wine barely touched in either of them, the pizza box lying on the patio beneath, the abandoned pizza slices probably stolen by foxes or some other wildlife which ventured through the village gardens. She picked up Charlie’s glass and ran the pad of her index finger around the rim.

Shaking her head, she took a sharp breath in, lowered the glass and shoved the pizza box beneath her arm before picking up the glasses again and carrying them across the lawn to the kitchen. Pausing in the doorway, she watched the bird, still a little dazed from its traumatic encounter with Trixie.

‘Fly, little one. Fly home.’

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