Trust Me - Sheryl Browne Page 0,15

running cold.

Half in and half out of the shirt, Jake paused and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Scratches,’ he said, looking at her cautiously as he turned to face her. ‘I got caught up while I was trimming the Leylandii at the weekend. I told you, remember?’

Emily stared at him. She didn’t remember. Her stomach turned over. She had no recollection at all of him coming in from the garden injured. Surely she would have? She scrambled through her memory. There was nothing. Nothing at all. She couldn’t even remember him being in the garden. But the Leylandii, they had been trimmed recently. Hadn’t they? Oh dear God. Fearing now for her sanity as well as his fidelity, a hard knot of panic twisted inside her.

Five

Jake

Jake had no idea how he’d let Edward talk him into this. He wasn’t sure how they’d got on to the subject of swimming, let alone how that had ended up with him volunteering to wade about in wellington boots in the river. The water was low, but it was still bloody cold in there.

‘We need someone competent,’ Edward had told him with a hopeful smile. Jake doubted a high level of competency would be needed to make sure a raft of plastic ducks crossed the finish line without coming a cropper on the rocks or getting snarled up in flotsam. He’d agreed to do it, though, when Edward had pointed out that the majority of the spectators would be small children, who would sit up and take notice of him as he was the local GP. Jake didn’t think the kids in the village were that in awe of him, but he would hate to think of a young child slipping past one of the marshals and sliding into the water. It was all for a good cause, he supposed; the money collected from sponsorship of the ducks would be put towards repairing the roof of the sports hall, which would also go some way to keeping the kids dry. And at least this way he would be on hand – numb from cold probably, but on hand if he was needed.

‘All right, Jake?’ someone shouted as he glanced around for Emily. Turning to the local produce stall, he spotted Dean Miller with his arm around his wife, Zoe, who was expecting their first child.

‘Didn’t think there was a dress code,’ Dean said, looking him over with an amused grin. ‘Liking the natty attire.’

Jake glanced down at the yellow waterproof dungarees someone had loaned him and decided ‘natty’ possibly wasn’t the right description.

‘Dean, stop it.’ Looking highly embarrassed, Zoe gave him a nudge with her elbow. Clearly she thought Dean was being overfamiliar. She was always shy when she came to see Jake, always addressed him as Dr Merriden, as some people tended to.

‘What?’ Dean looked at her, now highly amused. ‘Jake’s all right. He has a sense of humour.’ He gave her shoulders a squeeze. ‘Must have to be wearing those, hey, Jake?’

‘Clearly.’ Jake smiled wryly and gave him a wave as the couple moved on, Dean now being severely chastised by his wife.

He’d located Emily and was about to go across to her when Edward called to him from one of the stalls. ‘Ah, Dr Merriden. Glad you managed to get here in plenty of time for the off. And looking the part, I see.’ He chuckled as Jake walked across to him. ‘Very trendy.’

Thinking he was possibly going to be the main source of entertainment at the fair, Jake shook his head good-naturedly. Then, glancing across to where Emily was manning the bar and BBQ stall, and pointedly not looking in his direction, he buried a sigh. She was still annoyed with him for not coming home early when he’d promised to on Thursday. He didn’t blame her. They clearly did need to sit down together and have a discussion about Millie, and think about maybe speaking to her tutors. He wished Emily would talk to him in the meantime, though. She wasn’t exactly not talking to him, but she wasn’t being very communicative. She was upset about Millie, understandably, but he couldn’t escape the uneasy feeling that it was more than that. Perhaps he should suggest they go out tonight? He could book a table at the Italian restaurant in Hereford that was Emily’s favourite, and ask Tom to cover any call-outs. If his father was going to insist on being hands-on, he could step in during out-of-surgery hours occasionally. It