Chapter 4

She arrived rather early at the bus stop and sat on a bench, enjoying the warm September sun, her day off and the prospect of spending the morning with Tim. After ten minutes or so, she glanced at her watch and realized he was a little late. At first it didn´t bother her too much. There were still another ten minutes to go before the bus came. But when he wasn´t there either when the bus to Skipton arrived she began to get nervous. She remained sitting on the bench as the bus stopped and drove away again and racked her mind, trying to remember their conversation as they´d set the date. They had agreed on ten o´clock, hadn´t day?

Shaking her head to herself, she bit her lip nervously. She was certain she hadn´t gotten the time wrong, so why wasn´t he here? Struck with a sudden flash of inspiration she pulled her cellphone from her purse and checked for messages. But there weren´t any. Another fifteen minutes passed and as much as she berated herself for it, she was getting anxious, the thought that he had simply stood her up becoming more and more pressing in her mind.

Again she went back over their conversation in her head, wondering if she had somehow misread his willingness to come with her to Skipton. Or perhaps he had simply changed his mind, the idea of spending an entire morning in her company suddenly putting him off. As much as she hated it, she couldn´t stop the old feeling of insecurity from creeping into her thoughts. When a second bus to Skipton came and went and he still wasn´t there, she realized she had to do something. First of all, she was starting to feel rather ridiculous, sitting on that bench for almost 45 minutes now. Briefly she considered just going home, but then decided against it. If he did came after all she wouldn´t want him to think she had stood him up.

Eventually she pulled out her cellphone again and searched for his number, deciding that she´d give him a call to ask him what happened and then that would probably be it. She waited as the phone rang four times and just when she was afraid she was going to get his voicemail, he picked up with a gruff, distracted voice: ´Wellington.´

Her stomach dropped when she realized that he had probably forgotten all about the farmer´s market and that she had obviously disturbed him while he was in the middle of something.

´Tim… It´s Ruth…´ she started tentatively.

´Ruth…?´ He responded slowly, his voice sounding surprised and sleepy now. A second later all hell broke loose.

´OH GOD!´ She could hear him curse and move around, until the sound of a rather loud crash came through the phone and he swore again.

´Tim, are you alright?´ she exclaimed worriedly.

´I bumped my head,´ he grumbled hoarsely. ´I´m sorry, Ruth… I overslept… What time is it?´

But before she could answer however, he groaned again. ´Almost eleven… are you at the bus stop?´

´I am,´ she replied quietly, feeling sorry for his distressed state.

´Of course you are… you´ve been waiting for an hour already. Oh god, Ruth, I´m so sorry!´

Relief swept over her when his absence was so easily explained and it slipped into her voice. ´Don´t worry about it. Do you still want to go to the farmer´s market?´

´Yes!´ the tone of his voice made all her earlier worries perfectly unnecessary. ´How about I meet you at ´The King´s Crown´ instead though? I´ll try to get there as fast as I can.´

´Alright,´ she wasn´t able to keep the smile out of her voice, simply feeling happy that she got to see him after all. ´I´ll see you there then, but don´t go breaking your neck!´

´I´ll try,´ came his wry reply.


By the time he got to his car he reflected sarcastically that breaking his neck was the one ordeal he´d had been spared. Taking things easy was not an option if you were already an hour late to meeting a woman who had agreed to come with you on your insistence in the first place. He was absolutely mortified about standing her up like that.

And of course it went downhill from the second he got up. After scrambling out of bed, he´d stumped his toe rather hard against the bedpost. Limping slightly he had made his way to the bathroom and cringed when he´d gotten sight of his hazard-looking appearance in the mirror.

Working eight days straight and finishing off with a twenty-hour shift, due to two trauma calls didn´t exactly enhance his appearance. He´d come home at three o´clock that night and had dropped straight into his bed, not even bothering to take off his clothes. So even though he was late beyond reason, he simply had to take a shower if he didn´t want to repulse Ruth completely. Shrugging out of the clothes he´d been wearing for the past twenty-four hours he´d put on the hot water tap.

Soon the water streamed down onto the tiles and he´d waited the few seconds it usually took before the water heated up. Only this time it didn´t. Even a full minute later, the water was still ice-cold. Putting his trousers back on, he´d thundered downstairs to check up on the hot water tank, his toe still throbbing painfully.

A quick examination of the tank told him that the pilot flame had gone out. Fussing around with matches and too impatient to go slow, he´d messed around for a few minutes until the tank was finally working properly again. He´d rushed back upstairs, but realized it would still take another five minutes at least before the water had heated up.

Deciding to shave first, in a desperate attempt to save some time, he hurriedly applied the foam on his cheeks and chin and picked up his razor. He had almost finished shaving when the razor slipped and he cut open his chin. Blood begun to trickle down and he´d closed his eyes briefly as not to scream in frustration.

Not bothering to bandage the cut he´d finally gotten into the shower. As the water poured down his face, he´d realized his mistake. Because of the running water, the cut on his chin kept bleeding. Pressing a washcloth to the injury he´d tried to wash his hair and himself as best as he could with only one hand available, which of course took three times as long as it normally would have.

Finally getting out of the shower, he´d dried his chin carefully and put a small plaster over the cut, before he proceeded to dry himself off and get dressed. As he hurried outside and got into his car, he checked his watch and winched as he noticed how the whole ordeal had cost him forty-five minutes. And it was still a ten-minute drive to ´The King´s Crown.´

Before he drove off, he pulled out his cellphone and quickly typed a text message to Ruth, letting her know she shouldn´t feel obliged to wait for him any longer, if she didn´t wish to. Goodness knew, she had already wasted enough of her time on him.

´Dear Ruth,
Murphy´s Law has it in for me.
But am finally on my way.
Would understand if you don´t
want to wait any longer though.
Tim.´

Naturally he had to wait for every traffic light that he passed on the way and by the time he had parked his car near the pub his body was tense with pend up frustration.
After the rather brutal double shift yesterday and the short night with its rude awakening, combined with the stress of trying to get into the village as quickly as possible and the prospect of having to go to Harrogate that afternoon for a conference, he wasn´t sure any longer if he wished for Ruth to have waited for him or to have gone home. She would probably be mad as hell with him and rightly so. There really wasn´t any excuse for the way he had stood her up, only that he had been just too exhausted last night to remember to set his alarm. But that didn´t change to fact that it was now almost noon and that after waiting for him for two hours, she would undoubtedly be furious.

He remembered the awful fights he´d had with Carol when they´d still been together. She had been irate whenever something had gone different from the way she had planned it and he had often received the brunt of her anger, even if there had been very little he could have done to fix the situation. She would either yell furiously at him, or give him the cold shoulder for days. And since this time he was fully responsible for his tardiness, he dreaded the fall out he was undoubtedly going to get from it. Suddenly he felt tired to the point of exhaustion. If anything, he just wanted to turn around, drive home again and sleep until it was time to leave for the conference. Squaring his shoulders, he resisted that impulse. After all, if she was still waiting for him, she deserved a face to face apology, as uncomfortable as their encounter may become.

Entering the quiet pub, he looked around and spotted her at a table in the far corner, sipping her coffee and staring outside, the sun playing across her hair. With a sinking heart he silently made his way over to her table. He had been looking forward to spending the morning with her and trying to expand their budding friendship, more than he´d cared to admit, even to himself. But now he felt he should count himself lucky if she wanted to have anything to do with him after today. Bracing himself inwardly for her anger, he tapped her shoulder lightly, causing her to startle slightly and look around.

´Hello…´ She greeted him with warm eyes, getting up and brushing her hand briefly over his upper arm. ´You made it.´

´I did… finally,´ he agreed, deeply embarrassed. ´Ruth, I am truly sorry for keeping you waiting all this time...´

´Don´t worry about it,´ she reassured him quickly. ´It´s not like you did it deliberately. Things like that happen.´

He searched her brown eyes for a moment, looking for any traces of anger but finding none. Relief swept through him and feeling his insides unclench, he smiled broadly at her, noticing she blushed a little. ´Do we still have time to go to the market?´

´What time do you have to be in Harrogate?´ she countered.

´At four o´ clock,´ he answered, his face falling as he realized there just wasn´t enough time to squeeze a trip to Skipton into it as well. ´That´s not enough time, is it?´

Ruth shook her head. ´No… I´m afraid not. The bus to Skipton passed by ten minutes ago. It´s going to take another twenty minutes until the next comes and then it´s a twenty minute drive to get there… by the time we´re there, we´d have to head back.´

´I´m sorry I´ve messed up your morning,´ he apologized again, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

Goodness, Ruth realized, she had never received so many apologies from one man as she had in the past hour and she was starting to feel a little uncomfortable because of it. ´Stop beating yourself up about it,´ she answered quietly. ´We can still go some other time if you like… that market isn´t going anywhere.´

He smiled a little at her words, but he continued to look rather dejected. Looking carefully at his face she noticed his hair was still a little damp and that there were dark circles underneath his bloodshot eyes. He looked pale, even though he still had a bit of tan – a souvenir from his time in Tanzania, causing his skin to look somewhat greyish.

´Have you eaten already?´ she asked tentatively.

He shook his head. ´I haven't… I wanted to get here as soon as possible.´

´How about we have lunch here instead of going to the market?´ she suggested rather boldly. ´You look like you could use a cup of coffee.´

Relief flooded through him once again. At least she wasn´t so mad at him that she wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible.

They sat themselves down at the table and uncharacteristically taking charge, Ruth ordered them both lunch an two coffees. The coffee arrived first and they sat there, sipping the hot liquid in mutual silence. Eying him closely from across the table, Ruth watched as his rigid posture slowly mellowed somewhat.

´Had a rough week?´ she asked, realizing she had barely seen him in the past couple of days.

´You don´t know the half of it,´ he sighed. As the caffeine was filtering through his system he finally began to wake fully.
´Two trauma nights in a row. Last night wasn´t bad, it only took up a long time… but the night before that…´ his face darkened as he remembered. ´I was covering for a college in Skipton when I got called – a young woman who had taken an overdose of aspirin and alcohol. I tried to drain her stomach, but I was already too late.´

Ruth´s eyes filled with horror at his words. ´How terrible… did she… did she plan for it to happen?´

He nodded gloomily. ´She left a note… I took it to her parents.´

´God… they must have been devastated,´ Ruth whispered softly. Then her worry switched to the man sitting across from her. He looked so sad and so utterly worn-out. All the strength and ease she usually associated with him seemed to have gone and she had the most irrational urge to reach out and take his hand in hers, just to offer him some semblance of comfort in his distress. She fought it though. It just wouldn´t be proper. Instead of comforting him it would probably only bewilder him, or cause him to jump to the wrong conclusions. And goodness knew what he would think of her then. ´What happened last night?´ she asked instead.

´I had to deliver a baby,´ he replied, his face brightening somewhat. ´Healthy boy, six week too early and already too stubborn for his own good. He had me up the most part of the night… I didn´t get home until three this morning.´

She matched his smile, but her eyes remained worried. ´You must be exhausted then. No wonder you slept straight through the alarm.´

´Actually, I completely forgot to even set it,´ he admitted sheepishly.

´I don´t blame you,´ she simply said. And that was it. As far as she was concerned there was nothing for him to apologize for any longer.
As their food arrived she changed the subject and as they easily chattered while they ate their lunch Tim felt he was finally starting to unwind completely. He watched her as she was telling him about something funny that had happened at the nursing home and he was completely captivated by the way her brown eyes danced as she told the story and how the tone of her voice conveyed her affection for the people she took care of. He marvelled at the extraordinary soothing effect her presence had on him. After the stressful week he´d had, she managed to ease his mind in a matter of minutes.

Once they had finished their lunch, he suggested another coffee, eager to prolong their time together and felt unaccountably happy when she agreed.

´How are those driving lessons going?´ he then asked, moving on to a new topic.

´Great, I already went to the town hall to prolong my driver´s license,´ she answered happily. ´Those f lessons were just what I needed to regain my confidence on the road.´
Somehow during her marriage to Eddy they had gotten into the habit of him driving her around as he was usually the one who used the car. Without really noticing it at the time it had been another sacrifice to her independence and after the divorce it had also been one of the things she was eager to claim back. But after not driving for more than ten years and with her driver´s license expired, it had been difficult to – literally – get back behind the wheel. Even in a quiet village like Knapely, there was a lot more traffic these days than she was accustomed to. But after a few lessons to brush up her skills she now felt quite confident driving – wondering why she had ever given it up in the first place.

´You know, I´ve been looking around for a small car,´ she told him. ´I found an ad in last week´s gazette that looks promising.´

´What sort of car are you looking for?´ he asked curiously.

´A red one,´ she replied enthusiastically.

He couldn´t help but laugh out loud at this typical female response. Still, he asked carefully: ´Do you know anything about cars?´

´Not a single thing,´ she admitted freely, shaking her head. ´But I´ll try not to get ripped off.´

Suddenly he was seized by a surge of protectiveness towards her. She was one of the most kind-hearted women he had ever met and he could easily imagine some con man taking advantage of her trusting nature and trying to sell her something that was at best half of a VW and half of an Hyundai badly welded together and sprayed red.

´If you want I can come with you,´ he suggested. ´I promise I won´t stand you up again,´ he added with a wry smile.

Good grief, he was certainly beating himself up over it, Ruth thought to herself. Still, she did appreciate the offer. As much as she tried to make the best of things as they were now, it was tiring sometimes to have to do absolutely everything yourself all of a sudden.

´That would be nice, thank you,´ she accepted gratefully, for the first time not really doubting whether or not he meant the offer and if she wasn´t inconveniencing him, but just accepting a kind gesture for what it was.

Once they´d finished their coffee, they left the pub and he insisted on giving her a ride home. As they sat in the car, their conversation still continued to flow easily and Ruth realized that it had been a long time ago since she felt so comfortable in the presence of a man.

´By the way, how is your intern doing?´ he asked as their conversation had gradually drifted back to the nursing home.

´Oh… she´s a nice girl and she takes direction well…´ Ruth replied, a hint of hesitance in her voice. Since a couple of weeks she had taken an intern under her wings. An enthusiastic girl of nineteen years old. Perhaps a tad too enthusiastic.

He picked up on it immediately. ´But?´ he asked, giving her a sideway glance.

´Nothing really,´ Ruth replied quickly. ´She´s perfectly alright.´

´But…?´ he asked again, amusement clear in his voice now.

´Oh well… she really is a nice girl it´s just that…´ Ruth doubted her next words for a second, fearing she sounded really ridiculous, but then continued. ´… she doesn´t have any sense of personal space and it really bothers me.´

´What do you mean by that?´ he asked surprised.

´Well… whenever she´s talking to me, or asking me something, she stands so close to me it makes me feel comfortable.´
She wryly joined in when he began to chuckle. ´I know it´s ridiculous and at first I thought I was just mad… but I can´t shake off the feeling that she´s just standing too close most of the time.

The other day she was standing next to me, eating a biscuit and I ended up with crumbs in my hair…´

He laughed out loud at that before he managed a somewhat compassionate: "Oh Ruth…"

"Well, if you´re getting your crumbs in my hair, you're standing too close," Ruth insisted, slightly exasperated. "The thing is, she doesn't even know she is doing it and she doesn't mean any harm by it… I don't have the heart to say anything about it."

"But if it truly makes you so uncomfortable, then you should," he countered thoughtfully.

"And how am I supposed to tell her: 'Excuse me, but please take a few steps away from me?'" Ruth asked cynically.

"Well you could say…" he started, but then his mind drew blank. "Oh, I don't know, to be honest. But if it bothers you this much you should be able to tell her."

"I just don't want to defend or upset her," Ruth answered quietly.

She was biting her lip thoughtfully again. A little habit he found highly endearing. And rather distracting as well, to be honest. He focused his thoughts back to her words. "I think you're the least likely person in the world to cause offense," he told her warmly. "Perhaps you'll find the right moment to mention it soon."

"I hope so," she replied, doubt still obvious in her voice. As the car stopped in front of Maple Cottage, she shook her head as if to dislodge any unpleasant thoughts from her mind and turned towards him, offering a small smile.
"Thank you for lunch."

"You're very welcome," he replied, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. "But thank you as well."

She blinked in surprise. "Whatever for?"

For being so understanding. For listening to me. For raising my spirits again. For just being you.

"Well…" he smiled rather shyly. "Too be honest, After the way I stood you up, I thought I was in for a very uncomfortable encounter when I entered the pub."

"Tim…" She just couldn't comprehend why this was such an issue to him. "After the week you've had it was perfectly understandable. It's not like you did it deliberately."

"Well, that never mattered before…" he replied darkly, before he was able to catch himself.

"It does to me…" she responded quietly. She raised his eyes to meet his. "Perhaps we could attempt to go to the farmer's market again someday?"

"I'd like that," he nodded, holding her gaze for a second longer. He watched as she got out of the car and continued to do so, until she had gone inside. A part of him wanted nothing more than to give up the conference entirely and find an excuse to spend the rest of the afternoon with her.
Knowing this was just idle wishing and with a head filled already with her voice and her smile, he started the engine and drove off to Harrogate.


I hope you´re not too dissapointed they never made it to the farmer´s market! I´d like to hear what you think!