Harry awoke early and stepped under the shower. He let the water run very hot, and standing under it, his skin searing, he forced his mind to focus, the cobwebs left by the alcohol having dissolved while he was sleeping. He had to sort this out with Ruth. He had to be clearer with her. He could sense the beginnings of a father-daughter dynamic emerging in their relationship, and that was the last thing he wanted to have happen. He was more than a decade older than she, and her beloved father had died when she was still a child. One didn't have to be a psychologist to see the potential pitfalls for them. He cleaned his teeth under the shower, then stepped out on to the tiles to wipe himself dry, then, with a fresh towel wrapped around his waist, he shaved. Still wearing only the towel, he ventured into the bedroom where Ruth appeared to be asleep, the duvet covering her head. He slid under the duvet, the towel still wrapped securely around him.

"What?" she said, her head still under the duvet.

"We have to talk."

Ruth pushed the duvet back from her face and looked across at Harry, her eyes squinting in the morning light. "That sounds ominous. What should we be talking about?" She lifted her body and her pillow until she was sitting, her back resting against her pillow. With both hands she pushed her hair from her face, and behind her ears.

"Last night, for a start."

"Oh that," she breathed more easily, and smiled at him. "I was a bit disappointed, but I understand what you were saying."

"Ruth, you shot out of that bed like you were on fire. I thought I'd offended you. I didn't want us to be having drunken sex. It would have been a really bad idea, and we would both have regretted it."

"Harry, I was a little hurt, but once I got back into this bed I knew what you were saying. You were trying to protect me, to protect us. That's very …... decent and brave of you. It was a noble thing to have done. I love that about you."

"Are you sure about that? You're not just saying that to appease me?"

"No," she reached out to him and traced her finger across his lips. "Maybe you were a little bit …... blunt, but that's your way. I know that when you speak your mind it's sometimes hard to accept what you're saying, and sometimes I take a while for things to sink in. I think the worst before the truth emerges. I'm not used to …... this. I'm not used to someone loving me like you love me. I'm used to men taking advantage of me. I'm having to adjust, and any such …. adjustment may take time."

Harry nodded, feeling relieved. Her explanation made perfect sense to him. "Ruth," he began, grabbing the hand that was still tracing his lips, "do you think of me as a father figure?"

"Oh, Harry, you don't really believe in that older man-father figure bollocks, do you? I don't think of you as my father. I think of you as …... Harry."

"But I was your boss, and I am much older than you -"

"And my father died when I was eleven, and I miss him every day, but you're not his substitute. I tried for a long time to not love you. I tried to forget you while I was in Cyprus. It worked for a while, but thoughts of you crept in when I least expected it. I'd be in bed with George -"

"You don't have to tell me this."

"I think I do. If anyone in my life was a father figure, it was George. He took care of me, so that I didn't have to think about a thing. And he was already himself a father when I met him."

"So was I."

"Minor detail. When George and I would be about to …... make love, I'd close my eyes and imagine him to be you. The best sex George and I ever had was when I was imagining he was you. It worked every time. He'd be thinking how great he was in bed, and I'd be thinking how great you were."

"That's perverse."

"It was survival, Harry. It's what I did to get through that time away from everyone and everything I loved."

"When you came back from Cyprus, you told me your life there had been simple and …... and elegant -"

"It was, but only because George took care of everything for me, and all I had to do was enjoy the sunshine. George looked after me. He was a lovely man, but he could be quite controlling, too. He'd watch me, and I knew I had to appear like I was not thinking about you, just so he'd feel safe and secure. The only time I felt free to think about you fully was while George and I were having sex, which is an irony in itself. I got very good at being two different people inside my own skin."

Harry considered his words before he spoke again. "Ruth, you don't have to answer this if it makes you feel uncomfortable …... but, did you ever call out my name when you came? With George, I mean."

Ruth looked up at him through her eyelashes, the answer already evident in her clear embarrassment. "The first time I imagined George to be you, yes I did. Afterwards he asked me who Harry was. I just told him it was someone I used to know. After all, it would have been idiotic to say I knew no-one called Harry, and that the name just slipped out. After that, I was more careful, and I just called out your name in my head, where George couldn't hear it. I found it really hard to exercise such restraint. I missed you terribly, Harry. I missed …... everything about you, even my private fantasies, so thinking about you in that way served to keep you with me."

Harry reached across with his hand and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "When I said we needed to talk, I hadn't imagined that we'd need to talk about this."

"I'd wanted to talk to you about it after I came back from Cyprus, but you'd look so pained at the mention of George that I just couldn't do it. I needed to tell you that George was part of my survival while I was away. He was kinder than I deserved him to be, but I didn't feel very much for him other than immense gratitude. I told myself I loved him, but that was all to do with survival. Telling myself I loved him allowed me to live my life with him without feeling guilty about it. He knew all along my heart belonged with someone else, and he deserved better than that."

"And all that time I was thinking that you wouldn't talk to me about George because you still loved him, and you blamed me for his death."

Harry slid his hand down to her neck, and while he was rubbing his thumb gently along the line of her jaw, he reached across and put his lips to hers. Very carefully, he opened his mouth and touched her lips with his tongue. Ruth moaned softly and opened her mouth beneath his. They kissed for a long, long time, their lips soft and gentle, their tongues exploring, but not forcefully. When they at last broke apart, it was as though something which had always been between them, pushing them apart like the like poles of a magnet, was no longer there. Ruth could sense that at last George's ghost had been exorcised; he no longer hovered between them, either out of guilt, or misunderstanding. They each felt a peace in being together that in any other couple could have taken years to achieve.

They lay together in bed, their arms around each other. Neither had thoughts of making further sexual contact. Just being together in that way was enough.

.

"I was thinking," Harry said at last, "that maybe we should go home tomorrow. We can both live at my house. It's big enough for two. I have a spare room if you want to be on your own."

"Harry, I meant it when I said I wanted to share a bed with you for the rest of my life. I have no intention of being sent to the spare room, as nice as I'm sure it is. I trust your bed is big enough for the two of us."

"It's big enough for a family of eight."

"I guess that means if I want my space, all I have to do is sleep on my side of the bed."

"I mean it, Ruth. You may need your space, so you should have a room of your own, even if you never sleep there."

"But you said yourself that you're a loner, too, Harry. What happens when we fight – or at the very least, disagree about something – and you want your bed back? What happens then?"

"We work it out. That's what grown-ups do."

She looked right at him without speaking. He knew what she was thinking. She was thinking: What about you and Jane? Were you not both grown-ups? "No," he said, "Jane and I did not handle our relationship as adults should. We both made mistakes. We were both too stubborn to change our behaviour. You and I are different."

"I didn't say a thing," Ruth said.

"You didn't have to," he replied, "it was written all over your face. You're also thinking: He made such mistakes with his wife, had numerous affairs, spent a long time away from home, so how will it be different with me? Am I right?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Well, Ruth, he who never makes a mistake can never allow himself to become a better person."

"Is that a Native American proverb?"

"No, it's a Harry-ism. I've made more mistakes than most men, and I can't promise I won't make many more with you. But I'm more aware now than I was thirty years ago, and we won't have all the pressures of work that have interfered with our happiness in the past."

"I don't expect our lives to be perfect, Harry. I'm prepared to settle for happy."

"I'll also settle for happy, but the most important thing is that we're together. We're being given a second chance, Ruth. How many people have that?"

Harry's stomach let out an audible growl.

"It sounds like breakfast time," said Ruth. "Shall we eat in the dining room?"

"Good idea," he said.

.

Harry stole the last piece of toast from the toast rack. That was his third piece to Ruth's one.

"What shall we do today?" he asked her, as he plastered the remainder of the strawberry jam over the last piece of toast.

"Let's go somewhere," she said. "I take it you have your Range Rover with you?"

"Yes," he replied, "it's locked away in Geoff's garage."

"Let's take a drive over the Severn Bridge," she suggested. "I haven't been outside Bristol since I was brought here almost four months ago, and it's years since I've been to Wales."

.

So, in late morning they set off for Wales. They could have driven to Newport or Port Talbot or Swansea, but they didn't. At Ruth's insistence they drove up into the hills above the coast.

"I want to create some new memories, Harry," she said, "and I want to create them with you. When we're old and unable to get out of our chairs without help, I want us to be able to say: Do you remember the day we drove to Wales just to look at the scenery?"

Harry was happy to indulge her in any way he was able. He'd been remiss in the past. He'd told himself that it was the job which always came between them, but he knew it had been more than that. He had been afraid of messing it up with her, and of having her run away from him, or worse. He hated it that he had been so easily hurt by her rejection of him. More than anything, he'd always been afraid she'd one day no longer love him. That had appeared to him like an inevitable outcome, regardless of how well he behaved towards her. Now, that outcome seemed absurd to even consider. He and Ruth had twice endured her death – once for three years, and the other time for over three months – and yet they were still here, and they were still bound by a pledge of love for one another. How may couples could claim that?

They had parked beside a road which led up into the mountains. It seemed like the right place to be eating lunch. Harry laid out a small towel over the bonnet of the car, and on it they'd arranged the bread, cheese, paté, olives and antipasto – a touch of the Mediterranean, just for Ruth. Harry had declined Corinne's offer to pack a bottle of wine. He had noticed Ruth's reluctance to drink alcohol since she'd left the medical facility, and he hadn't wanted to drink the wine on his own. They ate in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, but enjoying the vista laid out before them. But the air was cold, and the wind-chill factor considerable, and so it wasn't long before they were back inside the cabin of the Range Rover. Ruth looked weary, although it had barely gone one o'clock.

"Are you feeling alright?" Harry asked her, almost afraid of her answer. "You seem tired."

"I am," she said. "I should have told you earlier, I guess. The section doctor told me that my energy should improve when my body has detoxed fully. He said that I may have had a slight adverse reaction to the hypnosis drug. It's as though I've been a drug addict for three and a half months, and my body has to flush all the remnants of the drug from my system."

"So, you'll get better."

"I hope so, although there are no guarantees. Why? It won't change your mind about me, will it?"

"Of course not," he said, looking across at her. "I was just wondering why you seemed tired. You used to be such a ball of energy."

Ruth took her eyes from his, and looked through the windscreen at the fields which lay below them. "Harry," she said, "can I ask you a favour?"

"Anything," he replied.

"Can we go back to the hotel through Bristol? I really need some new clothes. I left all of mine at the medical centre, and the ones you brought me from London are all too big on me now."

"Of course," he replied. "You should have said something earlier. You always look lovely to me, no matter what you're wearing."

"How very diplomatic."

"It's true. Through my eyes, you're always beautiful."

"I trust you have your credit cards with you. My cards will be worthless. Felicity said all the accounts of the participants in the research project have been frozen until the investigation is over."

"It will be my pleasure, Ruth. It's a long time since I've bought a woman clothes."

Harry started the vehicle, looked in the rear view mirror, and pulled out on to the two-lane road.

"Are you happy?" he asked her, after he'd negotiated overtaking a slow-moving tractor pulling a drill seeder.

"I am now you didn't plough us into the back of that tractor and whatever-thing-it-was-pulling."

Harry smiled to himself. He could sense the old Ruth returning in ever-so-small increments. She had been hurt, abused and damaged, and it was going to take a lot of patience, love and care on his part to nurse her back to full health.

"I am, Harry. I'm very happy to be here with you."