I hurried over to the cottage, said a quick prayer and tried the door. Locked. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed a stone and bashed it through the door’s frosted window.

Preparing to carefully poke my hand through the hole, I nearly severed my wrist when a pair of arms grabbed me from behind. Pulling me away from the door, the arms wrestled me over to the picnic table and pushed me down face first until my top half lay in the pool of water collecting on the surface.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ The man held me down with a hand on each shoulder, preventing me from seeing him. Okay, so with my eyes closed and glasses fallen off I wouldn’t have been able to anyway, but still. His voice sounded rough, and strong, and mad as hell.

I gasped, sucking in half a mouthful of rainwater from the tabletop, which I proceeded to choke on. As a frankly hideous retching sound emerged from my throat, the man quickly let go. ‘Woah. If you’re going to throw up, at least do it in the bushes, not on my bench.’

I heaved myself upright, and twisted around, one hand gripping the table, trying to stop my brain racing long enough to catch hold of a useful thought.

‘Your bench?’

‘Yes. My bench. My broken pane of glass. My house. So, to repeat, what are you doing here?’

‘But nobody lives here,’ I managed to rasp. ‘The house is abandoned.’

‘Does it look abandoned?’ he asked, his voice getting louder.

‘Can’t see. Glasses.’ I felt around on the table in vain until he grunted in exasperation and bent down, before thrusting the rain-smeared glasses into my hand. I clutched them for a few raggedy breaths, a little scared to put them on and see the face matching that furious voice. It looked as bad as I had feared. Thick, dark eyebrows over eyes black with anger. And behind a bristling beard, a mouth twisted in disgust.

I glanced at the house, fear shoved aside as temper sparked, my constant bodyguard these days. ‘Yes. It does. No lights on. All overgrown. No car outside. And I was told nobody lived here.’

‘And who told you that?’ He folded his arms.

‘My mother. The previous owner of the other house.’

‘The owner died six years ago.’

‘Yes. So the house went to her daughter. My mother. And, as of last week, it belongs to me. Hence I have a key.’ I pulled the key out of my pocket and waved it at him.

‘If you have a key, what are you doing smashing my window?’

‘I couldn’t get the door open.’

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.