Until a text message pinged through to my phone, charging on the bedside table.

An unknown number.

The message was short, and to the point:

Running away doesn’t solve anything.

As I sat there, lungs frozen, a second appeared:

Do you think you can get away with what you’ve done?

My heart skittered inside my chest, as a rising flood of panic sent my head reeling. I could barely focus on the third message:

I don’t.

I dropped the phone onto the bed as if it had morphed into a venomous spider. At some point my body must have clicked into action, because when Daniel burst in moments later, I was quaking in the far corner of the room, hands clutching the collar of my pyjamas.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked, voice sharp with alarm as he scanned the room.

It took another few moments for me to compose myself enough to speak. ‘Nothing!’

‘That yell didn’t sound like nothing.’

‘A… a spider. On the bed. It shocked me, that’s all.’ I tried to laugh.

He focused on the bed, frowning. ‘Do you want me to chuck it outside?’

‘No! No. It’s fine. I can deal with spiders. It gave me a shock, that’s all.’ I rubbed my face with both hands, embarrassment supplanting the fear.

My phone pinged again, from somewhere in the rumples of the duvet. I resisted the urge to grab it before Daniel might see the message, even as my heart near exploded.

He shook his head, one hand gripping the back of his neck.

‘For a split second there, I thought someone from last night had broken in,’ Daniel managed a shaky smile, dropping his hand back down.

‘You really think that’s a possibility?’ I asked, jerking my head towards the window.

‘No.’ He smiled for real then. It was ridiculous how even with the dread of the new messages, that smile felt like the first kiss of spring sunshine.

I grew gradually more aware that Daniel and I were standing in my not-especially large bedroom, both of us wearing our nightclothes.

Ping.

‘I’d better get that.’ My voice had dropped to a whisper. I so did not want to get it.

‘Yeah.’ Daniel ruffled his hair. Was it my imagination on overdrive, or was he flustered? ‘I was hoping to jump in the shower while Hope was settled.’ He disappeared around the door frame, only to reappear a second later, just long enough to say, ‘Good luck with the spider.’

The latest ping turned out to be Becky, apologising for bailing on us so quickly the night before, and asking if I needed any help clearing up. I declined. Spending a good few hours clearing up the cider-tasting mess might help take my mind off both the far bigger mess that seemed to have followed me here, and the potentially even bigger one I would be landing myself in shortly if I didn’t get a grip on my amorous feelings.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, clearing up the barn, spending a fruitless couple of hours flicking through wallpaper online, taking Hope for a long walk in the opposite direction to the village, all utterly failed to stop me churning over the latest messages in my mind. Over and over and over they went until I was ready to chuck my phone in the Maddon.