HEALING

THE STORY SO FAR: When Mabel Grey learns that her husband and business partner, Will, is in love with another woman, she flees to a remote cottage in Devon to nurse her broken heart. There, she meets the enigmatic Miles, who lives deep in the nearby woods, in a ramshackle haven called The White Cabin. Gradually, Mabel begins to trust Miles and enjoy his company, even though it often seems as if he comes from another world. She even considers opening up to him about what’s brought her to his doorstep, and perhaps discovering more about him in return. Then, on the very day she’s due to have a leaving meal with Miles, Mabel gets an urgent phone call to say that Will is seriously ill in hospital, his ‘other woman’ at his side – and Mabel herself is miles away.

Everything went out of Mabel’s head except for the thought of getting to the hospital. Even the fact Charlotte, ‘the other woman’, might be at the hospital when she arrived, didn’t matter. Her only concern, as she shoved essentials into a bag and prepared to leave Ayres Cottage, was for her ill husband, whom she still loved with all her heart.

But, even as she raced into the bathroom to grab her toothbrush, that concern began to be tinged with a fretful resentment. What if Charlotte was, at this very moment, keeping a bedside vigil, like the anxious wife?

The reason she had been with Will when he collapsed seemed obvious. He’d been staying