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‘Well, thank you for your concern,' I say with sarcasm. ‘If you cared that much about my feelings, you wouldn't have let your girlfriend book in with me. Or you would have – at the very least – asked me how I'd feel about it first.'

‘I'm sorry, you're right. I should have told you about the baby, not sprung it on you like this,' he says. ‘We didn't have much luck, did we?'

I shake my head. ‘Go and look after Katie and your baby, will you? Don't worry about me any more. This is hard, but I think we should stop trying to remain friends.'

‘But it's what we agreed after the divorce. I don't want to cut all ties.'

‘It isn't working for me. I need to move on.' By keeping in contact with Paul, I'm only fuelling Lewis's suspicions that we still have feelings for each other. It sounds as if I'm letting him control who my friends are, but it isn't like that. Claire has made me wonder about Paul's motives for keeping in touch – I thought he was trying to support me and make sure I was all right, but I can't help thinking now if he's deliberately setting out to unsettle Lewis and wreck our relationship.

Back at home after work, I munch my way through a bag of pick-and-mix, and suffer the pain and pleasure of eating a whole packet of flying saucers that are sweet and sharp at the same time. I don't want to see Paul again. It should have been me pregnant with his baby, not this woman he's been with for all of five minutes. Even worse, this proof of his virility has shown that our failure to conceive really was all my fault. I haven't even got the comfort of not being certain to cling on to any more. I know I can get through this, but the feelings of inadequacy and loss remain like the bitter sherbet tang in my mouth.

In fact, it's as if Lewis knows how I'm feeling, because at six he rolls up at the shop. I hear his voice as I'm putting Frosty on the lead and slipping into my sexy (I'm joking) trainers, ready to go out for a walk after work.

‘Hi, Rosemary, how are you?'

‘Yoo-hoo. Your young man is here for you,' calls Gran.

‘I'll be with you in a sec.' I stuff a few treats into my pocket and walk along the corridor with Frosty. She squeals with delight. In fact, I'm not sure which of us is most pleased to see him. ‘I wasn't expecting you,' I go on, moving in to touch my lips to his.

‘I thought I'd see if you wanted to go out tonight,' he says, kissing me before turning his attention to Frosty.

‘Hey, sometimes I think you'd prefer me if I had furry ears and a waggly tail.' I give him a playful nudge. ‘I was just about to walk the dog.'

‘I'll come with you.' He nudges me back. ‘We could stop at the pub for something to eat.'

‘How lovely,' Gran sighs. ‘Zara could do with cheering up. She's been like a bear with a sore head since she came home.'

‘Have I really? I'm sorry.' I pause. ‘Gran, you don't mind?'

‘If you go out? Of course I don't. You don't have to ask my permission.'

‘I'll see you later then.' I grab a bag and we are on our way with Frosty. Lewis takes my hand and swings my arm as we stride along through town.

‘Hello,' calls Mrs Dyer, who's walking towards us on the other side of the road with her hand on Nero's collar. I tighten my grip on Frosty's lead and hurry along.

‘What are you doing, the one hundred metres or something?' Lewis chuckles.

‘I really don't want to have to stop and talk right now.'

‘Oh dear, you did have a bad day then.'

‘It wasn't the best. How about you?'

‘It was interesting,' he says, growing serious as we reach the Dog and Duck at the bottom of town where we cross the road. ‘Murray and I dug out the ground for the new barn – he's hoping it'll be big enough to take one of the tractors and some of the winter hay and straw so there's more room for lambing the ewes in the spring, but I think he's being optimistic. Oh, and we went to look at a ram. Murray isn't sure, but he thinks it would be worth sourcing rams from different bloodlines this year to see if it prevents the problems we had lambing some of the ewes. He's trying to cut down on the rate of Caesareans.'

‘I suppose it reflects badly on the shepherd if it's too high.'

‘Luckily, Murray knows it isn't me. He couldn't deliver some of them either.'

We walk across the Green, and reach the stile and kissing gate into the field that runs alongside the river. Usually, I clamber over the stile and let Frosty jump it, but Lewis opens the gate and goes through, stopping to close it behind him.

‘You have to pay me with a kiss before I'll let' you through,' He tips his head to one side, like a dog trying to look appealing. We kiss and he pulls away slightly. ‘The price has gone up since you've been standing there,' he teases. ‘It's three kisses now.'

‘Lewis,' I say, laughing as I catch sight of Aurora walking her dog towards us, ‘we'll cause a traffic jam.'

He lets me through the gate and we start out along the path beside the river.

‘It's a shame you couldn't bring Mick and Miley with you. They'll be fed up, won't they, missing out on a walk?'

‘They're all right. They've been running around on the farm and playing with Poppy all day. I left them crashed out in their beds.'

‘Ah, sweet,' I say, as we walk on hand in hand along the path beside the river.

‘So, tell me about your bad day. Did you catch any babies?'

‘Not today. No,' I hesitate, a little apprehensive about opening up old wounds, and Lewis's insecurities and jealousies, by mentioning Paul, but I remember how I promised to be open with him. No more secrets, no more lies, apart from a little economy with the truth over Gran because I don't want him to feel constrained to avoid the subject, or let it slip when he's chatting with Murray and Emily. I really don't want to worry my sister with it.

‘I saw Paul – at the surgery,' I hasten to add.

Immediately, I sense the tension in Lewis's fingers.

‘It was work. His new girlfriend is pregnant.' I bite my lip.

‘And?' he says. ‘Something's upset you. What is it?'

‘Oh, Lewis, it made me feel so sad,' I go on, recalling the way Paul held his arm protectively around Katie's waist, and stifling an instantaneous sob of distress.

Lewis swears. ‘I knew it.' He drops my hand and turns to face me. ‘I knew you were still in love with him.'

‘I'm not,' I say, tears streaming down my face.

‘You're crying. Why else would you feel like this? I can't believe you're such a hypocrite, having a go at me for questioning you about Jack when you're clearly jealous of your ex's new girlfriend.'

‘It isn't like that.' I shake my head, wondering how I'm going to make him understand. I know he's young, but I'm surprised at the immaturity of his reaction. I mention Paul and he assumes I still have feelings for him, when the only man I'm interested in is Lewis.

‘What is it like, then?' His tone is hot with resentment. ‘I'm trying to trust you, but it's almost impossible when you're standing in front of me, broken-hearted. I know from experience that it's tough letting go sometimes, but I wish you could switch off your feelings for Paul once and for all. It makes me feel that you don't really like me, that I'm second best, when I want to be the first person you turn to when you're feeling unhappy—'

‘And that's what I'm doing now, turning to you,' I cut in, but Lewis blunders on.

‘If you don't think you can get over him, then perhaps—'

‘Lewis, no, you have to listen to me. Please . . .'

‘Go on,' he says grudgingly.

‘I'm upset, yes. I'm devastated, but it wasn't about Paul, as such. It was seeing his girlfriend pregnant . . .'

‘And? People have babies all the time. You of all people know that.'

‘But I can't,' I sob. ‘I can't have a baby.'

‘You what?' says Lewis, his voice rasping.

‘It's never going to happen.'

He stares at the curve in the river where the water is orange and mixed with iron-rich sediment from the bank above, and I can feel doubt and fear settling in my heart at the thought that this could very well be a deal-breaker. What man will want me, knowing I can't have children?

‘I remember you said you and Paul tried to conceive and failed, that it was part of the reason why you divorced,' he says eventually.

‘It was the reason we got divorced. I thought Paul and I could get through anything, but our marriage wasn't strong enough.'

‘Come here.' Lewis pulls me close and holds me, gently massaging my back. ‘I'm so sorry, darling, I didn't realise.' He tilts his head and rubs his nose against mine. ‘You never know how things will work out, but you'll be all right. You've got a great job, friends and family, and you have me,' he goes on, as I begin to feel slightly better.

‘Thank you.' I lean up to kiss him, just as Frosty spots another dog, strolling along on the other side of the river. She drags me towards the riverbank,
barking, not in readiness to attack as she used to, but in a friendly greeting.

‘Calm down, Frosty!' I do my grimace as the signal for ‘no', but it's impossible to get the message across when her attention is elsewhere, her intention being to slide down the bank and swim to the other side. I manage to haul her back, winding her in on the lead to the top of the bank where she gives herself a good shake, showering me and Lewis with water. ‘Thanks for that,' I mutter, as Lewis squats down beside her and asks her to sit.

‘Treat, Zara,' he says, when Frosty obeys him first time.

‘Is that for you or the dog?' I say, feeling rather foolish being able to control neither my dog nor my emotions when it comes to Paul becoming a dad. I thought I'd begun to accept that I'd never be a mum, but this wave of grief has taken me completely by surprise. I hand Lewis a liver treat. Frosty takes it very gently from his fingers.

‘Good girl.' Lewis strokes Frosty as he looks up at me. ‘Shall we go and get some food? I'm starving.'

‘Okay,' I say, although I'm not hungry and we walk to the Talymill Inn where we sit outside at one of the picnic benches, eating chicken salad and chips. Frosty sits at my feet drooling.

‘That dog has too many titbits,' Lewis says, grinning.

‘That's Gran's fault. She forgets.' I push the rest of my chips aside. ‘I need to talk to you about what I said earlier.'

‘Go on.'

I gaze at the table, running one fingernail along the grooves in the wood. ‘It's rather a sensitive subject, but it's important.'

‘What is it?' I'm aware that Lewis sits back, holding on to his pint. ‘You're worrying me.'

‘When I said Paul and I couldn't have a child, I didn't know for sure which of us had the problem. The tests indicated that it was me, and the consultant said the chances were Paul could father a child, but today proves he was right. It's my fault we didn't conceive. I'm infertile.'

‘Did you have fertility treatment then?'

‘We had two rounds of IVF. We didn't have a single embryo.'

‘I'm sorry,' Lewis says quietly, his voice hardly audible over the sound of the water that rushes through the mill race nearby.

‘I did everything I was advised to do to maximise our chances. Paul kept on at me about losing more weight – I tried, but it didn't exactly fall off me – and then I grew angry with him. I used to shout and yell at him not to keep blaming me.'

‘I'm not surprised. That's very unfair,' Lewis says as I take a breath.

‘I didn't feel feminine any more. I even wondered in the darkest moments whether I was some kind of freak of nature, whether I wasn't female at all.'

‘You're all woman to me.' Lewis leans closer and slides his arm around my back.

‘Seeing Paul today brought it all back. It's a wound at the very heart of who I am, and now I feel stuck.'

‘Stuck?' Lewis frowns.

I force a smile. ‘At the risk of sounding like an old woman, I'm of an age where I can see that the natural progression of life is to fall in love, marry and have kids, and live happily ever after, but I'll never have the fairytale ending.'

‘All fairytales are different,' Lewis observes. ‘At least the ones Murray reads to Poppy are.'

‘No, they aren't. Everyone except the baddies lives happily ever after.'

‘And the boy and the girl get together in the end, but they don't always have a baby.'

‘That's because it's part of the happy-ever-after.'

‘You know what I mean,' Lewis sighs in mock frustration at my stubborn pretence of not understanding. ‘Why haven't you talked about this before?'

‘Because it seemed too soon to talk about babies with you. If I'd just met you and gone on about my fertility problems, what would you have thought? That I was immediately thinking long-term and serious? That's a great way to keep a guy interested,' I say ironically.

‘I see.' He rubs the bridge of his nose.

‘Maybe I should have told you straight off, but then before today . . .' I take a deep breath before continuing, ‘The tests Paul and I had showed that it was me who had the problem, but I've always clung on to the hope they were wrong. Now I know for certain it was me, not Paul.'

‘It's certainly a big thing.'

‘So now you know.' I wipe my face with a tissue.
‘I'll understand completely if you want to push off and find someone else.'

‘Why would I want to do that?' he says, sounding hurt.

‘Because . . .' Does he need me to spell it out?

‘Listen, Zara. I'm not going to disappear. You are the most beautiful,' he whispers in my ear, ‘sexy woman in the world and I don't care about the baby stuff. It doesn't matter to me.'