Page 43 of Pull Me Under

I don’t hesitate. Don’t second-guess.

I slam my fist against the door.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

‘Brynn. Open the door.’

My voice comes out hoarse, raw. Rain drips from my hair into my collar. My hand trembles, from cold, from fury.

I don’t know why I’m here.

Except I do. I’m here because my father just forgot what he knew this morning. I’m here because Kit’s table is empty and my mother’s been gone twenty years and Peter’s stool at the bar is just a stool again. I’m here because I’m terrified of watching one more person disappear from this village – to death or distance or the simple, grinding erosion of time – and Brynn Trelawney, who arrived a week ago with nothing but a Land Rover and a grudge, is the first thing in this harbour that feels like it’s arriving instead of leaving.

I’m not leaving until she opens this door.

Chapter Eleven

BRYNN

The rain sounds different against corrugated metal. Angrier. Like it’s offended by the shed’s existence and determined to prove a point about structural integrity.

The trawler sits on blocks in the centre of the shed, hull propped with timber shores, taking up most of the floor space. I’m up on her deck, elbow-deep in the engine mount, oil under my fingernails, a spanner that’s slightly the wrong size slipping for the third time. Ghost is asleep in a coil of rope by my camp bed, unbothered by the storm, unbothered by everything. The single bulb on its cable swings when the wind gusts hard enough to lift the corrugated roof and whistle inside.

Working. Building. Turning the wreck I bought in Plymouth into the life I’m trying to piece together. Not thinking about Jude Harding’s hand brushing mine on the winch yesterday, or the way he walked away like the dock was on fire and his dignity depended on a clean exit.

Check you later, Trelawney.

Like we hadn’t just spent four hours in a truck together. Like his hand hadn’t brushed mine and made my breath catch.

I tighten the mount bolt and the spanner slips again. I swear, wipe my hands on my jeans, reach for the penetrating oil. The problem is the forward mount – corroded threads, salt damage, needs to be worked loose gradually⁠—

That’s when I hear the footsteps.

Heavy. Determined. Pissed off.

Sounds like a Harding.

The hammering starts before I can even straighten up.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

‘Brynn. Open the door.’

His voice is hoarse, raw in a way that twists low in my stomach. I set the spanner down on the engine housing – careful, always careful with tools, even when your pulse is hammering like you’re seventeen and useless – and swing myself down from the deck. The drop to the shed floor is about four feet. My boots hit concrete.

The door protests when I yank it open, wood swollen from the damp.

And there he is.

Jude Harding, soaked through. Not just rained-on – drenched, like he’s been swimming in his clothes. Hair plastered to his forehead. Mud on his hands, on his knees. Jaw so tight I can see the muscle jumping beneath the skin. His bad leg is braced like it’s screaming at him, and his eyes, Christ, his eyes. They’re churning like the sea looks right before a storm takes it.

It’s fear. Barely contained, badly disguised as fury.

I lean against the doorframe. ‘Lost, Harding?’

He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even crack a smile.

Instead, he pushes past me into the shed, dripping rainwater onto the concrete floor, and I have to step back or let him walk straight through me. He’s standing between the timber shores of the trawler, looking around the shed like he’s seeing it for the first time – the camp bed in the corner with its sleeping bag and pillow, the workbench against the far wall cluttered with tools and manuals, Ghost’s food bowl by the door. Evidence of a life being lived in thirty square metres of stone and corrugated metal.