Page 92 of Pull Me Under

‘Seven o’clock. Don’t be late. And Harding?’

‘Yeah?’

‘If you poison me, I’m haunting you for ever.’

‘Noted.’

She pushes off from the boat, heads for the door. Pauses at the threshold.

‘See you tonight.’

And then she’s gone, and I’m standing alone in the boathouse with a racing heart and the growing certainty that I’m about to ruin everything.

I’d like to say the cottage has improved, but it hasn’t. Although the kitchen is tiny, with its cooker from another era, it’s clean, scrubbed, clearly in working order. Counters are chipped Formica and the lighting is one bare bulb, and there’s a damp patch on the ceiling that looks like it’s expanded since I last came in.

But.

The renovation list on the kitchen wall now has items crossed out. Tools are hanging on hooks by the back door. A mug tree with mugs that don’t match.

The bit that stops me dead, in amongst this disaster of a building – no, let’s be real and call it what it is, recovery – project is a jar of wildflowers on the windowsill. Just some early spring flowers and foliage.

It’s so stupid, but that jar of flowers literally harpoons me to the spot. Beautiful, careless, surrounded by rotting destruction.

Just like Brynn herself. And now I’m becoming a poetic sap who should probably ask the local vet to put him down.

The front room has a space heater humming in the corner and Peter’s research notes stacked on the table. Steel-toed boots by the door, laces muddy. There’s a blanket thrown over a faded wing-backed armchair, and the lingering smell of woodsmoke. I didn’t make it this far in that early morning I stormed in here like an asshole spoiling for a fight, and now she’s standing back, leaning against the wall and watching me evaluate her space, her inheritance.

‘Told you,’ Brynn says, watching me take it in. ‘Architectural disaster.’

‘It has character.’

‘It has mould. There’s a difference.’

She’s changed out of the overalls. Jeans, a soft green jumper that makes her dark eyes look warmer. Her hair’s down, still damp from a shower, and she smells like wild herbs that grow on cliff paths. It’s not a perfume, not exactly. Just her.

I’m holding a bag of groceries like a shield.

‘Right.’ Clear my throat. ‘Where are your pans?’

‘Bold of you to assume I have pans.’

‘Brynn.’

‘Cupboard by the cooker. They’ve seen better decades.’

They have. Wobbly handle, suspicious bottom. But it’ll do.

‘You can sit,’ I tell her. ‘Relax. I’ve got this.’

‘You want me to watch you cook in my own kitchen?’

‘That’s the idea.’

She shakes her head, smiling. ‘Fine. I’m opening wine. If I’m witnessing a culinary disaster, I’m doing it fortified.’

She finds a bottle, pours two glasses, and settles on the counter beside the cooker. Close enough that I can smell that cliff-path scent. Close enough that her knee almost brushes my hip.

Focus, Harding.