Page 33 of Take Me Away

It takes a moment. A long one. The whole time she’s staring at me, waiting for me to respond.

Wait. What? She thinks this is because of the headlines, what they are saying about her?

My mouth flaps uselessly open.

I step back, needing distance from her. Her teeth catch her bottom lip, a nervous habit I’d forgotten until this moment.

‘There’s nothing to explain,’ I snap.

Something flickers across her face – hurt, anger, maybe. Her chest rises with a sharp intake of breath. She blinks rapidly, and with a jolt it hits me that she’s fighting tears.

‘Why are you being like this?’ she asks, voice suddenly quieter. She takes a step closer, erasing the distance I’d created.

You left. You never looked back. You were supposed to be my fucking best friend.

‘Like what?’ I keep my voice neutral, refusing to acknowledge the tightness in my chest. ‘A concerned parent when my child wanders off?’

This doesn’t even make sense to me, like not even a little bit. But I can’t back down. Can’t show this woman how much her not coming home all those fucking years ago still rankles with me.

‘Like I’m the enemy.’ Her eyes search mine. ‘Which bit of me is so unforgivable, Kit, me leaving, or me not coming back, because if you’d just let me ex⁠—’

‘I need to get back to Maisie,’ I cut her off, spotting Maisie’s yellow rain hat down the lane, blocked by a stone wall and some of Maggie’s roses that have been left to spiral. ‘It’s the weekend, we have plans.’ We don’t. But it’s not the point in the here and now. ‘And I’m sure you’ve got people who can help you.’ I don’t know why it rankles, but it does. Tilly all over Isla last night, saying, ‘You’re dating Reid Usher, aren’t you…’ and Isla answering with a dreamy, ‘Mmmm.’

Her expression shuts. The slam of the door, the vulnerability replaced by a practiced neutrality that reminds me how many years she’s spent pretending to be other people. ‘Fine. Run along.’ She wraps her arms around herself, knuckles white where they grip her own elbows. ‘Apparently, that’s what you do best now. Go.’

I turn and walk away without looking back, ignoring the part of me that wants to turn around, to explain, to see if she’s watching me leave.

Bollocks.

‘New arrival in town,’ Jude announces later as I descend the dock ladder, wiping grease from my hands. House-dad jobs done, I’ve come down to the harbour to … okay, I’m hiding from thoughts of Isla Quinn being just a few doors away from me. From thoughts of what Marcus Vale may or may not have done to her. And also thoughts of her in bed with Reid Usher, an actor I actually had some time for, until I thought of him being with Isla.

So yeah. I’m hiding at the harbour. In truth, though, Jude is heading out for a two-day trawl and I don’t want any accidents, not from the boat anyway.

‘Expensive-looking. Designer everything,’ he carries on when I don’t answer. ‘Took a taxi from Truro station, according to Ruth.’

I grunt, focusing on the boat engine I’ve finally managed to coax back to life. ‘Tourist, probably.’

‘In October? Headed straight for Salt Cottage with a suitcase that probably cost more than we hauled in last month.’ He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Only one person I know staying there.’

My hands still on the rag. ‘Isla has a visitor?’ I ignore the tightening in my chest. ‘Reid Usher, was it? Just what we need. Another celebrity.’

‘Shall we unpick why you instantly think it’s a man visiting her?’ Jude punches me on the arm. Hard. ‘And no, it’s a woman. This one looks important – all angles and sharp edges. Terrifying, really. My type exactly.’

I snort. Jude’s ‘type’ encompasses approximately 90 per cent of the female population. ‘Wait, you called Ruth in the cab office?’

‘Can’t be too sure of strangers these days.’

I snort. ‘You are more of a gossip than Dot.’

‘Talking about Dot, she says the visitor asked directions to the cottage,’ he continues, waggling his brows in a way that literally invites a punch to the face, ‘but the taxi went to Nina’s first. Probably needed caffeine to survive the rural horror.’

Nina’s. Where Maisie is supposed to be until I finish up.

I don’t realise I’ve dropped the rag until Jude says, ‘Where are you going?’

‘Café,’ I call over my shoulder, already halfway up the dock. ‘Need to check on Maisie.’

‘Right,’ Jude calls after me. ‘That’s definitely the only reason!’