Page 78 of Take Me Away

‘But it’s Saturday,’ she groans, shoulders slumping until she slouches like a sloth.

‘And tomorrow is Sunday, and maybe we will think of something fun to do.’

She opens her mouth and I can almost sense the name, Isla, on the tip of her tongue. I press her lips closed with my forefinger and thumb, making her giggle, and press a kiss onto her nose. ‘PJs. Your story is getting shorter by the moment.’

With a flick of her dark curls, she turns and runs back for the stairs. ‘Two minutes,’ she calls back.

‘You’re supposed to clean your teeth for two minutes!’ I holler, but my instruction is lost under the echo of her feet on the stairs.

When she’s gone, I open the door and peer down the lane, checking that Isla got safely back into Salt Cottage.

I’ve been pacing the living room for an hour.

Back and forth across the worn rug, past Jessica’s knitted throw still draped over the chair, past Maisie’s homework spread across the coffee table. The house is quiet except for the rain that blew in again, hammering the windows, and my own ragged breathing.

Upstairs, Maisie’s been asleep for hours. I checked on her twice already – both times finding her curled around that battered stuffed rabbit, peaceful in a way I haven’t felt since Isla came back.

Since I let myself want something I swore I’d never want again.

My hands curl into fists at my sides. I’m being ridiculous. I should go to bed. Should let this go. Should stop thinking about her face after I kissed her, the press of her fingers to her lips, like she was capturing the taste of me there. The scorch of her touch across my arm as she walked out.

I stop pacing, grip the back of the sofa hard enough my knuckles go white.

Two years. Two years since Jessica died and I haven’t so much as looked at another woman. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t imagine wanting to. The idea of touching someone who wasn’t Jess felt like a betrayal – to her memory, to Maisie, to the vows I made. To be happy. To live fully. To love again someday. Jessica’s voice in my head, soft and certain, the way she was even at the end when the cancer was eating her alive. Promise me you won’t stop living, Kit. Promise me you’ll let yourself love again.

I promised. But I didn’t think it would hurt this much when I finally did.

Because I do. Love her. Still. Again. The difference doesn’t matter when it’s tearing me apart.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab my phone and call Jude.

He answers on the third ring, voice groggy. ‘Someone better be dying.’

‘I need you to come over,’ I say. ‘Stay with Maisie for a bit.’

A long pause. Then, more alert: ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing. I just – I need to go out. Won’t be long.’

‘Kit, it’s nearly midnight⁠—’

‘I know what time it is.’ My voice grinds in my throat. I soften. ‘Please, Jude. I just need … I need to do something.’

Another pause. I can practically hear him putting it together. ‘This about Isla Quinn?’

I don’t answer.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

When he arrives, I’m already out the door, boots hitting the wet pavement, Salt Cottage’s porch light flickering at the end of the row.

It’s less than a hundred steps, but it feels like walking into a storm. I hammer on the door, and there’s movement from inside, a thud followed by a curse. The door opens a crack, chain on. ‘Kit?’

She closes the door to undo the latch and I swear my heart is a steel-pan band inside my chest. When she opens it again it’s to reveal her wearing only a baggy T-shirt and some old tracksuit pants with a hole torn in the knee that definitely weren’t her grandmother’s.

She steals my fucking breath.

I step in, pressing into her space, fingers cradling her jaw, thumbs tilting her face up to mine. ‘Isla.’ It’s a whisper.