“I know ye didnae. And I shouldnae have reacted the way I did. It’s just...it’s just that...” He threw up his hands helplessly.
“I know,” Craig said, putting his big hand on Deryn’s shoulder. “It isnae easy to take a new path when yer feet have been so solidly set on the old one.”
Deryn looked at him sharply. Those words sounded a little too much like Irene MacAskill’s.
The path we tread isnae set in stone. It is never too late to choose another and when we do, we might just discover that there is a life open to us yet.
“Is that what this is?” he asked softly. “A second chance? Or is it a betrayal of everything I promised? I made a vow, Craig. To her. To Lizzie. Just because she’s gone does that mean my vow no longer holds?”
“Just because ye find room in yer heart for another doesnae diminish what ye felt for Lizzie.” He shook his head. “Dear God,man, we dinna get many chances at happiness in this life. When they come along ye have to grab them with both hands! Do ye think Lizzie would want ye living the rest of yer life alone? Wallowing in yer loneliness?”
“I’m not wallowing.”
“Aren’t ye? That’s what it looks like from where I’m standing. I know better than most that second chances are a rare thing. I should be dead. Darla should be a widow. My children should be fatherless. And all that would have come to pass had we not found this valley. Second chances, Deryn, that’s what this place offers us. Is that not why ye came here? Is that not why ye left yer old life behind?”
Deryn shook his head. “I...I...dinna know.” He’d come here to forget. To try to heal from a loss from which there was no healing. And yet, could Craig be right?
Madeleine’s face flashed into his mind, the scent of her hair, the feel of her lips against his. With that memory came a rush of guilt.
But guilt was not the only emotion he felt. There was another, one that he thought he’d given up on long ago.
Hope.
“I canna tell ye how to live yer life,” Craig continued. “The choice is yers. All I can tell ye is that for all the years that I’ve known ye, I’ve never seen ye as happy as ye’ve been since Maddy and Rory came into yer life. Think about that, my friend.”
With that, he gave Deryn’s shoulder one last squeeze and walked away, crashing off into the undergrowth. Deryn stared in the direction he’d gone for a long time. Thoughts tumbled through his head in quick succession, so fast he couldn’t keep track of them. Mara whined, wriggled closer, and Deryn absently scratched her behind the ears.
Despite what Craig said, he’d not come to this valley looking for a second chance. He’d come to be forgotten. To live alonewith his guilt and let the world move on without him. The day Lizzie and their child died was the day that Deryn’s life ended. He’d accepted that, or he thought he had.
But now? Now somebody else had prised open that chain around his heart and chinks of light were beginning to seep in.
He rose to his feet and stood staring down at the flower-strewn patch of ground. Deryn blew out a sigh and looked up at the sky. It was a clear, crisp night and the stars hung bright in the heavens. If felt like the kind of night where anything was possible.
“Come on,” he said to Mara.
He walked home, lost in thought, and slowed as he came in sight of the cottage. When he had built it, he had been in a daze and he barely remembered those months. He’d been lost in a fog of darkness and grief and it was only the task of looking after the animals that had kept him alive. He had built the cottage far too big for one person. Even in his grief, he’d built it for a family, for the family that he would never have.
There was a light burning in the window and as he pushed the door open, Madeleine looked up from her seat at the table and jumped to her feet.
He stepped into the house and closed the door softly behind him. “Where is Rory?”
“With Darla and Craig. They said he could stay with them tonight. They seem to think we need to talk.”
He hesitated. He wanted to cross the room, pull her into his arms, and never let her go. But he only said, “I owe ye an apology, lass. I shouldnae have run out on ye like that.”
She swallowed and the look that crossed her face told him how much that had hurt her. He hated himself for that. “It’s fine,” she said in a small voice. “I know why you did it.”
“Ye do?”
“Darla told me everything.” She crossed the room in three strides and laid her hand gently on his forearm. “Oh, Deryn. I’m so sorry.”
Those words nearly broke him. Compassion was the last thing he needed from her. He needed her to be angry, to hate him, to shout and curse. But instead, her eyes were filled with sorrow.
What had he done to deserve such a woman coming into his life?
“Darla should not have told ye—”
“Don’t be angry with Darla. I forced it out of her. I just—”
