Page 109 of The Clifftop Cottage

He moved closer, aware of his hand shaking.

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” she went on. “Maybe some things don’t get fixed. Maybe you just have to … carry them.”

The wind shifted, lifting her hair.

He reached her then, taking her arm and guiding her back a step.

She let him.

They stood close, her back against his chest, the wind tugging at their coats. For a moment neither of them moved. He could feel the small rise and fall of her breathing against him, the warmth of her through the cold air.

It struck him with a sudden force, how right it was to be standing there with her.

His hand rested at her arm, steady now, though every part of him felt sharpened and awake. He hoped she felt it too, that quiet pull between them.

The moon lit her face as she turned slightly to look up at him.

“Did you think I was going to jump?” she asked softly.

Gabriel exhaled hard. “I didn’t know what to think.”

They sat down on the damp grass, shoulders almost touching.

“I don’t want to run anymore,” she whispered. “And I don’t want to keep hunting for answers that might not be there. I just want to stop. Be still. That’s all.”

Gabriel reached for her hand. Her fingers were cold but she didn’t pull away.

They sat like that for a while, the breeze brushing past them like a hush.

Erica swallowed, “You came back?”

He didn’t answer right away. The truth had lived in him too long for it to come out carelessly.

His hand tightened gently around hers.

“You didn’t think I would?”

Somewhere beyond the bend in the road, headlights briefly crested the hill, coming up the back road, then his ears caught the sound of an engine idling near the cottage.

Gabriel didn’t turn to look, not yet.

35

Leah pulled up outside Erica’s cottage, her headlights casting long beams across the garden wall. The mess came into view slowly – tools scattered across the grass, a rough pit torn into the lawn, half swallowed by shadow.

Maisie leaned forward from the back seat, peering through the windscreen.

“Auntie Eri’s been gardening in the dark?”

Leah didn’t answer.

Something was wrong.

It had sat wrong ever since Erica left her house earlier that evening – the things Leah had said, the way Erica had walked out without looking back, like the conversation had ended somewhere neither of them could reach.

Leah scanned the garden again, chewing the inside of her cheek.

Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney. The cottage lights were on.