Page 151 of Dream On, Liar

“My Mum left it to me.”

Her eyes softened, and it had been enough.

She didn’t ask anything or say anything else.

I got out and walked around to her side.

“You okay?”

She nodded.

I opened the door for her.

She stepped out carefully, taking a second to steady herself before reaching for her bag. “I’ve got it.”

“I wasn’t going to argue.”

“That would’ve been a first.”

I glanced at her.

There it was.

A tiny fragment of the woman I’d been used to.

I smiled.

She looked away.

I took both of our bags from the boot before she could stop me and headed towards the cabin.

The front door opened into warmth.

The first thing that struck me was how unchanged it was. Like Dev had made sure each and every single thing had been preserved, knowing how much it meant to Ma. How much it meant to me.

Dark wooden beams crossed the ceiling. Timber covered nearly every wall, the grain visible beneath the warm glow from the lamps. The stairs curled upwards along one side of the room, the railing made from twisted branches that Ma had insisted had to stay exactly as they were because they gave the place “character.”

She’d been right.

A pair of leather sofas sat around a low wooden table, softened by cushions that had been there for years. The massive windows rose nearly the full height of the room, looking out directly into the forest.

Even in the fading light, the trees seemed endless.

There was something about the place that made the rest of the world feel very far away.

Maeve stopped just inside.

Her gaze moved slowly around the room. “This is beautiful.”

I put the bags down. “My Mum loved it.”

She nodded, her eyes pausing on me.

I didn’t tell her that this had been the first time I’d been here since she had passed away. Or how many times I’d stood in that exact room wishing she’d still been here to complain about the heating, even from my house in London. Or how I’d avoided the cabin because every piece of wood, every photograph, every stupid decorative object seemed to carry some tiny piece of her.

Instead, I pointed down the hallway. “Bedroom’s through there.”

She nodded, reading between the lines that I need a minute.