Page 155 of Carry Me Home

I hug her. Hold on tight. The smell of her kitchen – chicken and herbs and the woodsmoke – wrapping around us both.

‘Thank you,’ I manage. ‘For raising him.’

‘Oh, I can’t take credit. He came out stubborn and loyal and too patient for his own good. I just fed him and hoped for the best.’

I laugh. Wet, but real.

‘Mum?’ Tom appears in the doorway. ‘Are you making Nina cry?’

‘Happy tears. We’re having a moment. Go away.’

‘Should I⁠—’

‘Set the table. The good china.’

‘The good china? We only use that for⁠—’

‘Special occasions.’ Ivy looks at me. Smiles. ‘This qualifies.’

After dinner – roast chicken, roast potatoes, three kinds of vegetables, and a trifle that Don claims to have made but which bears all the hallmarks of Ivy’s hand – we walk down to the harbour.

The late afternoon light is doing the thing it does in October – low and amber, catching the stone walls and the water and turning everything golden. Tom walks beside me, and I can see him taking it in – not as a visitor this time, not as a man here for a weekend. As someone who lives here again. His eyes go to the surgery, dark but waiting. To the harbour wall where he’s stood a thousand times. To the village that held his place while he was gone.

‘There.’ I point.

Lavender Dreams sits at the end of the quay. Transformed. The cabin’s been opened up, a serving hatch cut into the side. Fresh paint – pale sage green with lavender trim. Fairy lights strung along the rails.

‘Nina.’ Tom stops walking. Stares. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s not finished. The inside still needs work, and the cushions haven’t arrived, and Emmett says the wiring’s a nightmare⁠—’

‘It’s beautiful,’ he repeats.

We climb aboard. The deck shifts beneath us. I show him the serving hatch, the space for the espresso machine, the bench seating.

‘Coffee on the water,’ he says.

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Peter’s boat.’ He runs his hand along the railing. ‘Your café.’

‘Both.’ I lean against the cabin. ‘His dream and mine. Together.’

He looks at me with an expression I’m still learning to read – or rather, an expression I’m finally allowing myself to read. All these years of practice, and I’m only now paying attention.

Chapter Thirty-Three

TOM

Three weeks later, the sun decides to cooperate.

It’s been threatening rain all week – grey skies, sharp winds, the kind of October weather that makes tourists regret their choices. But this morning, I wake to golden light streaming through Nina’s curtains and the sound of gulls screaming their approval.

Launch day. Lavender Dreams. The whole village is coming.

Nina’s already up. I can hear her downstairs, clattering around the café kitchen, probably stress-baking her third batch of scones. She’s been like this for days – nervous energy crackling off her like static, unable to sit still, which is Nina’s natural state amplified to a frequency that makes the dog nervous. Even Chips – returned for the weekend by his owners, who seem to have accepted that the dog has two homes now – is watching her from under the counter with an expression of concerned resignation.

I reach for my jacket on the chair. Check the pocket.