Page 79 of Carry Me Home

We sit. Cara takes the seat next to me, her thigh pressing against mine under the table. Across from us, Nina settles beside Brynn. The table is small enough that our feet nearly touch underneath it.

Jude emerges from the stove with a dish. ‘Experimental paella. No judgements.’

‘I’m already judging,’ Brynn says.

‘You’re always judging. It’s your whole personality.’

‘And yet you love me.’

‘Inexplicably, yes.’

The food is better than expected. The conversation flows – Brynn on a mechanical repair job she freelanced in Newquay, Jude on a chef two villages across who thinks he’s Gordon Ramsay, Nina on Dot’s latest campaign against a tourist who tried to haggle over a postcard. This is the rhythm of it, the easy village shorthand, and I watch Nina tell the story – the way she builds to the punchline, the way her hands conduct the narrative, the way she turns to me at the crucial moment for confirmation because I was there and she wants the corroboration.

‘Tom, back me up. Did Dot actually say, “This isn’t a souk”?’

‘She said, “This isn’t a souk and I am not open to negotiation.” Direct quote. I was buying milk.’

‘She said it in front of children, guys. Small children. Who now think a souk is a swear word.’

‘It is, the way Dot uses it.’

Nina grins. I grin back. The ease of it – the automatic, thoughtless ease – is so familiar it aches.

Cara’s hand lands on my forearm.

I feel it arrive: warm, deliberate, her fingers curling around my wrist. And I feel Nina’s eyes track the movement – a flicker, barely perceptible, the way her gaze drops to Cara’s hand on my arm and then lifts back to my face. She picks up her glass. Takes a sip. Looks at Brynn.

But I saw it. The half-second where her eyes went to Cara’s fingers on my skin and her jaw tightened.

‘So,’ Cara says, leaning into me, her chin close to my shoulder. ‘I found something interesting today, before the drama with the foal.’

‘Research?’ Brynn raises an eyebrow.

‘Practice listings.’ Cara’s voice lifts, her hand still squeezing on my arm. She turns her body towards me, leaning in. Cara is smart. Cara knows exactly what she’s doing, and the knowledge of that sits in my stomach like a stone. ‘There’s a veterinary practice in Scotland looking for a takeover.’

The table is slammed by a deathly silence.

‘Scotland,’ Nina says. Her voice level.

‘Outside Inverness. Mixed practice – small animals, farm work, some wildlife rehabilitation. Established client base, room to expand.’ Cara’s fingers tighten slightly on my arm. ‘It’s exactly the kind of thing Tom and I dreamed about at university. Building something from the ground up.’

‘That’s…’ Nina sets down her fork. ‘That’s a big move.’

‘It is. But sometimes big moves are what you need. A fresh start.’ Cara looks at me, and her smile is so bright and certain and I can feel the weight of that dream from the depths of my memory where it’s been locked for so long. ‘What do you think, Tom? Can you picture it?’

Everyone is looking at me. Brynn, Jude, Nina. The small kitchen, the steamed windows, the garlic-heavy air.

Scotland. The word sits in my chest like a held breath. Scotland means leaving. Leaving the surgery, the flat, the harbour view. Leaving the village that has been my whole life. Leaving the walk that takes four minutes from my door to her counter. Leaving the fairy lights I watch from my window every night.

My family.

Leaving Nina.

‘It’s a lot to think about,’ I say. There’s a giant boulder in my throat I can’t swallow around.

‘Of course. No pressure.’ Cara squeezes my arm. ‘I just wanted to put it out there.’

‘How does it feel?’ Jude asks. His voice is mild. His eyes are a different temperature entirely. ‘Scotland. Out there.’