Page 140 of Secret Paths

When she pulls back, her cheeks are pink, but she does not step away.

Behind us, Bernard makes another attempt at the napkin and succeeds in getting it stuck briefly to one paw. Mrs Higgins sighs with the weary love of a woman who has seen too much.

Mandy laughs.

Then she reaches for my hand again.

We walk back through the festival together, past sticky tables and folded bunting, past Luke’s quiet grin and Alexandra’s shining eyes, past Mrs Higgins and Bernard.

People look, but for once, we don’t care.

And for the first time since this whole thing began, I do not have to wonder whether she will pull away.

She is beside me.

And we are no longer hiding.

Epilogue

Mandy

The first sign that Peter has become part of my life is not his key on the hook by my kitchen door.

It is not the spare jumper he keeps in my wardrobe, or the finance magazine he insists is “work reading” and leaves on my coffee table, or the fact that I now own parmesan because apparently that is something households require.

It is the message waiting on my phone when I leave the surgery.

Alexandra

Is my brother cooking for you tonight?

I am only asking because Hunter says Peter left Morton Hall early with potatoes.

And because you have been together nearly a year, which means I am entitled to information.

I stop beneath the surgery awning and read the messages while rain taps against the pavement.

Nearly a year.

The words still have the power to startle me.

Not because it feels wrong.

Because it does not.

Peter and I have survived almost twelve months of village gossip, shared breakfasts, separate houses, Sunday walks, bad puns, good sex, two minor arguments about QI is better than Homes under the Hammer, and Alexandra referring to herself as “patiently waiting for my sister-in-law era” whenever she has had more than one glass of wine.

We have not swallowed each other’s lives.

That was the part I was afraid of.

His cottage is still his, with its stubborn toaster, crooked hall light and the old walking hat on the peg by the door. My house is still mine, with my overflowing mug cupboard, my untouched cookbooks and my blissfully undisturbed silence on the nights I choose it.

When I open the door, Peter is standing at my hob in rolled-up sleeves, a tea towel slung over one shoulder and a look of deep concentration on his face as he stares into a pan.

My house smells of beef, onions and rosemary.

My stomach makes an undignified sound.