Page 45 of One Last Gift

See! Trying new things is not that bad, is it, Chipmunk? And I reckon most of this Oxbridge lot only tried rowing for the first time at university…

Speaking of Oxbridge…I’ve never told you this, but I applied to Oxford. And I got in. I can literally hear you right now, screaming at me for not telling you. At least this way, you can get in a huff about it alone first, and then you’ll be calmer by the time you see me. But the point is—I didn’t go because I was scared to, Cassie. It felt too posh and out there and I didn’t want to go without Sam. I don’t regret it or anything—honestly, I don’t, I had the best time at Manchester and I’d still choose to go there if I could go back. But I’m imparting wisdom here—I don’t want you to be the same, to be afraid to do something new or different…

Cassie frowned. He’d gotten into Oxford? How—how had he kept that from her all this time? She’d thought they’d told each other everything. She would have told him. He knew everything about her life. OK, everything except, maybe, how she’d once felt about Sam. But that was different. She bit her lip, figured she’d have to digest the information later, and kept reading.

On a different note, did you know that Mum used to row?? I didn’t. I only found out recently, because I was trying to come up with the right clue (it’s great, don’t you think?), and remembered the oars at Claire’s, so I asked her about it—apparently Mum was on the team. Shame neither of us got the gene, hey? I would’ve looked great in all the rowing lycra.

Cassie paused again, thinking of Claire snatching the oars away from them. Cassie’s mum’s oars, maybe? Or even if not, a reminder of her mum, of a hobby she’d once had. Maybe that’s why she had snapped that day, rather than because of anything they were doing, specifically. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Claire had lost her sister when they lost their parents.

Anyway, in case you need extra help on the clue, because I know I went a bit wild, here are your P.S.s:

I’d head westward if I were you.

I always thought Of Pubs and Men was a good name for a B&B, don’t you agree?

Also, might be nice for Linda to tag along?

Chapter Twenty-One

Sam couldn’t believe how cold New York stayed all through April. He sat hunched on a bench, a gray sky threatening rain overhead, staring at his phone as he waited for Toby, who was meeting him at the youth center, before they went off to explore the wonders of Brooklyn. Toby had an apartment this way as well—rented, not owned, but still—so the plan was to stay for a few days. Toby had been staying with a friend on Long Island last night, so Sam had made his own way here and now he was early, having overestimated the time it would take from the Hamptons house.

He reread the message from Cassie as he waited—yet again. He’d sent her a message last night, unnerved by the lack of updates—what if there were some problems at that end?

We’re waiting on a solicitors’ meeting on Monday. I’ll let you know how it goes though!

He should tell her it was him. He was still feeling guilty about explicitly lying about the fact that he knew Linda, but he’d panicked and hadn’t known what to say—because if he’d said “yes,” things would have gotten trickier, wouldn’t they?

He was going to do it. Going to tell her it was him, so he could stop feeling like he was deceiving her. He actually brought up her number, dialed.

“Hello?” Her voice was a little cold, distant. Of course it would be. She would have seen his name flash up on the screen, and she’d made it perfectly clear how she felt about him. He felt his throat close. He couldn’t do it.

He hung up instead, feeling like a total coward. But he couldn’t just turn around and explain. It would sound too weird, and she’d want to know why he hadn’t told her in the first place. Besides, he wanted to keep the door open, to be able to help her with the pub again if need be. And OK, he was unlikely to be able to help on the financial front again, but he didn’t want her to throw it back in his face, if she found out the money was his. He didn’t think she’d actually do that—she wasn’t that petty—but best not to risk it.

His phone flashed with an incoming message and he jolted. But it wasn’t Cassie.

Can we talk?

Jessica. Shit. Heat trickled down the back of his neck, despite the cool day.

“All right, Mr. Malone?” A hand clapped his back and Sam nearly dropped his phone. He looked up to see Toby standing there in his Burberry coat. “Sorry to keep you waiting, been here long?”

“Nah, it’s all right,” Sam said, as a way of non-answer. He got to his feet, followed Toby to a slightly run-down-looking building—red-bricked and almost prisonesque in feel, with the smell of weed lingering in the air. “You sure they won’t mind me coming in? I can just wait out here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s freezing. It’ll just be a quick sweep of the place—I’ll only ask a few questions. The editor basically told me what to write already, piece of cake.”

“Right.” Sam followed Toby inside and looked around what he assumed was some kind of reception, given the desk at the front. It looked a little like a doctor’s waiting room, minus the chairs, though there were posters all along the white walls, clearly in an attempt to brighten up the place.

“Hello, hello.” A woman came rushing into the room from a door to the right, smiling at them both politely. “I’m Sheila.” Her accent was pure New York, her face open and friendly, dark, wiry hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun. Despite the smile, there was something shrewd about her dark brown eyes. At a guess, Sam would put her in her late forties. “You the reporters then?”

“That would be me,” Toby said, all charm, stepping in and taking her hand in a firm handshake.

“Oh yes, hello.” Sheila shook Toby’s hand and gave Sam a semi-suspicious look out of the corner of her eye, as if wondering what he was doing here. But after she’d assessed him for a moment, Sam seemed to pass some sort of test and the woman smiled again. “Come on then, I’ll show you around.” She started talking as she walked them to the door she’d just come from, her words tumbling into one another in a way that was both slightly difficult to understand and oddly soothing. “We get a mix of kids in here,” she was saying. “Homeless teenagers, runaways. Some come along because they don’t know where else to go, I guess. We don’t tend to ask their stories, unless they want to talk about them. It’s open all week—we don’t have beds or places to sleep, but it’s somewhere for the daytime, and somewhere that’s always open, always friendly, never demanding or questioning.”

She led them into another room, this one brighter, the walls painted pastel green. It looked open and friendly—sofas in one corner around a TV, a pool table taking center stage, alongside table tennis. There was a bookshelf in one corner, full of books and board games that looked a little underused. Sam felt several pairs of teenage eyes on him as they moved in farther—why were teenagers always more judgmental than adults? Was it, like, a hormonal thing?

“We had a big fundraiser a few months ago, managed to do a bit of a remod. The idea was to make it somewhere people actually wanted to come and hang out.” She gave them both a smile, as Toby nodded along, saying, “Excellent, yes,” and making other noises of amazement and agreement. Sheila raised her eyebrows subtly at him, and Sam wondered if she somehow knew that he wasn’t a real reporter.

“So this is what we call the ‘chilling room,’ ” she said, the air quotes obvious in her tone, “but this next room is what a lot of them come for, I think—we’ve certainly seen a rise in the number of visitors since we did this up.”