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‘Right. Even I could wrestle a cuddly toy. I didn’t know there were crocodiles in the Andes.’
‘There aren’t. She added a few things in as we went along. The penguins act as tour guides and show you the right way to go.’
‘Penguins are always the good guys.’
He nodded, finally allowing himself a smile. ‘I’m going to take her back to the clinic, now.’
‘What? It’s three in the morning, Aksel. Why don’t you just stay here?’
‘I said that we’d go now so that she can talk to Lisle. And I want her to wake up somewhere that’s familiar to her.’
‘But...’ Flora saw the logic of it but this felt wrong. ‘She’s asleep. It seems a shame to take her out into the cold now when you can let her sle
ep and take her back first thing in the morning.’
‘You heard me promise her, Flora. I’ll stay the night so that I’ll be there whenever she wakes up. You can’t help me with this.’
There was more to this than just practicality. More than a promise. She could feel Aksel slipping away from her, torn by his guilt and the feeling that he’d let his daughter down.
Flora had to let him go. He’d feel differently about this in the morning and realise that he could be a father to Mette and a lover to her as well.
‘Okay. You’ll be back in the morning?’
‘Yes.’ He reached for her, and Flora slid towards him on the sofa. His kiss was tender, but it held none of the fire of their nights together.
‘You’re tired. You’ll sleep in?’
If she could sleep at all. Dread began to pulse through her. What if he decided that this was where their relationship had to end? She pushed the thought away. She had to trust Aksel. There was no other choice.
‘I’ll phone in and take a couple of hours off work, I don’t have any patients to see in the morning. I’ll be here when you get back.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FLORA WAS UP early and let herself into Aksel’s cottage with the spare key that he’d left with her. The place stank of smoke, and there were deposits of soot all around the sitting room, but apart from that the damage was relatively minor. She tidied the kitchen, putting away the evidence of Mette having climbed up to reach the matches, and tipped the remains of the hearth rug into a rubbish bag. Then she brewed a cup of strong coffee to jolt her tired and aching limbs into action and started to clean.
Ten minutes after she’d returned to her own cottage for more coffee and some breakfast, Flora heard the throaty roar of the SUV outside in the lane. Running out to embrace him seemed as if it would only make the awful what-ifs of last night a reality again, and she forced herself to sit down at the kitchen table and wait for him to come to her.
When he did, he looked as tired as she felt. But the first thing he did, when she let him into the cottage, was hug her. His body seemed stiff and unresponsive, but it was still a hug. Things were going to be all right.
‘I appreciate the clean-up, but I was hoping to find you’d slept in this morning.’ He sat down at the kitchen table while she made him coffee.
‘Your early mornings are starting to rub off on me.’ It wouldn’t do to tell him she’d been awake most of the night, worrying. Normal was good at the moment, even if she was going to have to fake it.
She put his coffee down in front of him and sat down. ‘So how’s Mette?’
‘Fine. She told me that a fire’s a very second-league adventure. Fighting crocodiles is much more exciting.’ He smiled suddenly, and Flora laughed.
‘Shame. If we could have tempted a few out of the loch then you could have done that too.’
He laughed, but there was no humour in his eyes. They were going through the motions of believing in life again, without any of the certainty.
‘Aksel, I... What happened last night was a terrible accident. Mette’s all right and so are you.’
‘Yes. I know.’ He might know it, but he didn’t seem to believe it.
‘You’re a good father. You can keep her safe. We’ll do it together, we’ll go through the whole cottage and check everything... We can learn from this and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.’
