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She thought of theDagalienon the pebbles, the swell tide now submerging her, most likely, the wind and waves forcing the poor craft farther up the beach, her varnish scratched off and the stones tumbling inside her prow. What would be left of her by morning? Everything felt so hopeless.
She felt the tears stinging her tired eyes and without saying anything, Magnús stood and reached for the shop keys in his pocket. ‘Sleepy?’ he asked.
Yes, let’s pretend I’m sleepy, she thought, before polishing off the last bite of cake and draining her cup.Sleepy is easier than cheated on, stranded, lost and alone, and feeling utterly sorry for yourself.
‘I will walk you home.’ His accent was as soothing as his actions.
She didn’t remark on how much she liked his voice. She guessed he heard that a lot. Yet, his voicewaswonderful to her ear, with its lilting upward inflections – which for all the world sounded kind of Canadian – and the ‘w’ sound that mixed with every ‘v’ as it left his full lips, along with the deep elfin softness that took her back to box-set evenings in Middle Earth. If she wasn’t mortally afraid of spilling all her secrets or bawling her eyes out in front of this man, she’d like to listen to him talking all night long.
Once out on the cobbled slope, they found the wind had changed direction and was now hurling itself at their backs as they turned Down-along. Magnús still hadn’t said a word since promising to walk her ‘home’.
Alex tried hard to pretend shewasbeing walked home. Nothing weird about that. Earlier, Jowan had shown her a low white bed, flouncy and floral, in a small upstairs room. She wished it really was hers.
How easy life would be if she could go on pretending she was a castaway with no baggage whatsoever. A fresh start, though impossible what with all the mess left behind – not to mention strewn all over Clove Lore’s beach – seemed blissfully easy in comparison to facing up to all her losses. She tried not to sigh for herself and the shambolic life she was running from.
It was far too windy to speak, and they had to hold tightly to the metal railings and gate posts that lined the wide path between the sloping rows of cottages that made up Down-along.
There was bracken, branches and sand strewn on the dark path beneath Alex’s boots and they made gravelly crunching sounds as she took careful sideways steps.
Just as they reached Jowan’s cottage door and Alex slipped the key in the lock, she felt a panic rise in her chest. She’d be all alone in there with her thoughts, and she didn’t like that idea at all.
Magnús, however, held out two packages, both of which he’d taken the time to place in white paper bags. ‘Your book, remember? And also, some cake for your bedtime snack. Read yourself to sleep. The storm will be gone in the morning if what they say is true.’
He was reading her mind, surely?
It struck her as she took the bags from his hands that they were the same height and she had to fight the urge to lean forward and kiss his cheek, like she had Mrs C.’s. Or maybe notexactlythe way she’d kissed the elderly woman. She had a feeling she’d like very much to press her lips to the smooth-looking skin of his fine cheekbones framed by sculpted dark blond stubble. Which was precisely why she wasn’t going to do it. She turned the key in the lock.
‘Until tomorrow,’ he told her.
She watched from the cottage steps as he powered himself up the slope and out of sight, unable to tame the feeling that she had caught a little of the glow he claimed to have always inside him, even when he was straight-faced and serious. ‘Incandescent on the inside,’ she said with a smile, as she shut the door and made her way to bed.
