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‘I know. But… I dunno. I guess I just hated how we left things. And I do still love you. I wanted you to know that,’ he sighed. ‘Where does that leave us now? I have no idea.’
Part of Liz still loved him. Of course she did: you couldn’t turn love off, like a switch. But she’d spent more than three months mourning the loss of her old life; she’d moved away from her old flat, her old job, and Paul had left her. She had just started to feel hopeful again, and now, here he was, telling her that he loved her. That he wanted to make love to her.
Liz’s heart felt like it was breaking all over again. She’d been so careful, working hard and distracting herself every time she thought about Paul. She had started to feel cautiously happy again, here and there.
And now, here he was, coming in and thinking he could tell her he loved her and it would all be all right again. He had no idea that he was wrecking the fragile happiness she had started to weave for herself in Loch Cameron.
‘Paul. I could have been pregnant when you walked out. Do you know what that did to me? What it was like, sitting in that flat for a week until I had my period, and I knew I’d failed again – not just to be a mother, but to be…’ Her voice broke.To be someone’s loved person. To be the one they were supposed to protect against everything.‘You can’t just come in here now and tell me you love me. That wasn’t the action of a loving partner. You ripped my heart out!’
‘I know. Liz, I’m so sorry.’ His voice trembled, and she knew that he was upset. But she couldn’t find any pity for him in her at that moment.
‘Paul. I can’t talk about this now.’ She stood up. Every instinct in her body was telling her to run away. This was too hard.
‘Liz, please…’ he called after her, but she couldn’t stay there for another moment. She grabbed her coat from the coat stand and dashed into the high street, pulling it on in the evening drizzle.
He loved her, so he said. Liz’s heart was pounding. What did that mean to him? What he’d done to her wasn’t what you did when you loved someone. Was it?
She started to cry, walking as briskly as she could away from the inn and up the high street.
‘Liz. Liz! Wait!’ Paul ran after her.
‘Paul. Please, leave me alone,’ she begged, hugging her coat around herself. She was aware that half her eye makeup was probably down her cheek – not that makeup was an important concern right now.
‘I can’t. I can’t let you leave like this. Not again.’
He caught her and bundled her in his arms, towering above her.
‘Paul! Let me go!’ she cried out, but the pull of his body was too much for her, and she sank against his broad chest instead. ‘Please,’ she mumbled, not knowing whether she was asking him to release her, or hold her close and never let her go again.
‘I know. This is hard.’ His voice rumbled in his chest, next to her ear. ‘I just know I love you. And I want you.’ He tipped her chin up so that she looked up at him. ‘Come back to Glasgow. Come back home with me.’
Liz was caught in his hazel green eyes, like she always had been whenever Paul looked at her. There was that connection, the indescribablesomethingthat was just there with some people, and you could never say why. And hearing Paul sayI love youwas a hammer to her heart. She couldn’t stand up to it.
Did she want to go back to Glasgow, and leave behind everything she’d started in Loch Cameron? She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she felt, right now.
Slowly, he leaned in towards her, and kissed her, gently. Liz felt herself responding to him, just like she always had. The old magic was still there, despite all her mixed feelings. She kissed him back, all the dammed-up emotion of the past months flooding through her like a tsunami. She needed to be touched and kissed. She was human, and she had been so terribly lonely.
‘Oh, Paul,’ she murmured, as the kiss grew deeper. And, in that moment, she couldn’t think about anything else but his lips on hers, and the way that Paul still made her feel like home.
TWENTY-FOUR
Liz stood in the muddy track at the bottom of the field, waiting for Ben to park his four-by-four.
It was a sunny March day, and Ben had offered to show her around more of Loch Cameron. In fact, he’d insisted that she come out with him this afternoon, even though she was knee deep in admin.
Don’t make me play the boss card, he’d said when he opened the door to her office an hour earlier and asked if she wanted to come out to see a starling murmuration up in the hills.Come on. It’s beautiful, and I could do with getting out of here for a bit,he’d added, frowning at his phone and putting it in his pocket. Had Liz imagined a haunted look on his face as he’d said that? She didn’t know, but had reluctantly agreed to accompany him.
‘So, is this connected to work in any way? Or do you really just like starlings?’ she asked as Ben locked the car and pulled on his jacket. She was struck, again, by his remarkable good looks. Not that she was in the market for a man – Paul’s reappearance was confusing enough, without adding another man to the mix. But Ben was undeniably hot, even just from a dispassionate assessment. Today, as he shrugged on his jacket, Liz noticed the width of his shoulders and the fact that his jumper fitted snugly against them, and the brief flash of his muscular midriff as his jumper rode up.
Liz was healing, and taking things slowly. But she wasn’t dead. Still, hearing Paul tell her he loved her yesterday had blown her mind. She’d actually been grateful that Ben had interrupted her earlier and suggested they come out to watch the murmuration, because she hadn’t been able to concentrate on work at all that morning.
‘I really like starlings?’ He grinned at her and handed her a sandwich wrapped in cling film. ‘Here. Since I dragged you out during lunchtime, I picked these up from the café earlier. Myrtle’s best cheese and pickle.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’ Liz accepted the sandwich, and as she did so, her stomach growled.
‘Sounds like it came at just the right time,’ Ben chuckled.
‘I am a bit hungry,’ Liz admitted. ‘So, if you bought the sandwiches this morning, you knew you were going to ask me up here?’
