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CHAPTER 13
The front door was in a terrible state. Anyone could break in if they were even slightly determined, and Rosie was up here on her own at night. No one in Heaven’s Cove would stoop to burglary, but who knew about the tourists that were starting to flood into the village now the weather was improving?
Liam blew air through his pursed lips and ran his hand across the warped wood. The splits in the grain were like wounds under his fingers. Stormy weather had battered this house and, though it was still standing, the fabric of it was damaged. He knew how it felt.
Good grief, he was identifying with a dilapidated old house now. He really needed to pull himself together and get back out there.Get yourself back on the horsewas how Alex put it, as though Dee was a race that he’d lost, rather than the woman who’d ripped out his heart.
It wasn’t like no one was interested. Katrina had texted him only this morning to check if he was going to the dance in the village hall in a few weeks’ time. She’d definitely be up for some no-strings fun if her boyfriend’s back was turned.
‘Shall I go to the dance, boy?’ He bent and patted faithful Billy, who was nuzzling at his feet. ‘Maybe Alex is right and it’s time to get back to who I was. I mean, it’s over a year since—’
The words died on his lips when the door, with a nails-down-blackboard shudder, was dragged across the tiles, and Rosie poked her head around it.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
She seemed surprised to see him. Actually, she seemed distressed. The dark circles under her eyes were purple shadows against her flushed cheeks.
‘Did you forget that I said I’d help for a while this morning?’
‘I remembered first thing but then I got distracted and forgot. Sorry. Come in.’
With more scraping of wood on tile, she pulled the door fully open and he could see her properly. Her blue T-shirt had grubby streaks, her jeans were faded and ripped, and was that a cobweb in her hair? When he reached out and brushed his hand across her head, she stepped back in alarm.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting this.’ He held up his fingers, now covered in sticky filaments. ‘It looks like a spider’s web.’
‘I’ve been up in the attic.’ Rubbing her hands across her head, she turned slowly on the spot. ‘Please tell me the web didn’t come with its own spider.’
He laughed. ‘I can’t see one. But surely living in a hot country means you’re used to spiders. Don’t they have huge ones over there?’
‘Yeah, all sorts of scarily massive wildlife, but they don’t tend to live in my hair.’
When she giggled, Liam caught a glimpse of what Rosie must be like in Spain, far from the sorrows of Heaven’s Cove: happier, less vulnerable, more carefree.
‘Would you still like me to give you a hand this morning?’ he asked, hoping she wouldn’t send him away. He’d grumbled to himself on the walk here because there was so much work to do on the farm, but now, seeing her, he wanted to stay.
Rosie hesitated, before stepping aside and beckoning him into the hall. ‘If you don’t mind. I think I can do with all the help I can get.’
She padded across the tiles in her bare feet, bending on the way to pick up an open photo album and place it on the hall table.
‘Old photos of Mum and Dad,’ she explained, before leading him into the sitting room.
This must have been a grand room once, thought Liam, with its picture rails, large fireplace and sash windows overlooking the sea, but not now. His eye was drawn to cracks in the coving, tired paintwork and window frames in desperate need of repair. In fact, seeing the room again only confirmed what he’d feared yesterday: that Rosie had her work cut out if she was going to impress the stuck-up Eppings. Since his last visit, furniture had been pushed together into the middle of the room, and paperwork was scattered across the floorboards.
‘Sorry,’ said Rosie, though why she was apologising, he wasn’t sure. When she gathered up the paperwork and shoved it into the bureau, he noticed a tremor in her hands. She was still upset.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Have you ever been in here – apart from when you delivered the stuff from Shelley’s?’ she asked, waving her arm around the room and ignoring his question.
‘No, I’ve been in the kitchen a couple of times while I was delivering post but that’s all. Your mum was friendly in the village but kept herself to herself up here.’
‘So what do you honestly think of this room?’
‘I think… it has potential.’
‘That bad?’
