Page 2 of Pull Me Under

‘Prohibited species, immediate release if caught, log it in the ICES database. Jesus, Kit, I’m not completely incompetent.’

Sometimes.

‘I know you’re not.’ He abandons the luggage altogether and walks over to where I’m sitting. ‘It’s just⁠—’

‘Tom says he’ll help out when he can,’ I interrupt, because I refuse to do emotional damage before daybreak. It should be illegal. ‘Between surgeries, obviously. Though apparently Mrs Penrose’s cat has developed a talent for getting stuck in drains, so his availability might be limited.’

‘Tom’s a good man.’ Kit pauses, gaze drifting to the sea that’s lightening with dawn. With new starts. With life for those of us still here.

‘The best.’ I watch a cormorant dive for breakfast, clean and purposeful, folding into the water like it was designed for nothing else.

There’d been a time when I wanted to study that. Marine biology. Understand why they dive where they dive, what the water holds, what moves beneath the surface of everything I’ve spent my whole life looking at without really seeing.

One of those sixth-form dreams that got shelved.

Shelf’s been gathering dust a long time now.

‘He’s been checking in,’ I say instead. ‘A lot.’

‘He’s worried about you.’

‘Tom worries about everyone. It’s why he’s developing that permanently concerned expression. Like a constipated headmaster.’

‘Jude—’

‘Isla needs this.’ I cut him off, turning the conversation like avoiding a sandbank. ‘The Broadway thing. After everything with that Marcus Vale bollocks, she needs to be Isla Quinn again, not just Kit Harding’s girlfriend hiding in Cornwall.’

Kit’s shoulders drop slightly, that tension he carries like ballast easing a fraction. ‘Yeah. She does.’

As if walking onto set at the perfect time, Isla appears at the cottage door, sunrise catching in her hair like copper thread, one hand resting on the slight swell beneath her cashmere cardigan. Twelve weeks now, though they haven’t announced it. The whole village has been pretending not to notice. Collective amnesia is Sea Salt Bay’s superpower.

Just like we pretended not to see Kit hosing off in the garden all winter, trying not to bring the smell of fish and grief into their cottage.

‘We need to head off in…’ She cuts off as she takes in the chaos of luggage. ‘Kit, please tell me you haven’t reorganised everything I already packed.’

‘Helping,’ he says, palms lifting innocently.

‘Hindering,’ I correct, earning a smile from Isla that makes her look younger, less battered by the media wringer.

Isla Quinn, even when we were kids, was stunning. Not ‘oh she’s pretty’ stunning. I mean stop-you-dead, what the hell is someone like that doing in a place like this stunning.

The only person who ever stopped her in her own tracks was Kit Harding. My big brother. The grumpiest arsehole fisherman around.

‘Jude.’ She pulls me into a hug that smells of vanilla and home at the same time. ‘You sure you’re okay with this? Six weeks is a long time.’

I pull back, give her my best smile. The one that’s got me out of trouble since I was five and blamed the broken window on atmospheric pressure.

‘Isla Quinn, are you suggesting I can’t handle a few weeks of playing captain? I’m wounded.’

‘I’m suggesting’—her gaze narrows, scanning my face—‘that it’s okay to admit when things are hard.’

‘Nothing hard about it. Dad’ll be fine. The quota’ll be fine. You’ll come back to find I’ve revolutionised the whole operation. Might even paint the Mary Jane pink while you’re gone. Really lean into the whole absent management crisis.’

‘You fucking won’t,’ Kit growls.

‘Language,’ Isla and I say in unison.

For a moment, we’re a proper family.