Page 121 of The Clifftop Cottage

“Well done, love.”

“Proud of you.”

“About time we acknowledged them.”

For the first time since arriving in Rock Cove, she didn’t feel like she was passing through.

She felt part of it.

A hand rested gently against the small of her back.

Gabriel.

He didn’t speak straight away but his eyes moved across her face, studying her.

“There you are,” he said softly.

Erica laughed under her breath. “Escaping.”

“You handled him well,” Gabriel said, glancing at Andrew Peters who was now enthusiastically pointing at the plaque for photographers.

“I’m learning.”

“You were remarkable up there.”

Something in the way he said it made her look up. There was pride in his voice. But there was steadiness too, a quiet certainty.

“You’ve changed things here,” he said quietly.

With a small wave, Maisie had already climbed into the car with Dylan and Leah. Dylan opened the car door for Leah first, his hand resting on her back.

“Gabriel,” she turned back to him, half laughing. “I come with baggage. A public breakdown, an unfortunate internet reputation, and a tendency to dig up gardens in the middle of the night.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“But if you’ll have me … I’d like to stay.” She hesitated. “Not just in the cottage.”

Gabriel looked at her for a long moment.

Then he stepped closer, his hand brushing a strand of windblown hair from her face.

“Erica,” he said quietly, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

He kissed her then.

Not for the cameras.

Not for the crowd.

Just a steady, certain kiss. Warm and unhurried, as though he had nowhere else to be.

For a moment, the noise around them faded. The voices, the movement, the click of cameras.

And in its place, she felt the wind.

That wind from Rock Cove seemed to reach her even here – a sudden, salt-edged rush that didn’t belong to this place.

The same wind that had once left her breathless, standing too close to the edge of something she didn’t understand.