Page 79 of The Clifftop Cottage

Erica leaned back and closed her eyes. There was something tight in her chest, a familiar itch she couldn’t quite name. As if she were brushing against an echo that didn’t belong to her, yet felt intimately known.

Isobel had been betrayed. By whom, the records refused to say. But the tone carried it. A woman used. Disbelieved. Discarded.

Was that what had happened to her?

No torches. No trial. But something must have happened. Accusations did not rise from nothing.

Her phone buzzed against the floor.

She didn’t move.

It buzzed again. Then stopped.

The silence afterward felt deliberate.

She stood abruptly and crossed to the window again.

She thought of Leah. Of her face at the door on Halloween night – hurt carefully contained. She had remained in the shadows, she couldn’t step out into the light, not even for Maisie.

But she didn’t want her sadness becoming theirs.

I always let her down, Erica thought. And she’s the only one I have left.

She turned back to the fire.

A knock.

Soft. Measured. As if whoever stood outside wasn’t certain they should be there.

She froze.

Leah?

Her stomach tightened. She couldn’t face her. Not yet. Not while everything inside her still felt scrambled and unfinished.

Another knock. Two taps.

Lucky’s ears twitched.

Heart thudding, Erica crossed the cold floorboards and opened the door.

Gabriel stood in the wind, a flask tucked under one arm, a paper bag in the other. His cheeks were pink from the cold. His eyes searched her face at once.

“I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”

“I didn’t expect anyone.”

“I nearly didn’t come.” A small shrug. “But I had soup. And … some news.”

She stepped back to let him in.

The cottage felt smaller with him inside. Warmer, somehow. He moved carefully, as if aware he was stepping into something fragile.

Lucky darted beneath the sofa.

Gabriel held out the bag. “Lentil. Heavy on the garlic. I make no apologies.”

A faint smile flickered across her mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of judging.”