Page 61 of Carry Me Home

‘Okay.’

‘This woman. Nina.’ She holds up one hand before I can speak. ‘I know what you’re going to say. I’ve heard it. I just need to hear it one more time, looking at me, and then I’ll drop it. I promise I’ll drop it.’

‘There’s nothing there.’ I look at her. I hold her gaze. ‘Nina and I are friends. That’s what we are.’

She studies me, steady and unhurried, and for a moment her hand comes up and rests very lightly against my jaw. Not holding. Just – there. One second. My pulse picks up a notch. Then she drops it.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I believe you.’

She doesn’t. I can see it. But she’s choosing to believe me because she’s here, and she’s brave, and she has decided that being here is worth the risk of being wrong. That courage deserves better than what I’m giving it, and I know that, and I’m doing it anyway.

‘I’d like to meet her,’ Cara says. ‘Tomorrow? I could come by the café.’

‘She’d like that. I think you’d get along.’

‘I think we would too.’ She smiles – almost her usual smile, but there’s a careful shadow living behind it now. ‘Right. I’m going to shower off this journey and then you’re taking me to dinner. Somewhere with fans.’

‘The Ship has fans.’

‘The Ship will do. Although I’m thinking it will be more battered than fresh.’

My answering grimace says it all. ‘If you want fresh and fancy, you’d love Amber Cove.’ Personally I hate the place, but I know Cara would shine like a star there.

‘Amber Cove? Isn’t that where that famous chef has that restaurant?’

My eyes roll with a will of their own. ‘Yep, and doesn’t the whole of Cornwall know it. It’s where all the super yachts and gin-palaces moor.’ I laugh as she waggles her perfectly groomed eyebrows at me and then turns for the bathroom, stopping at the door and turning back. ‘Tom?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s good to be here. Whatever else is going on – whatever I’m walking into – it’s good to see you.’

‘It’s good to have you here.’

She holds my gaze for a beat longer than necessary. Then she smiles – properly this time, the smile I remember from late nights in the Bristol library, from the morning she showed up at my flat with coffee and lecture notes and the quiet understanding that sometimes just being present is enough – and disappears into the bathroom.

I hear the water start.

I stand at the window for a moment longer. Across the harbour, Nina is closing the shutters for the evening, one by one, and even from here I can see Chips circling her feet and the ridiculous pink bear visible through the glass – sitting in its corner, bright and absurd, the tourist attraction I handed her three days ago in front of half the village.

I take out my phone.

I write: Friend arrived safely. Cara. From vet school. She wants to meet you – probably tomorrow if you’re around.

Casual. Normal.

Send.

The reply comes within minutes.

Nina: Fun! Can’t wait to meet her. Bring her by for coffee – I’ll make the good stuff.

Tom: The good stuff or the machine that coughs?

Nina: The machine is behaving. Mostly. I’ve threatened it with replacement.

Tom: Effective management technique.

Nina: I learned from the best. See you tomorrow x