Her hand trembled as she looked at the first picture.
It was of her sitting in the sun, earphones in, painting her Wellies, a look of extreme concentration on her face. She remembered this; it was from the first day Gabriel had found her in the garden. Before anything had happened. Her eyes had been clear and untroubled.
The next picture was of her at Margo’s Arch, green hair curled slightly down her back, her green skirt matched the ivy climbing the stone arch around her. Just as Gabriel had said, she looked part of the land, at one with the spirit of the island.
The third picture was her laughing in the rain. Water drops captured the light like crystals on her cheeks. In the next photo, she was cycling fast with her phone and notepad in the basket, her skirt and hair flying behind her.
Her hands were really shaking now, and her vision had blurred.
There was one photograph left. She blinked away tears so she could see it.
It was from the wedding day. She’d been sitting on the picnic table, her feet up on the seat. He must have taken the picture from a long way away because the crowds in the foreground looked blurry. He’d obviously zoomed his lens very specifically so only she was in focus in the distance. A girl with a blue shawl in her lap, blue-white hair cascading around her shoulders, licking blue icing from a cupcake, eyes closed.
And in the picture, the instant he had clicked the shutter, her lips had been shaped as if for a kiss.
Pierre closed her eyes, but the tears kept falling.
He was there, in his work. Every detail was him, the way he thought, the way he saw things.
His humour.
And his tenderness.
Her hands shook so much, the pictures tumbled to the floor and scattered around her feet. She reached down to pick them up.
“Leave them,” he said from behind her.
She whirled around, her mind trying to catch up.
He stood in the doorway, leaning on the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Leave them,” he said again, his voice so soft it was almost a sigh. “They were only meant as a message because I couldn’t speak to you before I left.”
He looked different, so very different. He was tanned. His arms below the folded sleeves of his white shirt, the triangle of skin through his open collar, even his face was a golden bronze. Highlights showed in his brown hair and on the roots of his trim beard. He also looked leaner, muscles more outlined in his forearms as if he’d been working too much. But that wasn’t what had changed in him.
The real difference was in his expression, in the naked emotion finally allowed to show in his eyes as he looked at her.
“I put them in your office. I thought you’d find them a month ago,” he said, his glance flicking to the photographs scattered on the floor behind her.
“I never went in the office.”
His brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” Her voice wavered, and that did something to him.
Pain flashed across his face. “I’m so, so sorry. Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It tore me in half, but…” His voice dropped low. “I had to go.”
“I know,” she tried to say but it came out a hoarse whisper.
He uncrossed his arms and braced a hand on the door frame. “Believe me when I say, I left so much of me here that I was just a shell. I had to—” He swallowed hard. “—to do the right thing, finish things the right way. ButGod,” he put a lot of feeling into that one word. “God, how I hated myself for putting you through it.”
His words were like balm on a wound that had been bleeding inside her. She shook her head. “Not your fault.”
He moved then, walked the three steps to stand in front of her, and took her hand in his.
He hadn’t changed after all; his touch was exactly as she remembered it, warm, strong, tender. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss on her skin. His lips were full and gentle and his breath so hot it made her shiver. “Oh, my beautiful Rapunzel.”
She allowed her fingers to brush the silky hairs of his beard. And it seemed she could read faces after all. Relief, longing and aching need all showed in the way his eyes closed, savouring her touch. He turned his face into her hand and blindly kissed the inside of her palm.
