I’ll find you as soon as I’m back.
Don’t forget me ;)
As if I could forget him. I folded the note and set it on the bedside table. I already felt bereft without him, but I felt good too. Better than good, I felt whole. As though the epiphany I’d been struck with before I’d fallen asleep was all I’d ever needed.
Smiling, I got up and hauled my exhausted body to the teeny tiny shower Paddy had somehow crammed into the log cabin. My grin widened when I found the floor wet and a damp towel draped over the door. Knowing that Fen had been in there while I’d been sleeping off our wild night made me all kinds of happy, and I washed the sweat from my skin without the usual grouch I woke up with.
When I was dressed, I picked my way across the yard to the house. Charlie was still asleep—lazy git—but Safia was awake, nursing Lalla in the kitchen.
“I thought you’d weaned her,” I commented, my mind on Fen.
“I did, but I still feed her like this in the morning. She’s my last baby, so I’m not quite ready to stop.”
“You said Mae was your last.”
“And she should’ve been, the little demon, but life happens sometimes, you know?”
I gave her a dry look and filled the kettle at the sink before slinging it onto the stove. My back was to her while I brewed tea, but I felt her gaze drilling holes in me the way only she could. “What?” I said without turning round.
“Nothing.”
“Bollocks. Whatever it is, just say it.”
“Why are you so monumentally stupid?”
I snorted out a laugh. It was the Stone way to be sledgehammer-blunt, but my sister had always pushed it the furthest. “In what sense? Or is it a general thing?”
“It’s an emotional thing. Fen loves you, and I think you love him, so why are you still entertaining the idea of going back to Manchester after Christmas?”
“I live in Manchester. You think I can uproot like that because I’m dating someone?”
“Dating?”
Okay, it was the worst word choice in the world, and I agreed with everything Safia was saying one hundred percent, but winding her up was too much fun. “What else would you call it?”
A loud crack of thunder seemed to come from her angry soul. As lightning flashed in the murky dawn sky outside, she narrowed her eyes, lips thinning to a glower. “I’d call it a fucking love story if you weren’t such a dickhead.”
“Don’t swear like that when you’re holding the baby.”
“Don’t you dare tell me how to—”
“All right, all right.” I raised my hands in surrender before she truly blew her top. “I’m messing with you. You’re right, okay? You’reright. I do love Fen and I’m pretty sure he loves me.”
The fury in Safia’s gaze evaporated, replaced by a cautious hope that made me feel like the arsehole she thought I was. “And?” she said with a wince. “What about the rest of it?”
“What about it? If I stay here, it’s because it’s the best thing for Charlie. Nothing is more important than that, not even Fen.”
“He knows that. I wasn’t messing with you when I said he’d make an amazing stepdad.”
“I know. And you were right, but that doesn’t mean he wants that. Being fond of a cute kid and being a full-time parent aren’t the same thing. I learnt that the hard way.”
“What else have you learnt the hard way?”
“What do you mean?”
Safia finished nursing Lalla and set her to sleep in a nearby bouncer. “I mean you two have lost each other once. Are you really going to let that happen again when fate has worked so damn hard to bring you together?”
It would’ve been so easy to yank her chain all morning, but I was done pretending I wasn’t ready to go all in on whatever Fen and I had. He was good for Charlie, and good for me. Add in this crazy fucking mountain and all that came with it and there wasn’t much more I could ask for.
