Reckless.
This was why she’d always loved the unattainable—pursuing it and being it herself. You couldn’t lose the unattainable. You couldn’t let anyone down so badly that they vanished forever. You couldn’t become boring and old and forgotten. Trust. That was the word she refused to put any stock in, ever.Trust me, Toby had said, but she hadn’t. She’d never really trusted anyone. Not her sisters. Not her dad.
Meet me by the back gate, her mum had said.No.
Go to university and make something of your life.No.
Trust me, I love you.No.
No trust. No responsibilities. No love. No one was allowed to permanently lay their hats in her home. Only now, her body was home to something that would need her as no one had ever needed her. A commitment beyond any other. Blood that couldn’t be broken. A baby with a man who’d loved her too long and too well for her to do anything but disappoint him.
From the moment she’d first seen Toby Tennant, she’d thought he was sexy as hell, but she’d liked him so much. Too much. She’d been so scared of losing him as a friend that she’d kept him at arm’s length and ruined everything. And then he’d asked for a tattoo, and they’d started hooking up, and she’d been so infatuated, so tied up in the past and terrified of what she really wanted from him, that she’d refused to let it be more than sex and ruined everything again.
She was the centre of every disaster. The cause of all her bullshit problems. Her goal had been running fast enough to avoid today’s pain. But the cost was tomorrow, and the next day until her whole future was just compound interest.
Tabby was so sick of crying, but the tears came anyway, running down her face like rain. She’d let her sisters down, lied to them about Toby and gotten pregnant. She was a swine and a flake and now she was alone, and how could she ever go back home? What was there to say except, ‘I fucking suck, and I hate myself, and I understand if you hate me too because I deserve it.’
“Hello there!”
Tabby scrubbed her face with the backs of her hands, hardly able to believe someone had approached her. Then again, she was howling her eyes out on a public beach. She attempted to smile at the older woman standing over her.
“Hi,” she said, her voice rusty with tears and disuse. “I’m fine, I promise.”
“Oh, of course, dahling! Only you seem to be crying quite a bit…”
The woman had an English accent and, from what Tabby could see under her wide-brimmed hat, was kind of a MILF with her long blonde hair and smooth skin.
“Yeah, it’s, like… there’s a lot going on,” she told the woman.
“I’m sure. Would you like to talk? Would you mind if I sat beside you?”
“Sure, why not?”
The woman dropped onto the edge of her beach towel. “I’m Maisy, by the way.”
The name stirred something in Tabby’s memory. “Maisy… as in…?”
“Toby’s friend,” she said, obviously pleased to be remembered. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ve found you, dahling.”
Tabby gaped at her. “What? How? I haven’t turned my phone on once!”
“Would that you had, dahling. It would have made all our lives much easier, but regardless, you drew a few pictures on a pad the night you left, didn’t you?”
Tabby had no memory of this, but she didn’t have very clear memories of a lot of things that happened that night. “What pictures?”
“Doodles, dahling, on a yellow notepad. Your brothers-in-law showed me the picture, and I noticed a beach umbrella next to a loaf of bread. You’re very good at drawing, which is why I could tell it was rye bread. And I thought to myself that Rye is a popular beach destination. So here I am.” She made a little ‘ta-dah’ gesture with her hands. “Nice to meet you, Tabitha.”
“I… hello,” Tabby said. She was gobsmacked, a surprising but not altogether unwelcome feeling. It was nice to know that there were still things happening that she hadn’t accounted for.
“Does Toby know?” she asked.
“That I’ve found you? Not for the time being, dahling. And neither do your sisters or their partners. I thought I’d ensure I’d actually found you before I got anyone’s hopes up.” Maisy turned her face to the sun. “You had quite the right idea coming here. The weather’s just lovely.”
“Sure,” Tabby agreed, her brain still working overtime. “You’ve met my sisters?”
“No, dahling, I met Scott and Noah. They came to Toby’s house while I was there. Quite the contrast, aren’t they?”
Tabby snorted. “Yeah.”
