I didn’t know what to say. I’d been getting more and more interest in session work in recent weeks. It had made me feel like someone again, someone useful and productive. I didn’t want to let go of that unless I absolutely had to. I was also juggling thoughts of Mum and Dad,the fact I’d always wanted a summer wedding, not a February one, and that Justin had, with all the best intentions, done all this without consulting me.
‘Yes?’ He looked at me with such boyish adoration in his eyes, it reminded me of how it had been when we were first together, and I was struck by how much he loved me, how much he saw the real me. It wasn’t that he’d planned to upset me, was it? He’d tried to do something wonderful, and I was making it seem as if I didn’t appreciate his thoughtfulness.
‘Okay, yes. Let’s get married here.’
Justin kissed me properly, showing me just how grateful he was, how much he loved me. ‘You wait, Angel … This wedding will be just as perfect as our happy, wonderful lives together.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Now.
‘I THOUGHT I’D already explained why I gave up photography,’ Ben said as the snowy breeze whipped around them. ‘I had to come home for Willow.’
Alice frowned. ‘But aren’t there photography jobs you could do based in Invergarrig, even part-time?’
‘It wouldn’t work. I’d be … distracted. She needs me to be one hundred per cent present. I failed her mother. I won’t fail her.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘Come on … If we go back to the main road, we can find the standing stone that’s supposed to be around here somewhere. I saw a sign.’ And he began trudging back towards the entrance.
Alice jogged after him. She wasn’t letting him run away from the conversation that easily. Not just because she was feeling nosey, which she was. Hugely. But because he was doing just that – running away. If anyone understood just how much trouble fleeing from your problems could cause, it was her.
She caught up to him and did her best to match his stride. ‘Ben … We haven’t got time to hike to a standing stone, and what do you mean you failed your sister?’
‘Oh, it’s true,’ he said, a biting edge to his words.
‘But you’re looking after her child!’
He stopped walking. ‘Yeah, well, she should have named Norina as Willow’s guardian, not me. It was a mistake.’
‘But you’re devoted to Willow, anyone can see that – and she adores you. And surely your sister wouldn’t jeopardise her daughter’s future by asking someone who wasn’t up to it to do the job.’
He let out a short, hard laugh. ‘You think? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Cat’s way of getting revenge from beyond the grave, for all the times she moaned that I wasn’t around enough, that I didn’t care.’
‘You can’t honestly believe that,’ she said, trying to interject a bit of sanity into the conversation. ‘Anyone can see why your sister chose you to be Willow’s guardian.’
‘You don’t know me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Not really.’ And then he began striding again.
Alice let out a growl of frustration and jogged to catch up. ‘It’s true that we only met four days ago, but Idoknow what kind of person you are – by your actions, not by who you say you are. Look what you’ve done for me in that short time: taking me to the hospital, giving me a place to stay, even coming to London with me when you knew I was feeling shaky – and I’m a stranger … well,almost astranger. So, don’t tell me you wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth for someone you loved.’
That got his attention. He stopped again and turned to face her, his gaze searing. ‘Yes, I went to the ends of the earth, but not to save my sister – I went to getawayfrom her, from everyone back home. I did it because I was selfish. Deep down,I knew I should have done more for Cat, and I didn’t. But admitting that to myself would have meant admitting she needed me close by, not always on another continent when a crisis occurred.’
He was acting as if this was all on him, that he was the only one who had any responsibility in the matter. ‘What about your dad? Couldn’t he have stepped in?’
He let out a short, hollow laugh. ‘My mum died when Cat was seventeen. Losing her was what really started that downward spiral, and my father moved away when he remarried. Last I heard, he was in Edinburgh. But even if he weren’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. My father—’ his features twisted his face into something resembling a snarl ‘—was a big part of the problem.’
‘I’m so sorry about your mum,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’
He gave her a lopsided shrug. ‘How could you have done, but … thank you.’
People were walking along the pavement near the entrance. Not many, but Alice felt they needed a little more privacy for this conversation. She led Ben back towards the ruin. Soft flakes of snow had begun to fall from the sky, just here and there, and they sheltered under a wide, low arch built up against a wall. She guessed it might once have been part of a cellar or a vaulted kitchen. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘Can’t we talk about you instead?’ he said wearily. ‘I’d much prefer that.’
‘What’s left to say, Ben? I’m an open book to you. You know everything I know about myself, which isn’t much. You’ve seen me at my worst and my most vulnerable. You know it all. I have nothing else left to share.’ Except maybe that she was developing a crush on him the size of Ben Nevis,but that was hardly relevant to the current conversation.
She trusted him so much, which probably would sound stupid to someone else, but what she’d said to him was true. She knew him. Now she wished he’d trust her with something too, let her help him just a little bit.
‘Please?’
Ben let out a ragged sigh. ‘I don’t talk about this much. I don’t talk about it, well … ever. I’m not even sure I know how to.’ And then, in fits and starts, he began to tell her a story about an autocratic father who ruled with a rod of iron, two children who desperately wanted to please him but could never match up. He wiped a hand over his face then rested his long frame against a ledge in the curving wall. ‘Mum was amazing, filling in all the gaps he left with love and acceptance. While she was still around, things were okay, but later I always wondered why she stayed. He wasn’t always nice to her, either. She did it for us, maybe.’
