‘I suppose so. I’m just sad to leave here.’ Danny sighed and pulled away from me. ‘Come on then. The poor old estate agent will be fed up.’
Mr Blackstock of Blackstock and Jones Estate Agents, had kindly left us alone to look around after an initial tour. He’d been waiting outside for the last ten minutes and it wasn’t exactly summery out there.
‘I’m surprised he hasn’t come back in to warm up,’ I added. ‘Let’s go.’
Danny gave the cottage a final longing look. ‘It would be amazing, though, wouldn’t it? To live somewhere so pretty and be part of a village community, where everyone knows you and there’s always someone to say hello to?’
I nodded, forcing a smile. ‘It would yes. Come on, we’d better go before Mr Blackstock freezes up.’
I took his arm and led him outside, where I explained our thoughts to the estate agent while Danny gazed at Cherry Tree Cottage, a misty, faraway look in his eyes.
As we headed back to our car, he almost toppled off the kerb as he kept insisting on having ‘one last look’ at the place.
Me? I didn’t turn around once.
* * *
The door handle rattled.
I sat quite still, frozen, not even knowing what I was going to say any more. This was all such a mess, and I was still in shock that Rory had been meeting up with Danny and hadn’t told me.
‘Kirsty? Kirsty, are you all right? Why have you locked the door?’ The door rattled again and then he knocked loudly. ‘Kirsty, open up! I’m worried about you.’
I stood and tried to collect my thoughts as I walked to the door and opened it. Rory rushed into the room, his expression one of confusion and concern.
‘You’ve been ages. What’s wrong? Why did you lock the door?’
I closed my eyes for a moment. Okay, time to confess.
‘Shut the door, Rory. There’s something we have to talk about.’
Now he really looked worried. He closed the door and followed me to the sofa where we sat side by side, not touching.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘You’re really scaring me now.’
I turned to look at him, at his dear sweet face that I’d grown to love more each day, even though I knew I had a funny way of showing it.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been speaking to Danny?’ I asked quietly.
Honestly, for a moment I thought he was going to have a heart attack. His face went grey and he clutched his chest as if he was having a terrible pain there.
‘Wh-what do you mean? I mean, bloody hell! How did you know that? He said only blood relatives could see him.’
‘I can’t see him,’ I explained. ‘But I can see Brooke. Have you forgotten she’s my cousin?’
‘Brooke!’ He groaned. ‘Of course. Why didn’t that occur to me? So you’ve seen her?’
‘She was here a few minutes ago. Actually, she was outside with us earlier. She wanted to talk to me alone, which is why I made the excuse about the shoes and came up here.’
‘Right. Well…’
‘It’s one thing me not telling you I’ve seen Brooke, but how could you keep the fact that Danny was here from me?’ I burst out. ‘She says you’ve met up with him twice. The second time when you told me you were at that vintage vehicle museum. You lied to my face! Why would you do that?’
‘Well,’ he said helplessly, ‘how could I tell you? How could I break the news that the husband who died eighteen years ago, the husband you’re still not completely over, the husband whose death we’re only here in the village to try to process, has been walking around as right as rain all this time?’
‘As right as rain? You mean apart from the fact that he’s dead?’
‘Yes, well, apart from that.’ Rory massaged his temple and gave me a pleading look. ‘You’ve struggled to come to terms with his death all these years. How could I tell you, Kirsty? I just didn’t know what to do.’
