‘You’ve got a nice place,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘You’re about the only member of my family who thinks so.’
He grunted thoughtfully before turning to her. ‘It’s like a retreat. One storey up, above it all. A place to escape.’
This was the closest he could get to admitting to his family — or anyone come to that — that he’d returned to MacLeod’s Cove to escape a world in which he didn’t fit. He couldn’t imagine feeling ready to tell Lucy what he’d escaped from. Nor its effect on him. Not until he felt whole again.
But she made no response, other than to rake her fingers through her hair, as if trying to figure out what he wasn’t saying, and twist around to glance at the clock. His heart sank as she turned back to him. Evidently she’d decided she wasn’t in a rush.
‘And why, may I ask, do you need to retreat from the world?’
The thing Lucy didn’t understand — couldn’t understand — was that Dan hadn’t just come back to MacLeod’s Cove. He’d come apart.
He shrugged and didn’t answer. Perhaps silence would get her to leave. Behind him, Lucy was watching him far too closely.
He could feel it — the weight of her concern, the way it pressed between his shoulder blades. She’d always been like that. The observer. The one who noticed the things no one else wanted to say out loud.
‘What happened, Dan?’
Her eyes searched his face with the kind of attention he was used to from politicians and journalists — except Lucy’s interest wasn’t transactional. It was worse than that. It was love. And he wasn’t ready for that. He needed to heal, to have his faith restored in humanity again before he opened himself up to love. Otherwise he thought the little that was left of himself might disappear altogether.
He glanced at her with an expression which he hoped conveyed innocence. ‘About what?’
‘You. You left for the US confident, cocky, with the world at your feet. And you stayed like that for years. But now? You’re back, you look shell-shocked half the time, and you don’t seem in any hurry to return to your home or your job.’
This time he kept his gaze directly ahead, out to sea. Beyond which was a world he didn’t want to re-enter. ‘I’m not going back.’
‘You’re…?’
He sighed, mouth tightening. She knew she was pushing it. He could see it in the way she hesitated. Lucy had always been good at reading a room. Unfortunately for him, he was the room.
‘Not going back,’ he repeated. A gust of wind rattled the awning of the shop below, and he turned away from the railing. ‘Not yet, anyway.’ He shrugged, rocking back on his heels as he looked around the apartment — the pale walls, the plants, the careful lack of clutter. ‘Thought I might hang around here for a few months and confuse my family.’
‘What about work?’
‘I quit.’
‘You quit your job in Washington?’ She stared at him as if he’d spoken another language. ‘How come? I thought you loved being a lobbyist.’
He had. God help him, he had. He’d loved the game-playing, and the power that came with it. He’d loved the constant need to pivot and switch strategies to stay three moves ahead. Until he wasn’t.
‘I did. But now…’ He watched a gull dip low over the water, skim it, then rise again. He walked back inside the apartment. ‘I don’t. So I left. Is that sufficient information for you to pass on to the others?’
‘Are you kidding? No! Nowhere near! I need more detail.’
He grimaced slightly but decided to offer a little more. ‘I couldn’t stand the double-dealing, the subterfuge, the secrets… the lies.’
‘Ha! And that’s just your personal life!’
Dan was aware that Lucy was waiting for him to laugh with her. But he couldn’t. Her aim was too true.
‘And that,’ he eventually said, ‘is definitely all you’re getting.’ He took a long swallow of wine, though it tasted as thin and pointless as his life right now. ‘Don’t worry, Luce. Everything’s fine.’
She grimaced.
‘Why don’t you believe me?’ he asked.
‘Because you’ve got a weird look about you. It’s like you’re going through the motions. Someone speaks, you answer, but you’re not really there.’
