His gaze fixes on mine, that bright gaze tunneling below the surface of what I’ve said. “I’ll wait for you. It’s growing dark.”
The stare lasts forever, but neither of us backs down. “Very well. It may take me a moment.” I cannot go back with him, of that much I’m certain. Also, that Gould might actually be right.
Might.
Shouldering my way through the crowd, I scan for the man who was in AJ’s booth, but he’s gone. “Pardon, sir. Which way to Newlyn?”
“Road to Newlyn, picks up on the western edge of Fore Street. Follow it through.”
“Thank you.” I shift. “Would you happen to have a back exit, sir?”
He blinks in surprise but points toward a service entrance. “Ee can use that one, if it helps.”
I thank him, take my pasty, and duck out of the crowd before I change my mind.
Out in the chilly night air, panic hits like a wall. The only thing that can protect me now…is running.
Chapter 26
William, 1947
Runningneverprotectshimfrom anything. Every time he stops, they catch up to him, descending like bomber jets to pummel him alive. There’s horror and intensity everywhere he looks, exploding without warning. One minute a bloke’s beside you, teasing, laughing, demanding, being human. The next…boom.Mangled body parts, human faces racked with shock and pain. Blood. Torn flesh. Humans destroyed by humans.
Flick, hissss.
A bridge exploding. Bodies flying. Screams curdle his blood, he’s clawing at the vines. Tangled in brush and leaves and…bedsheets.
Bedsheets. He surfaces with a splitting pain down the middle of his forehead. He thrashes and twists, panting, gasping, sweatlining every crevice of his body. He freezes, heart still ricocheting painfully. Muffled wind howls outside, with rain beating against the windows, but the cottage shields him from the worst of it. He scrambles out of bed and lights a candle.
Flick, hissss.
He shivers. Nausea pulls at his belly, and he grabs the doorpost, bracing himself. Memories are harmless because they’re in the past. They’ve nothing to do with the present.
But they’re always present.
They poison his future.
He towels off his skin with yesterday’s shirt and gulps in air. Downstairs, he sets about being productive—fumbling with the tea kettle, dropping a cup, shoving hair off his forehead, then wiping his sweaty palm. He rummages for food, finding none.
Then a soft touch on his ankle. A small black body twines itself around his foot, white-tipped tail flicking back and forth. William scoops Persephone up and holds her to his face, where she rumbles her gladness and nuzzles him. “How is the princess of the palace?”
She mews and he pulls out the jar of fish bits, feeding them to her. Then she climbs up his arm and perches on his shoulder as if to say,when are we going?
With a sigh he lowers himself into the ancient chair with wide arms and watches the sun crest the water, streaking it with gold. Persephone clambers across the back of his neck to the other shoulder and the tension melts down his back like the last sparks of fireworks fading though the night sky. Only soreness remains.
That’s what love—simple, authentic love—does for a man. It gently dances across the tension of his life and loosens it, then sits in the soreness with him while he recovers.
He closes his eyes and sees Helen on their garden swing, her long legs crossed over his. Helen, smiling down from their window. Helen, nestling beside him without a word about theterrible day at the plant, simply re-centering him with her presence.
How dearly I miss you, my love. I don’t know how I’ve managed without you for five entire years. Missing you is suffocating.
It’s time. He can no longer go on as he is.
Merryn sparks hope in him. That’s why William can’t get that woman in white from his mind. Even while his hands gut fish and toss them into crates later that day, his thoughts wander to Merryn and the missing pieces of her story. The very real possibility of finding her, and what that would mean forhisstory. For Helen’s.
Somehow his legs carry him, after his ten-hour shift at the docks, into Newlyn rather than to Dunn Cottage. The streets are crowded as the workday ends, but no one looks directly at him.
Why would they?
