‘When she’s wrong, she says she’s wrong.’
Peaches thought of the time Carenza had led a whole rebellion against the repair shop when she incorrectly thought there was some kind of organised crime gang operating out of there. Her mum had banned her from volunteering there and even got Willie’s mum roped in to the embargo, so neither of them were allowed to set foot in the place. In the end, when she’d been proven wrong, Carenza had held her hands up and apologised in front of the whole of Cairn Dhu. ‘She’s still learning, like all of us are.’
Euan only nodded, glancing at the road ahead of him. It wasn’t quite sinking in.
Peaches took a moment to scan the bike. ‘Hey, you removed the sidecar?’
‘I couldn’t take it with me to Glasgow. It belongs here. And I’m going to pay Grandad for the bike, not that he wanted to hear anything about that, but still, I will.’
‘What? You’re going anyway? Even though you’re not in trouble?’
‘I was going to try again, back home. Set myself up as a tradesman there. At least if I make a mess of a job in Glasgow, I won’t lose every customer within an eighty-mile radius, not like this place.’
‘But you didn’t make a mess. I promise. This will all be fixed by breakfast. Mum’s nothing if not efficient. Trust me, she’ll sort things out and I know she’ll get you your jobs back.’
‘She can do that?’
‘She can do anything she sets her mind to.’
They paused in a breathy silence. For a moment, her worst fears gripped her. They told her she was too late. She’d blown it.
‘Yesterday…’ Euan broke the silence. ‘When we woke up and you ran, it wasn’t me you were running from?’
Peaches winced. The pain he must have felt in that sudden jolt awake, watching her making for home without even kissing him goodbye, or thanking him for saving her runway, it all showed on his face now. She’d hurt him, and made him insecure when he was already feeling low.
‘No. I was running to Mum before she burst all her blood vessels because I’d stayed out all night. I told you she hasn’t liked me dating in the past. My panic had nothing to do with you. You’re… you’re lovely!’
Hope and wonder burst like fireworks in his irises. ‘Nobody’s ever called me that before.’
‘You believe me, right?’
‘Grandad did say that your mother would be behind it somehow, you running off like that. I crawled in at dawn and I told him the whole story. He said it would be your scunner of a mother making you fearful. I didn’t believe him. Everything that goes wrong, it’s always my fault usually.’
Peaches dropped her eyes. A faintness washed over her.
He was off his bike with one swing of his leg. ‘Hey!’ He opened his arms and, not wanting to miss this chance, she threw herself to his body and gripped him tight, her head pressed to his shoulder. For a long while they didn’t speak, only holding one another, panting with relief and tiredness and amazement.
‘I don’t think your mum’s that much of a scunner, though,’ he said eventually. ‘I always kind of liked her. She’s had a hard time of things, you can tell, and she can’t rely on anyone easily, except maybe you.’
Peaches looked up at his earnest face. His eyes were soft and dopey, the way they’d been last night. ‘What makes you say that?’ She didn’t disagree with his assessment of her; she just needed to know how he could see Carenza’s vulnerability when others only saw the spikes.
‘She’s a lot like my mum, in some ways. Only, instead of holding on to me too tightly, my mum never held on tight enough. Doesn’t mean I don’t love her or that she wasn’t trying her best with the tools that she had at the time.’
‘Right,’ she said quietly.
‘Right,’ he echoed back to her.
Soon they were staring into the other’s face as his hands strayed over her back, holding the straps of her dress, tracing the fabric up and over her shoulders, round to her collarbones.
The air around them resonated with a new pitch, their hearts jumping into new rhythms.
‘You think I should stay?’ he said, already lowering his mouth to hers.
She nodded, making her lips brush over his in the lightest sweep. ‘At least until we’ve made up our minds where we both really want to be, and then…’ She pressed one soft kiss against his parted lips.
‘And then we hit the road together?’ he suggested, and she gave him her answer in a kiss that banished all his pain.
27
