He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I didn’t want to assume anything after last night. So I popped home while you slept to feed Prom. And now I’m back. Ed raised his eyebrows, but in a good way.’
Beth felt herself blush. ‘You’re not assuming wrong.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he said with a smile.
For a moment they simply looked at one another, a fragile new world forming in the quiet.
‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ he asked. ‘I know Ed’s gearing up for a full Scottish breakfast and I thought … maybe some fresh air? You and me?’
Beth hesitated, but only for a second. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’
Behind her, the faintest whisper of a voice curled through the air, smug and satisfied.
A wish for courage granted, sweetheart.
Chapter Forty-Six
Kieran had told himself he’d have an early night. Be sensible. Act like a man who wasn’t running on caffeine, adrenaline and the quiet terror of getting things wrong.
Instead, he was hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table, shoulders pulled tight as if bracing against a knife in the back, eyes gritty and unfocused. The screen glowed back at him, unblinking, as he tweaked layouts and menus for ClosetAura – nudging buttons, reworking colour palettes, adding filters no one had explicitly asked for but everyone might secretly need.
Make it easy to navigate.
Make it budget friendly.
Make it something we really need in our lives.
The voices from the pub replayed, looping like feedback from a badly placed microphone.
He rubbed his face with both hands and stared at the screen again, willing it to make sense.
His eyes closed for a second.
Prom brushed against his ankles, the cat circling before settling, purrs vibrating softly through the soles of Kieran’s feet. The sound folded around him, familiar and oddly comforting.
Then the cottage wasn’t the cottage anymore.
The air was thick and heavy, clinging to his skin. Heat pressed in from all sides. Sand shifted beneath his bare feet, warm and grainy, each step leaving an imprint that vanished almost immediately.
Music played somewhere nearby. Not pleasant, not melodic, but discordant, insistent. It crawled under his skin.
The smell of incense hung in the air, sweet and overpowering.
Lisa flickered across his mind uninvited, but the thought of her slid away just as quickly. Whatever this was, she didn’t belong here.
‘I’m asleep,’ Kieran said, testing the words. They didn’t echo.
‘Welcome, Kieran,’ said a voice. It was familiar. Unsettlingly so.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
‘He hears it,’ another voice said. High, quick, threaded with worry. Jinnie. Definitely Jinnie.
‘Of course he does,’ said Jo. She was calm, measured: the voice she used at the café when stress levels were high, and she’d burned a batch of something.
‘Aye, but he’s no’ meant to yet,’ Wilma snapped. ‘Not without guidance.’
‘Or maybe not at all,’ Sam said softly. ‘This is Beth’s story, not his.’
