And it’s the stark determination, her steadfast knowledge that I’ll protect her, that bloody fuels me for what has to happen next.
I fall asleep with her curled up beside me, her steady breathing in line with my own.
The next day, I wake to find her sitting at the table wearing nothing but my T-shirt.
“Good morning,” she says with a soft smile. “I’m sorry to tell you, you’ll never get me to go back home.”
I lean up on my elbow and smile at her. I could get used to waking up to a view like that, her hair all sexy-tousled, my T-shirt, a wee bit too big for her, falling off her shoulder.
“Why’s that?”
She sighs, pointing her hand to the balcony. She’s drawn the edges of the drapes open, likely not too far since she didn’t want to wake me. “This bloody view,” she says, her voice husky. But then something gets her attention. The paper she’s writing on falls to the floor, forgotten, as she walks to the balcony door. She pushes the blinds open fully, warmth and light flooding the room in the early morning sun.
“We have to go to the beach,” she says suddenly. “How quickly can you get dressed?”
I’m already pulling on my trousers.
“What is it?”
She shakes her head. “Can’t tell yet. Could be just my imagination.” She gives me a winsome grin. “Or maybe I just want an early morning walk with my husband?”
She quickly dresses and tucks her phone into her back pocket. We’re a good bit away from the coast, and it takes us a few minutes to even get to the privacy gate that lets us out.
“For Christ’s sake,” she mutters, panting. “That view’s deceptive. Seems like it’s right outside that damn door, but they make you work for it, don’t they?”
I take her hand and tug her alongside me. “There are loads of things worth working for, lassie,” I say with a wink.
“Leave it to you to make it dirty.” But I can tell with the grin she’s giving me that she’s bloody pleased.
She frowns when we get to the cliff’s edge. My heart smacks against my ribcage seeing her set foot at the very brink, looking down at the beach below. “My God is it lovely here,” she whispers. “Something so raw and primal about it, isn’t there?”
“It’s alright,” I tease. “Leave it to the writer to wax poetic on it.” She sticks her tongue out at me.
“Damn lucky you’re so close to the edge, darlin’, or I’d smack your arse for the cheek.”
She wiggles said arse, but then the next moment, her brow furrows and she sobers, peering down at the beach below.
“How do we get to the beach?” she asks, stepping back off the edge.
I look around us, until I spy a stone staircase that looks like it’ll take us there. “Let’s try this.”
One does not go quickly down small, roughly-hewn stone steps built into the side of a cliff. By the time we’re on the beach, whatever she spotted is gone.
“Fran,” I say, my patience waning. “What did you see, love? Why won’t you tell me?”
She sighs, wrapping her arms around herself as a brisk wind kicks up over the sea. I drape an arm around her and turn her away from the bitter cold, bearing the brunt of the chill myself.
She shivers against me. “Because,” she says with a sigh. “I don’t want to give you false hope.” Her voice drops. “Or fear.”
“I can take it.”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide as saucers. “Thought I saw Islan, Tate. With her Welsh mate. Couldn’t be sure, of course…”
“What?” It’s the last thing I expected her to say. “How would she get here?”
“He’d have access to the same type of transport you do, wouldn’t he?”
I don’t reply at first, as I mull this over. “So now it’s ‘her Welsh mate?’”
