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‘There’s no need.’

‘Well, he did specifically ask me to pass on his “profound gratitude”. I thought I’d wait until we were on our own together.’

Picturing Ned saying the words, Arlo nodded. ‘I didn’t do much at all. We both helped.’

‘That rock – it was very close, wasn’t it?’ Katie asked, throwing the ball for Pongo.

‘Don’t think about it now.’

She turned to him and his heart, like the rest of his body, seemed to melt. ‘But I do and I know you do too. That’s why you went off to be sick, isn’t it? Because things could so easily have gone wrong and we wouldn’t be standing here talking now. I know that when I went into that cave, and saw Ned trapped, I almost ran straight out again. It brought back a lot of the feelings from the train crash. I think – that it was even worse for you.’

‘I nearly ran in the other direction. That’s not a nice feeling.’

‘Yet you didn’t run. You faced your worst fears and you walked inside.’

‘How could I possibly leave you in there on your own?’ He swallowed, realising this might be one of his final chances to speak to Katie alone. ‘Shall we go for a walk? It’s cold and also I need to keep moving. Don’t ask me why.’

‘Of course,’ she said with a gentle smile that warmed him. ‘Whatever helps.’

He started walking with Katie alongside him.

‘A couple of months before the cave accident, when I’d moved in with Rowan and she was on the rebound, she told me I was “her therapy” and had saved her when she thought she couldn’t be happy again.’

Katie paused briefly. ‘Then she didn’t want to be yours when you needed her …’ she murmured.

‘I now realise, of course, that it was far too soon after she’d split with her partner and she was still in love with him and she knew he was the one after all.’

Arlo waited for the sharp stab of pain as he recalled Rowan’s face when she told him she’d slept with her ex and it was all over. It didn’t happen. Instead, he merely felt a sense of sadness.

‘I understand,’ Katie said, looking at him with such empathy and kindness that he almost had tears in his eyes.

‘Yes, I know you do. That means a lot to me but it’s in the past now and I think that yesterday when I found the nerve to go into that cave, I left the past behind – or at least some of the feelings that have held me back.’

Katie gazed out over the lake where Arlo saw the wake of a passenger launch rippling its glassy surface.

‘This holiday has changed me too, though in ways I didn’t expect …’ she began cautiously. ‘While I haven’t been able to fix things for everyone, I have been able to draw a line under the past. I do wonder if I’d stayed with Ned for such a long time because it was the easy route. If that accident hadn’t happened, maybe I would have moved in with him or married him. The accident was terrible yet it gave me a switch in perspective.’

A cold wind rattled the trees, blowing down off the snowy fells. Wavelets from the launch broke on the shore.

Arlo shivered, nervous of what was coming, whatever it was. ‘And what did you decide?’

‘I had a long chat with Ned in hospital and he’s accepted that things are finally over forever for us. I already thought that everything between us was at an end, but there were things that needed to be said that I wasn’t ready to say. Painful things for us both. I hoped that if we simply didn’t see each other, his feelings would gradually fade. They didn’t.’

‘I suppose I don’t blame him for trying again,’ Arlo said. ‘I’d have done the same.’

Her eyes lit up with hope. ‘Would you?’

He smiled. ‘Who wouldn’t, Katie? As gorgeous and lovely as you are.’

Her cheeks turned pink and it was all he could do to stop himself from taking her in his arms and kissing her forever.

She took his hand in hers, making it even more difficult for him to hold himself back. ‘Arlo, I think you know I have feelings for you but I came up here to bring joy into people’s lives, not wreck them.’

He was so choked up that he couldn’t speak.

Fireworks exploded within him. She had feelings for him. He wanted to shout out loud that he was in love with her yet he knew that was too much too soon. He trusted his own heart yet he still couldn’t let go of that last sliver of fear.

‘I – have feelings for you too,’ he managed, ‘and it scares me. We hardly know each other and you – well, I know you split with Ned a long time ago but it feels like yesterday. And I’m scared. I freely admit it.’