Kate’s entire body had liquefied and a sluggish, molten substance moved languidly in her veins; her muscles felt heavy, numb. She lay in Luke’s embrace, his chin digging into her shoulder and his arms heavy, pinning her. She stretched one foot, trying to find a cool spot in the fever-hot sheets. She couldn’t tell if Luke was asleep, or if she was. She thought they might both be drifting in and out and dreaming.
A song played in the background. There was a clean, crisp, woodsy scent to the caravan. The bed was sweat-damp and her hair glued itself to the nape of her neck. She could still feel Luke on every inch of her skin.
He breathed in her ear. She shifted, thought about getting up for a glass of water, tried to slip out of his embrace without waking him.
‘Kate.’ He stirred and his voice resonated through her shoulder. She liked the vibration of his voice running through her flesh. She slid out from beneath his arm.
‘Go back to sleep,’ she whispered. ‘I’m just getting a drink.’ She padded across the small space to the kitchen counter where she poured a glass of water and drank it down, then turned off the music, switched down the lights. She returned to the bed. Luke had raised himself up on one arm and was staring at her with admiration. She smiled. A sliver of moonlight lit up the grey, illuminating planes of his face and torso, bared by the sheet still twisted about his waist. His eyes were dark with sleep and longing, a slow smile curving his lips and the tiny shadow of his dimples showing at their corners: all light and shade in the gleams of moonlight slanting through the half-shut curtains.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ Luke said wonderingly, and held out his hand to her. She went to him and slipped deliciously beneath the covers again, lay on her back with Luke over her, stroking his gentle fingertips down her cheek, her neck, the hollow of her collarbone, the curve of her breast. Kate smiled at him and reached her arms to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him down.
Luke hesitated, biting his lip.
She sensed his restraint, looked quizzically at him.
He spoke. ‘Breaking up with you was the biggest mistake of my life.’ His voice was soft with lament, his arms tightening around her and drawing her against him to take the sting from his words. Kate stilled, felt the contact with him all the way down her spine, his knee pressed into the back of hers and the synchronicity of their pulse beats and slow, soft breathing.
She didn’t want to talk about this now, she didn’t need to know. His rejection – bringing with it all the pent-up anguish of her mother’s disinterest, the horrible years after, when she tried to make sense of it, when every other guy felt wrong, as Emily, steadfast and loyal, tried to put her back together.
‘Luke.’ She ran her fingers along his arm, closed her eyes against the remembered pain. ‘You don’t have to explain.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He tugged on her shoulder gently, pulling her round to face him. Kate rolled onto her back again, gazed up at him with a worried expression. She sighed, scooted up onto the pillow and pulled the sheet around her, feeling suddenly exposed in her nakedness.
‘Luke, this is all water under the bridge. We were just kids …’ She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to peel back the edges of the wound and find it still raw beneath.
‘Let me say this, please, Kate. I don’t want there to be any awkwardness between us, no secrets.’
She sighed and crossed her arms. Luke raised himself on his arm, gazing down at her. ‘I need to explain,’ he said. ‘You must have wondered.’
‘I just thought you grew tired of me,’ Kate said, hiding her hurt, but not very well.
‘Never. Not possible.’ Luke was emphatic and she knew he meant it.
‘So why then?’
‘I was upset with you for going to Oxford instead of coming to see me, and I guess it felt like you were slipping away from me. Like I was losing you in increments. I suppose I was pissed off, jealous, insecure. But that was no excuse …’
‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’ Kate pulled away from him; why was he spoiling everything? True, she had wanted to know, but now she had a dreadful premonition that this would ruin everything.
‘In the end,’ Luke said, ‘I just couldn’t live with myself. I felt bad for doubting you. I took the coward’s way out and I walked away without explaining. I knew you couldn’t forgive me, you see …’
‘What are you talking about? Forgive you for what?’
‘For Emily.’
Kate was disoriented, disconnected. Was this happening? No. No, it couldn’t be.
She spoke slowly, every word an effort. ‘What about Emily?’ All those months she had struggled with his decision, his refusal to speak to her, she had known there had to be something more to it, something Luke was keeping back. He couldn’t just be gone from her life with no explanation.
‘It was one night in Wigtown, when you were in Oxford. Emily and I … oh, shit, Kate, I thought you knew.’
‘Tell me.’ She was pressed up against the wall of the caravan now like a cornered animal, swaddled in sheets that smelled of them. She didn’t want to hear it, but she had to know.
‘We kissed. I thought she would have told you. I thought that you’d forgiven her. I never imagined that you didn’t know.’
Kate scrambled off the bed, careless of her nakedness now in her need to get away from him. ‘So, you were pissed off with me and instead of talking to me about it you kissed my best friend?’
I slept with Dan, she nearly cried. And you drove me to it. Her breath quickened when she thought about how she had saved herself for Luke, taken out all her anguish and frustration on one impulsive, perfect fuck.
Righteous anger thrummed through her, but beneath it the repetitive drum beat in her head: hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite. It had been so easy to fall into bed with Dan. Scorned and hurt beyond measure. Hurting Dan in return.
And Emily … comforting her. Steadfast and loyal? No, a traitor, watching her tie herself in knots and never saying a word.
Kate scrambled into her clothes, her thoughts tipping into freefall now.
Emily had watched her weep over him for weeks. The sense of betrayal quickened, poisoned. ‘She should have been off limits. The very last person you ought to have gone near if you were looking for an easy shag.’
Luke had pulled on his jeans and was fighting to get his T-shirt over his head as she headed for the door. He was calling after her, trying to keep his cool. ‘It was only a kiss, Kate. I was lonely and drunk and sad, and she was there. I knew as soon as I’d done it how wrong it was. I broke up with you because I was angry with myself and I thought it was all messed up. You were always flirting with Dan and I—’
Dan. Kate whirled around just as she was about to step outside into the rain. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I always knew you liked him—’
‘I slept with him afterwards,’ Kate said, enjoying for a split second the way his eyes blazed with jealousy. Then the awfulness of everything crashed over her like a wave. ‘I slept with him after you destroyed us. I never, never would have cheated on you, Luke. But you … you kissed my best friend!’
He swallowed hard. ‘Kate,’ he croaked, reaching for her. ‘Don’t go, Kate. I guess I got it wrong. I always thought maybe there was something between you two, and Emily said …’
She spun in the doorway, cheeks flaming, eyes burning and brimming with tears. ‘Well, I guess we both know not to trust a word Emily says.’
And then she was gone. The fleeting happiness they had found, sitting side by side on Ardwall looking out to sea, and in each other’s arms tonight, gone for good.
*
Kate walked fast, trying to put distance between them.
Emily. The name, soft and sibilant and clinging to Luke’s lips. She felt like she’d been punched. He kissed Emily.
Emily kissed him.
How the hell could he do that? How could she? And to keep quiet all this time. Suddenly, she wanted to go back, to know exactly what Emily had said to Luke; had she planted the seeds of his doubt; had she really set out to take Luke for herself?
No wonder Emily was so anxious about Kate’s budding new romance with Luke; she was frantic in case her own secrets were exposed.
Kate reached the road and kept walking. It was still raining. Dark. Where would she go? Where was home now?
Not Bluebell Bank, with Emily, who had betrayed her; with Dan full of doubts and Lena inching inexorably away, and Fergus long since fled; with Ally living his lie and Noah fighting to find his place amongst the chaos.
That was not a Bluebell Bank she recognised. That was not home. And these were not the Cottons she had once held so dear.
Bluebell Bank was broken, the spell of her childhood shattered.