When I woke, Jack was gone, a slight depression in the mattress the only evidence of his presence next to me the night before. He’d been the perfect gentleman all through those long hours in each other’s arms, never letting go of me except occasionally to go check on the puppies.
‘Hiya, Kit,’ he said when I emerged. He was at the hob, cooking. ‘Sleep okay?’
‘Hm… not bad,’ I said, stifling a yawn. ‘Aren’t you supposed to wish me top o’ the mornin’? Thought that’s what your people did.’
‘Mmmm. I love the smell of stereotypes in the morning.’ He waggled his wooden spoon in my direction. ‘Any more of that and I’ll be cracking out the “ee bah gums”. Don’t think I won’t do it.’
‘Where’re the pups?’ I asked, scanning the bare floor.
‘Sandy moved them out into the awning. Dogs’ll do that sometimes. It’s a survival instinct, not nesting too long in one place.’ He poked at the lumpy yellow mess in his pan with the spoon. ‘I’m making scrambled egg on toast, you want some?’
‘Please.’ I glanced at the scrambled egg. ‘Looks a bit dry. How much milk did you put in?’
He frowned. ‘Milk?’
‘What, you didn’t put any in?’ I pointed to the pan. ‘What’s that then?’
‘Well, egg. Isn’t that what goes in scrambled egg?’
‘Yeah, with the milk.’ I shook my head. ‘And I thought you had this Good Life bollocks sorted. Here, let me.’
I swung myself out of bed and took the spoon off him.
‘Got butter?’ I asked. ‘No point adding milk now it’s set.’
He handed me a block from the little square fridge under the worktop. I sliced off a chunk and chucked it in the pan.
‘All right, you sort coffee while I finish this,’ I said.
‘Fair enough so.’ He filled the kettle and put it on the other ring of the hob. ‘You always this bossy when you’re making breakfast?’
‘Yep. Mugs.’
‘Yes mistress.’ He grabbed a couple of mugs from the draining board and spooned coffee granules into them. ‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘You slept on it. Did you make a decision?’
‘Oh.’ I prodded the scrambled eggs. ‘No, I… not yet. Still thinking.’
Actually, I’d been thinking all night, turning it over in my mind long after Jack had drifted into sleep. I just didn’t know what to do for the best.
Okay, I certainly didn’t want to sleep on Surinder’s sofa, doing whatever minimum-wage bar work I could get while I waited for a decent job opening, but… but staying with Jack felt dangerous. Only last month, the organ in my chest that I used for blood circulation and romantic attachment had been damaged almost beyond repair. Throwing it in harm’s way again so soon afterwards, with this man I now knew was dealing with his own pain and grief, didn’t feel like the wisest idea.
And yet I wanted to stay. So much. Wrenching myself away felt like almost physical pain.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jack asked softly, looking into my face.
‘Nothing.’
‘Liar.’
He brushed a saltwater droplet from the corner of my eye. He didn’t move his hand, letting it rest against my cheek while his gaze darted over my features.
I knew what I must look like, with my first-thing-in-the-morning face on and my hair frizzy and tangled. I flushed, dipping my head.
‘None of that.’ He put one finger under my chin to guide my face up. ‘You’re beautiful.’
‘Now who’s a liar?’ I said with a smile. ‘You know I look like hell.’
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said firmly. ‘Even when you look like hell.’
‘How does that work then, charmer?’
He shrugged. ‘You’d always be beautiful, no matter how rough you looked.’ He stroked his thumb tip over my cheek. ‘It’s the eyes, I think. You’ve got Audrey Hepburn eyes, Kit.’
My stomach was hopping now. His face was close to mine, and I could sense he wanted to kiss me.
This was wrong. Or at the very least, it was bloody bad timing. But in that brief moment it felt like all there was in the world was Jack Duffy, saying nice things about my eyes and moving his delicious parted lips slowly closer to mine.
Suddenly he released me and turned back to the kettle, which had started whistling.
‘You going to grab a shower before breakfast?’
‘What?’
‘I’ll keep it warm for when you’re finished if you want to do that first.’
Shower? Why was he so interested in bloody showers all of a sudden, did I smell or something?
‘Um, Jack…’
He shot me a sideways smile as he took up the wooden spoon again. ‘It’s your call, Kitty. If the time’s ever right, that has to be for you to decide.’
‘But…’ I sighed, letting the spell evaporate. ‘Yeah. Thanks.’
‘Wanted to though, didn’t you?’
‘If you’d done it, I wouldn’t have stopped you,’ I admitted.
‘I know it.’ He nodded to the tall cupboard by the cooker. ‘There’s a fresh towel in there. Help yourself to clothes.’
I hesitated.
‘What?’ he said.
‘It’s just – well, they’re Sophie’s.’
‘So? She’s not going to use them, is she? You were fine in them before.’
‘Yeah, but… dunno. Feels weird, now I know.’
‘They’re clothes, Kit. Just bits of fabric. I’m not sentimental about them, no need for you to be.’
‘How come you kept them so long?’
He shrugged. ‘Laziness really. Honestly, it’s fine. Clothes are just clothes. They’re not… Soph.’
Still. First thing I wanted to do when I got some cash of my own was sort out a decent wardrobe.
***
After a shower and breakfast, there was another sombre little job before I made a final decision on what I wanted to do next. Funeral.
There was a light drizzle misting the air when we stepped out of the awning, Jack carrying the shoebox-coffin and me armed with a dessert spoon – the best we could do in lieu of a shovel.
It’d been a bit awkward, working out where we could bury the little box. We couldn’t do it on the campsite, but we didn’t want to venture too far from the puppies. Eventually, Jack had gone on a recce and discovered an overgrown wildflower meadow over a wall behind the shower block. We could lay the poor stillborn puppy to rest there.
It took us a while to dig a deep enough hole with the spoon. Fortunately it was a weekday and the campsite was pretty much deserted, so we didn’t have to deal with any curious passers-by. Jack kept watch for the strict-looking campsite owner while I dug, then we swapped and he finished off.
I stood soberly by as he lowered the box into the little hole and spooned the soil back on top.
‘Feels like we should say something,’ I said quietly.
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, just… something. Like what you’d say at a funeral.’
‘Okay, um…’ Jack paused to think. ‘When we buried the pup I told you about, my mam read a simple poem. Wrote it herself. We didn’t normally make a fuss when animals died on the farm, but that first time… I think she thought it’d help me understand about death.’
‘Do you remember it?’
‘Yeah. She wrote it out on a little card for me to keep.’ He hesitated, pulling up the words in his mind. ‘Okay, this was it. “This precious life is ended now, but don’t think of it as gone. Think it instead a spirit free, now that it has passed on.”’
‘Aww. That’s nice.’ I took his hand, and for a moment we were silent, looking down at the mound of earth.
Eventually he sighed. ‘We’d better get back to Sandy.’ He gave my hand a squeeze. ‘And then you’ve got a decision to make.’
***
I drew a tentative finger along the littlest puppy’s back, then pulled it away with a guilty smile when Sandy’s finely honed maternal instinct woke her up and she shot me a glare that clearly said ‘I know we’re mates, but let’s not push it, eh?’
‘What’ll happen to them?’ I asked Jack in a hushed voice.
‘I’ve got a home lined up, once they’re big enough. The farmer who owns their dad said he’d take them, see if he can make ratters of them.’
‘When will they be big enough?’
‘Two months.’ He glanced at my little runt, suckling happily with the others. ‘Ten weeks maybe.’
‘Two months! That’s a long time for them to be packed in the camper. They’ll be boisterous puppies in a few weeks, you know.’
‘I know. We’ll stay here till it’s safe to move them, then I’ll probably head up to my mam and dad’s. Plenty of space there for them to play.’
‘In Scotland?’
‘That’s right, near Loch Rusky. Gorgeous place.’
‘I’ve never been to Scotland,’ I murmured, half to myself.
‘Then let me take you,’ he said, his eyes beguiling. ‘I could show you the loch at sunrise. You won’t see anything more beautiful this lifetime.’
‘God, that sounds amazing.’
‘With the mist on the water and the little painted rowing boats bobbing about…’
‘Stop it, Jack.’
‘Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…’
‘Okay, that’s from Blade Runner.’
‘Well-spotted,’ he said with a grin. ‘It’s a sight though. It’ll kick the breath right out of you, I guarantee it.’
‘No. No, I shouldn’t…’
‘It’s a genuine job offer, I swear,’ Jack said, sensing me weakening. ‘Here, wait. Let me prove it to you.’
I stroked Sandy while I waited for him to dig out his laptop and connect it to the campsite wifi.
‘See?’ he said, turning the screen to me. ‘From my agent.’
Jack Duffy, I swear, if you don’t get someone to sort your website out you’ll be picking my boot out of your backside. It looks like a twelve-year-old’s MySpace page in 2006.
I laughed. ‘Doesn’t mince words, does she?’
He shrugged. ‘Me and Di have been working together a long time. She knows I can take it.’
‘Not sure I could do much about your website looking like a MySpace page.’
‘But you could brief someone to build me a new one. A freelancer. Couldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ I admitted. ‘I used to look after the company website in my old job so I’ve got a few contacts.’
‘See? You’re perfect,’ he said with an air of triumph. ‘I wouldn’t even know where to start.’
I smiled. ‘You’re like a grandpa or something. What’s this laptop running, like Windows 95?’
‘So? Will you take the job?’
I hesitated. ‘Jack… what happened in the kitchen?’
‘I said I was sorry about forgetting the milk. I’ll know for next time.’
‘Not the bloody scrambled egg,’ I said. ‘The other thing. The almost thing,’
‘Yeah, I know.’ He drew a gentle finger down my cheek. ‘That’s up to you, Kitty. I mean, I want to. But you’re hurting, I get that.’
‘So’re you.’
‘I’ve learnt to live with mine. Yours is fresh.’
‘So if I stayed, it’d be just a job? I mean, you’d be my boss and my friend and… and that’s it?’
‘That’s it. If that’s what you want.’
It was hard to resist those sticky-treacle eyes of his, especially with Sandy backing it up with a couple of big browns of her own. I did want to stay. And a decent job, with travel, writing: all those things I’d dreamed of that Mum and Ethan had kept out of my reach for years. It was a more inviting prospect than Surinder’s sofa, that was for sure.
I supposed what was really worrying me – again – was Ethan. Not the actual physical threat of Ethan, although I was still terrified of what might happen if he ever tracked me down. But the way he’d conditioned me to need guidance and control, to cling to the nearest proper grown-up because of the overwhelming feeling I wasn’t fit to look after myself. That wasn’t Jack’s fault, and God knew he was nothing like Ethan, but… was I just replacing Ethan, and Mum too, with him? Finding myself a new protector instead of standing on my own two feet?
But then it was paid work. And it would be my money, wouldn’t it? My own money, that I’d earned and I could put into my own bank account with my own name on it. Money meant independence. And a professional job meant professional skills, to shore up my CV against the future. If my new goal was a well-rounded, strong, adult Kitty Clayton who could face whatever the world threw at her, then surely staying with Jack, for a little while at least, was my best option?
Not just because I didn’t want to leave him. It was simply the best option, objectively. Any jury in the land would see that, if I had to put my case to them.
‘Okay, Jack. You win.’ I held out my hand for him to shake. ‘Looking forward to working with you.’