‘Kitty.’
I grunted and wiggled my head deeper into the pillow. It felt lumpy, and I headbutted it a couple of times to smooth it out.
‘Okay, ow. Kitty, wake up.’
Blinking my eyes open, I discovered my pillow was actually Jack’s shoulder. I was nestled into the arm he had around me, and it was pitch dark outside.
‘Oh. Sorry,’ I said, hastily wiping away a bit of drool that had escaped from the side of my mouth. ‘How long was I asleep?’
‘Over an hour. It’s after ten.’
I glanced at Sandy, now with five little puppies suckling against her. Her tummy was still shivering.
‘How many more, do you think?’
‘One, maybe two.’ Jack turned to me. ‘Look, let me sort the bed out and you can get some proper sleep. I can take it from here.’
‘No, I’m okay, I want to…’ I broke off to yawn. ‘…Stay up. You need me.’
He laughed. ‘Not as much as you need a good night’s rest. Go on, zombie Kitty. Bedtime.’
‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ I said, folding my arms. ‘I’m a big girl. I’m allowed to stay up late as I like.’
‘My van, my rules, young lady. Go on, go do your girl stuff in the toilet block. I’ll get the bed up.’
I was too knackered to argue. I hunted out the washbag we’d been sharing and went to get ready for bed.
When I got back, the bed was made, Jack’s fat feather duvet spread across it invitingly.
‘Sure you’ll be okay on your own?’ I asked.
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll wake you up if you’re needed, promise.’
‘Well… okay, if you promise.’ A deep yawn escaped me. ‘Night, Jack.’
He smiled as I climbed into bed. ‘Hey, remember I once told you some things seemed too important not to happen?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘This is the second time now something outside our control’s occurred to keep you here. You should think about that.’
***
I did think about it. It whirled around my brain as I fell asleep. I’d never believed in fate, but… first flu, now puppies. It did feel like some external force was acting to keep me with Jack.
Oh, it was silly. It was just coincidence. And my subconscious, maybe, trying to trick me into staying. I didn’t want to leave the camper so my brain was looking for excuses to stay.
Pull yourself together, Kitty. Magical thinking won’t fix anything. It’s time to stand on your own two feet.
For the first time in your life, it’s time to…
My inner monologue faded to black.
I woke in pitch darkness, feeling anxious without quite knowing why. But my brain quickly updated itself.
The puppies…
When I yanked the curtain across, I could just make out Jack’s slumbering form in the swivelled passenger seat by Sandy’s dog bed.
‘You asleep, love?’ I said softly.
His head jerked up. ‘Hmm? No. Resting my eyes.’
‘God, I bet you’re freezing. Here, get yourself under the covers.’
He came over to sit on the edge of the bed and snuggled gratefully under a corner of duvet.
‘How’s Sandy?’ I asked.
‘Fine.’ He flicked on a light so I could take a look. ‘She’s a natural at the mothering business. Aren’t you, eh, brave girl?’
Sandy wagged her tail tiredly for him.
I squinted at the little nest. The new mum was lying on her side, looking spent, while six tiny babies suckled noisily against her. It looked like either Jack or Sandy herself had cleaned up the whelping area, which was now free of blood, goop and other icky but necessary accompaniments to new life.
Jack nodded to the lidded shoebox by the passenger seat. ‘Not all good news though. Sorry, Kitty.’
‘Oh God, not the tiny one?’
‘No, he’s doing grand, having a slap-up feed under his brother there,’ Jack said, pointing out the runt of the litter for me. ‘This is one that never had a chance. Stillborn, poor little fecker. I tried to save him but he must’ve been dead before she got him out.’
‘You should’ve got me up,’ I said gently. ‘Must’ve been horrible bringing him on your own.’
‘Sandy did it, not me. Old girl seemed to think she could lick him to life. Broke my heart to take him off her.’ He sighed. ‘Well, not the first time.’
‘You’ve seen this before?’
‘Yeah, stillbirths were common enough on the farm. Lambs, calves, dogs… you’d think you’d get used to it, but, well, you don’t.’ He turned wet eyes to me. ‘How d’you feel about hugging me then? I could feel pretty good about it.’
He looked so vulnerable, just then; so badly in need of comfort. I folded him up in an embrace and he wrapped his arms around my waist, sighing.
‘It’s been nice having you here, you know,’ he murmured by my ear. ‘I’ve been alone a long time. Forgot it could be like this.’
So there had been a time he hadn’t been alone. I wondered, but I didn’t ask.
‘It’s been nice being here,’ was all I said, enjoying the security of his body against mine.
‘This reminds me of the first time I saw a stillbirth,’ Jack said when we’d hugged a while. ‘That was a dog too – our border collie, Poppy, one of her litter. I was so excited when she went into labour that my parents said I could stay up to see her whelp, and then the last one out was this poor little mite, dead on delivery. I’d never known anything die before.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Four or five. I remember asking my mam why the tiny thing didn’t move like the others. I mean, it had all the same parts. I couldn’t get why it wouldn’t crawl and breathe and feed the same as its brothers and sisters. It just slept, and we put it in the ground and said a prayer, and Mam, she had to tell me best as she could why it wouldn’t be waking up.’ He gave a bleak laugh. ‘Ah well, silly to get upset: that’s how it is in nature. Growing up on a farm, you get used to animals being two-a-penny.’
I held him back to see his face. His eyes were shining with tears.
‘Jack…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Why did you look after me when you first found me?’
‘Because you needed someone, I guess. And I happened to be the one who tripped over you.’
‘Not because you needed someone?’
‘Hm?’
I glanced down at what I was wearing. This so obviously wasn’t about a puppy.
‘Who did these pyjamas belong to, Jack?’
‘Just… someone. Someone I knew.’
‘Lost someone, didn’t you, love?’ I whispered.
He smiled sadly. ‘How did you know?’
‘I just did.’
‘You too?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Me too.’
‘Who?’
‘My dad, last year. Undiagnosed brain tumour. He wasn’t very old. Only forty-eight.’
‘Poor Kit. I’m sorry.’
‘What about you?’
He snuffled against my shoulder. ‘My wife. Sophie, my wife.’
‘Your wife! How?’
I heard him choke on a sob, and I sucked in my lip.
‘Sorry,’ I said softly. ‘Rule One, right?’
‘No… no, I want to tell you.’ He was silent a moment as he struggled to get his tears under control. ‘There was an accident. We were shopping. She… I mean, I only turned away for a second, Kit.’ His voice was laced with desperation: almost pleading, like I was in any position to make it right for him. ‘Just a second. That was all it took.’ He gave a grim laugh. ‘Isn’t that just fucking ridiculous? That that was all it took?’
Rule Four. Never run away, never get out of my sight…
‘What happened?’ I whispered.
‘We were buying stuff for the van. We’d just got it, for holidays or whatever, and Soph was all excited, you know? Spotted something in a shop across the road. I was looking in some window. Bookshop, I remember. Load of Ian Rankins, pretty cheap, thought they’d while away the nights.’ He laughed again. It was the most depressing sound I’d ever heard. ‘Funny what you remember, right? There was this weird muffled thump, totally insignificant. And when I turned around, there she was, lying in the road. I mean, not her, not really. But the outside. No fanfare, no screams. Just… no Sophie.’
‘Jesus, Jack, you poor lamb. Oh God, you poor lamb! Come here to me.’ I held him tight against me. ‘When?’ I whispered into his hair.
‘Two years ago. Never read an Ian Rankin again, I can tell you that.’ He laughed again, then broke off in sobs.
‘You know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you?’
‘I know. Doesn’t stop me running through over and over again what might’ve happened if I’d turned just a split-second sooner.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything.’
‘I’ll never know, will I? Because I didn’t turn. God, some days I don’t know who I’m angrier at: Soph or myself. Or whatever bastard higher power’s responsible for such an unfair fucking thing. The last one mainly, I think.’
I shushed him softly, waiting for all the tears of anger and frustration and grief to spend themselves in my shoulder.
‘That’s when—’ he paused to gulp back a sob ‘—when I started travelling. Couldn’t bear to stay in the house. The smell of it, the colours, the walls…’ I felt him shudder. ‘Christ, it made me nauseous. So I took the van and ran away.’ He laughed through his tears. ‘See, you’re not the only expert round here.’
I pressed a kiss to the top of his head, cradled in the crook of my shoulder.
‘Why are you telling me this, Jack?’
‘Well, because you asked.’
‘You know what I mean. I can tell it’s hurting you, talking about it.’
‘It helps though. Been a long time since I had someone to talk to who came on two legs instead of four.’ He wiped his eyes and cast a glance at his watch. ‘Sorry, Kit. Didn’t mean to unload on you. Too much vodka, I think. Look, it’s past one, you should get back to sleep. I can grab some kip across the front seats, keep an eye on Sand and the kiddies.’
‘No need for you to be uncomfortable,’ I said, flushing slightly. ‘You can stay here. Share with me.’
He leaned back to look into my face.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. I know it wouldn’t… well, we’re friends, aren’t we?’
‘Okay. If you really don’t mind.’
He flicked off the light and clambered in next to me fully clothed.
Once he was under the duvet, he kept himself at a little distance, as if wondering what the etiquette of platonic bed-sharing was.
‘Will I hold you now?’ he asked quietly.
In answer, I snuggled up against his warm body. I felt him exhale as he wrapped his arms around me.
‘This is nice,’ he whispered, pulling me close against him and burying his face in my hair. ‘Been a while since I got a cuddle at bedtime.’
‘Yeah.’ I let out a contented sigh. ‘It is nice.’
‘Here. Look at me.’ He put one finger under my chin to tilt my face up and sought my eyes in the almost-darkness, a sliver of moonlight through the clouds our only illumination. He brushed a few strands of hair gently from my cheeks. ‘I’ll miss you, Kit.’
‘Will you call me?’
‘Whenever I can get a signal. You sure you won’t stay?’
‘I can’t, Jack. I’ve scrounged off you too long. Time I made my own way.’
‘Sofa-surfing, you mean?’
‘Till I can afford my own place, yeah.’
He was silent a moment.
‘Suppose I offered you a job?’ he said at last.
I frowned. ‘What?’
‘I’m serious. I’ve needed someone for a while to help me out with the book stuff. Set up signings, send out review copies, deal with fan mail…’
‘You get fan mail?’
‘Yeah, quite a bit. I could really do with a PA-type person. Someone canny, good at writing, publishing background. Someone like you.’
I squinted one eye at him. ‘Hmm.’
‘I’d pay you a fair salary, month in advance,’ he said, sensing my doubts. ‘Enough to keep you going till your savings come through. Room and board included, of course.’
‘You can’t really need someone. You’re just trying to help me out, aren’t you?’
‘I do, honestly! My agent’s been nagging me for ages to hire someone to update my website, deal with press, that kind of thing. I hate all that. I just want to draw.’
‘You really mean it?’
‘On my word as a good Catholic boy.’
I cocked an eyebrow and he grinned. ‘Okay, okay. On my word as a gentleman then. I’ll show you the emails if you don’t believe me.’
‘But I’ve got no experience.’
‘You’re smart. You can write. You’re good with people, and you know the industry.’ He paused. ‘You know me pretty well too, that’s a skill in itself. What else do you need?’
‘You promise this isn’t just… you know, because you’re lonely?’
He shrugged. ‘We’re both people who life has shoved through the mangle a bit, aren’t we? I trust you, Kitty: more than anyone I’ve known in a long time. And if you were up for throwing your lot in with me – well, I think I’d like that.’ He caught my look. ‘Just good friends, if that’s what you want.’
I thought about what had been building between us lately. The long looks, the unspoken… something. I thought about where we were now, cuddling in bed together. About the intensity of the tiny living quarters we’d have to share. About Sophie. And Ethan.
But if he really needed someone, it was a great opportunity. I mean, Jack Duffy, much-loved children’s author: that wasn’t nothing. Plus a month’s pay in advance, my independence guaranteed without having to borrow…
Any nagging feeling that I was just looking for an excuse to stay with the man who’d helped me, who made me feel safe, and in whose arms I currently lay, was quickly silenced.
‘Only if you want to stay,’ Jack said, reading my thoughts. ‘I want you to stay because you want to.’
I did want to. I just wasn’t sure I ought to.
‘Let me sleep on it,’ I said at last. ‘It’s a big decision.’
‘Okay.’ He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. ‘Night then, lass.’
I smiled at him in the pale moon glow. ‘Night, Jack. See you in the morning.’
He soon fell asleep, his head nestled comfortably against my chest. It took me a few hours longer. I couldn’t help noticing how Jack’s hand, holding my wrist as he slept, twitched like a dog dreaming of the hunt.