Page 85 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

Perhaps their play-acting for Miri’s benefit had spilled over into real life for a moment or two. But that’s all it had been on Alyssa’s part – play-acting. He was sure of it.

He turned his face towards the sun and found comfort in the warmth of the day’s final rays.

‘Where’s Miri?’ Alyssa asked, sitting down beside him. Before he could answer, she added: ‘I’m pleased that you’re back together. I knew you still cared about her and I hope you’ll both be very happy.’ When he glanced at her, she was staring at the sunset, her face expressionless. ‘I thought you might be out on a walk together.’

‘No. Miri’s on her way back to London, I imagine.’

‘I didn’t realise she’d be going back on her own.’

‘Oh, she’s not on her own.’ Jack breathed out slowly. ‘She’s with Damian.’

Alyssa turned to him, her forehead furrowed in confusion. ‘Damian? But I thought you two… I mean, I saw you two…’ She puffed out her cheeks. ‘I have no idea what’s going on.’

‘Me, neither,’ Jack admitted. ‘But one thing I do know is that Miri and I aren’t right for each other. Not any more.’

Alyssa shifted round on the grass until she was fully facing Jack. ‘But you kissed her, in the street. I saw you.’

‘I think the evidence would show that she kissed me, actually.’

He remembered Miri’s passionate kiss, and the petulance that had crossed her face when he hadn’t leaped at the idea of the two of them getting back together. But I don’t understand it, she’d told him, pouting prettily. You want me. This is what you want. She’d almost stamped her foot in the street.

But after watching Alyssa walk away from him, Jack had realised that this wasn’t what he wanted any longer. He had changed his mind, though he wasn’t sure exactly when.

‘What happened?’ Alyssa asked gently.

‘I realised that our marriage won’t work, and Miri knows it too, deep down.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘She just doesn’t like to lose.’

‘So is it definitely over?’

‘Yes, my marriage is most definitely over.’

It was strange how saying those words out loud just a short while ago would have killed him. Yet now, although it would be challenging at times, he knew that he would survive. Life would go on and he would make the best of it.

But when Alyssa asked, ‘What about Archie?’sorrow speared Jack’s heart. He would do anything to make the boy happy but living with two parents whose relationship had run its course would ultimately make him miserable. He could see that now.

‘Archie will be all right because he still has two parents who love him. I’ll give Miri every support I can in raising him and I’ll see him as often as I’m able. It is hard, though.’ When he scrunched up his eyes so he wouldn’t cry at the thought of his son’s trusting face, he felt Alyssa’s arm press up against his.‘Anyway,’ he said, opening his eyes wide and focusing on the heavenly colours in front of him, ‘Miri didn’t take it well. She informed me that she’d been having an affair with Damian for weeks before we split up and she’d rather be with him anyway.’

‘Ouch!’ Alyssa nudged her shoulder against his. ‘But what she said isn’t necessarily true, you know. She wasn’t happy that you’d rejected her, and she was lashing out. Plus, my statement that your estranged wife is a bit of a cow stands.’

‘You’re… irrepressible!’ spluttered Jack, feeling his misery lift a little.

Unpredictable Alyssa, with her secret past and her interest in the fantastical, was soothing to his soul.

What a terrible shame that the two of them would soon be leaving Heaven’s Cove and going their separate ways.

THIRTY-EIGHT

ALYSSA

Irrepressible. Alyssa slowly rolled the word around her mind.

She couldn’t imagine a man like Jack being interested in an irrepressible woman, even if he had moved on from Miri. He was a man rooted in evidence and science, and she could understand why, now that she knew him better. She knew the value of both these things herself, after a career in nursing: a career she’d loved. But the last year had shown her there was more to life than facts and figures.

‘Why are you really leaving Heaven’s Cove?’ Jack asked suddenly, his dark hair streaked with rays of violet and gold from the setting sun. ‘It’s not because you told me why you came here, is it? I won’t say a word to anyone about it.’

‘I know you won’t. I trust you.’ She trusted him implicitly, Alyssa realised. And she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again.‘Oh, my,’ she muttered. She was in deep trouble.

‘Trauma takes a while to heal.’ He said the words so quietly, Alyssa wondered if they were to himself. ‘And guilt too. You can’t turn off feelings like a tap. I felt guilty, you know, after John went.’

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