Page 113 of Swept Away

“What’s she…” I trail off, watching Penny fold over on herself, covering her face with her hands.

“Hmm,” Marissa says from the driver’s seat.

“What does that mean?”

“Penny means well, but she doesn’t always do the right thing, and I’ve been wondering for a while if this is one of the times when Penny has been a bit of a coward.”

Marissa yanks on the handbrake and checks her watch.

“Go talk to her. You’ve got three minutes. And, Lex—”

She stops me as I climb out of the rear passenger seat.

“Don’t let her make you feel bad. And don’t let her squirm out of telling the truth. Penny sucks at owning up to things, and she needs to get better at it.”

“She doesn’t mean—” I start, but Marissa holds up her hand.

“You coddle her. You know you do. She’s an adult. She can cope with a bit of a bollocking when she deserves one. In fact, it might do her some good. We’re all dickheads sometimes, Lex, as your mum used to say—even sweet Penny.”

I frown as I climb out of the car. Marissa has always been harder on Penny than I have—she’s only known Penny as an adult, whereas I saw the bedraggled, sad girl who used to climb our back fence to escape the chaos of her mother’s house. The Anchor was Penny’s retreat, her safe place;I’mthat for her, and I never want that to change.

I catch up to her as she leans against the fence outside a house with Grecian-style pillars on its porch. The sun is shining, but weakly, as if someone has watered it down.

“Penny?”

She’s sobbing into her hands. I tug at her arm, trying to see her face.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Do you love him?”

I open my mouth to say what she wants to hear—No! Of course I don’t! How could I possibly love the man who turned his back on you?But the lie won’t come out. I think of him for a second, unable to help myself. I see him tanned and bearded, a breeze lifting his curls, and it winds me; I press the heel of my hand to my chest.

“I haven’t wanted to ask,” Penny says, her words almost lost in her tears. “But I think I already know the answer.”

“Penny, it doesn’t matter, it’s over now. It’s done. I’m sorry that…I’m sorry for…”

She emerges from behind her hands and looks fiercely at me.

“Youdo not need to be sorry.”

I am sorry, though. It feels like such a betrayal to have loved him so deeply. It feels like a betrayal every time I let my guilty mind slide into the sweet, devastating pain of remembering him. And itdefinitelyfeels like a betrayal every time I think that maybe I don’t care, maybe I don’t give a damn about the worst thing he could possibly have done, because I love him so much I’d forgive it all.

“I need to tell you something,” Penny says, taking a gulping breath.

I glance back toward the car, and then toward the Grecian-pillared house, where someone is peering out of an upstairs window. We are officially making a scene, and we are also approaching the end of the three minutes Marissa gave me.

“Does it need to be now?” I try gently. “Because—”

“Yes,” she says, her voice a little firmer.

She pushes off the fence and starts walking again, further away from Marissa’s car. I walk along the pavement beside her, glancingat her, trying to read her. Is it about Mae? Or is it Penny? Is she OK? I’ve been worrying about her not sleeping—was that a sign of something serious? Is she ill?

“When I got pregnant with Mae, I was so ashamed of myself,” she says. She’s twisting her hands, tugging at her sleeves. “I knew you and your mum would be disappointed in me. She was always telling me off for going home with customers, and you…I knew you thought the same.”

“I didn’t,” I protest, though I remember how it felt every time I saw Penny flirting with some cocky, over-aftershaved guy at the bar, how sometimes I wished she’d just besensible.

“I remember you asked me if I knew who the father was,” she says. “Not who the father was, butif I knew.”

---