Page 61 of The Boathouse By the Loch

‘But I thought—’

‘You thought what? There’d be some, like, big family reunion or something?’

‘Now look …’ Jake began.

‘I SAID NO!’ She whirled on her heel and darted down the pathway to her car.

Jake was too taken aback by the ferocity of her retort to argue with her or even chase her to the car to ask her to reconsider. Instead, he just stood there and said nothing.

And, standing in that open doorway, watching the woman he loved leaving him on such a bitter, unresolved note, left him with something else – a terrible sense of déjà vu. He hadn’t gone afterhereither, after Eleanor when she’d said she was going out on Christmas Day. He’d just stood there. A voice in his head had said,go after her, but like an idiot, he hadn’t, believing mistakenly that there was always a second chance.

Suddenly, Jake was running down the pathway towards her car, waving frantically and shouting, ‘Faye! No! Wait!’ as the car engine revved up.

She drove off just as he reached the kerb.

‘NO!’ He stopped and watched the car disappear into the distance. ‘No!’ he said, ‘not again.’

Jake felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Let her go.’ Patrick was standing beside him. ‘She needs to seeher daughter alone, just the two of them, the way it used to be – at least for now.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Jake, feeling immensely agitated. ‘I’ve done it again. I let somebody else go like this and she never came back. The person I knew, the person I loved, never came back.’ He grasped Patrick’s shoulders. ‘Don’t you see? If I’d just run after her, if I’d just opened my damn mouth and said something, then maybe … maybe …’ Jake’s shoulders began to heave.

Patrick pulled him close in a bear hug. Jake began to cry, great big heaving sobs into the shoulder of a man he barely knew.

‘It’s alright, son,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s going to be alright.’ Patrick patted him on the back.

‘There’s nothing to see here!’ Patrick shouted suddenly. Neighbouring porch doors shut with a rackety clap. ‘Jake, why don’t we go back inside?’ Patrick gave him one last affectionate pat on the back and released him.

Jake wiped his nose on his sleeve.

‘She’ll be back. You’ll see,’ Patrick said reassuringly. ‘Faye and Natty will be back. She just needs a bit of time, that’s all.’ He put an arm around Jake’s shoulder and guided him towards the house.

At the front door, Jake stopped. ‘She doesn’t want me, Patrick, does she?’

‘Let’s go inside, eh?’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’ Jake stared into his hazel eyes. They were the same colour as the eyes he had looked into nearly every single day for the last few months, since he’d first met Faye. She had her father’s eyes.

‘Who knows what is going through my daughter’s mind at this moment? She’s just found out that Natty is safe and well afterhours of going through fear and anxiety like you couldn’t imagine. Then she finds out that the man she has been trying her utmost to keep at arm’s length is in love with her.’ Patrick peered at Jake. ‘I think that’s a lot to take on board all in one day – don’t you?’

They both turned at the sound of the house phone.

‘Maybe that’s her,’ said Patrick, skipping up the front steps into the house.

Jake hovered on the doorstep and left Patrick to take the call.

He stared up at the night sky, a sky that in the city never got completely dark. Not like in the Highlands of Scotland, where no lights could be seen for miles and where the night sky was so black, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Where people didn’t go out at three in the morning and buy a cappuccino or shop at a twenty-four-hour convenience store, but did what they should be doing at night – sleeping.

Jake stood outside, listening to the sounds of cars and people and the neighbourhood, and had a longing like he’d never felt before; a longing to return home. Perhaps he wouldn’t feel this way if he hadn’t returned briefly to Scotland. Maybe that was his mistake. But he had a feeling that Mr Gillespie was right about the place; it was in his soul, pulling him back like a piece of taut elastic waiting to be released. Now, that pull felt stronger than ever.

And that pull was raising serious doubts about the choices he had made in his life these past few months. Maybe he had got it wrong. Maybe this wasn’t meant to be his new life, his new beginning. Maybe it was just a phase, a stage, a transient place; somewhere he was just passing through on his way to coming to terms with what had happened, on his way towards – he knew now – something better, something right for him.He thought of Faye and Natty; maybe, however much it hurt, he had to come to termswith the fact that he was only passing through their lives too.

But I don’t want it to be that way,thought Jake. He realised it didn’t matter what he wanted. The ball was firmly in Faye’s court. After what had happened with Natty, he seriously doubted whether things between him and Faye would ever be the same again.

A little voice in his head said,perhaps it’s for the best.

He’d thought he had it figured out – living in London, getting a new job, teaching – but at the back of his mind, he realised it had always been there, festering; the possibility that this might not be the rest of his life. That was why, he now realised, he had been so careful not to get emotionally involved with anyone else, not to risk getting hurt again, because when the time came to leave, as he believed it had, he knew he most probably would not be able to physically uproot those attachments and take them with him.

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