Page 60 of The Key to the Last House Before the Sea

NESSA

Lily turned on the spot, round and round, until she fell to her knees, laughing.

Nessa, laughing too, bent down and wiped hair from her daughter’s dark eyes.

‘You’ll make yourself feel sick if you keep whirling round like that.’

Lily giggled and sat back on her heels on the flagstones. ‘When I was a baby, I sicked up on my teddy.’

Nessa agreed she had and smiled, even though the memory of looking after a poorly infant on her own still made her feel panicky. Lily’s asthma had been a constant worry back then, before juggling different inhalers had improved her health.

Jake had missed all of that – sleeping on the floor by Lily’s cot in case her breathing worsened, and ringing the doctor the moment the surgery opened for advice and reassurance.

He’d been busy, off somewhere else being a ‘free spirit’. And now his mother was trying to step in and steal the daughter he had abandoned.

Nessa gave herself a mental shake. Sleeping here in this isolated cottage was definitely playing tricks on her mind. Of course Valerie wasn’t trying to steal Lily away.

She might not approve of Nessa, or like her, even. That much was clear. But where Lily was concerned, she was simply being an indulgent grandmother. And she was also helping Nessa out, which was exactly what Nessa had asked her to do.

‘Mummy! Are you listening to me?’

Nessa dragged herself away from her destructive thoughts. ‘What did you say, sweetheart?’

‘I said, can we go now? I want to go on our picnic.’

‘Yes, we can go right now. Just let me check I’ve packed all the food.’

Nessa pushed a bottle of water into the wicker basket she’d borrowed from Rosie and made sure she hadn’t forgotten Lily’s favourite flapjack. She was excited about a picnic on the beach too.

The storm that had threatened over a week ago hadn’t materialised after all. Temperatures had dropped a little and the sky had been mainly overcast. But this morning the sun was shining and it was one of those glorious early July days when a heat haze shimmered in the distance. And she was going to spend time with Lily.

She missed her gorgeous girl so much and had to keep reminding herself that staying here in the cottage was for Lily’s benefit in the long run. It was to gain a permanent home to call their own: a home with links to Lily’s ancestors.

‘What do you think of the cottage, Lils?’ asked Nessa, buckling up the straps on the basket.

Lily tapped her nose, just like her grandfather did when he was considering something. ‘It’s a bit spooky. Archie in my class says ghosts live here and they do this.’ She raised her arms and flapped them around.

‘There aren’t any spooky things here,’ said Nessa, wanting to give Archie’s parents a shake. He’d presumably overheard them talking about the Ghost Village.

‘But aren’t you scared, being here at night?’ Lily slipped her hand into Nessa’s. ‘Why don’t you sleep at Granny’s with me? Granny wouldn’t mind.’

Granny would mind very much. But Nessa smiled and gently squeezed her daughter’s fingers.

‘It’s only for a little while, like I explained, and then you and I will live together again.’

‘Where?’ asked Lily, her dark eyes huge in her perfect, sun-kissed face. ‘At Auntie Rosie’s?’

Now was the time to say that they’d be moving in here, together. In this cottage, by the sea, that was fast becoming more welcoming as Nessa’s hard work over the last three weeks started to pay off. But something held her back.

Was it the thought of raising Lily’s hopes for nothing, if Gabriel and his father won in the end? Or the fear that Lily, already spooked by the cottage’s ghostly reputation, would refuse and beg to stay with Valerie for good?

Nessa hesitated and the moment passed when there was a loud knock at the front door. It swung open to reveal Gabriel standing there. He glanced between Nessa and Lily, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

‘Sorry. I’ve lost my phone and thought it might be here. It’s in a black case and it has my whole life on it.’ He wiped a hand across his brow. ‘All I can think is, it fell out of my pocket this morning when I came round. I have to find it or—’

‘It’s here,’ Nessa butted in.

Watching him stress out about his phone was painful. Though she supposed losing a top-of-the-range mobile packed with info about lucrative business deals was more angst-inducing than misplacing the cheap, pay-as-you-go phone she carried.

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