Page 71 of The Key to the Last House Before the Sea

‘I’m sure Valerie will look after Lily,’ he said, taking a mouthful. Lettie would probably choke at the thought of him enjoying her stew, but it was delicious.

‘Do you think she will?’ asked Nessa, as a draught snaking through the room made a candle in the windowsill splutter.

‘She obviously loves her granddaughter and will want to do everything she can to make her feel safe.’

Nessa nodded. ‘I know you’re right, but she’s not her mum, is she?’ She put her bowl of food onto the hearth as lightning lit up the room. ‘Sorry. You’ve caught me at a bad moment. But what am I doing here? I should be with my daughter on a night like tonight. What does it say about me as a mother?’

There was a clap of thunder overhead when she looked into the fire, tears glittering in her eyes.

‘You’re trying to do the best for your daughter,’ Gabriel said gently.

Nessa gave a brittle laugh. ‘By leaving her with her grandmother for nights on end and moving into a cottage that’s falling down? I thought this could be a home for the two of us, but it’s wild out here on a night like tonight and Lily would be scared. Maybe I’m just deluding myself about the whole thing.’

Gabriel closed his eyes. He could imagine his father standing beside him. Now’s the time to seed doubt in her mind. Of course the girl’s deluded. Doesn’t she know that I always win?

When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him. And she looked so dejected, so done in, he couldn’t put the boot in. She was a single parent, without his advantages, trying to do the best for her child.

‘You’re not deluding yourself. You’re doing what you think is right but it’s quite… ambitious.’

‘Ambitious?’ The corner of Nessa’s mouth lifted. ‘That’s a kinder word for it. Basically, I’ve left my daughter and moved into a derelict cottage where I’m checked on twice daily by a man I hardly know.’

Gabriel smiled. ‘It’s an unconventional approach to motherhood, I’ll give you that. But you don’t strike me as the conventional type.’

‘That’s not what my ex used to say. Jake reckoned he was the free spirit in our relationship and I was boringly staid.’

‘I imagine Lily needed stability rather than a—’ Gabriel paused. He’d been about to say ‘rather than a dickhead for a dad’. But he wasn’t sure that was terribly appropriate.

Nessa gave a wry grin, as though she knew exactly what Gabriel had been about to say.

‘Anyway.’ Gabriel gathered himself together. ‘Like I said, you don’t seem terribly conventional to me.’

‘I’m less conventional than you, that’s for sure.’

‘Most people are,’ he said, his words almost drowned out by a huge clap of thunder that came hot on the heels of a lightning flash.

Nessa winced and waited for the noise to die down. ‘Did you go to a private school? Sorry. I know I’m being nosy, but I’m interested.’

He nodded. ‘I went to a minor private school but managed to be a disappointment to my parents. What about you?’

‘The local comprehensive. That’s where I first met Rosie and Liam. Though, like I said, I missed a lot of schooling. That’s why I’m finding it hard to get anything decent job-wise. It needs to fit round Lily too so it’s even more complicated.’

‘What happened to you after your mum died? And where was your dad?’

Nessa reached for her bowl of food, the bracelet on her arm glinting in the firelight.

‘I moved in with my gran after Mum died, until I got married. My dad died when I was a kid. I don’t remember him very well, which is sad. What about you? Tell me about your family.’

Gabriel took another mouthful of stew and stretched out his legs in the uncomfortable camping chair.

‘I grew up in London, my parents divorced when I was eight and I stayed with my dad when my mum moved in with the banker. I work in the family business, as you know, along with my cousin, James. And that’s it, really.’

‘Have you ever been married? You’ve never mentioned a wife.’

She was doing what she always did. Drawing him out. Making him say more than he meant to. But what did it matter, here in the middle of nowhere, with a woman he’d soon be leaving behind?

‘Nope. I was almost engaged, once, but the relationship didn’t work out.’

‘I’m sorry. So you’ve never had kids?’

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