‘Travis!’
Freya literally bumped into Travis walking out of the rear door of the gallery.
He steadied her with hands that were cold as ice. ‘Sorry, are you hurt?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ She recoiled at the sight of his face, which was drained of colour. ‘Are you OK? Only I thought I saw your dad a few minutes ago, walking past the office. Has he been here?’
‘Yes, he has.’
‘Don’t say he’s caused more trouble?’
‘No. No – he wanted to talk. To make some kind of peace with me, and all of us. Do you know what it’s like, seeing someone you love being put in handcuffs and led away? Because I did love him once. He was my dad. He still is.’
‘I understand. Even though I never knew my father, I feel his presence. Not in a spiritual way but in my mother, her memories, her expectations, the way she tried to be both a mum and a dad to me, to be my whole family. We both have these huge gaps in our lives. Perhaps that drew us to each other. It must have been harder for you. My father will always be a tragic hero, never getting old, always a memory seen through a golden haze by my mother, a mythical figure to me.’
‘Whereas mine is tarnished and broken. You know, the first time he was put away, Mum didn’t tell me the truth. He just wasn’t there one day, as if he’d vanished and Mum told us he was working away on an oil rig. Then I heard the whispers, people pointing at me. Kids who’d been told to keep away from me by their parents in case they were infected with some kind of virus. We were a bad family. No wonder your mum didn’t want you chained to me.’
‘She was younger then, on her own, she had to protect me even if what she advised was … maybe not the right thing for me,’ Freya said.
‘I felt as if people expected me to fail. They wanted me to fail, to turn out like him so they could say “I told you so”.’
‘I never did,’ Freya said, picking up his chilled hand and holding it.
He smiled at her, with a warmth she hadn’t seen for a long time and which filled her with hope. Colour returned to his face as well as his hands.
‘What are you smiling at?’ he said.
‘You. There’s a blob of paint on the end of your nose.’
‘It’s only emulsion. I can wipe it off.’
‘I can do it,’ she said. ‘Wait here. It’s an order.’
She wetted a piece of paper towel in the kitchen. ‘Keep still.’
Gently, she rubbed the end of his nose. ‘You smell of paint,’ she murmured.
‘Funny that, when I’ve been painting.’
‘Shh.’ She rubbed his nose harder until the paint was gone. ‘There.’
She dropped her hand.
‘You didn’t come here to wipe my nose, did you?’ he asked, taking the paper towel from her.
Her pulse skittered. ‘No, I came to talk to you – about the night of the fire, actually as well as … everything else.’ She screwed up her courage. ‘When we pulled you back, Seb said what I feel: you could never be replaced.’
Her heart raced. She might crash and burn but at least she had tried to fly. He didn’t speak, simply looked at her, the crumpled tissue in his hand.
She carried on, taking her risk: the last one she would take with Travis Marshall; the final chance for them both.
‘I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. If that’s not love, I don’t know what it is. I also know …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never told anyone this and I hadn’t really acknowledged it myself until that night. I think I’ve grown up secretly terrified that the people I love most will leave me without warning.’
She choked back a sob.
‘Freya …’ He held her hand gently.
‘I pushed you away because I didn’t have the faith that it would work between us, that you would stay. Jos offered stability and predictability and I thought I wanted that but I also should have known that I would never feel the way about him that I did about you, the way I’ve always felt about you and the way I do now. The punishment is that I can never prove that.’
He dropped her hand, leaving her bereft again. He couldn’t look at her, almost as if he was too overwhelmed. Even after baring her deepest fears, hope was slipping away …
He lifted his eyes to her. ‘You don’t need to prove anything. I understand how it feels to be abandoned by a father, in a different way. I don’t know what I’d do without you either. I never have. I ran away, I kept away because coming back would have meant seeing you again and feeling everything again.’
‘You did come back,’ she said, the hopeful spark flaring into life again.
‘Bree asked me. Seb needed me but … now I know I just needed an excuse. I wanted to come back and thought I could handle you being here, living in the same place. I was wrong. I knew from the first moment I walked into the cabin and you were there. I knew I was lost. I’ve tried to fight it. I don’t want to be hurt again. Who does?’
He held her, gazing intensely into her eyes.
Her heart beat faster. ‘How can I guarantee that either of us will never hurt the other again? There’s something I need to show you. It’s not here. It’s at my place. Would you come with me?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t need an excuse to get out of this place and anyway, our work here is almost done.’
The January sun was sliding towards the horizon as they walked to Freya’s cottage, past the greengrocer taking in her produce and the baker turning the closed sign on his door. Lights were switching off in some shops and clicking on in the Thai takeaway, ready for the evening’s service. Bannerdale was both shutting down and waking up, life going on around them in its cycle. They were silent, trudging out of the centre and along the lane to her cottage.
Freya let Travis into the cottage. ‘Wait here?’ she said.
She wasn’t long before she returned and handed over her secret treasure.
‘What’s this?’
‘Not mints,’ Freya said quietly. ‘Open it.’
He took off the lid and his eyes widened when he saw the tiny box inside. ‘Is this …?’ he murmured.
‘Yes.’
He flipped the lid and the ring sparkled in the lamplight. ‘You kept it …’
‘Of course. You refused to take it back but I would never have parted with it because I loved you. I still do.’
He covered his mouth with his hand, while the other held the box.
With her heart leaping from her chest, Freya took the ring from it and held it out. ‘Look, I’m not going to get down on one knee, but I am going to take the biggest risk of my life – this one last time, one more try.’
His eyes were fixed on her, there was no hiding place.
‘Travis Marshall,’ she declared. ‘Day after day, year after year, I have tried to tell myself that I’d get over you. Tried to convince myself that “grown-up” love shouldn’t feel the same as first love. That somehow, “real” love should be steadier, calmer, without the crazy rollercoaster highs and lows. That it must be easier.’
Travis burst out laughing. ‘Easier? If only. It isn’t. It hurts as much – and more because we’re already scarred and our wounds are so easily ripped open.’
‘We don’t have to get married. We can make that a condition of being together.’
He took the ring and put it back in the box. ‘I can’t imagine forever without you, but I can’t promise not to propose.’ He handed her the box and closed his hand around hers as she took it. ‘So I’d like to keep my options open. Those are my terms.’
Feeling a little shaky, she put the box back on the table. She was soaring high, higher than she’d ever been. ‘So it’s a “yes”?’
‘It’s a “yes” to whatever you want and a yes to commitment and trust and hope … How about if forever started now? This minute and the next?’ He reached for her and she melted into his arms. ‘And personally, I know exactly what I’d like to do this minute.’