Date: 09/7/15
From: Haycock, Neil
To: Fraser, Cassie
Subject: Message In a Bottle
Hi Cassie,
Thanks for your message for Henry, which we forwarded on 08/7/15. He has responded that he is very well and enjoying the views.
Conditions are set fair and they are proceeding at 34 knots. If you would like to track their progress on radar, they are 9°26’S; 159°59’E.
Kind regards,
Neil
Communications specialist,
Message In a Bottle Project,
Inmarsat
Cassie turned the page over, her elbows red and sore from lying on them so long, but she had to finish this chapter while she could. Suzy’s incessant talking about Gem and Laird every time she sat down meant she hadn’t got past Chapter Four and she was determined to finish a book on this holiday. This was a precious window of opportunity – last night’s exertions had bought her a grace period from the list, as there were no surf lessons for her today (although Archie had disappeared off with Laird), but Gem had stopped by at breakfast, wondering if they could ‘chat’ later about food for the wedding, and Suzy and Velvet would be back from the shops any minute.
She bit her lip, engrossed and swinging her leg idly in the air behind her, only vaguely aware of the feeling of the breeze on her bare skin. She certainly wasn’t aware of the sound of footsteps over the stile at the bottom of the garden, or the soft crush of grass as someone approached.
It took a small cough to achieve that.
She looked up in surprise to find Luke standing with his board watching her.
‘You always did that,’ he smiled, setting the board down on its end.
‘Did what?’
‘Swung your leg about when you were reading. I used to have to clear a swat zone when you were reading the papers.’
She laughed lightly, wishing he’d put a T-shirt on with his rolled-down wetsuit, but it was too hot for clothes today. In fact, she was in her full bikini today, for the first time, no wetsuit to protect her modesty (or hide her wobbly bits) because she’d assumed she had the place to herself.
‘Are the others still down there?’ she asked, politely turning down a corner of her page and closing the book.
He nodded. ‘Arch managed to stand.’
‘No way!’ she gasped jealously. ‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No,’ Luke laughed. ‘Although, you’d probably feel better if you’d seen it for yourself. I use the word “stand” in the loosest possible sense.’ He indicated to sit down. ‘May I?’
‘Sure,’ she shrugged. ‘Where’s Amber?’
He pulled a face briefly. ‘Promise you won’t laugh?’
She shrugged her acquiescence as he leaned back on straight arms, his torso long and perfect. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for five days, his stubble denser than usual. It suited him. A beard would suit him, she thought idly.
‘She and Gem are having their cards read. Some woman in Tintagel apparently.’
Cassie laughed.
‘You said you wouldn’t!’
‘I’m laughing at how you pronounced “Tintagel”. It’s “Tin-taj-el”,’ Cassie corrected.
‘Right, that’s what I said,’ he protested. ‘Hey, look, I’m American. What’d you expect? Besides, you’re a fine one to talk. You can’t say “Chance”.’
‘Oh, don’t start that up again,’ she groaned, still convinced that they’d only seen so much of his friend Chance in New York because it made them all crack up to hear her pronunciation of his name: they used the flat ‘a’ of ‘apple’, whereas she used the ‘ah’ of ‘aria’. ‘At least I—’ She stopped herself abruptly. What was she thinking, falling back into their past jokes?
‘So where’s Suzy?’ he asked, after a moment that felt considerably longer.
‘Wadebridge. We were out of nappies and muesli.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Poor Arch. I think he’d sell Velvet for a bacon butty right now.’
He smiled and she wondered where he’d been for the past few days. She hadn’t seen him since he and Laird had surprised the girls at the bridal boutique, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether his absence had been deliberate. She remembered the shock on his face at seeing her in the dress. Had it bothered him, seeing her dressed as another man’s bride? Or was she, as Suzy had said, reading too much into it, unable to accept that he had moved on, once and for all?
She shook the thought away. No, Suzy was wrong. Cassie had Henry. She didn’t need her ex to bolster her ego.
‘He looks good on it, though. Arch, I mean,’ he said after another pause. ‘He’s caught some sun and shifted some timber, to use his words.’
‘Yes. He’s looking much healthier.’ She sighed lightly, wishing she could get up off her elbows and move to a sitting position – her arms and shoulders were tender after last night’s brutal exercise – but her bikini suddenly felt too much like a bra and knickers in his company and she kept herself shielded instead, with only her back and calves on display.
She knew it was stupid to be so coy. What would he care to see her in her bikini? He did swimwear and lingerie shoots in his sleep. And besides, nothing he had done in all the times they had seen each other here had betrayed anything other than genuine contrition and what seemed to be a certain nostalgic fondness. But even knowing all that, she couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t seen her naked or forget that he knew what she liked in bed, and she felt that knowledge run like a current between them at all times.
‘So . . . I heard you had a fun night,’ he said, yet again trying to ignite the conversation, and she nodded brightly, knowing she had to at least try to help them move on. ‘You came fourth, was it?’
‘Yes, unbelievably – given that they were effectively a man down . . . or girl.’
‘Archie said you were brilliant. Determined, I think was the word he used.’
‘Well, I’d never hear the end of it if I failed at something on the list.’
Luke’s mouth parted in surprise. ‘Oh, I see. This is another of Henry’s famous lists, is it?’
She smiled and gave an awkward shrug, knowing they both recalled how the list for New York had brought such tension into their relationship – the Christmas present on it, particularly, had almost led to a fight between them.
‘Good to hear he’s still going strong with that.’
Cassie looked at him but couldn’t read his tone and she started studying a blade of grass instead, wondering how to change the subject. ‘Anyway, it was great fun. I may even try it again.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, they have training sessions on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, so if I do stay here . . .’
‘You mean you might be going?’ he asked, shocked.
‘I . . . don’t know. Maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘Work. You know . . .’
The truth was, she wasn’t sure now about whether or not to stay. Last night had changed things. Working that hard had felt cathartic somehow, like she’d sweated some of her restlessness out of her system. Did it matter if she was in Cornwall or London? Gil was still going to remarry on Saturday; Henry was still going to be in the Pacific on a bottle-boat.
‘Well, that would be a shame,’ he said quietly, looking out to sea.
Would it be? she wondered. She stared at his profile, so handsome, and wished he’d never stepped back into her life. Could she really stay down here, with the possibility of seeing him round every corner? She never knew when, or where, she was going to see him next, or whether his intentions were benign or not, and she felt unsettled and jumpy.
Cassie looked away and picked at the grass. It was no good. As they sat there alone, just the two of them, the tension between them crackled. They didn’t even need to look at each other to feel it. It didn’t matter that they had moved on to new relationships, they were never going to be able to do the ‘just good friends’ gig. They could be polite, civil, but they had never been friends in the first place; the chemistry between them didn’t allow it. They had a past that meant they could have no future, no matter what shape it took.
‘Oh my God!’
The voice at the gate made them both turn.
‘You are not going to believe what we’ve just seen!’ Gem said, shooting through the gate like she was jet-propelled. ‘Oh no, Luke, you can’t hear this. You’re a boy.’
‘Where’s Amber?’ Luke asked, sitting straighter.
‘She’s gone to have a shower. It’s so hot!’ Gem puffed, pulling her T-shirt away from her neck and blowing air on her own face.
‘I’ll go join her,’ Luke said, before freezing momentarily as he realized how that had sounded.
‘I bet you will!’ Gem gave a dirty laugh, smacking him on the bum as he got up and passed by, his eyes meeting Cassie’s in the briefest of glances as he nodded his goodbye.
‘So,’ Gem said, falling into a lotus position. ‘Can you guess?’
Cassie shook her head, her mood soured by the conversation that had just passed, and she wasn’t sure she had the patience to indulge Suzy’s hyperactive, self-obsessed little cousin right now. ‘Nope.’
She watched as Gem reached into the back pocket of her linen shorts and pulled out a flyer: ‘Rock Oyster Festival, Diningfold Hall, 11–12 July.’
‘What is it? A festival?’
‘Duh! That’s what it says, doesn’t it?’ Gem laughed. ‘Look, it’s music, food, circus acts . . .’ She clasped Cassie’s hands. ‘Have you ever been to Glasto?’ she asked Cassie with the earnestness of a discussion about organ donation.
Cassie shook her head again, now violently wishing Suzy would come back.
Gem looked at her with sudden pity. ‘Oh, you really must! You haven’t lived. It’s a rite of passage, Cass, and I mean that.’
‘Well, I—’
‘Which is why this is so great.’ She stretched out ‘so’ like it was a limo. ‘It’ll be Glasto but smaller. Way smaller. More intimate. Which I prefer.’
Cassie also violently wished Gem wouldn’t speak in bullet points. ‘I take it you and Amber are going, then?’
‘Me and . . . ?’ Gem gasped, eyes burning. ‘Cass, you don’t get it! Of course me and Amber are going. We all are. This isn’t just going to be any old festival, you know.’
‘What’s it going to be, then?’ Cassie asked carelessly, picking up the book again and looking for her page.
Gem leaped up and did a perfect cartwheel, finishing with an extravagant showgirl flourish of her arms. ‘My hen night!’
Cassie walked out of the village store, confused. She could have sworn Archie had said he’d picked up his emails from the Wi-Fi cafe at the back of the shop, but the two tables and chairs that passed for the cafe had only laminated menus to their name – sadly there was no Wi-Fi here, like the rest of the village – and she had had to buy a cobbler loaf, just to mask her confusion.
She threw the bread into the basket and her leg over the bike frame, staring unseeing down the lane towards Polzeath. The tide was way out, the exposed beach glimmering in the sunlight, the die-hard surfers but coloured dots. If Archie hadn’t picked up his emails from here, then how had he received Henry’s list? Henry hadn’t known she was coming down when he’d left for Australia, so he couldn’t have written it in advance. It begged the question . . . No, two questions. Where had he got it from? Suzy had banned all gadgets from the house and Cassie wouldn’t put it past her to have done spot checks. And if Henry was getting emails out from the boat, why wasn’t he sending any to her?
Her phone buzzed in her shorts pocket and she took it out, amazed to see that she had four bars of mobile signal – the advantages of stopping on a hill – and a new text message. From Brett. Instantly, her heart dropped to her feet.
‘Hi, Cass. Have u heard from Kelly? She went to the Hamptons while I was out of town but was supposed to get back today and is not answering her cell. Prob nothing but unlike her 2 b uncontactable like this. Am trying everyone. Call me if u know anything? Thanks, Brett.’
Call him if she knew anything? Of course she knew something. She knew everything; way more than he did! Was this it then? Had it happened? She felt her pulse quicken, the first shoots of panic beginning to spur through her. She tried to think rationally. She couldn’t call him first. No way. Not yet. Kelly’s disappearance may not be down to the miscarriage – it could be something far more innocent, completely innocuous – and Kelly would never forgive her if she spilled this secret on a false alarm. No. She had to get hold of her first. Kelly – if she’d tried to get hold of Cassie – would have probably called her on her BlackBerry. Kelly was always in ‘work’ mode and assumed everyone else was too. Plus it got better signal.
When had Brett sent this? she wondered desperately as she began pedalling away from Trebetherick’s green-trimmed village store, rising out of the seat to get past the small hill before the lane swooped away, downhill almost all the way back to Butterbox. Her mind was on speed as her hair flew out behind her. It was almost eleven o’clock here, meaning it was only 6 a.m. there – possibly he’d been up all night trying to find his wife, in which case it didn’t look good for her ‘innocent’ theory; their very worst fears were being realized and the worst was happening. But she couldn’t be sure. She had no signal at all in the house; if he’d sent this last night, it was highly conceivable the message only got through now that she was in range of a phone mast. Kelly could be back home already.
Oh God, but what if the worst was happening? Her mind wouldn’t let it go. Today was 10 July; that meant Kelly was officially nine weeks gone now. Cassie bit her lip, feeling ashamed. She had been here for nearly a week and hadn’t called Kelly once. Yes, Suzy’s ban on gadgets and zero broadband at the house had meant Skype was an impossibility, but she couldn’t blame it all on that. The truth was that the distraction of dealing with Luke again meant her promise to buy lemons and connect daily had gone out of her mind. She was a terrible person, an awful friend, a rubbish girlfriend . . .
She was back at the house in minutes, tearing up the long drive past Snapdragons – both cars were in the drive – and throwing the bike on the ground as she fumbled for her keys in her pocket and struggled with the door.
‘That you, Cass?’ Suzy called through from the kitchen, The Archers playing on the radio.
‘Won’t be a minute!’ Cassie called back, sprinting up the stairs two at a time and grabbing her BlackBerry, which she had left charging by the bed.
No messages from Kelly there either. Dammit.
She clicked on FaceTime on her phone and found Kelly in her contacts. ‘U there?’ she wrote into the blue bubble, but the signal was typically weak and she ran to the windows with it. No luck. She opened the doors onto the balcony and stepped out, leaning over the railings, her arm held aloft.
Two bars. Damn. Should she go back to the store?
She held it there for longer.
She checked the screen again. No reply.
‘Talk to me, Kelly,’ she typed in a new bubble. ‘Has it happened?? Let me help.’
She held the phone up once more, her heart clattering like a tin soldier in her ribs.
‘What are you doing?’ a bemused voice below asked. ‘Have you made contact with life forms in deep space?’
Cassie looked down to find Suzy standing on the terrace, a jug in one hand and a glass in the other.
‘Just trying to get a signal,’ Cassie said weakly. When Kelly had told her not to tell anyone, she hadn’t really meant Suzy too, had she? Cassie had never kept a secret from Suzy in her life. Not successfully, anyway.
‘Nup. Never gonna happen.’ Suzy’s blonde hair swung sympathetically, gleaming as it caught the sun. ‘Fancy some home-made lemonade?’
Cassie shook her head. ‘Maybe later.’
Suzy pursed her lips, looking up at Cassie quizzically, before she headed back inside.
Cassie turned a circle on the spot, one hand clutching her hair. What could she do? What could she do from here? What could she do from here with no laptop and practically no Wi-Fi?
She stared out into the distance, for once not seeing the view. She did, however, see the figure walking up through the fields, surfboard under one arm and wetsuit rolled down, the man who spent half his life on tropical islands with supermodels and still always got a signal.
She caught up with him by the side gate.
‘Hey!’ she panted, jumping out from behind one of the hedgerows and alarming Luke so much he almost dropped the board on his toes.
‘Jeez, Cass! You scared the shit out of me.’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, holding her hands up apologetically.
He took one look at her flushed cheeks and wild eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Can you get a Wi-Fi signal down here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you got a laptop?’
‘Of course. What’s going on?’
‘I need to borrow it, your laptop.’
He tipped his head down, trying to get her to slow down. ‘Cass, slow down. What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t have time to explain. I’ll tell you everything after, but can you please just help?’
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. ‘Come on, then.’
They jogged through Snapdragons’s garden – so much smaller than Butterbox’s, but more densely stocked with foxgloves and delphiniums – Luke propping the surfboard against the wall by the back door and letting them both in to the house.
It was quiet in there, and dark. The primrose cotton curtains had been left drawn in the sitting room – ‘to keep the room cool’ – and Luke ran silently and swiftly upstairs to get his laptop from the bedroom.
‘Amber’s still sleeping,’ he said quietly, one finger raised to his lips, as he came back down again moments later. He handed it over to her with a questioning look.
Amber was still sleeping? It was almost eleven o’clock, but Cassie didn’t have time to care. She took the computer from him and opened it hurriedly on the pine kitchen table, clicking cluelessly on various icons on the desktop. It went to email.
‘Uh, Cass, if you could just tell me what it is you need, I can get it for you,’ Luke said quickly, angling the laptop away from her. ‘Is it about Henry? Has something happened?’
‘Henry?’ Cassie echoed sharply, before catching herself and giving an apologetic sigh. ‘No. It’s Kelly. And it’s an emergency,’ she added. ‘I need to Skype her.’
He cleared his throat, quickly typing on the keyboard before turning the laptop back towards her again. ‘Be my guest. But it’ll drive you nuts – I’m warning you now. There’s not enough bandwidth for video.’
‘But you said you had Wi-Fi!’
‘And I do. But you need more for video. Certainly more than you can get here.’
Cassie slapped a hand to her forehead. It wasn’t enough just to talk to Kelly. She had to see her, scrutinize her. She couldn’t necessarily rely on her friend to tell the full truth at a moment like this. Kelly was a master of disguising her emotions. ‘I’m fine’, coming from her, covered everything from bored to breaking point. ‘I need to see her. It’s really important, Luke.’
His eyes examined her with his expert appraisal, taking in her rising panic. ‘Then you need to go to Rock. That’s where I’ve been chatting with my agent most days. They’ve got a good connection in the cafe in the deli. Decent coffee too. You know it?’
She shook her head. Suzy had been doing all the deli trips, enjoying being able to push Velvet along the pavements in her pushchair. ‘But I’m sure I can find it,’ she said quickly, straightening up. Rock wasn’t a big place. How long would it take to cycle there? Some of it was uphill. Ten minutes? Maybe slightly more?
Dammit. Why was everything so slow down here? It had been twenty minutes, already, since she’d got the text and Kelly had potentially been missing all night.
‘Luke? Baby, is that you?’ Amber’s voice – croaky with sleep – drifted down the stairs.
Luke’s eyes met Cassie’s, the room seeming to become smaller somehow.
‘Come on, I’ll drive you,’ he whispered after a moment, lifting the laptop off the table and grabbing the keys to the Jeep. And together, as silent as thieves and feeling just as guilty, they crept from the house.
The screen stayed white until the fourth ring.
‘Oh, hey, Cass,’ Kelly said, a note of drowsy surprise in her sleep-addled voice as she tossed her hair off her shoulder. ‘How’s it going?’ She frowned. ‘What time is it?’
‘How’s it going?’ Cassie echoed in a shrieking whisper. ‘Kell! I just picked up a text from Brett telling me you’d gone missing! How do you think I’m going?’
‘Oh.’ There was a long pause as Kelly disappeared from the screen suddenly, and as the walls in the background changed from charcoal to Prussian blue, Cassie could tell that Kelly was getting up and walking out of the bedroom. ‘I’m sorry. He totally shot the bolt on that.’ Kelly rolled her eyes as she set the laptop down on the kitchen counter and gave a big yawn. She looked pale, even though the Hamptons summer season was already in full swing.
Cassie blinked at her, her heart rate climbing even higher at this anticlimactic explanation than it had after reading the text. He shot the bolt? That was it?
‘Kell, I just about had a heart attack! Where were you?’ she demanded, hands splayed.
Luke, who had been advancing with two coffees, caught sight of her body language and did a quick about-turn back towards the speciality pasta section.
‘The Jitney was delayed and my cell was dead. Honestly, talk about overreact. I’m so mad with him. He called, like, everyone.’ She leaned in closer to the screen. ‘You see now what I mean, though?’ she whispered. ‘Way too protective of me.’
‘But everything’s still OK? The baby’s . . . ?’
Kelly glanced behind her quickly, to check they were still alone. ‘Everything’s fine, Cass.’
There it was – the word: the one Cassie had known she’d get, the one Cassie had known she’d have to see Kelly’s expression to understand. She stared hard at her friend’s beautiful, pale, fine-boned face. ‘But you’re at nine weeks now.’
‘I know.’
‘I thought—’
‘I know,’ Kelly nodded, her mouth drawing into a thin line. ‘It’ll be any day now.’
Cassie sighed, the finality of the fact like a punch in the face, and slumped slightly in the seat now that her adrenalin was allowed to ebb away. ‘I just wish I could do more to help. I feel so useless being so far away from you.’
‘We have these sessions.’ Kelly gave a tiny shrug and tired smile, but Cassie pulled a face – what help could they really offer?
She saw Luke glance across and, seeing her less frantic, begin to make his way over. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t called before now. There is no Wi-Fi. Like, none. And Suzy’s banned everything electronic from the house. She’s terrified Arch will start working on the sly and his stress levels will go up again.’ That reminded her – she’d have to ask Arch where he’d downloaded the list.
‘That’s fair enough. So where are you calling from now, then?’
‘The cafe in the deli. Lu—’ Cassie stopped short. She had been that close to saying Luke’s name, and Kelly had been closer than anyone to Luke and Cassie’s relationship in New York. She wouldn’t believe in their born-again friendship any more than Suzy had initially, and Cassie didn’t have the energy to explain. ‘I just got lucky with a superspecced laptop.’
Kelly seemed to accept the explanation at face value. She was too sleepy to be suspicious.
‘So Archie’s doing well?’
‘Better than that. We’re learning to surf and he’s already standing up!’
‘Jeez, is that safe?’
‘Doctor’s orders – sort of.’ She shrugged. ‘Let’s face it, Suzy wouldn’t let him anywhere near it if it wasn’t safe.’
‘True. But whose idea was it to try surfing? The temperatures in the Atlantic our side are enough to give you a heart attack.’
‘Henry’s, actually.’
Kelly looked astonished. ‘Is Henry there?’
‘Ha! I wish. In spirit only. He’s written me a list.’
‘Oh, of course he has!’ Kelly laughed lightly, scratching her head with red manicured fingers. ‘So what have you got to do this time?’
‘Well, the night before last he had me rowing the Camel estuary in, like, a storm, with a bunch of strangers.’ Well, it had been windy . . .
Kelly shook her head. ‘You’re crazy. I don’t know why you go along with it.’
‘You try saying no to him.’
‘Well, we all know you can’t!’ Kelly quipped, with a dirty laugh.
Luke had reached the table and was standing on the other side, out of sight of the laptop. Cassie hoped he hadn’t overheard.
‘Here,’ he murmured, putting down her coffee.
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly, her eyes flicking up to his briefly.
‘Who’s that?’ Kelly asked.
‘No one,’ she said quickly.
‘Well, it had to be someone.’
‘I mean, it was just the . . . you know, the guy behind the counter.’
‘Oh.’ Kelly yawned again. ‘Listen, it’s still dawn here and I’m wiped. I better get back to bed before Brett realizes I’m not there and sends out another search party.’ She gave an ironic wink.
‘Sure. Listen, I’ll try calling you tomorrow, OK? And call me if there’s anything in the meantime. Anything at all. Now that I know about this place, I can get over here in a few minutes and we can talk face to face.’
‘Sure thing. And remember to let me know about meeting up next week,’ Kelly smiled, blowing her a kiss and quickly disconnecting before Cassie even had a chance to push back that there was a chance Kelly could still be pregnant next week and therefore wouldn’t fly.
‘The guy behind the counter?’ Luke asked with a wry smile as he sat down at the table too, forcing her to slide along the bench.
‘Well, what else was I going to say? I couldn’t very well tell her it was you.’
‘Why not? Aren’t we allowed to speak to each other anymore?’
She tutted. ‘You know what I mean.’
He was quiet for a moment. ‘Yeah.’
They sipped their coffees for a while, watching as a young mother walked in with her mini-me twin eight-year old girls in tow, all three of them wearing navy-and-red Breton-striped dresses.
‘So, everything all OK now?’ he asked.
‘Yes, emergency diverted.’ She gave him a grateful smile. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘No problem. Although you gotta tell me what the emergency was. You did promise.’
She sighed. It was true, she had. ‘Brett texted me last night saying Kelly hadn’t come home. He was worried about her.’
Luke stared at her. ‘And . . . ?’ he prompted.
‘And the Jitney was late,’ she shrugged.
Luke exhaled incredulously. ‘You’re telling me that you and him both had a massive freak-out because the bus was late getting back from the Hamptons?’
‘It’s not that simple. I thought something had happened to her. I had good reason to believe that—’ She stopped mid-flow, realizing she had said too much.
‘Go on.’
She blinked back at him. She’d promised not to tell. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Cass, you wouldn’t have come looking for my help if you could have possibly helped it—’
She blushed wildly, mortified that he’d read her awkwardness around him so accurately. His eyes – hazel brown and as steady as an eagle’s – held hers and for a moment it was like time warped. They were no longer sitting in a cafe on the north coast of Cornwall – alternately polite and scratchy with each other, unable to establish a safety zone – but in a bar in Manhattan, his hand on her thigh and his lips by her ear as he whispered all the things he was going to do to her that night.
‘What did you think had happened to her? Who am I gonna tell, huh?’
‘She’s pregnant.’ The words came from her like they’d been pulled on strings.
Luke blinked, breaking the spell. ‘Well, that’s great.’
‘No, not great. It’s her fourth pregnancy in a year. She can’t carry past nine weeks. And this is nine weeks.’
‘Oh shit.’
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘But she’s OK?’
‘For now.’ She took another sip of her coffee, looking away and making a mental note to avoid further eye contact.
‘No wonder Brett was freaking.’
She looked back at him again. ‘No, he doesn’t know. I’m the only one. She’s not telling him till she gets the all-clear at twelve weeks. She says it isn’t fair to make him go through it all again.’
‘But it’s OK for her to go through it?’ Luke asked, incredulously.
‘I know! That’s just what I said!’ Cassie exclaimed, feeling vindicated. ‘Her view is, there’s no choice for her, but there is for Brett. She thinks she’s being kind. Crazy, right?’
‘Totally,’ Luke agreed, his eyes holding hers again and spinning them both back to another time, another place.
‘Well, that really does explain why you were so demented to get hold of her,’ he said finally, looking away first.
‘I wasn’t demented,’ she retorted with mock indignation. ‘I was a concerned friend.’
His eyes glittered with amusement. ‘Demented.’
‘Concerned.’
‘Demented.’
An exasperated smile tugged free from her and she joshed him in the ribs with her elbow, making him laugh. ‘Concerned.’