* * *
‘Hey,’Nick called as he strode over the field at the back of Katie’s house towards Benji and Goodie. ‘Where did you two get to?’ His gaze fell to where her knife holster sat on her lower leg, hidden inside her boot, but as he frowned Goodie stumbled slightly on the uneven ground, her crutch slipping on the mud, and Nick ran to her side to hold her arm, all his suspicions wiped away with concern.
‘Benji was just pointing out the local wildlife,’ Goodie told him.
‘Really?’ Nick asked slowly.
‘Yep, I’m quite the ornithologist actually,’ Benji said, not skipping a beat. He was, just like Goodie, an accomplished liar. Nick’s eyes narrowed as he looked over at the lanky boy.
‘Right, what’s that then?’ he asked, pointing at a small brown bird hopping onto a molehill in front of them.
‘A dunnock,’ Benji said confidently; he’d read a book on birds last year, and, like Goodie, he had a photographic memory.
Nick sighed. ‘I don’t know if you two together is a good combination.’
‘Yeah, Mum and Dad reckon that too,’ Benji said, grinning at Goodie, then catching sight of his brothers playing football in Katie’s garden and sprinting off towards them.
‘What is it about you and that kid?’ Nick asked, smiling at Goodie as he half lifted her over a molehill.
She shrugged. ‘I first met Benji when he was eighteen months old and I was doing freelance work for his father. Benji could already speak in full sentences. After being around him in Rob’s office for all of half an hour he came up to me, pulled me down to his level, put his hand against my cheek and asked me: “Why are you sad? What happened to make you sad?” Just like that he asked me something nobody else would have dreamed of asking: cut through the bullshit to what he perceived to be the heart of the matter. He is exceptional.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him the truth. I told him that I wasn’t sad, that I didn’t feel much of anything at all. He asked what would make me happy and I told him I didn’t know.’
Nick opened the gate into Katie’s garden, then took Goodie’s hand now that they were on more even ground. Past the boys playing football on the lawn, Goodie could see Katie, Sam with Anya on his hip, and the boys’ parents Sarah (who was cuddling Katie and Sam’s new baby girl) and Rob laughing in the kitchen at what Katie was pulling out of the oven. Goodie waved to Geoff who was acting as far guard outside the house and he nodded back. After another month at Nick’s parents’ Goodie wanted to see Katie and thank her for going to Nick after she was taken; and she wanted to thank Rob for becoming part of her rescue team (since his wife, Sarah, had her fifth boy he had largely been UK-based, but had made an exception for Goodie). Goodie hated that she had put them in danger, and knew that there was never anything that would be enough to repay them. When she apologized to Sarah and Katie though, they both hugged her and told her not to be daft. There was, however, steel in Sarah’s eyes after she released Goodie and said: ‘Don’t do it again.’
Nick, it seemed, was not a fan of physical distance separating him from Goodie, so he’d come with her to Wales. Goodie stifled a laugh as she watched Sarah tip whatever sludge Katie had cooked into the bin. Last night Goodie had realized just how much Nick loved her as she watched him valiantly clear his plate of Katie’s attempt at lasagna. She was glad there wouldn’t be a repeat performance today: she could see Sam rifling through the takeaway menus.
Goodie tugged Nick to a stop before they started up the steps to the back door, and he turned to her. ‘You know I’m happy now, don’t you?’ He nodded and dropped her hand so that he could slip his arms around her waist and pull her to him.
‘I know, honey,’ he said into her hair.
‘You know it’s you, don’t you?’ she whispered, pushing her hands under his arms to move in closer. ‘You’ve made me happy. You’ve brought me back.’
* * *
Nick nearly chokedon his beer when she emerged from the bedroom of the penthouse. She was wearing a short silver dress with wide straps to hide the bullet wound to her shoulder. Her hair was clipped up on one side with a silver hair comb, her eyes were smoky and her lips pale. Before Goodie had really let him in he had thought she was stunning, but now with her smiling and happy, despite the limp and the cane she had to use, her beauty was almost otherworldly. He knew he wasn’t the only one to notice this. She’d attracted attention before, but now when she walked into a room all eyes were drawn to her immediately.
The press had gone wild for her since she’d moved back to London with him. He’d taken her out with Ed, Tilly, Bertie and Natasha for one meal in Soho and they’d been swamped with attention. Goodie was surprised the next week when all the photos were of her on Nick’s arm: she was used to seeing Natasha in print but not herself. She was initially ‘Mystery Blonde’, but to prevent anyone digging too deep Nick had allowed his new PR manager (Clive had long since slunk away) to play up her connection with Natasha and the NSWH Foundation. Her injuries were explained by a story about a car accident, but her name was trickier. She had no less than seven aliases to choose from, all of which had birth certificates, passports, the works. She chose the one with the longest, most unpronounceable surname, as this would be repeated and printed the least. But just when Nick was about to email the information across, she grabbed his hand and stopped him hitting send.
‘Change it,’ she’d said, ‘make it Anya – Anya Myshka.’ Nick had sat up in shock and frowned at her.
‘Is that safe?’
She shrugged. ‘There’s no harm. Obviously my surname was never really “little mouse”. My first name was lost in the system decades ago. I haven’t used it once since childhood.’
‘Does this mean I can call you Anya?’ he asked tentatively; he didn’t want to spark a reaction like the last time.
‘Of all people, I want you to call me that.’
He smiled at her, showing his dimple.
She was still a sucker for his dimple.
So it was a long time, and not before Nick had very thoroughly road-tested the reinstatement of her old name, before he actually sent that email.
‘You look amazing,’ he told her as she slipped on the flat, silver ballet pumps (her leg still wouldn’t allow her to wear high heels). She gave him a small smile as she straightened and leaned heavily on her stick, but he couldn’t miss the shadow that passed over her face. His own smile dipped as his mind was filled with the image of Goodie sitting with Arabella months ago:
