“I’m going to have to get a taxi.”
“Hang on.” Harper rose onto all fours, scanning the luxurious ivory-painted room. Eiley thought she was trying to pass gas until she said, “Do we have time to pack up?”
“No. No.” Eiley shook her head. “You two should just stay. Checkout’s tomorrow afternoon anyway, and there’s no point faffing.”
“We can’t just have a nice continental breakfast while you’re dealing with this!”
“I feel like we can. Possibly,” Cam said, still not having opened her eyes. “I really want a pistachio croissant.”
“What if I call Fraser?” Harper was already reaching for the phone under her pillow.
“Absolutely not!” Finally, Eiley found blurry white things that resembled shoes and slid them on her feet, then grabbed her purse from the couch. Outside, the loch was unfairly still, reflected moonlight providing a jagged strip of silver. The view she’d been looking forward to soaking in more of in tomorrow. She hadn’t even read a full bloody book.
But it was fine. She’d handle it. Cam and Harper still deserved their weekend. “I can sort this on my own. It’s my flat and my responsibility.”
And she was tired of bothering everyone else with her problems. Fraser, who was taking care of the kids this weekend, had spent a lifetime trying to shield her from anything bad, stepping in as the role of their father despite only being a young teen when he’d left. It wasn’t fair, and Eiley couldn’t keep relying on him. Besides, the children would be fast asleep. If she could wait until morning to tell them that something was wrong with their new home, she would.
“Eiley—”
“Go back to sleep!” she ordered, surprised to find that the authority in her voice only wobbled a little.
“You heard the woman,” said Cam into her duvet, hair strewn over her face so she was nothing more than a blob of orange poking out of the sheets.
When Harper hesitated, Eiley met her eye, begging: “Please. I’ve got this. You stay. I go.”
“Don’tIron Giantme!”
“No following,” Eiley finished, indeedIron Gianting Harper. They’d watched the animated movie with the kids three months ago, and then every weekend after because she – not Brook, Sky, or Saffron – was obsessed and always ended up in tears.
“Fine.” Harper sank back into the mattress. “Just text us when you get there so we know you’re safe. We’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Aye.” Eiley cast her a final, appreciative glance and then swept up as many of her belongings as she could find, leaving the lovely, lavender-scented safety of the room and heading downstairs towards the front desk.
Towards just another disaster on her long, long list of them.
As the cab pulled up outside Thorn & Thistle, Eiley’s stomach sank. The store had none of its usual homeyness. Instead, dancing white beams of torchlight broke through the windows and split the night, and beyond her autumn display, shadows manoeuvredaround the shop. In her panic, she’d sort of forgotten that she’d have to talk to people. At 2 a.m. In her pyjamas.
She’d only realised that she still wore her dinosaur-patterned sleepwear and luxurious bathrobe when the gruff cab driver had done a double take at the sight, and by then, it had been too late to change. She’d also slipped on odd shoes back in the hotel room: a fluffy complimentary slipper on one foot and a worn white trainer on the other.
Great.
She’d searched the bag she’d packed at least five times on the way here. In her haste, it clearly hadn’t occurred to her to find matching pairs, because all she’d come home with was her damp swimming costume and a bag of toiletries that, judging by the high-end skin care contents, belonged to Harper.
“Thanks so much.” Eiley paid the driver a small fortune and climbed out of the cab, feet gluing themselves onto the pavement. She wasn’t ready to go inside and see the damage. She’d been trying not to cry the whole ride back, convincing herself that it probably just sounded worse than it was. How much water could an old, unacknowledged storage tank even hold, anyway?
Enough, evidently, to summon a ladder-mounted fire truck and emergency response car, both of which were parked beneath the streetlight.
Stop being a coward, Eiley. You wanted to do this alone, so do it.
She scraped back her sleep-knotted hair, wondered for a millisecond if she should knock, first. Were the firefighters expecting her? Was she even allowed to go in unsupervised?
The smell of damp mixing with paper and ink made the decision for her. This was the place she loved. Her belongings, herchildren’sbelongings, were upstairs. She had every right to gauge the damage.
A fat droplet plopped on her nose as she stepped in, then another on the crown of her head. She looked up to find the ceiling tiles sagging, steady drips leaking from every crevice. Her lungs tightened; on the other side of that plaster was her living room.
With every step forward, her heart sank, feet sloshing through icy water and hair sticking to her dampening cheeks. The fabric of her odd shoes chafed her skin. In no time, she was soaked up to her ankles, the bottom of her pyjamas disappearing into the murkiness. And then her slipper disappeared, too, and never came back, leaving one foot bare.
Without warning, the world flashed white. She closed her eyes against the bright torch, now seared onto her retinas.
