“Is that a fire over in the hills?” she asked the cab driver, quietly so as not to wake the exhausted children.
“Looks like it, aye.”
Her heart leapt into her throat, thudding until it felt like she couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t that far from Galbreath Farm, and Warren would likely be up there tending to it. If it spread …
“Hope we don’t have to bloody evacuate,” the cab driver was moaning. “Last thing I need after a night shift. Good job it happened before fireworks night, eh?”
Beside her, Brook looked terrified, peering over Saff’s head. “What will happen, Mum?”
“The firefighters will put it out.” She smoothed his hair gently, hoping he didn’t feel her shake.
“Like Warren,” he said, eyes widening. “Do you think he’s scared?”
She squeezed her eyes closed, but the fire still flashed behind her lids. She couldn’t help but imagine him there, not knowing if the house he’d worked hard to build would survive. Not knowing ifhewould survive, not if it got out of control. “I think anybody would be scared, but firefighters are very brave and very experienced. They won’t let it hurt us, munchkin.”
They pulled up to the house after what felt like hours, and Mum dashed out in her slippers to meet them, balancing on one crutch. The smell of smoke was faint but impossible to ignore when she opened the car door to meet her.
“Eiley! What on earth are you doing home? You’re supposed to be in Glasgow!”
Eiley paid the driver and got out, Saffron still in her arms. She didn’t have the time, or the desire, to explain the exhausting day, this new fear pushing it all away. “Is everyone okay?”
If the fire spread any further downhill, the forest would be next, and Fraser’s cabin …
“Cam and Sorcha are inside with the kids, but I can’t get hold of your bloody brother. I don’t know if he’s even gone to Manchester with Harper or not!” When she saw the two sleeping children in the back of the cab, she lowered her voice. “Everyone’s wondering if we’ll have to evacuate. We’re lucky to be away from the woods, but …”
“We need to find Fraser,” Eiley’s voice rattled with fear. God, if something happened and she lost her brother, or Warren, or—
Warren.He should have been the last thing on her mind, but he kept inserting himself to the front of it like he belonged there. Would it be like this if she gave him a chance? Would she always be wondering whether he’d make it home in one piece? Were those scars just one of many incidents that might have ended badly?
“I’m going to get the kids into bed, and if we haven’t heard from him then, I’ll go and look,” Eiley decided.
Mum clucked her tongue. “Don’t be silly. You can’t go back out!”
“We need to know if he’s in the cabin, Mum!” She was already heading in with Brook and Saffron, and she looked back to find Myra gently waking a groggy Sky behind her while the cab driver emptied her suitcase from the boot.
Cam appeared in the doorway, the fierce distress on her dishevelled features throwing Eiley further off-kilter. Cam was never afraid. Even when she’d been in hospital, it had been everyone else who had worried for her. She’d laughed and joked through a bloody emergency C-section and haemorrhage.
There was no time to answer her questions, or even greet Sorcha and their children. Eiley remained composed only for as long as it took to put her children to bed, and then, when Fraser still didn’t pick up the phone twenty minutes later, she ignored Mum’s protests and dashed back out to her car.
She’d lost enough today already.
The flames hadn’t reached the cabin, and when she used her spare key, she found there was no one home, living room and bedroom both swathed in darkness. The empty Harper side of the wardrobe and the lack of coats on the hook suggested they’d gone to Manchester as planned.
Thank heavens for Harper. “Then answer your bloody phone,eejit!” she yelled at an abandoned plaid shirt, and then whirled to get back into her car.
She should have been relieved, but the fierce terror in her belly didn’t thaw as she clicked her seatbelt into place. She opened her phone just in time to see three texts and a missed call from Mum, who really liked poop emojis.
Fraser, Harp, and Bernard on their way to Manchester. Have shouted at him v loudly for making us worry. Come home!!!!
As Eiley leaned against the steering wheel, she stared at the blazing shards of the hilltop fire visible between the trees. If she could just check that Warren’s house wasn’t caught in it …
If she could make sure he was safe …
For once, driving was the least scary thing in her life as she reversed onto the road that would lead her to the old farm. Her mind raced with the worst possibilities: that he would lose the house he wanted to start a family in; that he’d been there when the fires broke out, and she would lose him.
As though he were hers to lose.
She’d wasted so much pointless time trying to push him away to protect her own broken heart. She’d taken him for granted. If something happened to him, he’d get hurt notknowing that her entire trip back to Belbarrow had been spent wondering if they were supposed to be together, because he was all the things Finlay had never been. Reliable, compassionate, selfless.
