Even if it was already in tatters.
“It took me a long time to brave it,” Warren continued, “but I tried college and apprenticeships and I still had that itch to help people. I still thought of Ruth every single day. So I did. And the more fires I put out, the more I felt like Iwas reclaiming a part of myself and making my parents proud. Don’t get me wrong, there’ll always be a terrified wee boy inside me, but at least now he knows that the flames don’t always win.”
The awe she felt was big enough to fill Loch Teárlag. She was surrounded by strong people, but this … this was something else. “And now you’re rebuilding the house.”
He nodded. “I don’t want this place to be a horror story anymore. Before the fire, it was a place where I laughed and cried, a place full of music and love. We had too many bloody pets and on Sundays we sat down at the table with Mum’s home-cooked food. I want to bring it back. I want my own version of that, one that doesn’t burn down this time.”
“And you deserve it more than anyone I know.” Eiley raked back her hair, grieving for the boy who had stood on this hill and lost everything. The boy brave enough to rush into a fire to save his family. It wasn’t fair. It would never be fair. And she supposed it explained his obsession with rules, his need to control, even his brutal honesty with the school children.
“The kids I imagined running around here didn’t used to be anyone in particular,” he said. “Recently, they are. I imagined making daisy chains with Saff in the fields over the summer. Reading with Brook under that big oak tree behind the house. Painting with Sky in a bright, open kitchen.”
“Warren—”
“I know it’s wrong. They’re not my kids, and we’ve never been …” He shook his head, choking on something close to a sob. “I imagine you, Eiley. I imagine you curled up in oneof the windows, reading. I imagine you giving me hell over something ridiculous, and how it ends in us laughing. I imagine you taking care of me the way you did today after a shite shift, and me taking care of you, whether you like it or bloody not. We’d have farm animals, and you’d never have to worry about money or where your home is. The kids would never want for anything, and they’d never wonder about their dad, because I’d love them. I really would. In another life, one where you’re not always pulling away from me, I think we could have had that. Fuck, when I’m with you, when we’re together, when you’re not fighting me every step of the way, I think maybe we’resupposedto have that.”
The pelting rain suddenly felt too icy to stand, no longer a remedy, but just another thing that hurt. Eiley could imagine that future, too, if she really tried. But that was a fairy tale. It didn’t account for the parts in between: the arguments, the illnesses, the constant anxiety of not knowing how long it would last. It might start with something small, the way Cam and Sorcha’s disagreements did. Or they might just explode one day the way her parents had, one of them walking out never to be seen again. It might be an injury, a risk to his life. Or it might be like it was with Finlay: one day, he would decide that being with her was too difficult, that the kids were too much responsibility and he missed freedom and peace. Worse, that he didn’t know what he wanted, and she’d yo-yo around him as he tried to figure it out.
Right now, more than passion or exhilaration or unpredictability, she needed balance. She couldn’t guarantee that Warren would provide that when he made her feel anything but.
“I think … I think maybe you want me. But you need someone else. You should have someone else,” she said sadly. “Someone who doesn’t pull away. Someone who isn’t already damaged.”
He scoffed bitterly. “Right. Okay.”
He didn’t get it. Again.
“I understand why you’re so protective, Warren, but it’s just not something I can deal with right now. All of your rules, how strict you can be—”
“Myrules?” he finally exploded. “Eiley, I’ve been living by your rules since the moment we met!Youdecide when I’m allowed near you and your family. You’ve been pulling me in and then pushing me out, and I’ve let you. You don’t talk to me for weeks, then you wait for me in my place of work all night and fuck me like you’re bringing me back to life. You act likeI’mthe one controlling this, but it’syou!”
She tensed.
“You can’t just expect me to trust you.”
“Have I given you a reason not to?” he shot back. “Or is it just that you’re projecting all of the shitty things Finlay did to you onto me? Because half the time, it feels like I’m being punished for someone else’s mistakes.”
“Well, maybe that’s why we just won’t work.” Eiley’s teeth began to chatter. She turned towards her car, the fight finally seeping from her. Everything in her screamed to take it back, to stop, to just hold him and never let go. But he was right. She was too traumatised from her last relationship, and that meant she couldn’t be a good partner. The same way he couldn’t for her, because he wanted to hold on too tightly.
“Then why the fuck did you wait for me at the station?” Warren demanded. “Did you just want to torture me one last time?”
“Of course not!” she snapped.
But he was right. This would have been easier if she’d never fallen back into his arms. Maybe shehadbeen selfish last night. She hadn’t been thinking of their inevitable end, then, only the danger of his.
She curled her stiff fingers under the handle of her car door, ignoring the way her chin wobbled. “We can’t do this anymore.”
“No,” he muttered, “we can’t.”
She opened the door, casting him one last, rueful look before she turned her back on him for good. Despair frayed every inch of him, making him unrecognisable, raindrops clinging to his lashes and hair curling around his forehead. It wasn’t the last memory of knowing him, really knowing him, that she wanted, but it was all she would get.
“I’m sorry,” she croaked, then got in the car and drove away from the home that, in another life, might have been theirs.
37
The bookshop looked like an entirely different space when Eiley stepped into it on Monday morning. Any evidence of the flood had been erased, the computer, cash register, and stationery back on the counter and the shelves standing like neatly lined soldiers through the store. She was fairly sure that the furniture she’d built last week had not lookednearlythis perfect, and found evidence of the handy culprit in the gorgeous new furniture by the window nook.
Fraser.
He’d outdone himself with the colourful book-themed chair and desk, not to mention the rustic patchwork couch, which she instantly wanted to curl up on.
