‘Sorry.’ He had trailed a finger over her collarbone before reluctantly dragging his jeans on.

‘Can I come?’ she had asked.

‘It’s freezing.’

‘You can warm me up afterwards.’ She was already dressing, knowing that he didn’t want to be apart from her any more than she did from him.

The horse was one he’d visited before; its health had been deteriorating for months.

‘It’s time,’ the owner had said, tears in her eyes.

Aidan had told Lucy to wait in the truck – he didn’t want her to see him euthanize an animal – but she’d come into the stables, kneeled beside the terrified horse and stroked his nose over and over, soothing him with kind words until his nostrils stopped flaring and his eyes no longer bulged with fear. Slowly, tentatively, the horse rose onto shaky legs.

‘That’s impossible,’ Aidan had said.

‘Nothing is impossible, trust me.’ Lucy had kissed him and he’d told the owner they should wait twenty-four hours before making a final decision. The following day the horse was walking, trotting, cantering.

Recovered.

A week later, Lucy was by his side while he tended to a mare in distress, her labour interminable. Nothing was going the way it should.

‘The foal will be stillborn,’ he told Lucy. ‘If you want to leave.’

She had shaken her head, tears in her eyes. ‘Come on.’ She softly petted the horse. ‘You’ll be okay. Trust me.’ She whispered words of encouragement over and over until the foal slipped into the world, perfectly healthy.

So Aidan believes in miracles. He has seen them.

And that’s what he wishes for Kieron.

Trust me. He hears Lucy’s whispered words. It seems foolish to think she knows better than Mr Peters, the man with thirty years’ experience in this field, but what if she’s right?

She’s always been the strong one. The glue that sticks their little family together, but they’re becoming unstuck and he doesn’t know how to hold them in place.

Kieron sick. Lucy falling apart. Connor sullen and uncommunicative.