I stand up, climb the cellar steps. Stop at the door and look down at the stars, the dark loom of the lighthouse. I think of the bright spring light above: green and white and pink and yellow.

‘Goodbye, Robert.’

And then I leave him in peace.

*

Will barely gets through the farmhouse door before I launch myself at him. He closes both arms tight around me even as he protests my kisses, my impatient fingers at his jacket buttons.

‘Hey, I’m filthy – Jesus.’

He says the last as I yank his jacket off over his head, taking his jumper with it. When I move on to his belt buckle, he laughs loud and pulls me up against him harder than before. Hard enough that for a wonderful moment I can’t even breathe.

‘Christ, Maggie,’ he says against my mouth. ‘If it’s eau de ewe turns you on, I’ll be enjoying my days in the fields a lot more from now on.’

I lean back and laugh – perhaps the first real laugh in a very long time. Cup his beautiful, warm face in my hands. I feel hot and awake and alive. And I know instinctively that none of it is bad. None of it is frightening. None of it is a harbinger of mania or delusion or psychosis. None of it is bad hope.

‘I’m going to help Charlie with his peat harvest.’

Will’s eyes widen. ‘You sure? It’s tough work.’

I shove against him; feel his laughter in the pit of my belly. ‘You think a city girl like me can’t hack it?’

He smiles, presses his forehead against mine. ‘I think you can hack anything.’

I kiss him once, fierce and quick. ‘I don’t want to go back.’

Will’s smile disappears and he goes very still.

My heart hammers a little harder. ‘I can freelance. Once Mum’s money runs out. I want to stay. Here. With you.’

Because whatever the truth was behind Robert’s ugly fate, it’s not going to be mine.

‘If you want me to?’ Because still, still, I’m too afraid to be happy.

‘If I want you to?’ Will shakes his head, his expression suddenly so stern that I wonder, with alarm, if I’ve read all of this completely wrong. ‘Maggie. It’s taken everything I’ve got not to ask you every day to stay.’

I press my palm to his chest, where his heart is hammering harder than mine. ‘I’ll be good for you too.’ My eyes sting. ‘I promise.’

All that sternness vanishes inside one of his slow, easy grins. ‘I love you, Maggie MacKay.’

And although it’s not the first time he’s said it, it’s the first time I let myself believe it.

‘I love you, Will Morrison.’ It’s the first time I’ve said it back.

CHAPTER 24

One month later, the first day of the peat harvest dawns clear and sunny. I walk down towards Blairmore without Will; the Morrison peat banks are out towards the Lodge and Big Beach. The bogs either side of the Coffin Road are already filled with dozens of distant figures, bending and rising, shouting across the otherwise still morning. The whole of Kilmeray is alive with people and activity, and although it feels strange and new, it also feels good, exciting.