‘It’s okay,’ he said, realizing that it really was. ‘I lied to you too. Mostly by omission, but that didn’t make it any more honest.’

She pressed her lips together briefly. ‘I wish you’d told me about all your struggles. It wouldn’t have changed anything, you know, about our relationship. I saw… that interview you did. You said you were doing better.’

‘A lot.’ He tried to smile. ‘There’s a stranger in my yard and I’m not freaking out, so I’d say that’s progress.’

‘A stranger…’ Anna looked away, nodding gently. ‘I suppose I deserve that. Especially after all you went through just to see me on New Year’s Eve, and I just…’ She trailed off, looking unbearably sad.

‘You were scared,’ he said, but it was a fact not a judgement.

‘I was terrified. Of you, of everything I felt.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Are you still?’

Anna nodded, but she stepped nearer. She looked up at him, right into his eyes. ‘Definitely. But I am certain of one thing… I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Brody. I don’t want to say it to you ever again.’ Tears filled her eyes, making her lashes dark and spiky. ‘Do you remember the first thing I ever said to you?’

‘You said, “I love you”.’ He looked down at the ground momentarily. ‘But you weren’t saying it to me. You were saying it to Spencer.’

‘But now I am saying it to you. Only, I didn’t want to say it down a phone line. I wanted to say it like this.’ She stepped even closer, so they were almost touching. He could see the hesitation in her eyes, the fear. ‘I love you, Brody. I was just too scared to let myself see it, and then when I did…’

He nodded. He understood the weird things fear could make a person do. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

He reached out, his fingers hovering near her face, aware he was about to touch her for the very first time. Slowly, he brushed her jaw, her cheek, felt the softness as she looked into his eyes and blinked away her tears. She brought her hand up and covered his, held it. She was smiling now.

He kissed her tears away, and when that was done, he kissed her properly. It had been so long since he’d made contact with another human being that the sensations were magnified. This didn’t just feel like his first kiss with Anna; it felt like his first kiss ever.

But then she smiled at him, and it was a memory direct from his dream all those months ago. The smile said: I know you. I am with you and for you. Always. Warmth flooded through him. This was definitely not a stranger.

‘Hello,’ she whispered through fresh tears, and her smile grew wider.

Brody smiled back. ‘Hello.’

Acknowledgements

First thanks have to go to my lovely editor, Emily Kitchin, who believed in me enough to want to publish this book after a few false starts – on my part, not hers – and has been unwavering in her enthusiasm for The Last Goodbye throughout the process, from the first idea to final manuscript. Dude, we finally got this one in the bag! Many thanks too, to my US editor, Liz Stein, and to Molly Gendell. I so appreciate your wisdom and insight. Between the four of us, we really have polished this story to a shine!