And Fin thought how completely natural it would have been, and how immediately embarrassing. He laughed. “Remember how I dropped that sack of crabs off the cliff on top of you girls sunbathing down here?”

“I remember slapping you so hard I hurt my hand.”

Fin grinned ruefully. “I remember that, too. I also remember you were topless at the time.”

“Damned peeping Tom!”

He smiled. “And I recall making love to you among the rocks back there, and skinny-dipping in the ocean afterwards to cool down.” When she didn’t react he turned to look at her and saw a distant look in her eyes, thoughts transporting her to some far-off place and time.

They were almost at the boat shed now. It loomed out of the darkness like a portent of past and future pain, and he put his hand lightly on her shoulder to turn her back the way they had come. Already the sea was washing up over their footprints, erasing any history of their ever having passed this way. He left his arm around her shoulder and felt her lean in to him as he steered her a little further up the beach, away from the water.

They walked in silence for almost half its length until they stopped, by some mutual unspoken consent, and he turned her towards him. Her face was in shadow, and he put a finger under her chin to turn it up to the light. At first she wouldn’t meet his eye.

“I remember the little girl who took me in hand that first day at school,” he said. “And walked me up the road to the Crobost stores and told me that her name was Marjorie, but that she preferred her Gaelic name of Marsaili. That same little girl who decided that my English name was ugly, and shortened it to Fin. Which is what everyone has called me for the rest of my life.”

She smiled now, a smile touched by sadness, and finally met his eye. “And I remember how I used to love you, Fin Macleod.” Moonlight shimmered in the tears that brimmed in her eyes. “Not sure I ever stopped.”

He leaned in, then, until their lips touched. Warm, tentative, uncertain. And finally they kissed. A soft, sweet kiss full of everything they had once been, and everything they had since lost. His eyes closed, and the regrets and passions of a lifetime washed over him.

And then it was over. She stepped back, breaking free of his arms, and looked at him in the dark. Searching eyes full of fear and doubt. Then she turned and walked away towards the rocks. He stood for a moment watching her go, then had to run to catch her up. When he did she said, without breaking stride, “What did you find out about my dad?”

“I found out that he’s not Tormod Macdonald.”