Contents (57)
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Sharon Gosling
Completely.
She hated him, didn’t she? Always had.
He started walking, trying to calm his spinning mind.
But the thing was…
Ezra headed for home, thinking about the last time he’d seen Edie. It had been a few days earlier, when Rachel had walked in on him sorting out that splinter his neighbour had got from Georgette’s pen. She’d run out of his place as if he’d come at her with a branding iron, and he’d seen neither hide nor hair of her since. In truth, Ezra had been trying to put the encounter out of his mind, but he’d not quite been able to let go of that moment. It had unsettled him, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.
Sitting there, with Edie’s hand in his, with her so close, watching her in profile as she had turned her head to look around the strange country of his kitchen, he had been reminded of the first moment he’d seen her so many years before. She’d opened the front door of the Corner Cottage as he’d been carrying boxes into his new home. The load he’d had in his arms at that moment had been heavy, a box full of books, but one glance at Edie Strang had thrown off his step. She was arrestingly beautiful, this new neighbour of his, with her hair already turning silver, with her high cheekbones, with the piercing green of her eyes and her wide, easy smile. She’d welcomed him to Newton Dunbar, asked if he needed any help, and when he’d said no, invited him to knock at her door later for a drink.
Somewhere, over the course of the past fifteen years of recrimination and mutual insults, he’d forgotten how they had started – as friends, but always, surely, with the distinct possibility of something more. When things had turned sour back then, he’d been forced to assume that he’d been wrong about that, that Edie had never seen him through anything more than her slightly snobbish artist’s eye, a curiosity, perhaps, an oddity for distant observation. Recently, though – and he wasn’t sure when it had happened, or even quite what had happened, this assumption of his had been challenged somewhat. And now, with what he’d just overheard…
But no, it was ridiculous to even think it. Ron and Gilly were mistaken.
Ezra unlocked his front door and made his way into the kitchen, reaching for the kettle as he thought over the subtle change that seemed to have begun between them over the past few weeks.
That night that Gilly had made them sit together, for example. Edie had almost jumped out of her skin when he’d taken her hand, looking at him straight in the eyes in a way he couldn’t ever remember her doing before. They’d looked at each other, really looked, unable and perhaps, just perhaps, unwilling to turn away.
And then there was that weird encounter a few days ago, when they’d ended up in his kitchen. She’d come through the gate and stared at him for a full minute – stared as if she’d never seen him before – and there had been a second there when Ezra had been sure she’d been blushing, though he couldn’t imagine why. And then there was the two of them, sitting so close together, her hand in his and the two of them at peace for once. There had been a second, right before Rachel had interrupted, when—