‘Hm?’ He looked up at her. ‘Oh, sorry, lass. Just… thinking about all that time they’ve missed out on, being at each other’s throats. What would have happened, if one of them had died before they’d got their act together? That would have been terrible, wouldn’t it? Especially for the one left behind. Thinking that they should have said something, done something, while they had the chance. Wondering whether—’

He broke off, still staring at the cutters, and then just as abruptly looked up at her with a too-bright smile.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Good job they came to their senses when they did, in’t it?’

Rachel didn’t know what to say, so she stepped around the box and pulled Ron into a hug instead.

‘Now, now, lass,’ he rumbled with a chuckle. ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll have people gossiping about a double wedding. And what would young Toby have to say about us canoodling?’

‘Young Toby,’ she said, ‘can think whatever he likes.’

She went to pull away, but Ron held onto her, his lined face turning serious.

‘I know it’s not my place,’ he said, ‘so you’ll be within your rights to tell me to buzz off and do one for sticking my nose in like this, but… I know he cares about you. And it seems to me you care about him, too, or were beginning to. Whatever’s happened – whatever he said, or did… isn’t it worth trying again?’

Rachel gently extricated herself from his grip. She knew he meant well, but there was no way she could simply forget about the line that Toby had crossed in prying into her past. It still made her feel sick to think about it. Since that last conversation with Toby, she’d looked up every time the lighthouse door opened, and every single time she had wondered if it would be him, having found her at last. She knew that was unlikely, and even if it happened, she was a stronger person now than when she’d been married to Steven Harry. She’d never let anyone treat her that way again, least of all him. But trauma attaches to other trauma, and Toby bringing her buried past into the light of her present had put Rachel right back there, back to those days when she’d felt as if she had no future, no self, nothing at all to call her own. It was taking Rachel time to get over it, to regain the equilibrium she had fought so very hard and long to find. It wasn’t fair that she had to do this. It wasn’t fair that the man who had already taken up so much of her life was again dominating her waking thoughts and darker dreams. Though he hadn’t meant to, it was Toby who had done that, in the pursuit of something that had provided him, ironically, with a rosier future as a result. Rachel was angry, pure and simple. That Toby had also found a way to clear her name did not negate that, and if there was one thing that he’d been right about, it was that Rachel had every right to feel that rage.