Escape to MacLeod’s Cove (MacLeod’s Cove #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Dan drew up in his hire car outside Lucy’s apartment and cut the engine.

He slumped back in the seat, eyes still fixed straight ahead — though he was not looking at the road.

Even the beauty of the evening light on the blue Tasman Sea, part of the great Southern Pacific Ocean, did nothing to penetrate the strange fog that refused to leave his brain.

It had settled in Washington, DC, four months earlier and had never left.

A short, humourless laugh escaped him. Refused to leave? The truth was, he refused to let it leave. Because he didn’t want to think about what had happened, and what a stupid, trusting fool he’d been. It was a clear lesson. And he’d learnt it well. There wouldn’t be a repeat.

He heaved a deep sigh, and glanced up at the wrought iron railings outside Lucy’s apartment.

He’d received a summons from Lucy. He could have ignored it, but then it had to come sooner or later.

He knew what she wanted… what all his family wanted.

They wanted to know what had happened to make him leave his dream job and dream life in the US and not want to return.

Even though he wasn’t sure he was ready to divulge to his family the reasons for his sudden departure from the life he’d loved, he could no more resist Lucy’s call than breathe. His youngest sibling had always managed to twist him around her little finger.

He got out of the car and glanced around.

The village hadn’t changed at all since he was a kid.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Part of him liked the familiarity — it was strangely reassuring — but another part of him found it faintly depressing.

Over ten years on and it felt as though he’d made no progress at all.

He pressed the buzzer and Lucy answered. ‘Come on up!’ She popped the door open and he stepped inside the stairwell which led to her apartment.

‘Dan!’ said Lucy, opening the door wide.

‘You sound surprised to see me.’ He stepped past her into her living room. ‘You summoned me, and so here I am.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t expect to see you at this hour.’

‘What’s so special about the hour?’ he asked, heading straight for the kitchen and opening the fridge.

‘It’s after six on a weekday. The time most people are at home, eating, watching the news, wrangling kids — that kind of thing.’

‘I don’t have kids,’ he said, pulling out an open bottle of wine and reaching for a glass.

‘Clearly. And neither do I.’

He took the first glass he could find and frowned at its fineness. He held it up to the light. Old crystal. Typical Lucy.

‘So…’ continued Lucy, ‘how are you?’

The interrogation had begun. ‘Yeah, great thanks, Luce.’ He gave her a quick hug because he knew she’d expect it. He never seemed to be in a hugging mood these days. He suspected she noticed by the narrowing of her eyes.

‘What’ve you been up to?’

He shot her a sideways look, trying to assess how serious this interrogation was going to get. Perhaps he should have stayed in Wellington. But he was here now, so he might as well get it over with. ‘Nothing much. So, this is why you want to see me? To give me the third-degree?’

She ignored the question. ‘Everything OK?’

He sighed. ‘Who’s asking? You or Mum? Or Jen, come to that?’

She sighed back. ‘What gave me away?’

‘You. You’d be a hopeless spy. You always say what you think, and you’re so easy to read.’

She scowled, clearly not liking to think she was so transparent.

‘Plus, you asked three questions in a row. You usually stick to one.’

‘Maybe I have no choice but to ask more than one. Because if I’m an open book, you’re so damned secretive no one knows what the hell is going on in your life.’

‘And that, dear sister, is exactly how I like it.’ Which was ironic considering it was secrets which had driven him home in the first place.

‘I don’t believe you.’

He ignored her and poured himself some wine before angling the bottle towards her glass.

‘No thanks,’ said Lucy. ‘I need a clear head.’

He looked at her more closely for the first time. He’d been so wrapped up in his own thoughts he hadn’t noticed the glamorous clothes she was wearing, nor that she was fully made-up and smelt heavenly. ‘You’re going out.’

‘I am,’ she said, stepping forward and resting her hands on his shoulders. ‘Don’t I get a proper hug?’

His kid sister couldn’t be resisted. ‘Sure,’ he said with a smile.

But he really wasn’t in the mood. In the end it was Lucy doing the hugging and he was the huggee. He sat down on the sofa with relief.

‘Well done for submitting to it,’ she said wryly.

‘Sorry.’ He grimaced. ‘I’m out of practice.’ He took another sip of the wine, enjoying the cool numbing effect. He was drinking more than usual, but he liked how it blunted the edges of a reality he no longer felt he fitted into.

‘That’s no good.’

He focused on his wine and his thoughts as Lucy went into the kitchen and returned with a plate of food and a couple of slices of sourdough bread. His mouth watered. Lucy was the best cook.

‘Here,’ she said, setting the plate on the coffee table beside him. ‘Eat before you drink any more.’

‘Thanks. I’m hungry.’

‘I thought you might be. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have turned up at my door just before dinner.’

‘Aren’t you eating?’

‘No, I’m eating out.’

He raised an eyebrow as he buttered a piece of bread. ‘Where?’

‘What are you, my keeper?’

‘I’m your big brother; same thing. So… big date?’

‘A date. Too early to tell if it’s big or not. Not enough information about him.’

He pulled out his phone. ‘I’ll do some digging if you like. What’s his name?’

‘Oliver,’ she said, as she turned away, rummaging in her capacious handbag and pulling out her keys.

Dan rolled his eyes. ‘Surname?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You don’t know the full name of the person you’re meeting?’

‘I know he looks good, talks good, and he makes me feel good.’

Dan shrugged and slid his phone back into his pocket. ‘Oh well, in that case, I guess you have all you need to know.’

‘I guess I do.’

As he munched on the salad he watched her check her reflection in the mirror.

From the satisfied smile on her face he could tell all was well.

He walked up behind her and caught sight of his own reflection beside Lucy’s.

They looked similar with their blonde hair — the only blondes in the family.

But Lucy looked exquisite and he, well he just looked exhausted, his eyes dull. He quickly looked back to her.

‘You look gorgeous. Hope he’s worth the trouble.’

‘Time will tell,’ she said with a smile, turning to him and placing a kiss on his cheek. ‘I’m off in a minute. I want to call in on Mum before I go. Stay and finish your dinner.’

‘Cool.’ He looked around with relief, suddenly seeing the apartment as a refuge, especially if he’d be on his own.

He loved his little sister but he preferred his own company at the moment.

‘I think I will.’ He stepped out onto the small balcony that overlooked the village street and glanced around. Lucy joined him.

From up here he could see the sea at the end of the street one way, and the sharply rising escarpment at the other.

It gave him a different perspective on the place.

Lucy was a queen in this world. Two doors down was her café, and the family home of MacLeod’s Cottage wasn’t far away.

And, in between, the village was full of friends, relatives and strangers.

Or, as Lucy would see them, people who were yet to be friends.

Not for the first time, Dan wondered why Lucy loved keeping her world constrained.

For someone so extrovert he couldn’t help thinking she could conquer the world if she wanted to.

But she evidently didn’t want to. And he wasn’t sure why not.

‘You’ve got a nice place,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘You’re about the only member of my family who thinks so.’

He grunted thoughtfully before turning to her. ‘It’s like a retreat. One storey up, above it all. A place to escape.’

This was the closest he could get to admitting to his family — or anyone come to that — that he’d returned to MacLeod’s Cove to escape a world in which he didn’t fit. He couldn’t imagine feeling ready to tell Lucy what he’d escaped from. Nor its effect on him. Not until he felt whole again.

But she made no response, other than to rake her fingers through her hair, as if trying to figure out what he wasn’t saying, and twist around to glance at the clock. His heart sank as she turned back to him. Evidently she’d decided she wasn’t in a rush.

‘And why, may I ask, do you need to retreat from the world?’

The thing Lucy didn’t understand — couldn’t understand — was that Dan hadn’t just come back to MacLeod’s Cove. He’d come apart.

He shrugged and didn’t answer. Perhaps silence would get her to leave. Behind him, Lucy was watching him far too closely.

He could feel it — the weight of her concern, the way it pressed between his shoulder blades. She’d always been like that. The observer. The one who noticed the things no one else wanted to say out loud.

‘What happened, Dan?’

Her eyes searched his face with the kind of attention he was used to from politicians and journalists — except Lucy’s interest wasn’t transactional.

It was worse than that. It was love. And he wasn’t ready for that.

He needed to heal, to have his faith restored in humanity again before he opened himself up to love.

Otherwise he thought the little that was left of himself might disappear altogether.

He glanced at her with an expression which he hoped conveyed innocence. ‘About what?’

‘You. You left for the US confident, cocky, with the world at your feet. And you stayed like that for years. But now? You’re back, you look shell-shocked half the time, and you don’t seem in any hurry to return to your home or your job.’

This time he kept his gaze directly ahead, out to sea. Beyond which was a world he didn’t want to re-enter. ‘I’m not going back.’