Chapter 34 Tilda
TILDA
The cottage smells of fresh paint. I open the windows to air it out and head to the back garden, sitting on the little wall, absent mindedly plucking petals from a daisy I found in the lawn.
I try and tell myself I’m proud of myself for making the right decision, but I’m still terrified I’ve made the wrong one, but maybe that’s part of being human.
I look up at a dark cloud that’s blown overhead.
Flora dashes into the kitchen barking and I hear a knock at the door a moment later. When I open it, Susan is standing there with a paper bag tucked under one arm and a floral scarf slipping off her shoulder. The sun is shining, but the rain is starting to fall.
“Scones,” she says briskly, handing me the bag and readjusting her scarf. She looks at me with a frown. “Are you alright?”
I nod. “One of those days.”
She purses her mouth thoughtfully. “You turned down the Glen Mhor offer.”
“How did you know about it?”
She laughs. “This is Benruar, my dear, there’s not much that stays secret for long.”
I press my lips together. I suspect that if Finn and I are anything to go by, there are probably plenty of secrets on the island that have gone undiscovered for years.
“I don’t know if it was brave or stupid.”
Susan takes her scarf off her shoulders and shakes it out, then catches it by the corners and folds it in half, and then in half again. She places the square onto the table and smooths it out, then looks up at me over the top of her glasses. “Sometimes they’re one and the same thing.”
I beckon her into the kitchen, giving a wobbly laugh. “I keep wondering what—what my dad would have thought. He loved this place.”
“As do you.” She smiles. “I kept the cottage clean and tidy in the hope that one day you’d come back and see for yourself what your dad loved about the place.”
“It was you.”
She raises her brows. “I assumed you’d probably worked it out, but yes. I knew one day you’d be back.”
My eyes prickle at the thought of her slipping the rose-scented sheets into the drawers and clearing out the cupboards after my dad died. That should have been my job.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Gordon was a good friend to me. It was my pleasure.”
I sigh and wipe my eyes. “I let him down.”
“Nonsense. As I said to you once before, we’re none of us without fault. You’re here now, and he’d be glad about that.”
I nod. “But I can’t stay here forever.”
Her brows lift. “Can you not?”
“And do what?” I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Well, there’s plenty gardening work to be done, and I hear Amy isn’t coming back. She’s staying on the mainland with her mum. So, I would imagine you’d have a job at Benruar, if you didn’t find working alongside Finn a little bit too close for comfort.” She gives me a sly look.
“What do you mean?”
Susan says nothing, but picks up her scarf and shakes it out, wrapping it around her shoulders. “Anyway, I had better get off. I have knitting club at five.” She whisks out of the room, leaving me standing there feeling faintly embarrassed.
I head upstairs to look at the bedroom situation.
I can’t keep sleeping at Benruar, not now everything is sorted.
And if Susan is dropping hints, I guess our accidental late sleep-in must have been noticed by Georgia, and—oh god, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.
I’m supposed to be setting up a business back home in Glasgow.
I pull out my phone to text Poppy for some moral support when there’s another knock at the door. Susan must’ve forgotten something.
“Hang on,” I call, running down the stairs.
I open the door and Finn’s standing there with rain in his hair, his shirt damp at the shoulders. There’s a rainbow behind him, curving out across the harbour.
“Hi,” I say, giving an awkward little wave.
He cuts me off, stepping inside, the door wide open. His jaw is set but his eyes are somehow blazing and gentle at the same time.
“You disappeared.”
I nod. “I felt a bit… like I wasn’t sure if I belonged.”
“What?” He looks at me, confusion written on his face.
I shrug. “The community stuff, the let’s all beat Glen Mhor, all of it—it’s amazing, but—”
Finn takes a breath and cages me with his arms so he’s looking down at me in the hallway with a bemused smile on his face.
“I’ve come here to tell you, because I realised it was insane not to.”
“Tell me what?”
His mouth turns downward in a half-smile, and he puts a finger to my lips. “If you could stop interrupting for one minute, I can explain.”
I nod behind his finger. My brain feels like it’s one of those mad pictures with loads of things flying around, like some sort of weird tornado.
“I know I said I wanted you to stay, but I don’t mean as a gardener.”
My lips part in protest as he flexes his fingers in mine, silencing me.
“You are a very good gardener, Tilda. The best I’ve ever had.” His eyes spark with mischief.
“Is that so?”
“Without question. But the thing is I would like you to stay because I love you.”
He looks down at my hand in his. “Obviously I-I realise that you might…” He pauses, stumbling over his words for the first time in all the time I’ve known him.
“I love you, too,” I say, and I catch his other hand. We both look at each other as if we’re not sure what to do next.
Finn clears his throat. “Right.”
I start to laugh. “I think at this point perhaps you might want to kiss me. You don’t normally have a problem with that bit.”
He catches my chin and tips my face up, looking down at me with an expression so tender that I feel my eyes prickle.
“I don’t,” he says finally. “But I do have a problem with the fact you’re leaving, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“About that,” I say but I don’t get any further than that, because he’s kissing me as if he’s been waiting years, not hours, to do it.
I realise after a while that I can hear someone coughing politely and I pull away, catching Finn’s wrist in an attempt to distract him.
“I think it’s time we christened your bed,” he continues, his voice gruff in my ear.
Another cough, sharper this time, gets his attention.
“If you wouldn’t mind waiting until I get my purse,” says a teasing voice from the doorway, “I would be very grateful.”
A slightly pink faced Susan is standing on the front step.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, “but I need to pay for the wool delivery this evening, or I wouldn’t trouble you.”
“I do apologise.” Finn steps aside, waving her in with impeccable manners. “Be my guest,” he says politely.
I scrunch my face up in embarrassment and trail after her into the kitchen where her purse is sitting on the table.
“Ah, there it is.” She picks it up and gives me a conspiratorial smile, looking far younger than her years.
“I’ll leave you two to it.” She taps a finger to the side of her nose.
“I think your father would be delighted,” she adds in a not-very-subtle stage whisper.
“Have a lovely evening,” she says, pulling the door firmly closed behind her.
We both collapse in peals of laughter.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I say, catching my breath. “But I think Susan may have temporarily killed the moment.”
Finn tips his head back against the wall, still grinning. “Her timing is impressive, I’ll give her that.”
I groan and cover my face with my hands. “If we stay here, the whole knitting club will be doing drive-bys on the way home to see if the bedroom light is on.”
Finn takes my hands, gently pulling them away from my face as he looks down at me. “I couldn’t care less.” He cups my face with one hand, the other sliding down my back to pull me close. “I know you’ve got a million reasons to go home to Glasgow.”
My throat tightens. “Finn—”
“I know it’s asking a lot.” His face clouds for a moment, and he looks younger, almost vulnerable.
I shake my head, feeling the rough skin of his hand against my cheek. “I’ve wanted to stay for—I think I was too scared to admit it.”
Something shifts in his expression. “Scared of what?”
“Of wanting something I didn’t think I could have. Of putting down roots and having them ripped up again. Or… admitting how I felt about you.”
His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head up as he moves his face towards mine. And then he’s kissing me, slow and deep, and achingly tender. It’s not the desperate kisses we’ve shared before, but something different.
“Upstairs,” he says against my mouth.
“But—” I try to protest, waving an arm in the direction of the window by the door, but he catches my hand and pins it up against the wall, smiling against my mouth.
“Upstairs, or I’ll take you here in the hallway and really give them something to talk about.”
He pulls me upstairs and we make it into the bedroom. I throw off the covers from the bed as Finn strips off, tossing his clothes so they land on the rungs of the paint-splattered ladder.
“I love you,” he says, covering my body with his. His hands map my body like he’s memorising me – the curve of my waist, the soft skin of my upper thigh. Every touch feels like a claim.
When he finally slides inside me, his eyes lock on mine.
“Okay?” he asks, always checking, always careful.
“Perfect,” I breathe, and I mean it. His mouth turns up in a half smile as he shifts his weight, moving slowly, building something between us that feels different somehow, more about the connection than the act itself.
His hands find mine, our fingers lacing together.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs, and I’m not sure if he means right now, or forever.
“I will.”
The pleasure builds like a slow wave, rising with each movement, our breath coming faster until eventually it crashes over us, my name on his lips and his eyes holding mine, grounding me.
Afterwards, we lie on the unmade bed, tangled together, my fingers trailing lazily through the hair on his chest. The rain has stopped, and sunlight slants through the window, painting everything gold.
“Stay,” he says again, softer this time.
I press a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “I’m not going anywhere.”