Chapter 41
The field on the edge of town teemed with locals and tourists alike, leaving Eiley reluctant to get out of her car. Was a fireman, or any man, really worth braving the crowds, and worse, the noise?
She turned off the dulcet tones of a romance audiobook narrator, the likes of which she’d hoped would provide her with some confidence but had only served to smudge her mascara as she’d reached a particularly angsty bit.
She looked at what was pulling all the crowds.
The burning bonfire at the centre of the commotion spewed plumes of smoke into the indigo sky, the lick of flames reminding her again of the wildfire; the fear she’d felt when she’d imagined losing Warren, or even just his home.
If he was as wrong for her as she’d wanted to believe, would she really have searched for him that night? Waited for him until morning? And had slow, hot sex in the shower?
It was enough to motivate her into action. She wiped her eyes in the rearview mirror, tutting at the splotches which refused to be hidden even beneath Harper’s borrowed makeup, and then stepped onto the muddy soil.
She should have brought wellies, she soon realised as she sank into the crowd …
and the mud. The influx of visitors matched with the recent rain had left the oversaturated field in swamp territory, and the bottom of her jeans were soon coated with a band of muck.
All around, families thronged, children’s faces painted as they queued for fairground rides and food trucks.
Eiley wished she could be the type of person to enjoy such chaos.
Finlay would always call her a misery guts for wanting to go home early when she felt anxious and exhausted by the mayhem.
But tonight, she didn’t have to pretend she was here for anything other than one reason, one person.
Maybe she was finally ready to live life on her terms.
Then she saw it, its red livery part-beacon, part-warning. The fire engine was parked nearby, causing her to hasten her steps. The firefighter idling by the front of the truck in glowing uniform left anxiety rattling through her, but she refused to give into it this time.
She soon realised that the figure was too short to be Warren.
“Nate,” she called, searching for his usual partner as she approached.
“All right, Eiley?” Nate sported his welcoming smile, which she hardly deserved after causing him such trouble the night of the fire. “I didn’t think I’d see you tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to come. Where is he?” she blurted impatiently, and hoped Nate didn’t think her rude.
He scratched his head. “You’re not here to give him a hard time about his little gift, are you? He’s done his best, Eiley. He thought you’d like it. Didn’t want the kids to think he’d just vanished even though …”
She frowned. Had she been so terrible to him that Nate assumed she was angry about the hamper?
Her stomach twisted, knowing the answer was probably yes.
“I loved it. I wanted to thank him. To tell him …” She frowned, looking back at the wild orange glow of the bonfire again. “Why isn’t he here? Shouldn’t he be telling those poor kids over there about the hazards of smoke inhalation or something?”
He surely hadn’t missed the opportunity to lecture the entire village about why they should keep their distance from the fire, or what might happen if a firework was set off the wrong way.
She could practically feel second-hand concern on his behalf.
What about the burning lungs Brook had warned of?
The world was so much better, so much safer, for having Warren in it, even if she’d been slow to see it.
Nate clearly thought the same, because he laughed. “I know. I wondered if I should call the doctor when he told me he was taking the night off.” And then, he gave a knowing smile. “Perhaps he might be working on taking a step back, letting some of us shoulder the responsibilities for a change, eh?”
Eiley wrapped her arms around herself, the cacophony of fairground rides and laughter making her brain fuzzy. “So, you don’t know where he is?”
A shake of his head. “Sorry. He said something about needing some space, so my guess is he’s parked up with his van somewhere quiet.”
Eiley shifted, unsure whether Nate was covering for his friend.
She knew he might already have moved on, perhaps with Blair.
She’d prepared a second speech in case, then ripped it up when it had sounded a bit too Meredith Grey asking McDreamy to pick her, choose her, love her, a quote she only knew about thanks to Harper’s many forwarded TikTok videos.
She couldn’t help but slump at the thought that she might not see him tonight. Had the hamper been some kind of goodbye, an attempt at closure? What if he hadn’t taken tonight’s bonfire watch because he didn’t want to see her in town, or ever again, and this was his kind way of showing it?
Somewhere close by, the first firework screeched through the air, and Eiley plugged her ears with her fingers. “That’s my cue to leave,” she shouted over the crackle. “Thanks anyway, Nate.”
Nate stopped her. “Eiley?”
“Hm?”
“Tell me you intend to put him out of his misery? He’s a right sap when he’s heartbroken.”
Eiley hesitated, her hope renewing. “He’s … heartbroken?”
“Oh, aye. Pathetically.”
Which meant it wasn’t too late to fix it, she decided, already turning to go.
Warren rested his back against the railing of the scaffolding, the stars blinking through fine wisps of cloud above him. Between him and them stretched an almost completed roof. By the new year, he might actually have a home. Or a house, at least.
He offered a sombre smile to the slate roof tiles, imagining the pride his parents would feel to see the farmhouse as something more than ashes again.
He’d tried to maintain some of the old structure, to mirror the way it had once looked, with its traditional grey stone masonry and graceful proportions.
He tried not to think about the part that would come after the work was all done: wandering the rooms on his own, cooking for only himself. Maybe he’d get a dog or a home gym.
But then what?
In the lowlands, a firework burst into the sky, forming a spiralling constellation of golds, silvers, and pinks.
He turned to watch, wondering if Eiley and the kids had enjoyed their night, or whether those silent fireworks were another piss-poor idea he shouldn’t have bothered with.
She’d probably had plans with the family.
“Just stop, Warren,” he muttered to himself, and tried to enjoy the display.
Then, instead of another burst of fireworks, headlights broke through the darkness that wrapped around the farmhouse, and he peered in an attempt to identify the driver, or at the very least the car.
When he saw the Clio, he froze. As she got out, he tried to call her name, but his voice cracked.
“Warren!” she yelled into the empty house, oblivious.
“I’m here,” he said as he found his voice and stepped out of the inky dark above her.
She startled, tilting her head to finally see him. Her face was cast in shadows, outline limned by the headlights. “Warren,” she whispered again, reverently this time.
He climbed down the steps, legs weak enough to make the scaffolding feel unsafe.
“What are you doing here?” He wasn’t in the mood to do this again. To find another burst of hope only to later realise there was none.
From the passenger seat, Eiley produced a huge bag of assorted sweets and a couple of sparklers.
“I’m trying to make a romantic grand gesture.”
That word, romantic , felt cruel after all they’d been through. “I don’t know what that means. If this is about the basket, you don’t need to. You don’t owe me anything, okay?”
“Warren, I owe you everything ,” she argued desperately.
“I know that I messed most of this up. I know I made it a hundred times more difficult than it needed to be. I know you deserved better. I was so afraid of falling for you that I made it my mission to push you away, and even then, I did a terrible job of it!”
Warren swallowed thickly, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “You don’t need to—”
“Shush a minute!” she cried, stunning him back into silence. “Thank you. I just need you to listen to me.” She paused, then added: “Please.”
He waited. “All right. Listening.”
Finally, on a shuddering breath, she said, “I didn’t think that I’d ever be able to trust someone again after Finlay.
Especially not with the kids. I mean, most lads I’ve met wouldn’t want a sad single mum who can barely support herself.
At least, that’s what I thought. And then you came along, and you reminded me that I’m still a person beyond all the chaos.
I don’t think I wanted to believe it. I think believing it meant finally accepting that I didn’t deserve the hurt Finlay put me through.
That I’d chosen the wrong person to love, and it never had to be that way.
It was all for nothing, and worse, it was my fault for accepting it.
You make everything that he failed at look so easy.
I think I wanted you to see the worst parts of me because I didn’t feel like I deserved someone like you. ”
It killed him that she’d ever thought that. All he’d ever wanted was for her to see all of the good she deserved. All of the ways she could be loved. He wanted to say as much, but she cast him a warning stare, and he shut his mouth again.
“But it didn’t matter how hard I tried to stop it. I fell for you anyway. Harper said that there’s this knowing that comes with love, and I knew. I knew so much that I stood in a window and gawped like a wee moron the first time I saw you across the road.”
“Finally, you admit it,” he teased quietly, but really, his heart was stuttering over the other part.
The love part. He’d known, too. His first sighting of her had been all sunlight, and he’d held onto it: a cog that had never turned in time with the rest of his body suddenly clicking into place.
He hadn’t minded taking on her anger because he knew he was the only one who really got to see it.
In the end, it had only made their hours-long conversations and the gradual reveal of her gentle nature all the more worth it.
He’d had to earn it, and he’d been hellbent on doing just that.
“I’m so sorry that I kept making you feel like you were the problem. It was me. I was healing. I still am. But god, it has been a lot easier to do since you walked into the bookstore with pizza.”
He smiled, throat clogging with emotion. This sense of belonging was what he’d been trying to chase in the bricks and mortar behind him. And as much as he would love the house once it was built, it was Eiley who had filled the cracks in his heart.
“What changed? Why now?” Why not before, when he’d bared his heart to her, told her that this house could be hers, too?
“I realised I could hide behind every excuse in the book but the idea of never giving us a real chance was more terrifying than the risk of getting my heart broken. Another bit of Harper wisdom. I told myself I was letting you go because I loved you, because I thought it was noble. But I finally realised it was just sabotage. And I think maybe I owe it to myself to find happiness. I just … I really hope I’m not too late. ”
He emptied her hands of the sweets and sparklers so that he could take her hands. “Eiley, you could show up at my door in fifty years’ time, and it still wouldn’t be too late.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he whispered, the gap between them and tucking her hair behind her ear.
Between them, the fireworks continued to burst, leaving the night sky a smoky, velvety purple.
“But you need to know those things you didn’t like about me are still here.
I’m always going to want to keep you safe, even if it makes me an overbearing arse.
I’m trying to be better, but I know what it’s like to lose you now, and fuck, I never want to again. ”
“And I might sometimes accidentally make reckless decisions, but I can try to be better, too. It was always you who brought the impulsiveness out of me, anyway. If I’m a firecracker, it’s because I found someone who lights me up.
” She leant in closer, the rubber tip of her trainers scraping against his boots.
“And maybe we’ll fight again. Maybe we’ll disagree on more things.
But I’ll be here afterwards to tell you that you won’t lose me, as many times as you need to hear it. ”
A tear trickled down his cheek. It was everything he’d needed to hear. “I like the sound of that, firecracker. So, what happens now?”
“Now, I’m going to kiss you,” Eiley said.
“And then I’m going to take you home, and we’ll light sparklers together.
And my mum will stress that she didn’t cook enough jacket potatoes for an extra guest. Brook will read to you, because he really, really wants to.
Then, maybe when the kids are asleep, we can eat these sweets without having to share them.
Then tomorrow, we’ll come back up here and park the van where no one can hear us and, this time, I’m going to make you see stars. ”
Warren’s hungry touch swept over the warm nape of her neck as he hardened against her. “You’ve got it all planned out, then.”
“For once, I have, aye.”
Her mouth pressed against his with all of the finality of a book being closed – a new one opening, because this felt more like a beginning than an end. She hitched her arms around him, and he lifted her onto his waist with perfect ease, every split fibre of him knitting back together.
“How was this for a happily ever after?” he couldn’t help but question when she pulled away.
The breathtaking smile on her face was bright and beautiful enough to put the fireworks to shame as she replied, “As good as any book.”