‘What are you doing all the way down here?’ she said, softened by such an uncharacteristic display of affection.
‘She came with me.’
With a gasp, Kate swung around, her cry of surprise breaking into a sob.
Alex was standing just a few feet away, his hands by his sides and an expression on his face that looked both tortured and happy.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Scrambling to her feet, Kate ran to him, banging her fists on his chest again and again.
‘Where the bloody hell were you?’ she cried. ‘I thought you were dead.’
Alex caught her arms, forcing her to stop. But when he tried to hold her, Kate pulled away.
‘You scared me,’ she said in anguish. ‘I thought you’d been killed in the storm, I thought I’d never see you again.’
‘I know, I know.’ Alex tried again to comfort her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I need to call Angela,’ she said, her hand clamping around his wrist in case he ran again.
‘It’s OK. I saw her a few minutes ago at the hostel.’
The adrenaline that had surged through Kate when she saw him was receding, and she felt ragged and unsteady on her feet.
‘I just . . . I don’t know what to say, Alex. Can I even call you Alex?’
‘Well now, Joshua Alexander Dawson is the name on my birth certificate,’ he said, his tone measured and calm. ‘But my friends call me Alex.’
‘I should be furious with you,’ she went on. But she wasn’t; she was simply overwhelmed with relief that he was safe, that he was here, that she was able to touch him, to see him. ‘Shall we sit?’ Kate let go of his wrist.
As soon as Alex lowered himself down onto the stones, Siva padded over and curled up on his lap.
‘She doesn’t want you to run away either,’ said Kate, wrapping her arms around her scuffed knees.
Alex ran a hand across his shaved head. He had no hair nor beard to hide behind anymore and Kate was still getting used to how he looked without them. He was the same, yet different, still Alex, but also Josh.
‘Must feel strange,’ she observed. ‘All those dreadlocks being gone.’
‘In a way,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s also quite nice, truth be told. I wanted to find out how it would feel to look like my old self again, and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. And that’s because of you.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘You made me want to be brave,’ he said simply. ‘I knew that in order to deserve you, I had to be honest. After everything you’d been through, I couldn’t keep lying to you or to myself. It was time. You set the example – all I had to do was follow it.’
‘So, you were planning to tell me?’ she said. ‘About being Josh, about your past, about all of it?’
A nod. ‘My plan was to tell you first, and then to get in touch with Angie. The last thing I expected was for her to be sitting there in that bar with you,’ he said, and Kate thought she saw him wince as he recalled it. ‘It was such a shock. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and then you left, and I worried that I’d lost you. I thought to myself, she won’t want anything to do with me now. Your ex had caused you so much pain by telling lies, and there I was pretending to be someone else. My falsehood was far bigger than any of his.’
‘But you knew how much I cared about you,’ she protested. ‘I told you that.’
‘It was all such a shock,’ he said again. ‘I couldn’t think; I didn’t know how to make sense of it all. And so, I guess I did what I always do when things become too much. I ran away.’
‘To the boat?’
‘Where else?’ He smiled sadly. ‘Of course, I hadn’t got that far when I realised something.’
Kate had moved closer to him without really being aware of it; she needed to feel the comforting warmth of him.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘What did you realise?’
Alex didn’t speak for a moment and Kate rested her head on his shoulder, waiting.
‘I realised there was nothing to run away from anymore. You see, when I left England, I did so thinking that I had no other choice. I was weighed down by guilt at what I’d put my parents through, what I’d put my sister through. She wanted her life back and didn’t need me hanging around with my moods and my problems. I knew Angela had lashed out because she was grieving, but all the same, I managed to convince myself she’d be better off without me and I kept on telling myself the same lie. Have you ever done that?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever told yourself a story so many times that it started to feel like the truth?’
Kate opened her eyes and lifted her head from his shoulder. He was staring at her, his pale eyes the same fluid silver as the coin in her hand.
‘Mine was always about me being a failure,’ she said. ‘Until I came here and met you, there was only one part I ever played in the story of my own life. I didn’t know that I could choose another one. But you made all those fears I’d held on to for so long feel irrelevant – not that they didn’t matter, but that they shouldn’t. At least not enough to stop me believing in myself.’
‘You say that,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘But it wasn’t me that made you realise what you were capable of. You did that all by yourself, Kate. I was just the bloke lucky enough to stand beside you and watch as it happened. In the beginning, I admit, I was driven by a desire to look after you, but I soon realised you didn’t need me to do that – you didn’t need anyone except yourself. You might think you’re not strong, Kate, but you are.’
She was shaking her head now. ‘I’m not,’ she mumbled. ‘I found that out when you disappeared and I quickly realised that without you, everything else felt pointless. I know it should be enough, that I have more than many – but what if I still want more? What if I want you, too?’
‘You still want me?’ he said. ‘Even now, after everything I’ve done?’
Kate smiled.
‘Well then, that is good news. Because the truth is, I love you, Kate Nimble. More than those stars up there and these stones, more than the voice that whispers to me that I don’t deserve you, the one that told me to run away. Loving you is the reason I turned back, because it makes me feel able to tackle everything else, no matter how hard that might be.’
‘Stop,’ she said tearfully. ‘Just stop.’
‘I don’t want to stop,’ he told her, taking her hand in his. ‘I want to tell you every day. Every minute. For all the moments I didn’t tell you and for all those yet to come.’
Kate couldn’t say anything else because she was crying again, struck anew by what would have happened had he not come back, had he kept on running.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she wailed.
‘You know I’ve been plotting to get rid of that bloody deckchair for ages,’ he joked. ‘But it honestly wasn’t my fault – not that part of the story anyway. What happened was, I went to the boat purely to collect some things and it just all hit me at once – the fact that my sister was here on the island, that you knew my secret, that everyone soon would – and I didn’t think, I simply did. It was as if my body had a mind of its own. But then, as I reached open water, the engine stalled and I couldn’t get her to start again, not for love nor money. The wind had become so strong and the deckchair had started to come loose. I clambered up to try and secure it only for the wood to splinter in my hands. If I hadn’t let go when I did, I reckon I would have been swept out to sea along with it.’
‘Thank goodness you weren’t,’ she said aghast.
‘I kept on trying to get the engine going for a while after that,’ he told her. ‘But eventually I had no choice but to bunker down and allow the boat to drift. The sea was pretty choppy, as I’m sure you know, and I wasn’t all that far from Brač by then, so I did what I could to steer the old girl into shore, but it took most of the night to reach it. I was wet through and fed up. I didn’t have my phone or any money, so I left the boat and I walked around the island to the port, where
I knew Bram moored his yacht.’
‘Bram Van Dijk?’
‘The very same.’
‘Why didn’t he call me? Or ring the hostel?’
‘Well, I didn’t know you’d seen the deckchair. I thought Angie would assume that I was away clearing my head, not that I had perished in the storm. And I figured by the time Bram brought me back to Hvar this evening, you would have had a bit of time to think. It’s a lot to take in, all this. I’m not trying to pretend that it isn’t. But then, when I got to the hostel just now, I thought Toby was going to knock me out.’
Kate sat back in surprise. ‘My Toby? That big softie?’
‘He was pretty miffed.’ Alex scratched absently behind Siva’s big ears. ‘Told me the next time I went missing would be because he’d murdered me and buried my body at sea.’
‘Wow! And then what? How did you know to come here?’
‘This little madam wouldn’t stop mewing at me,’ he said, as Kate reached across to stroke Siva’s silky fur. ‘I could tell she wanted to show me something and I hoped it would be you.’
Kate tugged down the drawstrings of his red hoodie.
‘Sorry I thumped you,’ she said. ‘And shouted at you.’
‘I deserved it.’
‘No, if anyone should apologise, it’s me. I’m the reason your sister turned up here. I’m the one you should blame for all this coming out before you were ready.’
Alex was shaking his head. ‘No, Kate.’
‘And I want you to know that whatever it is that causes you to have these dark days, whether it’s depression or anxiety or something else entirely, then I want to help you manage it. I want to be there, so you don’t have to go through it all alone anymore. I’m not afraid,’ she said, reading the doubt on his face. ‘And I’m not going anywhere. I stand by what I said to you on the boat. I want us to work. I want to be with you.’
‘Are you sure?’
Alex’s tentative smile did not reach his eyes and Kate wrapped her hands tightly around his, watching as his features constricted with fear.
‘It’s OK,’ she murmured. ‘You don’t have to be afraid, not anymore, because I love you, too. I love your tatty shorts and bare feet, I love your calloused hands and your big heart, your stupid boat and your soulful eyes. I love that you build things, I love that you make me stop and look. I love how everything seems more beautiful when you’re there, how you cook fish and help me breathe under the water. I love all that you are, all you have been, all that we will be. Whatever life has in store, we can overcome it together, as long as we have each other; love each other.’
For a moment, Alex said nothing. His expression had not changed as she spoke, but his eyes, like her own, were wet with tears. Leaning forwards, Kate kissed him, just once, feeling him slacken beneath her touch. It was then, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, that happiness broke through, and they smiled at each other in wonder.
Neither one was lost anymore.
Epilogue
A woman stands by the water.
She has come to the shoreline to seek refuge, a moment’s calm in a day that has been frenetic with celebration. Summer has arrived in all its sizzling glory, the sea below her lit up by sunshine; a thousand glistening stars.
A new hotel is open, its terrace adorned with balloons; a party to honour the occasion that will likely tinkle on until dawn. Music strays down from the hillside; she can smell the smoky scent of grilled fish and smiles at the soft pop of a cork being eased from a bottle.
In this pause, the woman pictures herself as she was just one year ago, frantic to disappear from the endless corridor of a life with no open doorways. Today, there is light; there is space; there is chance – the world is open, and she is free to roam. Yet she does not need to; she has found her home.
Turning, she starts to make her way back up the hill, to where the others are waiting. They are all here, those who count; new friends and old, parents, a brother and a sister – she who has been so brave and forgiven so much, who has found space in her heart for a whole new family. Her loneliness is a chapter completed, the future a story she is free to write.
Pale-blue eyes greet the woman as she makes her way inside; his lips lift into a smile that she softens with a kiss, her hand over his as it falls to rest between them.
She was adrift when she came here, as was he; but now each has the other.
And soon, they will be three.
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Acknowledgements
As I sit and write these acknowledgments, it is a year to the day that the country went into lockdown for the first time. I was not actually in the UK to watch Boris “bad thatch” Johnson address the nation. Like any good escapist fiction author, I was away travelling – in New Zealand no less. Not a bad place to be trapped during a global pandemic as it turned out, but I came home anyway. Eventually . . .
I had taken myself abroad to escape for a while. Life had become exhausting, work was relentless and my health – both mental and physical – had borne the brunt. As soon as I reached New Zealand, however, I felt at peace. The multiple tabs that had been open in my mind for so many months began to close one by one, leaving my imagination the space it needed to recalibrate. And while I did not set out on that trip with the view of plotting a novel, I was not surprised when an idea began to flourish.
A story about two lost souls. A love story. A life story.
I feel hugely privileged to have written this novel during lockdown. Not only did it provide me with an often much-needed escape from the everyday doom-scrolling, but it served as a constant reminder that life would return eventually, that we would all be free to set off on adventures again, and that taking the time to focus on yourself can never be a bad thing. I hope you have enjoyed Kate and Alex’s story, and that you have added Croatia to your list of must-visit countries. It genuinely is as beautiful as it sounds. I cannot recommend it more.
And now to my thank yous. I must start, as always, with my readers, without whom I would be a very sad author indeed. Please know that I cherish every single one of you and always will. To all those who read early proofs and shared reviews, it is thanks to you that new readers take a chance on new authors. You are the beating heart of this industry and I love you all.
To my agent Hannah Ferguson and the whole team at Hardman & Swainson, thank you for continuing to champion me and my stories – and for ensuring they find an audience not just here in the UK, but all over the world.
To my editor Kimberley Atkins, I continue to bow down to your brilliance and enthusiasm. Without you, this book would have far more unnecessary adjectives – and far less sex(!). To Myrto Kalavrezou, Alice Morley, Amy Batley and Kay Gale – publicity, marketing, editorial and copy-editing angels respectively – thank you for all you do and for believing in this book. To Catherine Worsley, Sarah Clay, Rich Peters, Iman Khabl and Lucy Howkins – aka Sales Team Extraordinaire – you are all incredible and as soon as I can do so safely, I WILL kiss you! It goes without saying that I am proud beyond measure to be published by Hodder & Stoughton – and I could not be more thrilled to be writing books 9 and 10 for you.
I’m fortunate enough to have far too many author friends to list here, but I would like to send a special thank you to Katie Marsh (for everything), Cathy Bramley (for Corfu and infinite wisdom), Paige Toon (for garden cuppas and laughter), my Book Camp crew Cesca Major, Katy Colins, Holly Martin, Liz Fenwick, Basia Martin, Kirsty Greenwood, Rachael Lucas, Pernille Hughes, Jo Eustace, Emily Kerr, Tasmina Perry, Cressida McLaughlin, Alex Brown and Ali Harris (for WhatsApp heroics), my Nearest and Dearest chums Sara-Jade Virtue, Louise Candlish, Fanny Blake and Claire Frost (for books and LOLs) and Chris Whitaker, Tom Wood and Lisa Howells (for all the love and hilarity). Writing can be a tough and lonely job at times. You all make it much less so.
To all the reviewers, bloggers, influencers, Book Tokkers, tweeters and newsletter subscribers, thank you for al
l you do and for all your support of this book.
To Edward Oliver (@cgmichaelsillustration), for his beautiful artwork and postcards.
To my friends, you’re all bonkers. But that’s OK, because so am I.
To my family, ditto.
And to Mum – it’s still you I do it all for. Every single word.
Love can be found in the most unlikely places . . .
Discover Isabelle Broom’s sweeping romance Hello, Again.
‘A dreamy, romantic, irresistible treat’
Lindsey Kelk
‘Emotional, enthralling and exquisitely written’
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The Getaway: A holiday romance for 2021 - perfect summer escapism! Page 33
