A Part of Me

by Anouska Knight

  He moved his mouth to my ear. ‘Well done, Mama Bear. We’re going to have some fun now,’ he whispered, sitting another kiss on mine and Lily’s cheeks. ‘I hope they like bikes.’ He grinned. Carter and Phil caught up, the traffic warden berating them as he followed them over. Carter seemed to have heard my wishes, and clamped his arms around us all, locking Phil, Rohan, me and Lily in my arms, together.

  ‘Are you crying, Phil?’ Rohan laughed.

  ‘No!’

  ‘I am,’ Carter squeaked, burying his head into Phil’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh bugger it, I am too,’ Phil sniffled.

  Beyond our circle, there in the middle of Town Hall’s remembrance gardens, Anna was sniffling again. I looked to check she was okay when Rohan reached an arm around her too, pulling her into the fold.

  But there was a grey cloud trying to edge in. ‘If you don’t shift it, now, I’m going to ticket you,’ boomed a disgruntled voice. Carter reached out, an invitation for one more in our cuddle puddle. The warden batted his hand and stropped off in Bertha’s direction.

  As nice as it felt to be there, in my cluster of support and affection, the air was starting to get a little thin wedged between so many bodies.

  ‘So, does anyone else fancy grasshopper pie?’ Anna asked in a small voice. I couldn’t even see her face.

  ‘Grasshopper pie? Has that got liquorice in it?’

  ‘No, Carter.’ I smiled.

  ‘Rhubarb or ginger?’

  ‘No, Rohan.’

  ‘Calories?’

  ‘Phil, seriously.’

  ‘I can help you work those off, Philippa.’

  Carter yelped.

  ‘I meant with yoga!’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  ‘Does grasshopper pie have grasshoppers in it, Amy?’

  ‘I don’t think so, baby,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

  The city felt different as our unlikely rabble made their way to Gino’s Caffe. The pavements could’ve been made of clouds for the lightness I felt inside myself. Nothing would ever replace Jacob, or the life that should’ve been his, but Jacob wasn’t all that had slipped away that night in the hospital. I’d lost a part of me, a part of who I was. And now, sat here in the warm atmosphere of a little bistro on one of the city’s side-streets, surrounded by laughter and conversation and grasshopper pie, I finally felt as if I had it back.

  * * * * *

  Look out for Anouska Knight’s next book,

  Letting You Go, coming in 2015.

  Alex Foster lives a quiet life—single, working at the food bank … avoiding the home she hasn’t visited in eight years. Then her sister Jaime calls. Their mother is sick and Alex must return home. Suddenly she’s plunged back into the past she’s been trying to escape.

  Returning to her home town, memories of the tragic accident that has haunted her and her family are impossible to ignore. Alex still blames herself for what happened to her brother. It’s soon clear that her father blames her too—as well as also blaming Joseph Finn, her former boyfriend. Alex struggles to deal with the past, her guilt, and her undeniable feelings for Finn—will she ever escape the ghosts of the past?

  Turn the page to enjoy

  an exclusive extract

  PROLOGUE

  Five generations of Fosters have lived in Eilidh Falls. Four of them without incident. Blythe Foster had never really counted the awkward birth of her third and final child as trauma enough to break the disaster-free run of the Foster lineage, but her husband Ted had never completely managed to forgive the staff of Kerring General for young Dillon Foster’s ‘sleepy’ arm.

  Dill’s arm wasn’t that sleepy. Alex and Jem were always catching their little brother putting that arm to more than effective use when mischief demanded it. Alex thought that it made their father quietly glad each time Dill got into a scrape, as if that somehow confirmed that it was going to take a damned sight more than a little nerve damage to slow a Foster lad down, thank you very much. This morning, however, Blythe Foster wanted nothing more than for her nine-year-old son to do just that. She’d offered a friendly, informal, nothing-too-fancy get-together to a family she’d often felt might benefit from a little neighbourliness and now she only had seven hours left to pull off the perfect Ideal Home-standard soirée. An informal soirée, mind. Only with her best bone china.

  Blythe had watched Joseph Finn walking up the long garden track towards the Fosters’ house, out on the edge of town. She’d allowed herself a smile as she’d heard her daughter exchanging quiet greetings with him at the door before leading him into the kitchen.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Foster,’ Finn had offered. Blythe hadn’t had a chance to return the courtesy when Dill burst back into the kitchen for the umpteenth time, aggressively wielding the new bow and arrows his father had given to him the day before.

  ‘Holy cow! It’s the buck-toothed assassin!’ Alex had joked. Dill loosened his stance just long enough to give his biggest sister one of those wonky smiles of his. Alex affectionately ruffled Dill’s mop of sandy hair and grinned as Dill flashed her an unapologetic toothy smile. He was at that stage where baby teeth had been ousted for big grown-up teeth that didn’t quite fit him yet, but he was no less the charmer because of them.

  ‘Dillon Arthur Foster, I’ve told you, not in the house. Those things are sharp and dangerous!’ Blythe warned sternly.

  ‘But dad said this would be good exercise for making my arm stronger!’ Dill had protested. Another look from his mother and Dill’s shoulders slumped.

  It had been Joseph Finn’s idea. Not the soirée, absolutely not—Finn was the last person who wanted to sit making chit-chat around a dining table under the watchful scrutiny of his girlfriend’s family, Edward Foster in particular—but it was Finn’s suggestion to forego a few hours out in the sun with Alex and take Dill off Blythe’s hands instead. Blythe had almost hugged him to death when he’d offered. Joseph Finn, she’d realised then, wasn’t quite as scrawny as he’d been just a year or two ago when Alex had first brought him to her mother’s attention. He was now a young man of eighteen, with broadening shoulders to go with the harder angles of his face the passing years had blessed him with. Blythe had hurriedly thrown a few sandwiches into a bag for them, offering several still-warm blueberry muffins if Finn would take Rodolfo along with them for some much overdue exercise. Basset hounds were notably lethargic, but Rodolfo didn’t even bark at strangers in his yard, he was that idle.

  ‘I’ll stay here then, Mum,’ Alex had offered, warily regarding her brother and the way his face lapsed into vacancy as he sneakily raised his bow and arrow again, taking aim at the picture of Jem, his less tolerant sister, on the kitchen windowsill. ‘I’ll wash up or something … while Finn takes Hyper Robin Hood and Lazy Dog for some fresh air.’

  Blythe had tried not to watch as Alex and Joseph Finn had traded conciliatory looks while Dill sprang about the kitchen, perfecting his aim again. Yes, Blythe liked Joseph Finn, she’d decided. And she would tell her husband later on what a lovely boy he was for their daughter. What a nice man she thought he’d make and that Ted should be friendly towards him when Joseph brought his mother over for dinner later. Maybe she wouldn’t tell Ted everything she liked about Joseph Finn, like the way she’d seen him looking at her Alexandra—as if he’d will the rest of the world to fall away to nothingness so that he could absorb every last molecule of her without distraction. Alexandra. Her beautiful, clever girl, on the edge of womanhood and all the excitement and heartache and wonder it had in store for her. Ted had already told his wife that she probably spent too long listening to too many bloody operas about all-enduring love neither time nor obstacle could prevent. He’d also said that no daughter of his was yet old enough to have a serious boyfriend, that Alexandra would have her romance now and then forget all about the Finn boy once she eventually went off to university.

  We’ll see, Edward Foster, Blythe had thought to herself and then, in case Ted wanted to add anything further, she
’d turned up The Magic Flute.

  Summer’s grip seemed tighter still down by the river. ‘The Old Girl’, the locals called it. Generations of parents had taught their children to be mindful of the river’s moods, that she could change and you’d be sorry if she caught you out. It was only early September, but Alex had already noted that even the new college term hadn’t curtailed the feeling that Eilidh Falls was still in the bosom of long, hazy days and short shadows. ‘Don’t come home wet!’ Blythe had warned Dill, as they’d left the house. This was an afternoon perfect for paddling around in the plunge pool up by the succession of gentle waterfalls from which the town took its name. To manage the temptation, Alex and Finn had agreed to avoid the falls and head further downriver, where the water was too fast for paddling.

  Finn had asked what everyone wanted to do. Dill wanted somewhere to hang his archery target, Rodolfo wanted to collapse and walk no more and Finn himself wanted to sketch out a few scenes of the local landscape for his final-year college art project. Alex simply wanted this, right here, exactly as it was, but she didn’t say so, of course. That wasn’t the cool thing to say, even to Joseph Finn, who didn’t much care about cool anyway.

  An hour had already passed; Dill was on his third attempt to successfully sink home one of his missiles into the cork target hanging against the alder tree. His fingers were sore, so periodically he’d slumped forlornly into the grass beside his sister as she watched Finn’s drawings of the riverside come to life on the page before him. Each time Dill had taken a break, Alex had cheered her brother with a hearty dose of slobbery raspberries blown into his neck. Once she had him giggling, his gangly limbs overtaken with the weaknesses of laughter, he was easy enough to pin down. And then he’d go and gather his arrows and try again.

  ‘You just moved again!’ Finn accused.

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘Trust me, I am paying very close attention, Miss Foster. And you just moved, again. The shadow beneath your lips has changed.’

  ‘Are you drawing my lips?’ Alex murmured, suddenly self-conscious that she was guiding even more attention to them by speaking. She didn’t think she had particularly sketch-worthy lips. Her nose was too straight too, like her dad’s, and she knew her eyes were utterly unexceptional. ‘Sorry, hang on a sec …’ she said, desperate to steal her own face back for a moment. She flicked her head around to check that Dill was still behind her, trying again with his sleepy arm to pull the bow-string back with enough vigour that just one of his arrows might have enough gusto to make it as far as the target. Alex’s eyes fell to the litter of spent arrows on the ground between Dill’s feet and the alder tree. Lying there, they didn’t look sharp or dangerous at all. ‘Do you want to try standing a little closer, Dill Pickle?’ Alex asked gently.

  Dill didn’t even turn around, his right arm jutting awkwardly out at an angle to his body. ‘Nah. I’ll get a good one in a minute,’ he sighed, stretching back the bow-string until his elbow began to shake with the effort. Dill’s fingers released the string and the very definite sound of taut, twanging cord cut through the air. Even Rodolfo raised his melancholy face to follow the arrow cutting its wobbled path straight over the top of the target and into the far branches overhanging the water.

  ‘Ah, man! I missed,’ Dill exclaimed, his arrow hanging precariously from its leafy cradle.

  ‘Dill, that was a great shot!’ Finn shouted, jumping to his feet. ‘Quick, grab another arrow and try again. While you’re still motoring.’

  Alex was on her feet too, smoothing the flecks of grass from where they clung to her bare legs. Dill tried again, concentrating hard enough that he didn’t appear to be breathing. Or maybe she was imagining it.

  Concentration.

  The arrow twanged through the air, thudding home into the outer band of the target.

  ‘Dill! You hit it!’ Alex yelped, leaping towards her brother. Rodolfo seemed sufficiently stirred by Dill’s achievement to wriggle unexpectedly from where he’d been sprawled out on the earth, just as Alex was trying to skip around him. For a moment there was a scrambling of toffee-coloured fur and long tanned legs, and then those same legs found themselves tumbling into a patch of stinging nettles by the riverbank.

  Dill burst into a fit of throaty laughter as Finn kicked through the stingers after Alex.

  ‘Ouch,’ Alex whimpered, as two big hands pulled her to her feet. Dill stopped laughing now that he could see his sister’s reddened legs. The rash on her skin had risen as quickly as the nettle stems had again, after being temporarily flattened by clumsy limbs. Finn surveyed their hostile environment. Alex saw that his legs were getting stung too. Finn wasn’t like the other boys his age in town. He didn’t buy his clothes from the same shops they all seemed to; in fact he always seemed most comfortable when he was wearing something spattered in oil paint, or clay or whatever medium he’d been working in.

  ‘Alex, climb up on to my back. I’ll carry you out.’

  ‘But … then you’ll get stung again.’

  Finn turned soft green eyes on her. ‘And?’ He smiled. ‘You’re my girl, Alex. I’ll carry you.’ Alex might have melted right then; melting was perfectly acceptable at seventeen, she felt, but Dill had started making theatrical retching sounds behind them at the romance taking place over in the nettle patch.

  Finn didn’t seem to notice the nettles after that. He gently scooped her up and waded back out of the stingers, gently setting Alex down beside his pencil tin and paper pad, and began scouring the grasses around them. Dill had already lost interest and had taken to scratching something into the tree bark with one of the arrowheads.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Alex asked, still a little aflutter at Finn’s gesture of moderate heroism.

  ‘Dock leaves. I saw some as we were walking in off the path. I’ll be back in a minute.’ Alex had sat there like a good patient, being patient, as Finn went off to ramble through the undergrowth. Dill was still battling on with what looked like the beginnings of a letter ‘D’ against the tree trunk. The fluttering had abated now and Alex’s legs had begun to tingle and itch.

  ‘I’m just going to see if I can help Finn find those dock leaves any quicker, Dill. Don’t move, OK?’ It looked as though Dill would be there a while; he wasn’t even on the ‘I’ yet. ‘Maybe just do your initials, hey, kid?’ she suggested, as Dill called a preoccupied reply. ‘I’ll be one minute.’

  Alex found Finn further into the thicket than she’d expected, with an armful of scraggy leaves. ‘Do we need all of those?’ she asked, rubbing at the discomfort along the backs of her legs. Finn crouched down, scrunching up one of the healthier-looking leaves in his hands and then gently rubbing it along the clusters of pale blisters colonising her skin.

  ‘I got extra in case Dill decides to roll around in there too, before we get him home safe and sound,’ he smiled. ‘At least we’ll have something to talk about over dinner later. I don’t know much about mechanics.’

  Alex realised then, Finn was actually nervous about the dinner Blythe had been planning. Nervous about eating with her father. She couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘He’s not as bad as he likes to make out, Finn. Honestly. He’s a big softy,’ she said, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

  Finn got back to his feet. ‘Your dad? You sure? I think he blows up the tyres on people’s cars with his own mouth. He sure doesn’t seem overly soft towards me.’ Finn reached his hand forwards, taking the edges of Alex’s fingers in his. She was fluttering again, way before he leant in, laying the smallest kiss at the edge of her lips.

  Alex swallowed, trying to speak past the hammering in her chest. ‘Trust me. My dad’s bark is a lot worse than his bite,’ she managed. ‘He’s just protective of us kids.’

  It was at that moment Alex’s words seem to spring to life, taking the form of urgent, echoing barks rising into the air somewhere back over by the riverbank. Alex saw the look of her own surprise reflected in Finn’s face. They both hurried the hundred or so
yards back through the thicket and grasses to where the alder tree hung mournfully over the water’s edge, Rodolfo’s fervent barking enough to jostle his stout body around on the spot as his urgency towards the river grew.

  ‘Where’s Dill? Where’s Dill?’ Alex allowed her eyes to sweep first left, then right along the grassy riverbank. She was still screaming Dill’s name when Joseph Finn shouted something and jumped into The Old Girl. Alex could see now, Finn was following the arrow already floating away downriver.

  ISBN: 978-1-472-09632-6

  A PART OF ME

  © 2014 Anouska Knight

  Published in Great Britain 2014

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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