It had been just before the work was finished, and Ryder had handed her a hard hat one afternoon, with that look in his eyes, the same one he’d had when he’d handed her the file detailing Rosehill’s tragic past. A hint of a dare.
“You won’t recognise it,” he’d said.
He was right. It wasn’t that the place had been sterilised, far from it. It was as though it had been stripped back to what it originally was before decades of sadness had permeated its walls. Only the bats remained because they couldn’t be disturbed for conservation reasons, which only seemed fair to Isla, after all, they’d saved her life. Well, the bats, and Ethan.
He was struggling today. But then she’d known he would. They were going to Portobello for dinner with his parents, and although it wouldn’t be the first time, she could still feel the change in him the night before. The tension in his posture, the reticence in his conversation. She had to remind herself that his past wasn’t her battleground. That there were some things she couldn’t fight on his behalf, but only stand by his side as he faced them. So when he’d begun to pace in the tiny kitchen after his morning coffee, she’d kissed his cheek, and swept little Lenny into her arms, and they’d wandered the grounds, giving Ethan the space she thought he needed.
“Isla!”
Apparently, she’d been wrong.
Isla turned and saw Ethan striding across the lawn, calling for her. “Look, Lenny, it’s Daddy. Do you want to run to him?”
Lenny hollered an indecipherable noise and broke free of her grasp. He didn’t need asking twice.
“Watch out,” Isla called to Ethan. “Incoming!”
She watched as Lenny raced on tiny legs, stumbling and righting himself, finally flinging himself at Ethan’s legs. Ethan swung Lenny up into his arms, twirling him in the air until he shrieked with delight, and Isla’s heart swelled at the sight of them together, as it always did.
“Are you going to pick me up like that?” Isla teased as she drew nearer.
Ethan turned his body towards hers. “Maybe later.”
Isla kissed him and took Lenny from his arms so he could use his cane to navigate his way back to the cottage.
“Are you ready to go?” Ethan asked.
Isla frowned. “Yes, but isn’t it a little early? I thought your parents weren’t expecting us until one?”
“They’re not,” Ethan said. “But I thought we could go for a walk along the front first. See, there’s this girl...and I owe her an ice-cream.” He grinned, and Isla laughed.
She’d known that the space would help.
*
Isla drove, and Ethan said very little, but that was normal. Just because he’d got used to her driving, didn’t mean he hated it any less. Car journeys would always be hard for him, and Ryder still did most of them. He was just Ethan’s driver now, no longer his assistant, not that it meant they saw him any less. Ryder was Lenny’s all-time favourite person, and given the hours Ryder spent playing toy cars and watching cartoons with him, Isla suspected the reverse was also true. It had worked out perfectly now that she was working again.
Isla had been heavily pregnant when Len had finally sold the shop, and any thoughts on what she should do next had been put on hold, but she’d met up with Len after Lenny had been born, to introduce her son to his namesake, and Len had encouraged her to set herself up freelance.
“It won’t be the same,” she’d told him.
But Len had only given her that knowing smile of his. “Change comes whether we want it or not, my girl.”
Six-month-old Lenny had grabbed at Len’s glasses as he said it, and Len chuckled amiably, and it had hit Isla, that of course, he was right. She couldn’t go back. None of them could. So she’d taken a leap forward instead, and thankfully landed on her feet. She mainly did appraisals now, though nothing as large-scale as Rosehill, that suited her. She’d found her treasure in the ruined castle walls after all, she didn’t need any more.
Isla parked her car, a sturdy estate - more practical than the ramshackle Fiesta - on a sand-dusted side-street, and they walked down to the beach hand-in-hand. The skin was still taut across Ethan’s right hand, and the scar tissue shone pink, but it bothered him less than it had, especially when he’d discovered that he could still play the piano.
For a time, Isla had worried he might never play again, not after they’d discovered that his piano had been destroyed in the flames. But then she’d walked into her first-ever house clearance, and the solid, walnut upright Bechstein had been there, with its carved accents and brass candlesticks, and she’d taken a chance, and bought it for Ethan’s birthday.
He’d run his hands over it and thanked her, but he hadn’t played it. And then one morning, months later she’d woken in the early hours. Assuming it was Lenny who’d woken her, she’d tiptoed into his bedroom, but found him fast asleep, his curls damp on his neck with summer sweat. She’d opened his window, and then she’d caught the sound of a melody from the room below, and smiling, had crept back to her bed. Now he played every day, and Lenny sat in his lap and mashed at the keys, while Isla joked that it was a good thing their only neighbours were so far away.
The sun wasn’t yet at its highest point, but already the sand was warm, and the water glittering. Daytrippers and locals splashed in the low, rolling swells, and laughter mixed with the caw of the seagulls waiting impatiently for their pickings.
Ethan bought two ice-creams, and Isla let Lenny lick at hers.
“Cold,” he declared with a shudder and rumbled off across the sand.
Isla laughed. “I don’t think he’s a fan.”
“Of the temperature, not the taste,” Ethan said. “Try it.”
Isla did, the sweet-tang fizzing across her tongue, like a creamy sorbet. She laughed. “Okay, you were right. I didn’t want chocolate.”
Ethan gave a self-satisfied smile as he polished off his own cone.
“Here,” she said. “You have some on your nose.”
Ethan held still as she wiped the pale orange ice-cream from the tip of his nose, and she caught the flicker of a frown pass across his face.
“What is it?”
He shook his head.
Isla felt her own brow crease, but she let it go. Maybe he was anxious about the meal. His relationship with his parents was better than it had been, but that didn’t mean it was easy for him.
Lenny had dropped to his haunches a couple of feet ahead, and was investigating something in the sand,
“Lenny’s found something,” she told Ethan. “Maybe a dead crab if he’s lucky.” She smiled and glanced sideways, but Ethan’s expression was blank. Isla pushed her disappointment to one side. They’d been through a lot since then. Maybe he didn’t remember. Still, this distance she felt between them was odd, unsettling. He was right beside her, but she could tell his head was a million miles away. He had one hand on his cane, the other stuffed in his pocket. She linked her arm with his. “Ethan, is everything okay?”
“Aye, fine, never better,” he said, but there was a strain around his eyes as he said it, and that tell-tale tic in his jaw.
She slipped her arm from his. “Okay.”
Lenny was back on his feet now, and toddling towards them, holding a smooth shiny pebble in his outstretched hand. “Found it!” he declared.
“Oh Lenny, that’s beautiful.” She crouched down to examine it with him. Lenny allowed her to smooth her hand across the pebble’s slick surface with a solemnity that made Isla want to giggle. It was as though he was allowing her to touch a diamond of the highest value. She supposed, to him, that’s exactly what his newly found treasure was. She brushed his unruly golden curls from his face and kissed his smooth forehead.
“Come feel this.” Isla turned to Ethan, but he was already crouching - no, kneeling - in the sand, beside her.
“Oh, Lenny, I think Daddy might be searching for his own treasure,” Isla said uncertainly. What was he doing?
Then Ethan reached into the pocket of his jac
ket, and Isla’s heart stopped, before restarting at twice its normal pace.
“I already found my treasure,” he said, holding a small blue box out in an unsteady hand. With his other hand, he unsnapped the lid, and Isla gasped. A narrow gold band held an oval ruby amidst a cluster of diamonds.
“Treasure!” Lenny clapped.
Ethan’s mouth tugged up at one corner, but the rest of his face remained tense. He took a deep breath.
“Isla, you havenae just changed my life, you’ve become it. I will love you forever, whatever your answer, but please will you marry me?” He took a deep gulping breath, and the ring box shook in his trembling palm.
Isla desperately wanted to end his ordeal but she seemed to have lost the power of speech, and it was all she could do to wipe away the tears rolling silently down her cheeks.
“Mama sad,” Lenny said, holding out his pebble to her.
Ethan’s face fell, and he scrambled to his feet.
“No!” Isla managed to say at last. “I mean, yes. I mean, no, I’m not sad, sweetheart, I’m happy. Very happy. And yes, Ethan. I’ll marry you.” She wiped her tears away with one hand, and with the other, she touched Ethan’s arm, so he would know where she was.
Ethan froze, and then he broke into the widest grin she’d ever seen. It transformed his entire face. “You will?”
“Yes, I will.” And Isla couldn’t help but grin either, and for a minute they were just standing there grinning on the sand, with Lenny rifling through the loose pebbles and broken seashells at their feet.
Then Ethan’s arms were around her, and he lifted her clean in the air.
“Oh my god, Isla.” He squeezed the breath out of her, pressing his lips into her hair, before placing her gently back down on the sand. With shaking hands, Ethan took the ring from the box, and took her left hand in his, slipping the ring onto her finger.
Tears filled Isla’s eyes immediately. It was a beautiful ring, but the meaning behind it was even more precious. A lifetime with Ethan.
*
She said yes.
Ethan had convinced himself a hundred times in a hundred different ways, that she wouldn’t. That it was too much, too soon, that he should wait, find another day, another time, one that felt right. But when would that be? What other time was there but now?
He knew that, they both knew it, all too well. So, after a nausea-inducing morning, he’d finally done it, dropping to his knees in the sand, feeling the broken shells crunch beneath him, remembering that day, a lifetime ago, when she’d stooped to pick one up, and handed it to him. The shell that had survived when others hadn’t. Why? Sometimes Ethan knew, and sometimes he didn’t. And maybe that was how it would always be.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever be at peace with his past, but maybe he didn’t need to be. Maybe accepting that it had happened, accepting that it was the past, would have to be enough. For now, anyway.
And leaving the past where it stood, meant he could live instead in the present and even plan for the future. Knowing those plans might be derailed still made him wake in the night, sweating, and gasping for air, but it happened less and less, and when it did, she was there.
He would always bear the scars of his past, both inside and out, and he wasn’t so naive to think that Isla’s love could change that, but maybe it could shine a light on the darkness. He believed it could.
Some days were harder than others, but each one was a future he’d never imagined having, and now he couldn’t imagine not. It was a small thing, but it was the difference between existing, and living.
Isla was showing Lenny the ring, and he was cooing over the ruby, and offering to swap his mama for the shiny smooth pebble he held so dear.
Ethan smiled and held his arms out to his son. “Why don’t we go show Uncle Connor and Uncle Ryder our treasure?”
Lenny allowed himself to be picked up, and Ethan passed him over to Isla, so they could walk arm-in-arm along the shoreline, his cane swiping through the sand, and Lenny babbling about pirates and treasure, not knowing that his dad already had all that he needed, right there. He might not have his sight or Rosehill, but Ethan MacRae had jewels aplenty: a growing family, a son he doted on, hope for the future, and at the centre of it all, the woman he loved, Isla.
~The End~
Acknowledgements
There were times (oh, so many times) when I doubted this book would ever be finished, let alone see the light of day. The fact you are reading these acknowledgements is, in no small part, courtesy of the unwavering support of my friends and family who encouraged me not to give up, to ‘keep at it’ and ‘no seriously, just bloody finish the thing’ ;)
Special thanks is due to my beta readers- Lucy, Kitty, Gemma and Emma. For your time, feedback, and enthusiasm, I will be forever grateful. Also, a special mention to Christian, with thanks for his critiques, suggestions and support. I wouldn’t change the journey, even if the destination isn’t what either of us expected.
I would also like to thank the team at Deranged Doctor Designs, not only for the stunning cover design but for their patience with a newbie author and self-confessed perfectionist.
A particular shout-out is due to the #UKRomChat crew on twitter, who have been an endless source of support, knowledge and- most importantly- superb gifs since I first stumbled across the hashtag in 2018. Thank you!
A big thank you to everyone who has supported me on twitter, and ‘in real-life’ during this past year of rewriting / editing agony, you’re all superstars.
Endless thanks to Jamie for giving me the final nudge I needed to get the thing done, and for showing me that a new chapter is possible.
Shout-out to my furry co-author and constant companion, my 13 year-old springer spaniel Fudge.
And of course, the biggest thank you goes to my boys for their unwavering enthusiasm and belief that one day mummy would be an author. It turns out you were right!
If you enjoyed Out of Sight please consider leaving a review of on Amazon or Goodreads to let other readers know what you thought.
For more information about Rebecca Duval and her books please visit www.rebeccaduval.com or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.
About The Author
Rebecca Duval
Rebecca Duval is, amongst other things, a writer, a librarian, a mother of two boys and a hopeless romantic.
Born a stones throw from Brontë country and named after Daphne du Maurier's bestselling Gothic romance, Rebecca's pull to the dark side of literature was inevitable. She now lives on t'other side of the moors with her boyfriend and two children.
Out of Sight is her first novel.
Content warnings
Sex (explicit)
Swearing
PTSD
Anxiety
Depression
Non-specific suicidal ideation- mentioned but not described
Grief
Death of a loved one
Past trauma
RTA- mentioned but not described on page
Pregnancy loss- mentioned but not described
Unplanned pregnancy
Physical violence
Hospital scenes
Out of Sight Page 40