Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A dull, throbbing ache radiated from every inch of his body. It pulsed in time with the rhythmic beeping that pierced his eardrums, each high-pitched tone sending a spike of pain through his skull. Connor tried to swallow, his throat hoarse and parched, as if he’d eaten a mouthful of gravel.

Reluctantly, he dragged his eyelids open, blinking against the harsh fluorescent light that stabbed at his eyeballs. The world swam into focus, a blur of pale walls and gleaming metal.

As his vision cleared, his gaze landed on the one thing that made no sense in this bland place.

A mop of red hair.

Kirsty?

She was curled up in a chair, hair tumbling over her face, chest rising and falling with the slow, even breaths of sleep. A heap of plastic packaging and several cans of Irn-Bru on the side table.

Connor stared at her, trying to comprehend why she was here. And where he was. The last thing he remembered was… He frowned as he tried to grasp the elusive threads of his memory. But there was nothing, only a blank where the events leading up to this moment should have been.

Weird shit.

This was a hospital by the looks of it, and he was in a bed.

A sudden, sharp inhale drew his attention back to Kirsty. She stirred, her eyelids fluttering open, clouded with the haze of interrupted sleep. For a moment, she seemed disoriented, her gaze darting around the room before landing on him. Her eyes gaped, relief and something else he couldn’t interpret flitting across her face.

‘Connor? Jesus Christ,’ she said, jumping out of the chair. ‘You’re awake!’ She rushed to his bedside, her face pale. ‘Took you long enough. Are you okay? Blink twice if you can hear me.’

He opened his mouth to respond, but all that emerged was a rasping croak. Kirsty leaned forward, grabbing a cup of water from the bedside table and holding the straw to his lips. The cool liquid soothed his parched throat as he took a few grateful sips.

‘What…happened?’ he managed to ask, his voice still rough and scratchy. ‘Why am I in a…hospital?’

Kirsty set the cup aside, her lips pressing into a thin line. ‘You were in an accident, numpty. You had a fall, a bad one. You’ve been unconscious for three days.’ Worry was written in her eyes. ‘And you look as rough as a badger’s arse right now.’

Connor squinted, trying to process this information. An accident. That explained the pain in his ribs and legs, the fogginess in his head.

But it didn’t explain her presence.

‘Why are you here?’ The question came out harsher than he intended, gruffness amplified by the discomfort and confusion swirling through him.

Her eyes flashed, a hint of hurt quickly masked by a stern expression. ‘Because you had a serious accident. Of course I’m here. Don’t you dare scare me like that ever again.’ Her voice was firm and laced with an undercurrent of affection. ‘I just got you back. Now you must get better.’

A small smile teased the corners of his mouth. Even in this strange, unsettling situation, her no-nonsense attitude was a comfort. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

She blew out a breath, but he caught the flicker of solace that danced across her face before she began fussing with his pillows, adjusting them with a practised efficiency that made him wonder how long she’d actually been here, watching over him.

Connor let his gaze roam over her, taking in the details he hadn’t noticed at first. The dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin, the way her clothes hung a bit looser on her frame than he remembered. A twinge of guilt ripped through him. She must have been here a while. Sitting by his bedside. Then the thought sent a warm rush through his chest, a feeling he’d tried so long to ignore. But now, in this moment of fragility, he couldn’t deny it. Kirsty cared about him. Deeply. More than he’d ever allowed himself to acknowledge. And he revelled in it. The feeling stole his breath and made his heart stutter.

Or it was the meds. Who knew.

‘Freckles,’ he started, his voice rough with emotion. ‘I-I…’

She turned to face him, her blue eyes soft. ‘Don’t,’ she said gently. ‘You don’t have to say anything. Not now. Just focus on getting better, okay?’

‘But why aren’t you in Lon—’

‘Shush! I’ll be right here, as long as you need me. I’ll always be here.’

Connor nodded mutely. He didn’t trust himself to speak, not with the feeling of grit lodged in his throat. Instead, he let his eyes communicate what he couldn’t put into words. The gratitude, the affection, the unspoken depth of emotion that he’d kept locked away.

All the love.

Her gaze held his, a silent acknowledgement passing between them. She reached out, her fingers brushing against his in a feather-light caress before she pulled away. ‘I’m gonna get the doctor now. I’m sure she’d love to check you out. But before I go I have to make sure you’re cognisant… Do you know your birthday and name?’

He tried another smile. ‘Captain Samuel Vimes.’

‘A knobhead is what you are. But I’m so, so glad you finally woke up. Only a few days now until I get the all-clear from the doctor to slap you for being such an idiot and throwing yourself off the rig.’

‘Is that what I did?’

‘Aye. Please never repeat that,’ she said and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek before she left the room with hurried steps.

It was hard getting used to being cared about so much.

It was also everything.

His life was shite without her. Empty. Pointless.

As Connor let his eyes drift shut, exhaustion pulling at the edges of his consciousness, a sense of peace washed over him. He slid back into the welcoming darkness of sleep, secure in the knowledge that she would be there when he woke up.

Just as she’d always been meant to.

The glaring lights buzzed overhead, casting a harsh glow on the linoleum floor as Kirsty stumbled out of Connor’s hospital room. The door clicked shut behind her. She leaned against the wall, her legs threatening to buckle under the weight of her relief and exhaustion.

He was awake. Connor was awake, alive, and he’d come back to her.

She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, choking back a sob. The past three days blurred together in a stinging mist of fear and desperation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept, really slept, without jerking awake every few minutes to check the rise and fall of his chest.

A passing nurse gave her a sympathetic smile, his soft-soled shoes squeaking against the floor. Kirsty tried to return the smile, but her facial muscles were stiff and uncooperative. She’d been wearing this mask of strained composure for too long.

Kirsty pushed away from the wall, her legs moving of their own accord. She needed…God, she didn’t know what she needed. A shower, a toothbrush, a change of clothes that didn’t reek of stale sweat and hospital. But more than that, she needed a moment to herself, to process the tempest of emotions swirling inside her.

She wandered down the corridor, her gaze skimming over the closed doors and generic landscape paintings. The lights hummed, their incessant buzz grating against her nerves. She turned a corner and found herself in front of a large window overlooking the hospital grounds. The sky outside was a flat, listless grey, the colour of old dishwater. But even in this grim, leaden state, the sky was wider and lighter in Aberdeen than in London. It expanded more than anywhere else.

Kirsty leaned her forehead against the cool glass, watching a lone gull wheel and dip over the parking lot. The bird’s cries echoed in the space behind her ribs.

She closed her eyes, hot tears leaking from beneath her lids. The image of Connor lying in that hospital bed, his skin as pale as the sheets, his body hooked up to several tubes, was seared into her memory. He’d looked so frail, so unlike the strong, vital man she knew. The man she loved.

Loved.

The word caught in her throat. She’d almost lost him before she could tell him how she felt, before they could truly explore this thing between them. The thought of a future without him stretched before her, bleak and colourless, and a ragged sob tore from her chest.

Kirsty let the tears come, her shoulders shaking with the force of her grief and relief. She cried for the man in that hospital bed, for the time they’d wasted, again, for the fear that had almost eaten her alive. But beneath the sorrow, a tiny spark of hope kindled to life.

They still had a chance. For real this time.

If he still wanted her, that was.

Sniffling, she dug into her pocket for her phone. Her parents deserved to know that Connor was awake, and Lucy would want an update. She powered on the device, wincing as it immediately started pinging with a barrage of notifications.

Missed calls and texts from Charlotte and Grigori lit up the screen, each one more urgent and demanding than the last.

When she’d got Lucy’s call, Kirsty had jumped into a taxi straight to the train station, then up to Scotland on the Caledonian Sleeper. She’d texted both Charlotte and Grigori something along the lines of, ‘Sorry, family emergency. Serious accident. Don’t worry, it’s all set up for next week. Denise knows the drill. Be in touch soon’ – and then switched off her phone. She hadn’t been in the right headspace for any trivialities. So little, in fact, that she’d used the hospital’s ancient payphone to call her parents and tell them about Connor’s condition.

Now Kirsty’s finger hovered over the reply button, eyes narrowing as she read the increasingly angry messages. Something inside her, some long-dormant ember of defiance, sparked and caught flame.

She thought of the past couple of weeks in London. The vertical was a soul-sucking vampire, bleeding her dry. They didn’t give a fuck about quality, about crafting something real and true. All they cared about were clicks, ad revenue, conversions. Not a shred of substance. Again.

Kirsty felt like a fraud, a sell-out, an idiot. The agonising cringe in her chest every time she walked into that soulless brutalist box with the musty stench, the sense that she was still losing herself piece by piece, only in a different way.

And then she thought of Connor, of the way he made her feel seen and understood, of the laughter and warmth and bone-deep rightness she felt in his presence. Of Cairnhaven. The café. Her parents. Lucy. Silly pie contests and picnics on the beach. Isa’s gossip. Hell, even riling up Maisie from time to time.

It wasn’t that everything was better in Scotland. Far from it. But the things that mattered were.

In that moment, the choice was so crystal clear it wasn’t even a choice.

Her fingers flew over the screen, the words pouring out of her in a cathartic rush.

ME (11:18 AM) Dear Charlotte. Consider this my revolutionary content contribution: I quit. Turns out life’s too short for over-inflated egos and underwhelming editorial standards. I’ll be in touch with HR. Take care, Kirsty.

She hit send before she could second-guess herself, a giddy laugh bubbling up in her throat. For the first time in years, she was lighter, freer, more herself.

Was this insane and impulsive?

Fuck yeah.

But it was good and right, too.

She would come back to Cairnhaven and help her parents with the café. Do some freelancing. Write that novel.

She wouldn’t hang that decision on Connor. This was what she wanted for herself. If he wanted to be part of the package – that would be everything. But if he wasn’t sure, she’d deal with that, too.

Kirsty pocketed her phone and turned away from the window, her step infused with new purpose as she strode down the corridor in search of his doctor. She didn’t know what the future held. For her, for Connor, for them together. If at all. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty.

She was exactly where she was meant to be.

Home.

The possibilities stretched out before her like an open road. With a deep breath and a determined set to her shoulders, she straightened her spine and walked back.

He was awake, alive – that was all that mattered.

Kirsty stood at the threshold of his room.

Not so fast.

He needed to heal and recover first, she couldn’t dump her feelings on him now. Because this wasn’t about her.

Kirsty took a deep breath, finding her resolve. She would wait until he was strong and well again. When the time came, she would tell him everything. Until then, she’d be there, supporting him every step of the way.

Because that’s what he’d been doing for her all along.