Chapter 2

ROWAN

He does have me.

Us, I mean. He has both me and the lamb almost all the way up to the top of the cliff and don't ask me how he makes that happen. All I know is that he loops the rope so the lamb's snug between us, and then we're lurching upward.

Here's more steel—this surfer is strong enough to haul all three of us up, making slow, muscle-bunching progress, and I have no idea why him taking my weight on this inching journey opens floodgates, but here I am blurting to an irate stranger about how my day is going.

And he is pissed off, despite that soft promise. It's right there in a clenched jaw I'm close enough to see in scruffy detail. I'm also close enough to see a tic when I tell him that I've missed an interview scheduled for two thirty. That I've lost a second chance I really wanted, and not only one for a job.

"I was going to track down someone I used to know who lives around here. If we die, I won't get that second chance with them either."

He frowns at that, then frowns even harder when the lamb craps on his wetsuit. It isn't funny, but I can't keep in a helpless noise that isn't even close to laughter. All I know for sure is that the sound finally dies but my chest won't stop its stupid hitching.

For some reason, he stops while I try to get a grip. On myself, not on the rope. He's already told me not to keep grasping at it—to hold on to him instead—and he doesn't need to tell me twice. My nails are short, but again I'm close enough to see the crescents I've left on the shoulder of his wetsuit.

I try to focus on each shallow dent and not on the spinning blur of rocks below us, but my chest hitches even harder.

"Relax," he says, which is almost as laughable as what he follows up with. "You want a second chance with a girl, I'll get you to her."

"No." My inner fuckwit still has the wheel. "I'm not interested in girls."

We dangle some more—still spinning, if less violently—until he finally says, "Stop looking down." He makes me do that by nudging my face against his neck. It's gritty with sand, raspy like his voice. "You haven't missed all your chances. Not yet. You've still got time to make your interview."

"Really?" I lurch away, instantly regretting that move when we swing wildly again.

He doesn't seem to notice. He only studies my face and makes another steely promise. "There's still time. Hold tight and tell me about it."

And like a complete sap, that's what I do—I cling to him with my eyes closed, telling him all about my second chance at a school called Glynn Harber.

"Second chance? What happened to your first one?"

Last night, I didn't manifest telling a complete stranger all the different ways I've fucked up. I don't get time to spill all that detail, only getting as far as mentioning a different school—one that I hated, one that wild horses couldn't make me revisit—and how I thought I'd escaped it at seventeen only to win myself the stupidest prize ever. Our spinning stops abruptly, surprising me into silence.

I don't know how he manoeuvres all three of us, but one minute, I'm hanging over sure death and the next I'm flat on my back and grass has never felt softer.

It tickles everywhere it touches.

So does this lamb, who stops wriggling and nuzzles under my chin, which feels like fluffy kisses. I almost kiss the lamb back, along with the man who saved us. I'm so happy I could kiss him senseless, but what comes out is more of that hitching laughter that chokes me, because what the fuck?

Kiss him senseless?

He'd push me straight back over the edge.

For now, he blinks down from where he's braced over me and the lamb, and who knows what he sees. One thing's for sure, it isn't a singer dressed to win a national contest or a trainee teacher who should be dream-job ready.

Ready?

I must look a wreck. I have to—he still has an arm around me like he thinks I'll fall apart at any moment. Or that's what I assume until I tune into his murmur. "You can let go of me now."

I nod because yes, I can, and I would if my arms didn't think that was the worst idea since I slammed on the brakes of my car and hurled myself headfirst to disaster.

Forget my nails leaving shallow crescents. I can't release this death grip or tell him sorry.

For once, my voicelessness isn't down to feeling out of my depth and drowning under spotlights. Nor is it due to being chest-to-chest with someone who has more power than me. I'm locked to him by relief so acute that my ears ring, and I've never felt safer.

Never.

Between us, the lamb burrows closer, as if it feels just as secure. Its nuzzling still tickles. I laugh again then, the sound still hitching, but at least my voice returns with it. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm?—"

"Going to let me go now, so you can still make it to your interview on time?" he suggests, and for a first time I see the ghost of a smile, gone before I can be sure I saw it. There's no mistaking his next one—the lamb lifts its head to nuzzle at him too, and his grin is a brief flash.

"Stop it, you daft beggar." He's still above me. Still braced between my legs so we only connect where my arms band us. "You know you're safe now, don't you?" he tells it. "You can feel it. You're safe too." I only grasp that he's talking to me when he adds, "You really can let go."

Here's some more of that shaky laughter. "I really can't." I close my eyes, but all that does is replay rocks and crashing water.

"Look," he urges. "You're nowhere near the edge now."

"Oh, I'd believe it if I could see it. Only I can't. Lost my glasses, remember?" I open one eye and crane my neck. "Nope."

"How do you plan on driving to your interview?"

"I've got a spare pair."

"In your car?"

I let go of him then, and if my head hit stone instead of grass, I'm sure it would sound hollow. "No. They're in my wash bag back at my hotel. Shit."

"Shit," he agrees after kneeling up. "You're covered in plenty of that. We both are. But at least I can hose off my wetsuit. Can't say the same for your suit."

He isn't wrong about that. It's another mark against me, another reason maybe today isn't the day for my phoenix to unfurl its wings. It also isn't a day for rational reactions. It can't be because this man saved my life, I'm certain of that, but when he reaches for the lamb, telling me to give it to him, I let go of something different.

"No way." I sit bolt upright. "You told me to drop it."

Scrambling to my feet is a head rush. So is keeping hold of the lamb when it struggles all over again. Each high-pitched bleat plucks at a tight string inside me. This is what I should have done the last time someone barked orders I knew I shouldn't follow. I've always regretted not standing my ground sooner. I should have yelled right away until the whole world listened.

Today?

I bellow.

"You told me to throw it away, didn't you? You practically told me to feck it into the Atlantic."

He doesn't answer right away. A surprise hand clamps on the back of my neck, the grip much less gentle than when he nudged my face against him and told me not to look down. Now he's effortlessly forceful, hauling me back to the edge, and my stomach lurches.

For one too-long moment, I think he'll really push me.

He points down instead.

"Did you keep your glasses on for long enough to see who was at the base of the cliff?"

I guess he's talking about that other surfer.

"Because yes, I did tell you to throw the lamb, but that means it would have missed the rocks, and Matt would have scooped it out of the water before it had a chance to become fish food." His grip doesn't let up, and I don't need my glasses to see what else he points out. "Do you know why he stayed down there until you were safe or why he risked his life fighting the current to stay that close to those rocks? Because I'll tell you this for nothing. It wasn't to give a lamb a swimming lesson."

I can guess the real answer.

He tells me regardless, his grip easing enough that I can shift back a step to face a bleak and stony profile. It's the one solid landmark in a blurred world, and it's the worst possible time to take in that he's good-looking, if grim, but that isn't what almost floors me when he shifts and our eyes meet.

It's seeing this much kindness. That's what he hits me with next. His voice drops, and it's devastating. "He stayed for you. For you. I hauled you up for the same reason."

We aren't close to the edge now, but I'm falling all over again. That's how it feels to hear that I'm worth saving.

There's no avoiding how much he means this. "For you, not for any runaway livestock." He touches the lamb's ears. "Even cute runaway livestock like this." His gaze lifts again. "And not because you're almost as cute, at least when you aren't yelling at me."

I'm caught between flustered and flattered, but he isn't done yet.

"For you," he repeats softly, which only makes the following starkness all the more shocking. "Because if you'd fallen, you could have been dead before you hit the water. Or you'd have drowned while unconscious. You'd have broken every single bone in your body and ruined that pretty face forever, but Matt would have still fished your bleeding carcass from the water. And he still would have paddled your body ashore. Fuck knows he's done versions of that enough times already. We both have." He winces as if admitting all of that is painful, then he rubs at the side of his head.

Did he hit it on the cliff while hauling us up? I didn't notice while we were spinning on that rope, and I don't get a chance to ask him now because he isn't finished.

"It would have been as grim as hell for him," he says, still wincing. Then he adds more quietly, "But he would have done it so we had something to bring home to your family." He can't know that no one would grieve my absence apart from a pack of little Irish cousins. I don't interrupt while he sounds this wrecked. "Because do you know what's worse than losing someone for a pointless reason?" He then answers for me. "It's being the one who couldn't save them."

I've never heard anyone sound so certain. He is about what he says next as well, and I don't only believe him because he goes on to use familiar phrasing. I'm convinced by his hand slipping from my neck to my back, which he pats as if in consolation. "Trust me, you're welcome to play as many stupid games as you like just as long as you know this—it won't ever be only you who'll win stupid prizes. Going over the edge after an animal was stupid, and today this is what you get for playing. Not a missed interview. Not sheep shit all over your suit. You won two men risking their lives when you could have saved your own first."

His inhale is ragged, frayed around its edges like his next suggestion.

"Think about who would win that prize the next time you get the urge to be a hero, yeah? Better yet, leave it to us professionals." Another wince follows. "Or ex-professionals." This comes out so softly. "Trust me, even professionals can't live with that prize. You know what it's called?"

Guilt.

I nod, and he grasps my shoulder and squeezes. It's both firm and grounding. So is him saying, "I'll give you this for nothing. You've got plenty of grit."

That's so far from the truth, but the sick spin of the world stops at what sounds like praise, and I think he's done.

He isn't. He holds out both hands. For the lamb, I realise.

We're still on the edge of the cliff. Still right beside a long drop with only rocks and waves beneath us. But this time?

I trust him.