Page 22

JENNA

I drift up from sleep, riding on a euphoric, pain-free cloud. I’ve finally won. After fighting for more than two days, now the simple act of lying here, feeling almost normal, floods me with gratitude for the drugs that eventually pushed away my migraine and the preventatives that most of the time stop them from stealing away days of my life.

I take a tentative peek from under still-drowsy lids. Sunshine leaks in around the edges of the curtains. Eyes automatically clamping shut against the brightness, I reach out with my other senses.

My breath rises and falls in a relaxed rhythm, no longer the frantic panting which, like a woman in labour, I deploy as a weapon against the stabbing pain of migraine. The air feels thinner, cleared of the heaviness that’s dragged me down.

The bed is cosy, a pleasant warmth in contrast to the raging heat of yesterday. Or was it the day before? I remember Dad bringing me floppy ice packs to wrap behind my neck like a chilly scarf, his hands tender in a well-practised routine .

As I roll onto my side, there’s stiffness in my joints, an after-effect of the medication that thrusts me so far under I lie deathly still, not shifting position like in regular sleep. After a couple of days, my body protests the lack of activity.

The ferocious pain in my temples is no more, and even the residual dull ache of the early hours of this morning has seeped away, leaving a gentle fog.

Through its misty tendrils, the soft sounds of the world return. When my headache was at its peak, tiny noises assaulted my ears like feedback in a speaker, amplified by the roaring of every nerve in my body. Now they offer comfort. Evidence that life goes on, waiting for me to rejoin it. Birds sing. A car slips along our quiet street.

And then there’s a sound that makes me reconsider; one that suggests I haven’t yet returned to reality but am still a prisoner in my drugged alternate world. Music carries up from below. A piano playing a classical melody. It’s a beguiling dream beckoning me towards a place where my mother sits at her instrument and plays.

But I’ve spent too long in the haze of sleep these last two days and I resist the temptation, spurning the hand that offers to lead me somewhere that magic still exists. Eyes flitting open, I scan my surroundings, confirming I’m awake.

This is my room, my new bedroom, in our new house. Dad’s and mine. A house my mother never lived in, never played in. A house that is ignorant of the beauty she coaxed from a piano with the precise yet delicate touch of those slender fingers.

I sit up, slide my legs onto the carpeted floor, and push myself to stand. With cautious steps, I move to the door, testing my legs’ ability to hold me upright. I sway a little, but there’s an overwhelming need to follow the music, as if a siren song calls me .

Beyond the door, it’s like an invisible hand has turned up the volume, the melody billowing up the stairs. I inch along the hallway, steadying myself with a hand on the wall. Pausing on the landing, I take a moment to let the music wash over me.

It’s Beethoven—Moonlight Sonata. Another sign I’m not in some parallel universe with Mum seated at the piano.

I know if she was to play for me one last time, this wouldn’t be her choice. She always preferred Bach over all the other classical composers, especially the elegance and intricacy of his Goldberg Variations—her favourite.

The tune falters for an instant and then resumes, tentative at first, then building in confidence. I take the stairs on wobbly legs. The music draws me forward with a desperate need to discover the source.

I pad in my bare feet across the tiled entry hall, the marble smooth and chilly. Ahead of me, sunlight streams through the windows of the room at the front of the house, the one that should have been my mother’s studio, where her piano has sat untouched, surrounded by her things, a shrine. I pause in the doorway and I can forgive the person who has dared invade this sacred space, because his knowledge of her gives him the right to be there.

Geordie is unaware of my presence. Eyes closed, his fingers trace the keys, occasionally losing the flow, but always finding their way back, confidence returning to his playing as he retrieves the sombre melody. His body sways, immersed in the music, while emotion ripples across his face. Sometimes his brows dip a little in a frown of concentration as he searches for the next note, then, as he finds what he seeks in memory, his mouth curves in a satisfied smile .

The elegant classical music contrasts starkly with the man playing, dressed in an ordinary plaid work shirt, sleeves rolled up, old denim jeans, sturdy leather boots working the foot pedals.

The sunlight illuminates the gold of his hair, the shafts of light picking him out in a surreal glow like he’s an angel Mum has sent down from heaven. It washes over his face, highlighting the clean-shaven skin I know to be soft and smooth, emphasising his youthfulness.

I remain silent, careful not to interrupt, allowing the music in its exquisite sadness to envelop me, a match for the tears that edge down my cheeks, warm and salty on my lips. I don’t move to swipe them away, fearful any movement will alert Geordie to my presence and bring this to an end.

But it must end. Gradually, his hands slow into the final quiet, contemplative chords, allowing them to fade away to nothing. He sits with eyes still closed, as if gently resigned to the loss of the music, instinctively knowing it would be wrong to venture beyond the composition’s melancholy first movement into the lighter more playful middle section, or the rapid, turbulent finale of the third.

The emotion lingers in the air, as if both of us contemplate the greater loss of the woman who will never sit in this space, whose hands will never again caress the keys of the instrument she loved.

The moment Geordie’s lids flicker open, he knows. He turns towards me with wary eyes, his face draining of colour. His hands fall to his knees as if hiding them away.

“Jenna, I’m sorry. I should have asked, but—” He bites at his lower lip, chin dipped, and I see a swallow ripple down his throat .

“No, no, it’s fine.” I swipe at my damp cheeks with the back of each hand. I must look a wreck, with blotchy heat still in my face, and my hair, stale with sweat, matted to my scalp.

“You don’t look fine.”

There’s both a question and concern in his eyes. Self-conscious, I swipe back a greasy strand of hair, tucking it behind my ear. Geordie’s seen me in disarray, but not by the brutal light of day. Unravelled in a sexy way, not this ugly, wrung out mess. Not with a sour-smelling body, unwashed for three days. The last time I showered was in an Edinburgh hotel room, where I reluctantly erased the scent of him from my skin.

“Migraine.”

“Since Sunday night?” He shifts on the piano stool, brows drawing downwards.

“Yes,” I confirm. “Tackled me hard this time.”

“So that’s why.” Even in my half-dazed state, I see the small exhale of relief as his frown clears. “I tried to text you. Every day.”

“Sorry, once the drugs take me under, I’m gone.” I offer a weak smile. “But I’m back now.”

His face relaxes, and he stands, moving towards me, undeterred by my dishevelled state. Part of me wants to retreat—god knows I reek, and I feel every one of my thirty-four years etched on my weary face—but I don’t, sensing he needs me to allow him in close, reassurance that my silence wasn’t a deliberate attempt to shut him out, or put distance between us after Edinburgh.

“That’s good.” He wraps soft arms around me, cradling me, as if understanding how fragile I am right now. As if he knows that having struggled upwards to surface in the real world, I could so easily slip back under. He’s holding me here, keeping my head above water with his quiet strength.

“Anything I can do?” He murmurs against my ear, a flutter of breath that sends a little tremor of warmth through my veins.

“Make me a coffee?”

“That I can do.”

He drops his hands to my arms, places a whisper of a kiss on my forehead and takes me by the hand, leading me to the kitchen as if this is his house, not mine, and settles me on a high chair at the worktop.

“No Andy?” he asks, jamming a pod into the coffee machine, while casting a nervous glance towards the empty dog bed by the French doors, as if expecting the black demon to suddenly appear, snapping at his ankles.

“Still at Skylar’s. By the time we got home off the bus, I knew the headache was on the way. I asked her to keep him there and work from home.”

“Can’t say I’m missing him.”

It feels so right to have Geordie here, in our kitchen, but winning over Andy—and Dad—to the idea may take time.

“Me neither,” I grin. Andy’s prickly personality hasn’t exactly endeared him to me. “But don’t let him know. He might decide to add me to his hit list.”

“Does this happen often? The migraines?” His blonde brows dip in query.

“Well, no.” I try to think back. It’s been a while. “Hadn’t had a headache for six months until last weekend. After the party. And then again this Sunday evening. I’m not sure why they’ve come back now.” His mouth twists into a wry smile. “No—it wasn’t alcohol.” There’s a world of difference between a hangover and a migraine. I’ve had enough of both to know.

“It’s not that,” he says. “I hoped it wasn’t me giving you a headache.”

I can hear the doubt in his voice. Even confronted by the evidence of why I haven’t responded to his texts sitting across from him, me in all my ugly, smelly post-migraine state, he’s unsure. Either that, or gentleman that he is, he’s giving me an out, a chance to back out of our arrangement gracefully.

There’s no way in hell I want that. Having him here this morning, wrapping his tender concern around me, seeing how unfazed he is by the state I’m in, makes him even more alluring.

“The only headache you’ve given me, Geordie MacDonald, is how to keep seeing you without Dad finding out.”

I take a swallow of coffee, savouring the delicious anticipation of the caffeine hit as it slides down my throat. I study Geordie for a moment, measuring his reaction.

There’s a shy downward tilt of his chin, and his mouth curves in a smile. When he looks up at me under those pretty lashes, I read relief in his blue-grey eyes.

The ache in my head has gone, now replaced by other more pleasurable ones; a deep longing for the feeling of his long body pressed against mine, and a little tug at my heart.

“I may have a solution for that,” he offers. “That’s if you still…”

And there it is again. An opening for me to escape through. I’m not taking it. Instead, I place the cup down, lean forward, propping my chin on my elbows. I’m not sure if he has doubts about me or himself, too. Either way, I plan to erase them .

I know as a kid, under Geordie’s sunny smile, was a little boy who struggled with lots of things others found easy, and cried in his room at nights. I know his father was hard on both children, quick to criticise and never one to hide his disappointment when they fell short of his standards, but more demanding of his son. I suspect as a man, Geordie’s exterior confidence is still a thin veneer, easily broken, and I leap in to protect it.

“Nothing’s changed since Sunday, Geordie.”

My voice is husky, partly from lack of use, but also thick with a memory of heat and skin and his mouth all over me. I fix my gaze on his for a moment, and from the smoulder in his eyes, I can see he’s remembering too. My eyes drift down to the sensuous lips now tipping up in a small, knowing smile, and I’d like nothing more to lean over and kiss them. But jerking back into the reality of my unkempt state, I postpone the possibility.

“Tell me about this solution.”