Page 61 of The Wisteria Tree Cottage

Your friend sounds wise. I think I’d like him.

She wrote a reply.When are you back from your work trip? I’m looking forward to meeting you.

She imagined him checking his diary, trying to fit her in.

Not yet.

And that image quickly faded away.

OK, I should go, I’ll chat to you later,Meadow wrote.

Sorry. I’m just a bit stressed with work. I’ll chat to you properly later. Xx

She watched his online light go out and stared at the phone for a moment before climbing out of bed and heading for the shower.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE

Bear logged out of his Connected Hearts app and threw his phone down on the bed. He hated this. He felt like he had to watch everything he said so he didn’t reveal who he was or what he knew. And now he had lied to her by telling her they hadn’t spoken the night before, that he hadn’t deleted her conversation and he was still away with work. He hated that too. No good was going to come of this.

He should have told her who he was last night as soon as he realised and not let this conversation go any further, or at the very least he should have told her this morning when she was sober enough to be able to deal with it. Now the longer he dragged this out by not telling her, the worse it would be when he did come out with the truth. What if she told him some more personal stuff in the meantime, she would be mortified to find out that she had been talking to him. Even taking the secret about Star out of the equation, she had already been really honest with him, talking about some things she wouldn’t have talked about if she’d known who he was.

Was it best for him to just stop messaging her, let AstralSurfer fade away? Then he would no longer have to lie, because he wouldn’t be saying anything. But that would hurt her too and he didn’t want her to go scuttling back inside her shell just as she was venturing out of it.

He sighed, it was such a mess.

He hadn’t slept well the night before, the huge secret about Star weighing heavily on his mind. Not the fact that Star wasn’t Heath’s but why hadn’t Meadow told him? She hadn’t trusted in him not to react badly, that was the crux of it. They were best friends and she had supposedly loved him and she had been scared he wouldn’t accept her or Star into the family. Even when he had held her hand as she had given birth, when he hadn’t left her side through the next few weeks while Star had been in intensive care, she still hadn’t told him then.

If he was honest with himself, the biggest thing that was bugging him about all of this was that she had gone to Heath when she found out she was pregnant, not him. She hadn’t trusted him to raise her baby with her. He knew he’d only been sixteen at the time, and Heath had been nineteen, but he would have raised her little girl like his own, just like Heath did. But he supposed she wouldn’t have come to him if she’d thought he was in love with Milly.

But even now, eight years later, she still hadn’t felt like she could share that secret with him. Could they really move forward in a relationship if she didn’t trust him?

He eyed the phone on the bed. And if he was forced to lie to her maybe he didn’t deserve that trust.

He sighed. He didn’t have time to dwell on this now. He’d promised Star they would look at the webcam footage from the night before that morning.

He finished getting dressed and headed down to breakfast.

CHAPTERFORTY

‘OK, let’s have a look, shall we?’ Bear said, clicking open the video files he’d downloaded from the cameras.

Star opened up her notepad and clicked her pen, ready to take notes. He smiled at her enthusiasm.

They were sitting in the reception area, Indigo was on the phone to a customer and Meadow was chatting to Sharon Ecclestone, one of their guests, about the horseshoe bats and the best place to see them. For the first time in a very long time, it had been awkward between him and Meadow at breakfast. Although he knew that awkwardness had come from him. He just didn’t know what to say to her. After the night before, after what they’d talked about after the dating event, he should be taking her for a walk on Pear Tree Beach and telling her he loved her. But her secret and his lies felt like they were overshadowing all of that. Of course his feelings for her hadn’t changed but he had lied to her this morning and it didn’t feel like the best time to tell her how he felt. Maybe Heath was right and he’d wait a few days for it all to die down. He caught her eye as Sharon left and Meadow gave him a little smile. They still hadn’t cleared the air properly after his silly overreaction the day before, well not that she would remember. He smiled back, a million different things he wanted to say flashing through his head, but he couldn’t find the words for any of them.

‘So the cameras have motion detectors so they recorded when anything moved?’ Star asked, snapping his attention back to the videos.

‘Sort of. These cameras use something called infrared, which detects a moving heat pattern which animals have. Otherwise the cameras might pick up every time a leaf was blowing in the wind. This way we know that all the motion files we’re about to watch should be an animal. Although we might pick up some of the human occupants as well, making their way back to the treehouses.’

Star giggled. ‘Well, humans are animals too.’

‘That’s true.’

He watched as Meadow stepped outside to talk to one of the guests who had checked in the day before, giving directions to the beaches and other nearby sights. Why was he so hyperaware of everything she was doing today? Her words from the night before flashed into his mind. How she had often thought about what it would be like to sleep with him. How she wanted him to be her first, how she had cried after she’d slept with that shitbag because she wished she’d slept with him instead. Their lives would have been so different if she had. Although he couldn’t regret the existence of the brilliant little girl sitting next to him.

He clicked open the first file and after a few seconds a hedgehog came into view, snuffling at the fruit they’d left out and sniffing at the camera. Beside him Star gasped with delight.

‘He’s so cute.’

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