The Reunion by Amy Silver Read Free Book Online

sunburnt.
    Natalie’s feelings about the French house were wound tightly up in knots, impossible to unravel. There were flashes of intense happiness wound up with memories of desperate, hopeless longing, and the sting of guilt.
    She’d liked the early mornings best, before the sun got too strong. It became her habit to walk to the village first thing, often leaving the others sleeping, to buy fresh bread or croissants. It was just under six miles there and back, a good hour and a half’s walk, brisk on the way down, slower back up. Six miles! She could barely do two these days. Sometimes Andrew used to join her; sometimes he used to walk down with her and then run back up – he’d been a keen sportsman at university and didn’t want to get out of shape. They would argue politics or talk books, occasionally just walking in companionable silence, the beauty of the Alpine foothills in summertime stretching out in front of them.
    There were times on those walks when Natalie imagined she saw something in Andrew’s expression, or heard something in the tone of his voice, that suggested that his feelings for her weren’t purely platonic any more.
    Sometimes, if she’d landed a particularly devastating verbal punch or made an especially astute observation, he’d stop and turn to her and smile or shake his head with a look in his eyes that suggested something like awe, and her heart would race.
    Back at the house, she’d watch Lilah sanding a floor or varnishing one of the doors, beautiful even with paint on her face, dripping with sweat, always laughing about something, loud, undeniable. Natalie would look at her then and think: how ridiculous, even for a second, to imagine that Andrew could want her when he had Lilah. She’d think how awful she was, to imagine such things. She’d think how empty her life would be, how drab, without Lilah in it. Sometimes the guilt grabbed her around the throat and shook her, crushed her trachea, stopped her breathing.
    Natalie felt the itch of salt water on her skin and realised that she had started to cry. She got to her feet, took her empty plate into the kitchen, her eyes taking a moment to readjust to the darkness. Through the back window she thought she saw movement outside in the courtyard and she gasped. There was someone there – she heard the noise of someone trying the door handle. A cry caught in her throat. The door opened, the light came on.
    ‘Jesus!’ Dan literally jumped into the air when he saw her. ‘What are you doing skulking around in the dark?’
    ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
    ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
    ‘I didn’t realise you were out there. I thought…’ She stopped herself because it sounded too stupid to say out loud. She saw the shadow and she thought of Conor, thought of him creeping in late at night after he’d been out back, working in the shed.
    ‘I just fancied another beer. I’m not used to going to bed so early.’ It was just after two in the morning. Dan made his way over to the fridge, seeming a little unsteady on his feet, as though this beer might be the latest in a series. ‘Join me, Nat?’
    She’d forgotten, in her fright, to be cross with him. Now, hearing him say her name, she remembered.
    ‘No, I won’t have a beer. I’ll leave you to it,’ she said.
    ‘Oh, come on Nat.’ He grinned at her, the cheeky boyish grin, coupled with the single raised eyebrow, that she remembered so well. He had used it, in the past, with considerable success.
    Never on Natalie, though. She fixed him with a stern look. ‘Don’t. Don’t talk to me like we’re friends.’
    ‘Nat. Come on.’ He took two beers out of the fridge, held one out to her. ‘Please? Have a drink with me.’
    Against her better judgement, she took it. They went into the living room and sat by the fire. Dan tried to make small talk.
    ‘How’re the kids, Nat? They getting on OK? How old are they now? Eight or nine, must be?’
    ‘They’re