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When Robin woke up, for a moment, she had no idea where she was. Blue-black landscape flitted past behind a rain-spotted window that her temple was leaning against. She blinked sleep-encrusted eyes and craned her aching neck. The smell of wool and tobacco was in her nose, the hum of a car’s engine in her ears, and she was covered by something warm and heavy.
A coat. Cormoran’s coat.
She was in his BMW, on the passenger seat.
“Hey there. You okay?” his deep, rumbling voice asked softly from the driver’s seat, and, as Robin turned to him, memory rushed back in.
Her father had died suddenly, a few days ago. An aneurysm had burst that no one had known about. Emergency surgery had saved her father’s body, but not his brain. They’d let him go the day after, organ donor forms filled out and still in shock and disbelief. The funeral had made it real a few days later. It had been at the graveside that Robin’s dam had finally broken and the tears had come, so long and hard her eyes were still red two days later.
Strike had been there through all of it. He’d insisted on driving her to Masham and stayed there, immovable, like a Cornish piece of rock, steady, solid and unshakeable. Familiar with handling a sudden death in the family, he’d helped organize things as well as served as a chauffeur or sounding board to anyone who needed it. Even Robin’s mother, bereaved and scared, had warmed to Strike’s unassuming, helpful presence and sent him off today with a grateful hug.
Tactfully, Strike had stayed at a B&B close to Robin’s family home. After all, he wasn’t her boyfriend. Or was he?
They’d come closer, these past few days. He’d held her hand more than once, and the line between comfort and affection had blurred. There had been hugs, and a gentle kiss on her forehead after the funeral. A stubby thumb wiping a trail of tears from her cheek. All of which could have been the caring gestures of a best friend. Or more?
Right now, safe and warm in Cormoran’s car, on their way home to London, it didn’t seem to matter what exactly they were to each other. All cried out and empty, the only thing that mattered to Robin was that he had been by her side, without question, without fanfare, without fuss.
“Robin?” he asked again, frowning in concern. Night falling, he looked so dark beside her, hair and eyebrows and beard and all, she could barely see his eyes in the gloominess of the car. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I fell asleep.”
She thought she sounded more like herself again, less breakable than these last few days.
“Yeah, you were wiped out.” Strike turned his head and focused on the road again. Rain was sloshing against the windshield now. “No wonder, after everything.” He motioned to the back seat. “There’s tea if you want some.”
Robin yawned and smiled at the same time. She hadn’t smiled since… Well. Since.
“You brought tea?”
“In a thermos, yes. Biscuits, too. Can you believe it?”
Robin felt rather than saw his lopsided grin and his comically raised eyebrows.
“Cormoran Strike,” she sighed, sadness and comfort battling for prominence in her chest. It resulted in a teary-eyed smile. “I love you.”
The words had slipped out without thinking. Robin froze. Her heart broke into a drum solo. She hadn’t meant to say this. She wasn’t even sure how she’d meant what she’d said.
For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the rain. And the only movement was the BMW cruising along at a steady pace.
Then, without turning his gaze away from the road, Strike said, very softly, “I love you too, Robin Ellacott.”
A heartbeat.
And then, “Will you pour me a cup as well? And open the chocolate biscuits first. I found the other ones in my duffel bag, and they may have expired since Afghanistan.”
Another first since her father’s death: Robin, relieved and confused and grateful, burst into mirthful laughter.