Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(17)

“Lucky you,” she says. In truth, he’s a beautiful boy. Even while she’s walking next to him, other women slide frequent glances his way. He’s handsome, but there’s something else. He radiates youth and health, a subtle golden glow that’s almost irresistible.

Once they’re through customs, she hands him back his phone, which she’d confiscated earlier. “I put you on my international plan—you have a limited amount of data, so don’t use it all up today,” she warns. She passes him some money and tells him to find breakfast and meet her at the car rental window.

By the time he returns, with a horrible pastry for each of them and a passable cup of tea for her, she’s secured their car.

“Are we going to Grandma’s?” he asks as he straps himself in.

“I wasn’t able to reach her. You know your grandmother. She’s probably off on another vacation,” Holly says, careful to keep her own disappointment out of her voice. Jane’s an inveterate traveler, incapable of staying put for more than a month at a time. She’s always searching for the next new paradise, the newest adventure. “I’ll try again later.”

Jack falls asleep almost immediately. He misses the sunrise, the way the clouds turn a rose gold. He doesn’t see the flock of birds wheeling darkly against the sky, and misses how the glass and steel of the city gives way to rolling expanses of green.

The air is different here, more liquid, expansive, the opposite of her climate-controlled life in New York. Holly breathes deeply, her shoulders unfurling for the first time in days.

But there’s a reason she’s chosen air-conditioning over soft breezes, a reason she insists on keeping the windows in New York closed at all times. She tells Jack it’s his allergies and he complains she’s overprotective, that a single gust of wind won’t make him ill.

It’s not the breeze. Holly is afraid he’ll disappear. Just as Eden has. Just as Holly herself almost did, once.



* * *





When Jack finally wakes up, he’s starving and back to being grumpy.

“Where are we?” he mutters, rubbing at his eyes.

“There’s a pub not far,” Holly says. “We’ll stop and get something to eat before we press on to the hotel.”

At the pub, she parks and sends Jack ahead, claiming that she needs to call the office. The time difference makes her lie unlikely, but he doesn’t argue. Once he’s out of sight, she calls the cottage and tells the day nurse what time to expect her. She wants everyone ready and assembled when she arrives. Then she hurries inside.

The pub is new to her but looks clean. She finds Jack in a corner booth puzzling over the menu.

“Can I get a Guinness?”

“What? No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not? I looked it up before we got here. The drinking age is eighteen, but you can buy me a drink at almost any restaurant.”

When he had the time to research that, Holly has no idea.

“Because I say you’re not old enough, that’s why. Not to mention it’s not even noon. And this isn’t a vacation for you. This is a punishment.”

“Tell me about it,” he mutters. He spends the rest of the meal alternately poking moodily at his eggs and bacon and glaring balefully at her. The waitress, an older, heavyset woman, smiles sympathetically at Holly and brings her a fresh pot of tea without being asked.

“I have one of my own,” she says when Holly thanks her. “I know the signs.”

Once they’ve settled the bill and are back in the car, he perks up a bit, looking at the rural landscape with interest. Flocks of sheep and stone houses have replaced the tidy, close-quartered villages they’ve been driving through.

“What type of supplier works way out here?” he asks once. “There’s nothing but sheep. And cows.”

“We have several in this area,” she says. “We purchase a blue seaweed from one of them to use in our overnight cream.” They do too, although the use of the seaweed is nothing but a cover for her trips to visit Eden—it contains no miracle ingredients that she couldn’t find in seaweed back in the States.

By the time they pull into the inn’s car park, Holly is exhausted and relieved to be done driving. She’s booked a two-bedroom suite. The hotel has a pool and is close to a tiny sandy beach. There’s a restaurant on-site as well, so there’s no need for Jack to go into the village. The odds of someone recognizing him are absolutely nil, but Holly doesn’t want to take a chance. The inn provides exactly what she needs—until she finds out the tutor she’d booked last-minute can’t make it.

The front desk manager apologizes. “She woke up with a fever,” he says. “We looked all about, but there’s no one else qualified.”

Holly doesn’t need qualified—she needs a babysitter. But she grits her teeth and thanks the manager, telling him her son will be staying here while she’s working. “Could you keep an eye on him?”

“I’ll do my best,” he says. The manager, who is clearly overworked, nods in an unconvincing manner.

It’s not particularly reassuring. Nor is Jack, when Holly catches up to him inside their suite. He’s brought in their bags, but now . . .

“What am I supposed to do here?” he complains. He’s sitting on her bed, bouncing a little as he tests the springs, and the squeaking annoys Holly all the hell out of proportion, although she struggles not to show it. “There’s just a stupid small TV. Not even a flat screen. And the WiFi is too slow.” When he can’t run or work out, Jack’s fond of playing an ever-rotating list of games, although none, to Holly’s relief, seem particularly violent.