The Secret Path by Karen Swan (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

down his nose but with no free hand left to push them up.

Holly stood again and did it for him, greeting him with a casually affectionate kiss. ‘Did you turn off the immersion?’

‘Yes. And changed the cat litter,’ he said, before she could ask. ‘And watered the basil and put it by the window.’

‘With the little gap open at the top?’

‘Yes, and the safety locks tightened.’

Holly visibly relaxed. ‘Good.’ Her signature enormous smile spread across her face, and it really was like a dawn. ‘Well, then in that case I’m defo ready to go on holiday.’ She leaned into Tara and squeezed her arm again, dropping her head on her shoulder, both sympathetic and encouraging at once.

Dev shot Tara his usual bemused look. ‘Hi Twig.’

‘Hey Dev,’ she smiled.

Jimmy looked up at her. He was a beautiful boy, seemingly having inherited the best of both his parents – caramel-coloured skin, his father’s fine bone structure, his mother’s light eyes. ‘Aunty Twig, is it true we’re going on a private plane?’

She looked down at him and wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Do they have Dr Pepper?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Holly said firmly, turning away to double-check for the passports in Dev’s bumbag. She was outrageously hypocritical and was firmly of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ school of parenting.

Tara winked at him and pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Lots of fresh juices.’

‘And still water, I hope?’ Holly asked over her shoulder. ‘Carbonated is shit for their teeth.’

‘Mummy potty-mouth!’ Jimmy cried, as Dev had taught him to every time his mother swore.

‘Ugh,’ she groaned, reaching into her jacket pocket and giving her son a pound.

Jimmy looked at it, pleased. Tara suspected he was probably quite well-off if Holly paid up every time she was supposed to.

The stairs were being lowered to the tarmac; it was time to go.

‘Where’s Rory? I thought he was coming?’ Dev asked, looking worried. He relied on Rory’s calm presence as an antidote to the two women together.

‘Don’t worry, he is. He got stuck in traffic on the A40. More worrying is, where are Miles and Zac?’

‘Oh God,’ Holly groaned. ‘Please don’t tell me I’m going to be the only person with hairy legs on this holiday?’

In spite of her misery, Tara chuckled. Dev shook his head and huddled his wife in close, kissing her on the temple. ‘Well, we may as well wait for them on board. At least we can sit down and have something to drink.’

‘Ooh,’ Holly said, her tired eyes brightening.

‘I’m starving!’ Jimmy almost shouted.

Tara picked up her small, neatly packed bag and led them through the automatic doors, from the air-conditioned cool of the terminal to the sizzling heat of the runway. London was baking in the hottest July on record – and it was still only the seventeenth of the month. The tropical rains of Costa Rica were going to be a welcome respite.

Two steps behind her, the Motha family bickered over bags, until Jimmy sprinted ahead and straight up the steps into the plane.

‘Jimmy, no! Come back here!’ Holly yelled. ‘Fuck.’

‘Hols, it’s fine,’ she said reassuringly. ‘He’s not doing any harm.’

‘Now, technically we don’t know that. He could be up to anything.’ She looked at Dev. ‘Did you search him for Sharpies?’

‘Hi Sandy, how are you?’ Tara said with a tired nod to the flight attendant as they climbed the steps.

‘It’s a pleasure to welcome you on board again, Doctor Tremain,’ the attendant said, taking her travel bag.

Jimmy was already standing by the bar, his hand plunged up to the wrist in a bowl of chocolate eclairs. Holly just burst out laughing at the sight of all the cream quilted leather and burred wood tables. Everything was so plush and manicured, it had the effect of making them look untidy. ‘Oh God,’ she gasped. ‘It actually is just like you see it on the Kardashians!’

Dev was dumbstruck.

‘Now, just explain to me again, why we’ve been friends for over a decade and I’ve not been on this before?’ Holly asked slowly, turning a full 360.

‘Because I hardly ever use it myself . . . Sit wherever you like, Dev,’ Tara said, patting his shoulder comfortingly. ‘There are no set places. It’s very relaxed.’

‘Yeah?’

Tara dropped into the nearest seat and checked her phone for messages. Rory was three minutes away. She closed her eyes as Holly, giddy with choice, immediately began fussing about which seats they should have. She dropped her head back, trying to summon her fantasy about the feel of the sand between her toes, tropical waters lapping by her ankles. She reminded herself she could be barefoot all week; flip-flops would be her only concession to shoes, and that was only on account of the ants. Everything was going to be fine. In spite of the feelings to the contrary, she would one day sleep again and her head was not going to explode. She just needed to get away from here, a little time and space away from her everyday life—

‘Sorry, sorry! Bastard traffic through Bayswater.’

Her eyes opened to the sight of her brother coming down the aisle, looking Monaco-ready in pale buff narrow chinos rolled at the ankles, tobacco suede car shoes and a pale blue shirt, accessorized with a vintage Colombian stitched polo belt that had been their father’s – back when he wore a thirty-two-inch waist – and a pair of sleek gunmetal Porsche sunglasses.

Zac, right behind him, was no less impressive in his Brooks Brothers suit. ‘Hey Twig.’

Both of them kissed her and greeted the others; no one seemed to notice that she was fundamentally altered, the black spot on her soul seemingly leaving no trace.

‘Please tell me we’re not the last for once?’ Miles asked, looking delighted by her lack of Plus One.

‘You’re not the last,’ she replied obediently. ‘Rory got stuck in traffic too. He’s a minute away.’

‘See? What did I tell you?’ Zac said, slapping Miles once, hard, on the backside. ‘Plenty of time.’

Miles cracked a grin that was all his own – it somehow