“I have.” Gus stepped around me and opened the blinds, letting more spring sunshine flood into my bedroom. “It’s leftover from when we did the roof. It’s being collected next week.”
Out of habit, I inwardly flinched, picturing the big black van with the name of the local roofing firm plastered across it. I couldn’t remember the last conversation I’d had with old man Jon Daley. His nephew, though? Jesus Christ. Every syllable was etched on my heart, and now that Rushmere was my home again, I’d never been so thankful that my first love—my only love—had abandoned me to join the bloody Navy.
“Mia?”
I blinked. Gus was in front of me, brandishing a stack of clean towels. He pressed them into my hands and I smelled the French washing powder our mother had stockpiled for all those years, distrustful of the brightly coloured English brands our friends’ parents had used. The crack in my heart widened, and I blinked again, harder this time.
Gus slid his arm around me, his skin as olive as mine was fair, his hair as dark as mine was blond. He didn’t say anything, just kissed my forehead, and for the first time since I’d stepped off the boat, England felt like home.
* * *
“It’s not that bad,” Gus said.
I spared him an incredulous glance. “Are you for real? Look at it—it’s a fucking mess.”
Understatement of the year. I glowered around the shithole that was supposed to be Wild Amour, my new shop, with increasing horror. The photos the lettings agent had sent me hadn’t touched the surface.
Goddamn it. I righted a broken chair and ran my finger along the cracked tiles on the wall. I had orders booked for two weeks’ time, and a website advertising national deliveries a day after that. I’d have to work around the clock to get the shop even functional by then, let alone presentable to the general public.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Gus tried again. “Lick of paint and some cleaning, it’ll be fine.”
I didn’t bother spearing him with another “idiot” glare. Leaving him to start stripping away the remnants of the beauty salon that had rented the premises before me, I trudged into the back room I’d intended to use for storing my stock. Another disaster greeted me—this one wet and filthy, and born of a suspicious hole in the ceiling that would need fixing before my industrial refrigerator arrived to fill the space. By chance, a mop and bucket was tucked away in the corner. I trudged over to it, the lunacy of coming back to Rushmere already overwhelming.
Fuck my life.
Gus left me mid-morning to rock up late to his own job. I tried to care that he’d inconvenienced Daley’s Roofing on my behalf, but age-old bitterness was a strange thing, and all I got for my trouble was acid in my chest. Brilliant. Just what I needed, indigestion on top of everything else.
Still, I didn’t have time to worry about it. I’d spent the last of my savings on some hardcore local advertising, and had bookings for two weddings and a christening to plan for, on top of turning the shop into something halfway resembling the once thriving business I’d left behind in Paris.
More bitterness lanced my scratchy throat, but I ignored it and retrieved my sketchbook from my bag. Men fucking me over was a thing of the past. I would make this work—I had to. There was nothing else.
The dogged determination I’d inherited from my mother propelled me for most of the day. I sketched, planned, scrubbed, and cleaned, and by the time five p.m. rolled around, my morning heartburn was a distant memory. Hunger clawed at my insides, and my eyes stung. Beer for breakfast after a sleepless night, and a full day’s work on top had left me a trembling mess, and I needed food fast.
I’d spent years trying to forget everything about Rushmere, but as I locked up the shop and stepped outside, the scent of the nearby chippie called to me like an old friend. I turned my face upwind and a legitimate craving for Mr. Wong’s famous curry sauce hit me like a truck.
I checked my purse for English money and jogged across the road, my feet carrying me of their own volition. The single-minded quest for a cheap dinner was all-consuming, and I was in the fish and chip shop before I could blink, tripping over the step in my haste and stumbling into a broad back.
Dazed, I jerked my head up, and caught sight of Gus at the counter, handing something to the body I’d barrelled into. “Sorry—”
The word died on my lips, along with the last surviving piece of my fractured heart. Familiar brown eyes stared back at me, hard-won forgotten, but never forgiven. Full lips began to mouth my name, but I reared away, evading the work-hardened hands—beautiful hands—that reached for me.
No. I’d endured enough. And he wasn’t supposed to be here. Luke Daley was supposed to be on the other side of the world on a fucking warship, so why the fuck was he standing in Rushmere’s only chip shop with my goddamn little brother?
Copyright © 2021 by Garrett Leigh
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THE LOVE STUDY by Kris Ripper
THE SECRET INGREDIENT by KD Fisher
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TEDDY SPENSER ISN’T LOOKING FOR LOVE by Kim Fielding
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OUR LEVEL BEST by Roan Parrish
KNIT, PURL, A BABY AND A GIRL by Hettie Bell
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