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Luke frowned. ‘What an idiot your ex is. I can only apologise on behalf of my species. We’re not all like that, I promise.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ I glanced over my shoulder to check on Dee and found her sitting on Dan’s lap. She was fine, job done.
‘I can prove it if you like,’ Luke offered, his eyes creasing at the edges.
‘Prove what?’
‘That we’re not all like him. Like your idiot of an ex-boyfriend.’
Was he asking me out? Surely not. I felt panicked. I wasn’t ready for another relationship … or even a date. And with Luke Harte? I stared at him, realising he was younger than me, perhaps by five years or so. Dee would think it was brilliant if I dated a younger man, but I really wasn’t sure I was up to it.
The romantic in me gave me an inner nudge. Was this one of those moments? One of life’s opportunities that shouldn’t be missed? I just didn’t want to get hurt again.
‘Come out with me,’ Luke said, meeting my eyes. ‘For a drink. Dinner. The cinema. Bowling, if you’re feeling competitive. I’m a master bowler.’
‘I’m … I’m not very good at bowling.’ It was lame, but I didn’t know what else to say. I had a feeling I was blushing madly and wished I could duck out of the bright light that hung above us.
‘Dinner then,’ he said lightly. ‘Surely you’re good at eating dinner?’
He was mocking me, but only gently. I bit my lip. ‘We’d have absolutely nothing in common,’ I blurted out. I was mortified. Why had I said that? I sounded ridiculous.
He burst out laughing, unruffled. ‘And what, pray tell, brings you to that conclusion?’
I had to justify myself after such a statement. ‘Well … I’m shy, you’re outgoing. I alphabetise my books; you probably stuff them into bookshelves any-old-how. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ I added to soften the blow.
Luke Harte held his hands up. ‘Wow. You’ve definitely got me pegged. I do shove all my books on to the shelves in random order. How did you know that? Do I look like a messy, couldn’t-care-less kind of a guy?’
As he moved under the gazebo light, I noticed that his eyes were a very nice shade of blue.
‘Erm. I don’t know. I just guessed about the books. Or rather, I just know that I’m weird compared to most people when it comes to these things.’
‘Quirky, not weird. And opposites attract, remember. Clichés are clichés for a reason, as a very wise man once told me.’
I noted a wobble in his voice and I was intrigued. ‘A wise man?’
‘My father. He … he died a few years ago. We’re all still reeling from it. My family, I mean. It’s literally the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.’
‘Gosh. I’m so sorry.’
Luke nodded. ‘Thanks. It was grim, but we’re all moving on now. Mostly. Anyway, are you close to your parents?’
‘Not at all, unfortunately. I’m an only child … not planned, I think. I always felt a bit … superfluous.’ I rolled my shoulders. ‘But hey. They’re okay, really. They live in Scotland now.’
‘That’s a shame.’ He seemed genuinely sympathetic. ‘Are you going to tell me your name now? I feel at a disadvantage. Especially now that we’ve … you know. Shared things.’
I managed a teasing glance. ‘I don’t think I will. Besides, there are plenty of other, prettier girls here for you to chat to.’
‘Is that so?’ A furrow appeared in his brow. ‘What if I said I liked girls in short, stripy dresses who alphabetise their books?’
I felt laughter approaching. ‘I’d tell you it was a phase. One I’m sure you’ll grow out of very soon.’ A giggle escaped.
‘Ouch! That hurt, Stripes.’ Luke clapped his hands to his chest, miming pain. ‘But that just shows that you haven’t got me pegged, after all.’
‘Oh?’
Luke leaned against the post and folded his arms across his chest, decapitating the Foo Fighters. ‘Because if you knew me better, you’d know that I don’t go in for phases. Things I care about, I stick with. My family and my career, to give you a couple of examples.’
I considered him. He was definitely younger than me, in his early twenties, I would say at a guess.
‘I’m a paramedic, for my sins.’ Luke’s mouth twitched. ‘Soon to be, anyway. I know, I know; you think I’m doing it for the glory. I expect you think I support Man United, too.’
I was impressed; I admit it. Which was ridiculous. He saved lives, but so did lots of people. It suited him though. It gave his good looks and charming patter credibility. Which made him seem even more attractive. Dammit. How very annoying.
‘If you’d seen some of the things I’ve seen … injured children, domestic abuse, stuff like that.’ He looked serious for the first time, his mouth settling into a sober line. ‘But enough about me … what do you do?’
‘I work in this book shop.’ I cringed, thinking this must sound rather rubbish compared to being a paramedic. Luke looked interested, however, so I carried on. ‘It’s lovely and my boss is this sweet, old guy who’s really nice to me and pays me far too much, but it’s not necessarily my vocation, you know?’
‘Do you know what that is?’
I shook my head and laughed. ‘No! Not exactly. I studied literature, but I’d really just be happy to do something that made me feel … uplifted. It doesn’t have to be something incredible like being a paramedic, but something fun. Something … positive. That probably sounds strange. Sorry.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
Luke’s mouth curled up as if he was thinking about something and he drummed his fingers on his arm. I wondered if it was a habit that might become annoying, then decided that it wasn’t. And that I was getting ahead of myself.
‘I know this might sound a bit weird, but if you really want a change, my mum could do with an extra pair of hands in the family business. It’s a florist.’
A florist? I faltered. I thought about it. I supposed it could be rather lovely working with flowers. Apart from condolence ones, presumably. I had always loved flowers, but I was relatively clueless about the different kinds.
‘Think about it,’ Luke said. He added a casual shrug. ‘It’s in the centre of town and the pay isn’t bad at all. I know my mum could do with some help, so if you’re really pushed, it’s an option.’
‘Okay. Thanks. That’s really kind of you.’
‘I’m not being kind, if I’m honest. The job is real, but I’m also trying to engineer a situation where you won’t be able to reject my advances so easily.’
That lovely smile again. I was seriously in danger of becoming smitten with Luke Harte.
‘I should go … Dee’s calling me over …’ My voice registered my regret.
Luke stopped me by taking my hand. ‘Listen. Stripes. You’re the most fascinating girl I’ve met in ages. You’re funny, you’re super-organised – which I love, incidentally – and you’re beautiful. Quirky-beautiful. That’s the best kind, by the way.’
That did it for me. Luke Harte was too much for me. When had anyone told me I was beautiful, let alone ‘quirky-beautiful?’ I was scared. Petrified, in fact.
‘I – I have to go,’ I mumbled, stumbling away from him. When I reached Dee, I stole a glance over my shoulder, my heart beating a bit more quickly than usual. But Luke Harte had gone; melting into the darkness like a ghost. It was almost as if our chat hadn’t happened.
I spent the next month thinking non-stop about Luke bloody Harte. About him asking me out, about me saying no. About me telling him about my idiot of an ex-boyfriend and about him opening up about his dad. I don’t think I’d ever spoken to a stranger about myself so much.
Then one day, he just turned up. Dazzling Luke Harte turned up in the little book shop I worked in, wearing his teal paramedic’s outfit and claiming, with a mischievous smile, to be in the mood for book-buying.
‘Fill your boots,’ I said, delighted to see him. I watched in amusement as he carefully selected books about caring for gladioli, the Second World War and the practicalities of owning a greenhouse.
‘Actually, I’m not really here to buy books,’ Luke sheepishly confessed after presenting my boss with a twenty pound note, with the change to go in the charity box on the desk. My boss gazed at him adoringly.
‘No?’ I said.
‘No. I’m here to ask you out again and I’m not taking no for an answer.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll stage a sit-in, if I have to.’
‘Goodness. A sit-in. How passionate you are.’
‘You have no idea.’ Luke laughed at his own awful joke. ‘Seriously. You name it, we’ll do it, date-wise. Decorating cupcakes, feeding monkeys at the zoo … shopping for clothes.’ He covered his face. ‘God. That’s how desperate I am. I’m offering to go shopping for clothes. I’m a disgrace to men the world over.’
I melted. Who could resist such an advance? ‘I’m in,’ I told him with a stupid grin. In reality, I was more than ‘in.’ I was hurtling, fast-falling, utterly bowled over. Despite being terrible at bowling.
Later, Luke told me that he had spent five weeks tracking me down, the delay caused by Liberty being sent on a month-long cruise with her least favourite aunt as a punishment for the wild party.
Our love story, as Dee liked to call it, was kind of old-fashioned. Cosy dinner dates, endless chats into the early hours of the morning. A slow, heady burn between us that had taken my breath away in the early weeks and that swiftly turned into body-shuddering passion. I gave up my job in the book shop and I started working at Hartes & Flowers. I loved it and I loved this man that had come into my life like a whirlwind, with his romance and his eyes and his words.
And at the point, pretty early on, where Luke quietly said: ‘Lucy, I’m so in love with you, I can’t even bear it,’ I felt an exquisite rush of relief. I had fallen in love with him long, long before that moment and the agony of worrying that he didn’t feel the same way had almost killed me.
Being chased by a man like Luke had turned my life on its axis. Losing him really wasn’t an option.
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#ulink_4b441077-a344-51a9-903a-6c65f563004d)
Nell (#ulink_4b441077-a344-51a9-903a-6c65f563004d)
September
Nell balanced the notepad on her lap, but her nervous, jiggling leg kept knocking it off. She glanced over her shoulder, certain all the other students sharing the grassy bank with her must have spotted the state she was in, but they were oblivious. Smoking, chatting, reading, exclaiming over something outrageous in Tatler. The last thing they were doing was paying any attention to Nell or her inner panic. They were all at college for a meeting to collect coursework notes and information about their final year, but Nell couldn’t stop thinking about Luke. What if he woke up and she missed it?
It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear, she observed. The kind of day that brought everyone outside for a breath of fresh air and the feeling of warmth on skin. The world was still turning and she couldn’t help resenting it. Luke had almost died. Luke might still die. Yet everyone was continuing with their lives without a care in the world. Even she was continuing with her life. It had only been two days since Luke’s accident, but, frighteningly, there had been no change.
Nell made an effort to still her jiggling leg. She needed to talk to someone. There had to be someone else she could speak to rather than doing this, surely? But her closest friend Becks had moved away and phone calls weren’t the same thing as face to face. She had other friends like Lisa, but she was so busy with her shops … besides, Nell didn’t feel comfortable speaking to Lisa about Luke; it felt too personal. Which was ridiculous, but Nell wanted to keep what had happened to Luke wrapped up in a bubble, close to her heart. At least until they knew what the outcome was going to be.
Nell thought about talking to Cal. She hadn’t seen him since she left his flat the other night. She hadn’t been into college until today and she could hardly ring him at home; his wife might answer. Or one of his kids – an awful thought. He used his mobile to contact her but he had actively discouraged her from contacting him that way. Which left her in no-man’s-land, basically. Out of contact and out of control. She could try him at the flat she had stayed at the other night – it used to belong to Cal’s uncle and he stayed there a fair amount during the week, as he lived an hour or so away by car. But Nell didn’t want to approach him … it felt too forward, too needy.
The guilt about Cal’s wife and children threatened to suffocate her every time she thought about them. But Nell wasn’t about to feel sorry for herself. She deserved to feel guilty – she had done a bad thing. More than once. She pulled the notepad closer, knowing what she was about to do. Was it weird? Maybe, but it had helped her all those years ago … perhaps it would help her now. Nell didn’t feel she had a choice. He was the only person she could talk to right now.
Dad.
It’s me. We haven’t spoken for a while, so I thought I’d check in. You don’t mind me writing to you, do you? That therapist thought it was a good idea when I was a kid, a way for me to ‘get my feelings out when I couldn’t vocalise them.’ I didn’t. I was so angry, I called her a name a twelve-year-old shouldn’t say out loud and the therapist was terribly understanding about it. I was livid. How dare she be so sympathetic and insightful?
The thing is … I have news. Not good news. And you’re pretty much the first person I wanted to talk about it with. Here goes. Luke is in a coma. Lucy lost their last IVF baby. Read that again. I know. It’s horrendous. I can’t compute it, can’t even understand how this can have happened. It’s the sort of thing that happens to someone else, isn’t it? And just one of those things, not two at the same time.
Really, Dad, I hate to sound trite, but if you know anyone with any clout up there, kick them in the bollocks, will you? Because this is really, really shit and they don’t deserve this. Lucy and Luke are good people – the best.
To make matters worse, when it all happened, I was in bed with someone. A married man, Dad. MARRIED. And he’s one of my lecturers at college. Yeah. I know. I can imagine what you’re thinking. Not what you want to hear about your little girl, but you don’t have to tell me how stupid I am, because I already know. Trouble is, I think I kind of love him. That sounds juvenile. I don’t ‘think’ and I don’t ‘kind of.’ I just do. Love him, that is. And it’s scary. I’ve fallen hard and quickly – the worst way to fall, right? Especially when you know that person isn’t right for you. I haven’t told anyone yet, by the way. Not even him.
Listen, I’ve emailed Ade to tell him about Luke and I think he’s coming home once he’s sorted a few things out. He was devastated … really shocked. I’m not sure how Mum will feel about Ade possibly coming back; she doesn’t even know Ade and I are in touch, albeit sporadically. They haven’t spoken for years … since Ade left, in fact.
Anyway, that’s it, Dad. A lot to take in, I know. If I can just leave it with you, you know, the kicking in the bollocks bit? Thanks. I wish I could …
Nell broke off, feeling someone peering over her shoulder. She screwed the piece of paper up into a ball.
‘What’s that?’
It was Cal. He looked rather professorial in a jacket with those weird leather patches at the elbows. Surely rather warm on a day like today?
‘Are you starting your new assignment already?’
‘Er, no.’ Nell shoved the balled-up letter into her bag. ‘Sorry. What with Luke and everything …’
‘Of course, the accident.’ Cal shifted the stack of papers he was carrying from one arm to the other. The sun made his golden hair appear dappled. ‘Yes. How is he? Any change? I’m worried about him. About you.’
Nell felt as if she was basking in the glow of his concern and she felt a flash of something inside. No. She tried to push it down. She didn’t want to love Cal. She wasn’t allowed.
‘No. he’s the same. So, he’s terrible, basically. He’s in a coma and my sister-in-law lost their baby the same day. She was four months pregnant.’
Shock registered on Cal’s face. ‘Darling. That’s horrendous.’ He gave a courteous nod to another senior-looking lecturer before squatting down beside Nell. ‘You’ve been through hell. Are you okay?’
Nell shook her head. ‘Not really. No, I’m not. He’s … Luke’s broken.’ She sniffed. ‘I mean, literally. He’s broken almost every bone and they think he might have brain damage. He’s not responding to anyone and the doctors keep doing that thing where they deliver the same news over and over again, something in their manner telling you to prepare yourself for the worst, you know?’
Cal’s brows knitted together. ‘Really? You get that from them repeating the same prognosis?’ His eyes, when they met hers, were gentle, kindly. ‘Are you sure you’re not reading too much into things, Nell? Just because it looks bleak at the moment doesn’t mean that your brother won’t get better. I’ve been in a few situations like this … not as awful, obviously,’ he added hurriedly, ‘but I really don’t think you can assume all that from them repeating a prognosis.’
Nell felt unconvinced, but she supposed Cal probably had more experience of these kinds of things than she did. ‘It will be all right,’ Cal assured her, standing up again. He flexed his back slightly as if it hadn’t taken kindly to squatting down.
Nell joined him. ‘It just feels as though everything has fallen apart.’
‘Not everything.’ Cal leaned in as close as he could without touching her. ‘I’m here. For you. And I hate seeing you like this. What can I do to help?’
Nell shook her head helplessly. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing you can do. At least …’
She looked up at Cal, noticing how tanned his crooked nose was. Perhaps he marked assignments in his back garden while his children bounced on a trampoline and his wife brought him a cold beer. Nell closed her eyes, banishing the image as well as the ugly jealousy that came with it. She had no right to that feeling. Cal didn’t belong to her; he belonged to someone else.
Nell turned the subject back to Luke. ‘I’m going to visit him later. Come with me? I could do with some moral support.’
Cal rubbed his stubbly chin. It made a rasping sound. ‘Er, well. That could be tricky. I mean, I want to, but I’m not sure I can.’
Nell brushed grass from the hem of her dress. ‘You’re busy … I understand …’
‘Well, it’s not so much that.’ Cal hoisted his papers up again. ‘It’s just … Nell, you must know that people can’t see us out together? My marriage, my career – there’s an awful lot at stake.’
Nell’s hand, still dusting off shards of grass, halted. ‘Oh. I see.’ She let out a bitter laugh. ‘And there was me worrying about you being tied up with lectures. Don’t worry about it, Cal. As you say … there’s an awful lot at stake here.’ My brother’s life, for one, she thought, distraught.
‘Nell—’ Cal put a hand out, almost dropping his stack of assignments. ‘Don’t be like that. You mean the world to me; you know you do.’
‘It’s okay. Look, I have to go. I need to email my brother.’
‘Your brother?’ Cal looked perplexed.
