Forgiven

by Garrett Leigh

  Also available from Garrett Leigh

  Kiss Me Again

  The Edge of the World

  Falling For My Roommate

  Hometown Christmas

  Lucky

  Cash

  Jude

  Slide

  Rare

  Circle

  Misfits

  Strays

  Dream

  Whisper

  Believe

  Crossroads

  Bullet

  Bones

  Bold

  House of Cards

  Junkyard Heart

  Rented Heart

  Soul to Keep

  My Mate Jack

  Lucky Man

  Finding Home

  Only Love

  Heart

  What Remains

  What Matters

  Between Ghosts

  Forgiven

  Garrett Leigh

  For my foxes, as ever, with love

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Preview of The Edge of the World by Garrett Leigh

  Preview of Unforgotten by Garrett Leigh

  Excerpt from Unforgotten by Garret Leigh

  Chapter One

  Mia

  Sandgrove Country Park was my entire childhood. Even years after I’d left Rushmere, I still missed the scent of the Christmas tree farm buried in the forest there. How it smelled festive all year round, even in summer, and I recalled with perfect clarity my mum bringing us to choose the cheapest tree to brighten up our budget celebration. Add in Safeway frozen turkey and a slice of Mr. Kipling cake, and I’d been the happiest girl in the world.

  I missed that girl too.

  With one last breath of earthy pine filling my lungs, I walked back to the dodgy Astra I’d bought on eBay when I’d got off the ferry in Dover last night. I’d driven till dawn to get home—a place so strange and familiar—but the sign for Sandgrove had reeled me in before I’d reached Rushmere, and now I was finding it hard to make myself leave.

  On cue, my phone buzzed.

  Gus: where are you?

  I ignored him. Buried him again, like I had over and over for the last five years, pretending I hadn’t missed him too. I leaned against my car and tilted my face to the bright spring sky. Five more minutes.

  Sandgrove had always had a way of sucking up my time, but eventually even the clean air and birdsong couldn’t block out my phone blowing up in my pocket.

  With a heavy sigh, I got in the car and called my annoying little brother back. “I’m on my way. What are you hassling me for?”

  “I’m not hassling you, sis,” Gus said. “I was worried. You said you’d be here an hour ago.”

  I wondered when he’d turned into my mother.

  And when I finally made it back to the house we would share on the outskirts of town, I wondered too when my gangly younger sibling had turned into a strapping hottie.

  “You’re a man,” I said stupidly.

  He cocked a dark eyebrow and enveloped me in a strong-armed bear hug. “Je ne me souviens pas avoir prétendu être autrement.”

  He’d missed my point, but that was fairly standard when it came to Gus and me. I talked, he shut me down, then we reversed our positions and pressed repeat. At least, that’s how things used to be. I didn’t know what we were anymore.

  Gus pulled back to unlock the green front door of the house he’d bought with his half of our mother’s life insurance. I’d never seen the interior, only Facebook photos of the outside, but as soon as I stepped inside, it became clear that he’d made better use of his inheritance than I had.

  I spun around the tidy living space. “This is nice.”

  Gus appeared behind me with a couple of beers. “You sound surprised.”

  “I’m more surprised that you’re cracking open the booze at nine a.m.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t sleep last night, and I’m guessing you didn’t either, so we can call it a nightcap.”

  Worked for me. I was already missing my French diet of coffee and red wine. Sipping my beer, I took a tour of the cosy house my brother called home. Fresh and clean, it was beautiful; he’d even put flowers in my room.

  “I figured we’d be overrun soon enough, so I’d better get used to them.”

  “Don’t talk shit.” I rolled my eyes. “You think I’m going to bring my work home with me?”

  “Wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived with a florist, so I don’t know whether to expect rose petals in the bath or mouldy daffs in the skip outside.”

  “What’s that for, anyway? The skip, I mean. I thought you’d finished the renovations?”

  “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?

  Chapter Two

  Luke

  Mia Amour. Her name had haunted me so much my bunkmate had once found me sleep-scrawling it on our cabin wall. He thought it had meant something—that I was writing a message from another dimension in a language he didn’t understand—but the reality had been far more simple: even on the other side of the world, I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  Somehow, though, over time, I’d forgotten what her eyes did to me. How they could root me to the spot with a single glance and empty my mind of anything but her. Mia. I counted my heartbeats as they thundered in my ears. One, two, three, four. And then she tore her stormy blue gaze away from mine and walked out of the chip shop.

  I reached for the empty space she left behind, and my faculties slowly returned to me as her footsteps echoed in my shell-shocked brain. As drawn to her as I’d always been, I drifted after her, but when I got outside, she was gone.

  A thousand emotions warred in my gut, but the age-old frustration was so familiar I felt sick. Fucking Mia Amour. Deep down, I’d always hated her as much as I’d loved her, because there was no one else on earth who could make my heart pound like she did, my palms sweat, and my fingers tremble.

  Cursing, I hauled myself back into the van. Gus followed a moment later, an open bag of chips in each hand. “Where’d you get to? It was your turn to buy tea.”

  I tossed him a crumpled-up fiver. “Why didn’t you tell me your sister was in town?”

  “Oh fuck.” Gus held out a bag of chips, then set it on the dashboard when I made no move to claim it. “Are we really doing this?”

  I gave him a flat look.

  He sighed. “Fuck’s sake. Why would I tell you? You two aren’t exactly friends, and you haven’t been a couple since I was fourteen and nicking Mayfair Lights from her school bag.”

  Shit, had it been that long? Why was it that just a glimpse of her face could set me back a decade? The weight in my chest increased and I started the van, gunning the rickety diesel engine with a roar. “Either way, a fucking heads-up would’ve been nice.”

  “But why, though?” Gus pointed a chip at me. “You want her number so you can catch up on old times?”

  I wondered if he’d actually give it to me. Then pictured myself calling Mia and her reaction to hearing my voice for the first time in ten long years.

  A legit shudder passed through me. I was done torturing myself for putting my family first, for giving up my entire life to keep a roof over my mum’s head, but that didn’t make the obvious anger in Mia’s eyes easier to bear. Her temper had fascinated seventeen-year-old me—sometimes I’d wound her up on purpose, just to revel in her flushed skin and sharp tongue—but I didn’t have the stones to take it now. My Mia angst tolerance was at an all-time complacent low.

  “Luke?”

  I spared Gus another glare. “What?”

  “Can I eat your chips?”

  * * *

  I drove back to work in a daze and pulled up outside the cottage we were roofing. Gus hopped out of the van and promptly disappeared to his own house down the road, leaving me to scale the scaffolding and check that the wind hadn’t fucked with the work we’d already done before I called it a night, but as hard as I looked, I found it difficult to care. Taking over the business from my uncle had made sense when I’d shipped out of the Navy with no desire to continue with anything I was leaving behind.

  Right now, with Mia on my mind, nothing made sense. Christ, I could even smell her. Like the millisecond she’d been pressed against my back had been all night. You sad fuck.

  A gust of wind dislodged a tarp. I tacked it back down, my mind still entrenched in the past.

  Mia gazed up at me, her usually sharp eyes wide and nervous. “Be gentle.”

  “I will,” I whispered. “We can stop if it hurts.”

  I hadn’t hurt her that night, or the hundred nights that had come after, though we’d grown less gentle over time. Those stolen nights, creeping through her window as soon as her mum was in bed, crawling under the covers and loving each other until the sun rose, had been my only sanctuary from the pit of despair my own home had become. I’d promised to be her sanctuary too. To protect her from the pain my family had endured, but of course I hadn’t. News of Mari Amour’s death had reached me far too late, and by then Mia had been long gone.

  Like you.

  Goddamn it.

  I finished tidying up for the day and descended the scaffolding. Craving solitude to brood in peace, I felt my tiny house in the quiet part of town call my name, but it was Monday and if I didn’t show my face at my mum’s, there’d be hell to pay.

  My mum—or Fran as we’d grown up calling her—was in the kitchen when I let myself into the ramshackle three-
bed semi I’d grown up in. The whole house smelled of her special Monday soup, but even though I’d given the chip shop a miss, I wasn’t hungry. Never was for Fran’s terrible cooking.

  She eyed me as I slumped at the kitchen table. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar.”

  I scowled at her in a perfect demonstration of our family dynamic. My parents had started their family young—teenagers when they’d had me, which had meant our relationships weren’t like most of my mates and their parents. Even now, Fran was only forty-six, young at heart, and way cooler than me. And now that I was old enough to not need the mothering she’d often found so difficult, she was my friend. “Gus’s sister is in town. I saw her in the chip shop.”

  “Gus’s sister? That’s what you’re calling her these days?” Fran brought me a mug of tea and set it in front of me. “And I’m pretty surprised you didn’t know already. That new florist shop is the talk of the town.”

  “You knew?”

  “Of course I did, and so would you have if you were a little more social.”

  My mum, ladies and gents, the terminal social butterfly. My tearaway brother was just like her, in all the wrong ways, but I took after my dad. I liked my own company—when I wasn’t sulking over running into my ex—and didn’t understand the rest of the world’s need to be up in everyone’s business.

  Apart from days like today.

  Fran came back to the table with a glass of wine for herself and the local paper for me. “There.” She pointed at an article on the third page. “She’s taken over the old salon at the end of the high street. Opens in two weeks.”

  If I’d been flummoxed by the idea of Mia merely visiting Gus, the prospect of her being permanently back in Rushmere pretty much gave me a fucking stroke. I stared at the newspaper, and white spots danced in front of my eyes. I’d come home because the Navy had sucked me dry, and Mia, to the best of my knowledge, had left Rushmere behind to start a new life after her mother died. If I’d known—If you’d known what? Her little brother still lives here. He works for you. There was every chance you’d cross paths with Mia again someday.