Forgiven

by Garrett Leigh

  “The police are coming,” he said. “Might be a while though, it’s not considered an emergency.”

  I opened my mouth to agree but thought better of it and laid the flowers out on the counter. “Damn it.”

  “What?” Gus spun around. “What is it?”

  “I threw my planning sheet out. It’s in the bin outside.”

  “I’ll get it. Lock the door behind me.”

  “Gus, the bin is twenty feet away.”

  “Just do it.”

  Sighing, I did as I was told, locking the door behind him, then unlocking it when he knocked ten seconds later.

  Except it wasn’t him on my doorstep.

  It was Luke.

  I blinked, inexplicably blindsided. “What are you doing here?”

  He leaned on the door frame, expression, as ever, unreadable. “Gus called me. I came to help.”

  “With what?”

  “Whatever you need, Mia.”

  There were so many things I needed from him right now, but the words to voice them wouldn’t come.

  Lacking any better ideas, I stepped aside and waved him in, ignoring the internal flinch when he hesitated, despite him being the one on my doorstep.

  I drifted back to my work, assuming Luke would seek Gus out, but he followed me and peered over my shoulder.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Remaking the bouquets that were wrecked.”

  “The ones in the van?”

  “Yes. Gus told me not to touch anything, so I don’t know if anything is salvageable.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Really? We’re doing this again?”

  “Doing what?”

  I slammed my hand down on the counter. “You know what! This ridiculous game that carries us round in circles every time one of us has a fucking crisis. We’re either in each other’s lives, or we’re not. I can’t handle this constant back and forth.”

  Silence. For a protracted moment, I feared he’d sigh and walk away like he always did.

  Then he closed his hand around my shoulder. “Mia, I’m here. And after this is sorted, I want to talk...for real this time.”

  What did that even mean? My stress-addled mind had no idea until I recalled the words I’d screamed at him the last time I’d seen him. When I’d told him his heartrending letter would never be good enough. “I don’t know when this will be sorted.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Gus burst into the shop. “I told you to lock—” He stopped when he saw Luke. His eyes darted to Luke’s hand on my shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. Did you get your tyres changed?”

  “Not yet.” Luke reclaimed his hand. “The bloke can’t come out till Monday morning, so you can have a half day if you want. I’ll pay you.”

  Gus slugged Luke’s arm, then beckoned him forward. “Come outside. See if the way Mia’s van’s been done is the same as yours.”

  I didn’t want him that far away from me. My brother would’ve died for me, but Luke... God, I felt safe with him close.

  Biting my lip, I turned back to my work as they went outside. My fingers fumbled with ribbon and glue, but somehow I managed to form the basis of a workable bouquet. It wouldn’t be what I’d planned, or close to what the bride had asked for, but I was hoping my early morning phone call would get lost in Big Day excitement. Become an anecdote for the speeches. Lord knew I wasn’t in the mood for a bridezilla showdown right now.

  I pulled my remaining roses together and padded them out with calla lilies and some petunias I’d been saving for my market day window display. The result was beautiful, perhaps better than the original, but I felt nothing as I stared at it, and the disassociation should’ve frightened me.

  But somehow it didn’t.

  I set the bouquet aside and reached for the daisies I just about had enough of to create more flower girl crowns. I’d run out of wire, though. A quick dash to the back room took longer than I thought. When I got back, the knocking at the front door was loud enough to let me know whoever it was had been waiting.

  An hour ago, I’d have opened it without a second thought, but without Gus and Luke at my back, my bravado faded like it had never been there at all. I crept to the door, nerves strained tight enough to snap, until I saw the fluorescent yellow of a policewoman’s jacket.

  Relief crashed through me, and I opened the door with a bone-sagging sigh. “Come in. Thank you for coming.”

  The policewoman stepped into the shop, her gaze darting around as she clearly took stock of her surroundings and matched them with what she already knew. “You’ve had a break-in?”

  “Not exactly. My delivery van was, uh, vandalised.”

  “But you’ve had a break-in recently?”

  “Yes.”

  The policewoman made a note and directed me outside to my van. Luke and Gus were still there, glowering at the mess, but I couldn’t look at the mutilated flowers without gagging, so I stood to one side and let Gus do the talking.

  Zoning out in a crisis was a skill I’d perfected over the years. I heard all the words, absorbed them, but their impact was lost as I catalogued the cracks in the tarmac, and the consequences of the latest twist in my fucked up life seemed to belong to someone else. It all did, because this couldn’t be happening. I’d signed the papers, damn it. What more did Laurent want from me?

  And that was going on the assumption that this bullshit was down to him. What if it was someone else—some loon I didn’t even know? What if—

  Warm hands slid over my hips from behind, and a solid body pressed against me, moulding to my spine like we’d been made to fit together.

  “Relax,” Luke whispered, his lips brushing my ear. “You’re safe.”

  I’d always been safe with his arms around me, but what happened when he was gone again? When he went back to his life and I went back to mine? And what about him? His tyres had been slashed too, and as much as my brain wanted to argue the case of coincidence, logic said it was connected to whatever nonsense I’d brought home from France.

  I leaned into him, letting his comforting bulk seep into me. I’m sorry.

  He kissed my hair. It’s okay.

  The policewoman snapped photographs of my van and opened the back door to see inside. Every bouquet and buttonhole was wrecked, ripped apart beyond recognition, and beyond that, the vases I’d stashed for the table centrepieces were smashed to bits. Brilliant. As if the creeping fear amping up in my veins wasn’t enough.

  Luke shook me slightly. Belatedly, I realised the policewoman was talking to me. “Sorry, what?”

  She smiled gently. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

  I had no idea what she meant, but I nodded, and she took my arm and led me away from Luke and back into the shop.

  “There’s every chance this is random vandalism, but put together with the incidents your brother mentioned, I think we have to consider the possibility of harassment. What can you tell me about your ex-husband?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with where he lives.”

  “In France...last I heard he’d started a new life in Nice.”

  “Where did he live before?”

  “Paris.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes.”

  The policewoman made some notes. “How did your relationship end? Are you separated? Divorced?”

  “I signed divorce papers about a month ago, and we separated when he left me for my friend.”

  “It wasn’t amicable then?”

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t anything. One day he was there, the next he was gone having cleared out our bank accounts.”

  “Had he done anything like that before?”

  “What? Slept with my friends, or stolen my money?”

  “Both.” T
he policewoman shut her notebook. “I’m trying to get a handle on his personality, but obviously you know him better. How long were you together?”

  “Four years.”

  “And what about before you?”

  “I—” I stopped, thrown, as my mind drew a blank. “I actually don’t know.”

  “You don’t know about his previous relationships?”

  I shook my head. “Not much beyond slagging them off a bit, and that suited me because I didn’t want to talk about my own.”

  “Why not?”

  My gaze drifted naturally to the tiny window in the back door. In the darkness I could just make out Luke as he passed armfuls of botanical shrapnel to my brother. “Lots of reasons, but mainly because I was still in love with someone else.”

  I spoke absently, as though the policewoman was my mother and she loved me enough not to be angry that I wasn’t giving her my full attention, and a few seconds ticked by before I realised the implications of what I’d said. “This won’t be about that, though. Laurent never knew about Luke.”

  “Luke Daley? The man outside with your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  The policewoman fished her pencil out again and reopened her notebook. “Piecing it all together, Ms Amour, the state of Mr. Daley’s van would indicate that even if your ex-husband didn’t know about him then, he certainly does now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Luke

  Gus eyed the lampshades I’d humped back from my garage. “They don’t look anything like vases.”

  “Neither did what she had in the back of the van. They were like goldfish bowls.”

  He stared at me like I’d grown horns. “You could tell that from the smashed glass?”

  “Actually, I saw her packing them up the other day when I was waiting for you to find your phone.”

  “That makes more sense.” Gus shut Mia’s van door, complete with its boarded-up window. “You’re starting to freak me out.”

  I gave him the finger and set the box down on the ground. Fetching it had gifted me a welcome distraction to whatever was going down between Mia and the friendly policewoman, but now I was back, worry gnawed at my gut again. I couldn’t have cared less about my own van, but the attack on Mia’s was creepy. More than that. It was fucking terrifying.

  “They’re not going to stand up.” Gus held a glass lampshade up to the security light in the courtyard. “You can’t put these in the middle of a table.”

  “We can shave the bottom off.”

  “With what? Last time I checked, my sister didn’t have any power tools knocking around.”

  I hadn’t thought of that when I’d been in my garage, surrounded by every tool under the sun, and I didn’t fancy another midnight walk through town. I’d do it, though...for her.

  Thankfully, there turned out to be no need. Gus had the keys to Mia’s van, and he was insured to drive it.

  He departed for my house to fix the lampshades, leaving me to keep watch in the courtyard. I couldn’t describe how I felt. Seeing Mia vulnerable broke me, and there was guilt too. I’d missed so many moments to keep her safe, and even now I was still letting her down. Still loitering in the background when I should’ve been at her side. That shit had to change.

  Ten minutes into my solo vigil, the back door to Mia’s shop opened. The policewoman stepped out and gave me a hard look before moving on to her car, but I barely noticed as I waited for Mia to appear.

  When she didn’t, I hauled myself off the step I’d been lounging on and crossed the courtyard to the back door.

  It was unlocked. I slipped inside and locked it behind me. “Mia?”

  “I’m in the front,” she called back flatly.

  I followed the sound of her voice, drawn to her by an invisible cord, and found her on the floor of her shop, surrounded by flowers and tools, despair clouding her usually fierce gaze.

  “Don’t start,” she said. “I’ve got so much to do.”

  I took in her pale face and bloodshot eyes, and dropped to her side. “Can I help?”

  “Help?”

  “Yeah. I know jack about flowers, but I can follow orders.”

  “Is that some kind of pun?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think your hands are too big to manhandle daisies, so if you really want to help, you can trim down those roses for the buttonholes.”

  “Show me.”

  Mia picked up a white rose and cut the stem with a small knife, then stripped the leaves from the remaining stalk so she was left with just the bloom. “Like that. Don’t stuff it up. I don’t have any backup.”

  Yes, you do. I took the box of roses from her, and the knife, and claimed a place opposite her on the floor. My throat burned with a thousand confessions, but I kept quiet as we worked. I knew her. She’d have no focus until this was done. Much had changed about both of us, but not that.

  Gus came back when I was halfway through my task, brandishing a box of fifteen shaved lampshades.

  Mia leapt to her feet, flower detritus spilling everywhere. “Oh my God, you’re my fucking hero. These are perfect.”

  Gus snorted. “Right. Because I was the one who noticed what you’d lost in the first place.” He jerked his head at me. “These are Luke’s. I’m just the loadie.”

  Mia turned to me. “How did you know?”

  I repeated what I’d told Gus. She nodded as though everything suddenly made sense and stepped up to kiss my cheek.

  Her lips lingered, her breath warm against my skin. “You always were a details boy.”

  Despite it all, something about her tone fired me up. I sucked in a breath, picturing what I’d do to her if her brother wasn’t stink-eyeing me from across the room, until Gus cleared his throat.

  “Whatever,” he groused. “Are we nearly done here?”

  Wishful fucking thinking. It was gone three a.m. by the time Mia was persuaded there was nothing more she could do.

  We put the shop back together, and cleared out the van. Thankfully, the refrigeration was still functioning, but I had work to do in the morning to make the smashed window safe. I helped Mia pack the new batch of wedding flowers into the shop fridge, then I ran a security check on the windows and doors. When I was done, I found Mia alone in the back room.

  “Gus has gone,” she said. “I told him I was coming home with you.”

  “You let him go on his own?” I didn’t want to say it out loud, but if whoever was targeting her was gunning for me, there was a chance they had Gus in their sights too.

  “He took my car,” she said. “He drove it here earlier, and he’s not going home.”

  She didn’t have to say any more. Before Mia had returned from France, Gus had rarely spent a night alone. For a man who dodged commitment, he sure loved company.

  I stepped closer to Mia. “So...you want to come back to my place?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever. We’ve got a conversation to have, remember? I don’t care where we have it.”

  It was the middle of the night, and she had to be up at first light to begin her delivery round, but suddenly I couldn’t wait another second. Ten years was long enough.

  I took her hand and led her out of the shop, waiting while she locked the back door, and then triple-checking it myself. Then I claimed her van keys and drove us back to my place—a risky game with no insurance, but she was exhausted, and I was past caring about anything but getting her home to my bed.

  At my house, we took bottles of cider straight upstairs, but unlike every other time we’d made the journey, we were still clothed when we reached my room.

  I shut the curtains and gestured to the bed. “You wanna sit down?”

  Mia rolled her eyes. “For now. I’ll have to get up again when I’m looking for something to throw at you.”

  “You
think it’ll come to that?”

  “It always comes to that these days—fucking or fighting. It’s all we have.”

  She was so wrong. If everything we’d done since she’d come back had been nothing more than sex and aggro, it would be easy to walk away from. Easy to leave her to her life and go back to mine. But nothing about us had ever been easy. I’d reached adulthood believing that was what made it worth it. Now?

  Now there was nothing I wouldn’t endure to be with her, I just had to tell her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mia

  He was staring at me like I had all the answers already. As if I had the first clue what he was thinking. Frustration rushed through me, and I clawed at it in a desperate attempt to keep it inside. My temper couldn’t help me now.

  I toed my shoes off and sat on the edge of his pristine bed. “You said you were ready to talk. So talk.”

  Luke sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair. He was tired, I could tell, but so was I. Tired of waiting and wondering. Of guessing games that led nowhere but heartache. “Come on,” I said softly. “Whatever you have to say can’t put us anywhere worse than we’ve been before.”

  “I know that.” He kicked his boots to the corner of the room and cringed at the mess.

  It was comedy gold, and laughter bubbled out of me, breaking the smog-like tension. “Pick them up,” I said. “We won’t get anywhere with your eyeballs twitching the whole time.”

  He gave me a flat look but sloped over to the boots anyway and placed them in the wardrobe. “I don’t usually bring my shoes upstairs.”

  “I know.”

  He came back to the bed and sat beside me, his shoulder nudging mine as he reached out and took my hand, watching our fingers twine together like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. “I have so many things I want to say, but the words never come when I need them. That’s why we always end up fucking, and why I wrote you that pathetic letter in the first place.”

  “The letter isn’t pathetic. I was just too caught up in myself to understand why you never gave it to me.”

  “I was scared.”

  “I know.” And I knew he still was. That whatever his heart felt was so terrifying he’d almost always opted for silence instead. “We don’t have to see each other anymore if it’s easier for you. I mean, we can’t totally avoid—”