by Ally Blake
For a moment, he’d believed that heartache had been all his. That her feelings for him might even come close to matching his own for her. But she’d never been one to hold back, so he’d had to assume he was projecting.
So, London. Surely his next move was London. They were just fine, for now. The Zoom meeting he’d set up moments after Nora’s departure, so that he had something to do other than stare at the door and will it to sweep open with her on the other side, had seen Damon and the team tumbling over one another like puppies to get out the good news about how much work they’d been able to achieve.
But they’d need him soon. Him and his cape.
Twelve-hour days, meetings and working lunches, falling asleep on the couch with his coat on, alone, seemed like a different world. A different life. And yet getting back to work would be a welcome distraction from the constant low-level ache that had descended over his body after Nora had walked out of the door. Surely.
For she’d left. She’d really left. After all she’d done to get him here, she’d actually walked away.
Sure, she’d told him she would, from the very first time they’d spoken. It hadn’t come out of thin air. And yet he hadn’t seen it coming.
He’d been far too busy loving her. Distracted entirely by the falling, the surprise of it, the richness, the joy. Assuming all the while that she’d been feeling the same. Maybe not quite so fast, maybe not with quite such easy acceptance, but they’d been falling together. And while he hadn’t had a plan, he’d been okay with that. Not having a plan when he’d hopped on the plane to Melbourne had led to the time of his life.
Only now she was gone.
And he didn’t know what to do about it.
His first experience with feeling loved had gone to Clancy. Her version all about control. Hanging on tight. Too tight. He understood now that its origins hadn’t given her much room to move, and in the end it had suffocated him.
What choice had he had other than to love Nora a whole other way? By giving her space, and time, and room. By being truthful, brutally so if necessary, but not pressing, not over-sharing. If she wanted to go, then surely, even if it cut him to pieces, loving her meant letting her make that choice.
But, damn, it hurt.
Needing to feel something other than heartache, Ben took a step inside the very room in which he and Clancy had had their God-awful falling out. He could picture himself standing there, he could see her wonderful familiar face, wretched with apology, yet determined that if she’d had to make the same choice, she’d make it again. Because look at him. Look at the man he’d become.
But it was also the room in which he and Nora had watched a dozen movies he could barely remember, as he’d been far too focussed on her fingers making gentle tracks through his hair. The way her eyes crinkled and her mouth hooked when something whimsical happened on screen. The way she’d burst into laughter any time the dogs let off wind in their sleep and raced him out of the room.
Whatever secrets it had kept hidden, this house had always been a safe place for those who felt at sea. But despite Nora’s hopes, it wasn’t his home. Not any more. The only person who’d made him feel at home in a very long time had walked out of his door. And he’d let her.
She’d made her move. In pure survival mode, she’d left before she could be told it was time to go.
The ball was in his court.
And with that Ben felt a small shift in perception, like a glimpse of sunlight through a rain cloud. Maybe there was a happy medium. He’d read enough of Clancy’s book-club reads as a teen to know that love was meant to uplift and illuminate. Maybe there was some way he could hold Nora tight, and also give her space to be whoever she wanted to be.
The ball was in his court.
But he’d asked her to stay. No, he’d said, “Don’t go. Not yet”—a very different thing to a woman who’d been asked to leave more foster homes than she could count—when what he should have said was, “If you want this, if you want me, if you choose to come to me, as I chose to find you, if you’re willing to take the risk on trusting me, I will love you and never leave you,” over and over until she had not a single doubt.
The ball was in his court.
The divining rod inside him was back, with a vengeance.
* * *
“Did you hear?”
“Now what?” Nora snapped, not looking up from her laptop as she flicked between reading the contract the resort island had sent for the hundredth time and checking out the many ways she could get out of town fast.
Not that they’d changed in the couple of days she’d been holed up at Misty’s, waiting in case she got a phone call from a certain person asking for her help.
“Feisty,” said Misty. “Yet you were such a droopy Dora when you turned up on my doorstep, all maudlin after your day of self-sabotage.”
Nora rolled her eyes, and twisted her back, sore from having spent a few nights on Misty’s couch in the tiny apartment above her shop. “It wasn’t self-sabotage. It’s called ‘putting a family back together’,” Nora said, wishing she hadn’t told Misty a thing.
But the moment she’d walked into Vintage Vamp, the first tear had dropped, then the next, then suddenly it was all over red rover. Misty had closed the shop and taken Nora up the side stairs, shoved her on the couch, brought her a tub of Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream and let her cry and vent enough over the past twenty-four hours to drown herself.
At least the lack of sleep had given her plenty of time to mull.
Over Clancy.
Even knowing there was a fair chance Clancy had taken advantage of her good nature, if Nora knew anything to be true, it was that surviving was hard, and people had to do it the best way they knew how. She’d loved living in that house, and if she had to do it all again, she’d not have changed a thing.
She’d mulled over her future. Six months of cocktails and free steak dinners and sand in the crotch of her bikini. It’d be great. Lonely, though, and far away from a whole bunch of people she’d come to like. Like-like, in fact.
And she’d mulled over Ben. She’d done that most of all.
Turned out love was not a tap you could simply shut off just because you’d decided it was too hot. Every time she thought of him, it hurt. Every time Misty turned on the radio and Nora thought she heard his voice, it hurt. Every time she imagined how things might have gone down differently if she weren’t such a messed-up scaredy-cat, it hurt.
But what else could she have done with a man so stubborn and dry? Who worked far too hard. Who snored, just a little, and couldn’t sit through a single romantic comedy.
A man who liked to sleep closest to the door, and who didn’t tell her when he was putting in a new lock because he knew she’d protest. Who didn’t even blink when a one-eared, one-eyed, raggedy mutt rubbed noses with him.
A man who’d travelled halfway around the world to face his biggest heartache, because he wanted to be there when she faced hers.
Yes, her feelings for the guy had been overwhelming. Because he was overwhelming. Her subconscious had been right to see danger where he was concerned. And if she’d thrown every missile she had in his direction, and in the end only shot herself in the foot, okay, yes, one might call that self-sabotage.
But she was who she was. And if he couldn’t handle that, then so be it.
The beaches of Far North Queensland it was.
And, boy, didn’t she sound excited about the prospect, even to her own ear?
Knowing she’d not absorb a single word once her mind went down this path, Nora breathed out hard and slowly lowered the lid of her laptop. She stood and dragged her hands through her hair. Then, in need of a distraction, she met Misty in her kitchen as she reached up to bang the smoke detector when the toaster set it off.
“What were you saying before?” Nora asked. “Did you hear...?”
/> “Right. Did you hear, Ben—?”
Nora held up a hand. “Nope. Sorry. But nope. I’ve dealt with enough rumours and secrets about that man to last a lifetime.”
Misty’s mouth worked silently, her body rocking side to side as if she was struggling to contain her news, till Nora was hit with the awful feeling she already knew.
“It’s about the house, right?”
Misty nodded.
“It’s on the market.” Ben had probably put the terrace house up for sale the moment she’d walked out of the door. And gone back to London. Without looking back. It was the soundtrack of her life, after all.
“Wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“He’s given it to us!”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Ben! Your big, beautiful, mountainous hottie. At first he seemed too serious for me, but now I do believe he’s a saint.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s not selling, you numpty, he’s giving Clancy’s place over to the community. As a community space. He wants us to be able to continue to use it as a place for people to gather, to come together, for free. Book clubs. The Garden Club. Play groups. Puppy play groups. He said you gave him the idea. He’s going to fund a mini renovation, make sure it’s sturdy and functional, while keeping its cool Clancy vibe. And he’s asked if I’ll administrate.”
Oh. Oh, Ben. That was...beyond. Perfect. Generous. Clancy would have been so proud.
“Hey... Hey... Hey!” said Misty, moving in and hovering over Nora, before hugging her awkwardly around her head. “No more tears. Please. I can’t stand it.”
“I’m not—” Nora swiped her cheek to find it dry. She was done with tears. Truly.
Misty lifted away, a hand moving to Nora’s face, before she said, “He said not to tell you.”
Nora flinched. “Ben said that? Why?”
“He said if you knew you’d decide to stay, at least for a while. To help get things in order. Because you know you’d be awesome at it. Which he knew too, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, you needed to be where you wanted to be. No strings. No caveats. No taking care of others. No hanging around to help him, or be with him, or so that he could be with you. If any of us told you, we’d have him to deal with. But since when have I ever done what some man told me to do?”
“Never,” Nora whispered, her head spinning.
What was Ben playing at? He knew Misty would tell her. That she’d delight in passing on every word.
It was a sign. He’d given her a sign.
She looked to her tattoo. Footloose and fancy-free. A dandelion on the wind. That was the only signpost she’d followed for years. And right now it could take her to some gorgeous island resort for six months where she’d feel lonely and miserable.
Imagining herself out in the world with Ben, on the other hand—pretending to understand modern art, playing footsies under the table in some café, or snuggled on a couch, slowly turning one another on—made her feel alive, and tangible and just a little scared.
But it was a good scared. The kind born of anticipation.
She was in love with the man. From the desk of, in the bed of, nose to nose, in heated disagreement with, and everything in between. They’d delighted in nights of quiet and weathered emotional storms. She’d cooked while he’d washed up. They’d never once fought over the remote. And even as she’d walked out on him, it had been done with kindness, and generosity and love. On both sides.
Ben had given her a sign. He wanted her to come home.
Only home wasn’t any place she’d ever belonged. It was Ben. All Ben.
She moved so fast she banged into Misty’s kitchen table, and somehow caught her laptop before it fell to the floor. “I’ll be back for this. Some time.”
“No more tears?” Misty asked, her gaze far too clever for her own good.
“No more tears,” said Nora.
“Atta girl.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NORA STOOD OUTSIDE Thornfield Hall, thinking back to the last time she’d really stopped to take it in. The beautiful fretwork, the creeping jasmine. A little love and understanding, and a lick of new paint, and it would truly shine.
“Okay,” Nora said, shaking out her hands and rolling her neck. “No more waiting. You’re done waiting. You’ve waited your whole life to meet someone who liked you, and accepted you, just the way you were. So go get him.”
A new mantra beating in her head, she walked up the path.
At the front door, she pulled her phone out of her tote. Brought up Ben’s number. Took a moment to gaze at his contact profile, a sneaky pic she’d taken of him while he was sleeping: his face half hidden by the pillow, the half you could see enough to make a girl’s heart tumble.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed the call button, then shook her hair off her shoulder, put the phone to her ear, and hoped against hope that this time, of all the times, she’d read the signs right.
It was worth the risk.
The ringtone ceased, then came a pause that seemed to last for ever before a familiar deep voice said, “Where are you?”
Nora felt a ball of sunshine spontaneously appear in her belly. With those three little words she spun back in time to their first phone calls and video chats, when she’d actually believed she’d only been checking in with him daily because it was her duty. When all the while she’d actually been adoring him, wooing him, in her own clumsy way. And he’d never once called her on it. Not once. When it must have been obvious as hell.
“I’m out front,” she said, her voice breathless. Despite all efforts to stay cool, there was no stopping the feelings this man brought out in her. The warm delight. The hope. No fairy dust required. “I’m... I’m home.”
No response. She looked to the phone to find he’d hung up. She heard footsteps, as if they were coming down the stairs, then the door flew open.
And there he was.
It had been a few days since she’d seen those warm eyes, that face—so handsome it took every effort not to squint in the presence of so much gorgeousness—but it felt like for ever.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She wondered if she looked as hungry as he did as he drank her in, eyes tracking her old yellow T with its pink tractor motif, the small hole in the hem covered by the knot at her belly, the long floral skirt Misty had thrown at her when she’d nearly run out of the door in just her T-shirt and undies.
“How’ve you been?” he asked when his gaze once more connected with hers.
“Crap. You?”
The edge of Ben’s mouth twitched, then curled, and then he laughed, the sound so rich and warm and delicious it was all she could do not to throw herself at him, bury her face in his neck and move in.
“Were you upstairs, just now?” she asked, peering about the corner.
He let out a long slow breath, before admitting, “I’ve been sleeping there. Since you left.”
“Smart move. The bed is the biggest in the place.”
“It is. But that’s not why.”
“Oh.” To think she’d thought him so dry, so uncompromising, so stubborn, when he was truly the most warm, wonderful, astonishing man. Again, all she could say was, “Oh.”
“Mmm,” he said, an enigmatic smile on his face.
Then he leaned against the edge of the doorway, his hands sliding into the front pockets of his jeans. He did that—leaning and wearing jeans—better than anyone she’d ever met. He always seemed so comfortable in his own skin it made her breath hitch. Whereas she often felt as if a colony of flying ants were wriggling under her clothes.
Then he said, “Are you okay? I’ve been worried about you.”
Nobody worried about Little Red Riding Hood. She was the bad ass of the forest. It felt...pretty wonderful. Yet still, old ha
bits died hard, and so she asked, “Whatever for?”
“The way I tore that Band-Aid off, while telling you my concerns about Clancy’s motives. As well as the fact I kept it from you at all. In the end I did exactly what my grandmother did to me.”
“You were trying to protect me. Just as she was trying to protect you.”
Ben nodded, and Nora saw acceptance in his expression. “You are very wise for one so young. Now, want to come in?”
“Yes. Thank you. That would be lovely.”
He stood back and waved an arm. She slipped inside, catching his scent as she passed—fresh cotton sheets, woods, and clean male skin. She’d missed it. She’d craved it. She never wanted to go another day without breathing it in.
She had to tell him. But how to tell him when she’d spent her whole life shoving such emotions deep down inside?
When she turned in the entrance it was to find Ben standing closer than she’d expected. Close enough her nose came level with the second button on his navy Henley T. Close enough to see a day’s worth of stubble covering his swarthy jaw. The sparkles of silver therein.
Her gaze felt heavy as she lifted it to his eyes. All those lashes. All that deep lovely brown. It was too much. He was too much. And she loved every bit of him.
She swallowed, squared her shoulders, just a fraction, and said, “I heard what you’ve chosen to do with the place.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“You knew Misty would tell me.”
He ran a hand up the back of his neck and had the good grace to appear chagrined. “Yeah. I figured that was a safe bet. I know you said I could call on you, ask for your help, but, after you’d been so determined to leave, it didn’t feel right to get in your way. So what do you think?”
“I think Clancy would be beyond proud. And this community will be so grateful.”
“I asked what you think.”
Nora’s cheeks warmed under his intense gaze. “I think it’s perfect, Ben. I think you’re—I think you’ve been more than generous. Which is not a surprise. Because you’re—” Nora stopped a moment. Breathed. Pressed her feet into the ground. She could do this. She wanted to do this. “Ben, you’re wonderful.”