Damaged Goods_Ravenswood

by Talia Hibbert

  There were lots of things that Evan could’ve said to that. Like, You do know that Zach’s mother has cancer, right? Or, Since I’ve known him 5 days and you’ve known him since childhood, you should be more eager to help than me. Or maybe, Do you have any fucking conscience whatsoever?

  Instead Evan said, “I’m done now, anyway.”

  Avoiding conflict was his mode of operation. They’d taught him that at basic training, once they’d figured out his hair-trigger temper. Always avoid conflict.

  It worked, partly. Daniel nodded, and didn’t say another word about Zach or the gate. But he did hover as Evan put away his equipment, as he checked the forge’s temperature. And when Evan headed for the exit, Daniel was right on his heels.

  “You walking?” Daniel asked, his long strides matching Evan’s easily.

  “Yep,” Evan replied.

  “It’s been a long week. Let me drive you home.”

  “That’s okay,” Evan smiled. “I like to walk.” It was true; he needed physical activity like he needed air. Plus, he had to be gentle with Daniel. It wouldn’t do to alienate the boss’s kid, even if that kid happened to be a grown man.

  “Oh, come on.” Daniel grinned back, a wide, white-toothed smile. Evan hadn’t seen much of Ravenswood yet, but he’d seen enough to know that the small town’s inhabitants adored Daniel Burne. And if he hadn’t, the easy expectation in Daniel’s green eyes would’ve made it clear. This man had never been told no, and never thought he would be.

  Those were the men you had to watch.

  “Alright,” Evan relented as they broke out into the cool, evening air. It was just after five, so Ravenswood’s streets were busy. Which meant that there was an old woman heading into the town centre on foot, and two Volvos making their way there via road.

  “Great!” Daniel clapped Evan on the back, a firm slap that spoke of a camaraderie they had not forged. It was funny; in the army, that sort of immediate connection had come easy. But here, with this man, the familiarity set Evan’s teeth on edge.

  “I parked in town,” Daniel said. “Just ‘round the corner.”

  Evan nodded. Since ‘town’ referred to the centre of Ravenswood, and Ravenswood itself was about three miles long—surrounding farmland included— nothing was very far from anything else.

  But Daniel managed to pack the next five minutes with a lifetime’s meaningless chatter anyway.

  “So, where are you living? Those new flats?”

  The flats had been built in 2015, but here in Ravenswood, that counted as new.

  “Yep,” Evan confirmed. “Elm Block.” The Ravenswood habit of naming everything in sight was something he quite enjoyed.

  Daniel, apparently, did not agree. His already-pale face blanched slightly, his brow furrowed. “Serious?” He asked. “Elm?”

  Something in his voice had changed. It was tight, strained, slightly scratchy.

  Evan slowed down, his eyes focusing on Daniel with curiosity rather than veiled disdain. “Yeah. Why?”

  “That’s bad luck, mate,” Daniel said. He nodded his head over and over again, disturbingly emphatic. “Very bad luck. I suppose you had no-one in town to guide you. There’s some very shady characters living in Elm, you know.”

  Evan’s brows flew up. “Shady characters?” He echoed. “In Ravenswood? I haven’t been here long, but that doesn’t sound right.”

  “Trust me,” Daniel said darkly. “We all have our burdens to bear.”

  Evan bit back a snort. Apparently, he could add Drama King to the list of Daniel Burne’s irritating qualities.

  “Be careful,” Daniel continued. “I’m just saying.” Then he jerked his head towards a huge, blue BMW a few metres away, parked across two spaces. “That’s mine.”

  Evan blinked at the monstrous thing for a moment, trying to come up with a compliment. He failed. To fill the silence, he returned to the ominous topic of his little block of flats.

  “I only have one neighbour. Haven’t met them yet, but I think it’s someone elderly. They don’t seem to leave the house.”

  “Hm,” Daniel grunted. “Well—”

  His sage wisdom was, thankfully, interrupted. As they neared the BMW, a small figure came rushing around a nearby corner and knocked right into them both.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ruth entered the town car park with a lot on her mind. Major highlights included:

  1. Her stomach cramps, which had gone from mild irritation to knuckle-biting pain in the space of twenty minutes.

  2. The indignity of waddling about town with loo roll stuffed down her knickers.

  3. The absolutely extortionate price she’d just paid for a packet of substandard tampons that didn’t even have bloody applicators.

  4. Mrs. Needham, newsagent proprietor and town gossip, who would tell everyone that Ruth had come in to buy tampons as if they were Year Eight children instead of grown adults.

  5. How much the average person might know about the theory of relativity. Because, the less people knew about it, the more she could get away with fudging the details for the latest issue of her web comic.

  Was it really surprising, with all that to ponder, that she ran headlong into a pair of enormous men?

  Ruth landed on the tarmac with an unladylike grunt. At least it was more elegant than the word currently burning through her mind: Motherfucker!

  This was to be imagined, you understand, as an outraged yowl of pain.

  For an instant of blissful, foolish shock, Ruth blinked down at the ground. Then she looked up slightly, just a touch—enough to see two pairs of sturdy, boot-clad feet before her. The sight of those feet, along with her embarrassment, took Ruth from mildly irritated to unreasonably angry.

  But really. Those boots were entirely too solid, quite abominably stable. The men hadn’t even wobbled. They might at least pretend to be slightly unbalanced, since she was literally on the floor. Such firm uprightness in a situation like this struck her as rude.

  “I’m so sorry,” one of the men said. She didn’t know which, because she refused to look up at their faces. She had quite enough to process right now without bringing faces and expressions and human lifeforms into it.

  But one of the men, presumably the one who had spoken, ruined things completely by bending down to her level. He could do that, you see, because he hadn’t fallen. The prick.

  He crouched before her, bringing his faded jeans into view, and then his tight, black T-shirt—what a ridiculous outfit in February—and then… well, some rather interesting musculature.

  That musculature broke through Ruth’s haze of unreasonable annoyance, prodding her sharply. It said, Look at that chest! Look at those biceps! You’d better check out his face, just to see if it’s equally impressive. Quality control, and all that.

  Reigning in the urge to throw a temper tantrum—she was feeling fragile, what with the tissue in her knickers—Ruth looked up.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  The most beautiful man on Earth frowned at her. “Are you alright? Did you hit your head?”

  Ruth didn’t bother answering. Talking to this guy could not possibly be as worthwhile as simply looking at him.

  In fact, talking to him might ruin the effect. Or her ruin her concentration, at least.

  So he continued to ask unanswered questions, and she continued to watch his lips move.

  They looked soft. The thick, dirty-blonde beard covering his jaw looked soft too, and matched the too-long hair falling over his brow.

  His bone structure, unlike his hair, didn’t look soft at all. Nor did his furrowed brows or his piercing eyes, blue as a summer sky. Of course, skies were never blue in England—but she’d seen the sky in Sierra Leone, spent hours staring up at it from her grandmother’s garden. That was the best slice of sky on Earth, so she felt authorised to make the comparison.

  The stranger’s voice was raw and satisfying, threaded with something that might’ve been concern, and it soothed Ruth’s embarrassment-induce
d irritation beautifully.

  But then came a voice that brought it back ten-fold.

  “Don’t bother,” said Daniel Burne. “She’s slow.”

  Ruth’s head snapped up, her gaze settling on the person she hated most in the world.

  His smile was as cruel and as gorgeous as ever. For a moment, Ruth’s heart lurched. But then she looked back at the stranger, who was still crouched beside her—who was frowning—and she felt slightly consoled.

  The stranger was far more handsome than Daniel. How he must hate that.

  Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Ruth stood. She ignored the fact that the tissue in her knickers felt slightly dislodged. She ignored the fact that there must be grit and dirt on her pyjama bottoms, and even ignored the fact that she was in her pyjamas at all, with only a jacket to hide them.

  Ruth folded her arms across her chest and took a deep steadying breath, staring Daniel down. She said, “If I’m slow, what kind of man does that make you?”

  His lip curled. “Opportunistic, perhaps.”

  Direct hit, of course. She’d expected nothing less.

  Her jaw set, Ruth turned on her heel. Daniel wasn’t worth talking to, anyway. He was beneath her notice. He was a gnat. But gnats were infuriating too, when you couldn’t squash them.

  “Wait!” The stranger called.

  Ruth ignored him. She walked faster. She could see her car now, just a few metres away, gleaming like an oasis in the desert.

  Then she heard the heavy footsteps of a man running behind her. “Miss!” He called. “You dropped your…”

  Ruth stopped. Her hands balled into fists. She spat out, “For fuck’s sake,” and her breath twisted before her like smoke in the evening air.

  The man was right behind her now. “I’m sorry,” he said. He seemed to say that a lot.

  She turned to face him. He really did look apologetic. Maybe because she’d fallen, maybe because Daniel was a prick, or maybe because he was holding out the box of tampons she’d dropped.

  At the newsagent, Mrs. Needham had asked if she wanted a bag for five pence, and Ruth had thought, Goodness me, five pence on a bag when I have two good hands? And said, “No, thank you.”

  Now she was rather wishing she had parted with the five pence.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” The man asked. “I’m sorry about… Daniel’s behaviour.” He said Daniel’s name with the sort of tone she’d use to say kitten killer. Maybe that’s what this gorgeous stranger thought: that Ruth was a kitten.

  She snatched the tampons from him, turned her back, and walked away. He’d learn the truth soon enough.

  The only question was—which truth?

  Ruth started her engine and pulled out of the car park with almost reckless speed. Still, she wasn’t fast enough to miss an intriguing tableau.

  The stranger striding away from Daniel. Daniel shouting after him.

  Ruth lowered her car window, just a touch, to catch the words.

  Daniel called, “You’re really pissed? Over a girl like her?”

  A girl like her. It was a familiar phrase, especially from Daniel’s lips.

  But there was nothing familiar about the stranger. He tossed a glare over his shoulder and called back, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll walk.”

  A GIRL LIKE HER: out now

  About the Author

  Talia Hibbert is a writer and educator from the U.K., by way of both the West Indies and West Africa. She wrote her first romance aged 12, and was promptly scolded by a teacher because her story of love in the jungle wasn't 'proper'.

  Since then, Talia's stories have improved in quality and hugely increased in heat. She now writes steamy, diverse, contemporary romance set in the U.K. Her work still isn’t proper, but it is a lot of fun.

  Her interests include beauty, junk food, and devouring all forms of media. She lives in a small English town that doesn’t even get Deliveroo, and kisses her high school sweetheart every day. Y’know; for luck.

  And, as Talia would say... that's all, folks. Love and biscuits!

  https://www.taliahibbert.com

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