This Love

by Anna Bloom

  THIS LOVE

  ANNA BLOOM

  Copyright 2015 Anna Bloom

  All Rights Reserved

  Thank you for purchasing this eBook. Please keep this book in its complete original form with the exception of quotes used in reviews. No alteration of content is allowed. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the internet without the author’s permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  New Adult Contemporary Romance.

  Cover Design by Laura Beege

  DEDICATION

  For the people who believe in love and all the many forms it comes in.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With thanks to my family for their never ending support. Zoe Pope and Heather Rosdol for beta reading, general hand-holding and putting up with my constant emails.

  Lastly a huge thanks of appreciation for Holly Baker who worked with me on the project from the moment I woke up at six one morning with a new idea in my head until the very last edit was perfectly polished.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Book One: First Love

  Book Two: This Love

  Epilogue

  August 2014

  PROLOGUE: HOMECOMING

  With a screech of the brakes I pull the car up on the curb outside the local shop. It’s a double yellow but I just need to get some milk, bread, margarine, and well . . .actually, I need to get everything.

  I got home yesterday.

  Ten years after leaving.

  Mum stood on the paved driveway and asked if I was Meals on Wheels. My Mum and I have always maintained a strained relationship. My resentment for her defies all boundaries, so having her expect a hot meal from me the moment I arrived wasn’t a great start. The doctors had warned me she may not recognise me, may not see me for who I am now. Meals on Wheels? I told her it was I, her daughter, but she was insistent that I should have a spaghetti Bolognese in the back of the car.

  All my worldly belongings, yes. Spaghetti Bolognese, no.

  I walked through the front door and straight into a spider’s web. It should have been a warning of what was to come.

  Isaac gave me a pointed look, disgust painting his expression with a sour nose-wrinkling grimace. “Really, you want us to live here?”

  I nodded encouragingly and tried not to freak out, running around the place because I was covered in spider shit.

  My former home looked on the very edge of being derelict. The four walls have never provided the warmth and comfort a childhood home should, but seeing it in a state of disrepair, littered with dirty china, lined with old newspapers and filmed in a greasy layer of dust made me doubt my choice of leaving ten years ago more than ever, and my decision to come back.

  I did the right thing. Didn’t I?

  You see, I’m the grown up now. Ten years ago I left home, my heart broken, and my ego bruised. With the hindsight of age, I realise my heart wasn’t really that broken, I probably wasn’t even really that in love. For the last ten years I’ve only had room for Isaac in my heart. Isaac is mine.

  Dragging my mind back from my sadly lacking welcome home yesterday, I keep my mind on the present and scan the shelves of the grocery store searching for anything my mother might like to eat. The shop hasn’t changed at all. The floor still has the same unique surface texture of sticky and slippery. The bread still has to be eaten today because tomorrow morning it will get a cloying smell that hits you in the face when you open the bag. And the shelves are all still precariously balanced with an unpredictable selection of tins: spam next to peaches, tinned spaghetti next to sanitary towels and shoelaces next to the cheese.

  The question is, what do women with early onset dementia like to eat? This morning she was cooking cat food. I didn’t know she’d ever owned a cat. My shock at her deteriorated condition mingled in an unpleasant way with the stench of hot Whiskers, my anxiety and guilt quickly transformed into frustration when she kept calling me Cynthia, which is her sister’s name. “I’m Amber,” I kept saying over and over again, my attempt to keep my voice light seriously pushed to the border of shouting, but she just looked at me blankly with no flicker of recognition on her face.

  I’m just grabbing another loaf of bread because I’m sure Isaac will want his standard half a loaf and marmite for breakfast, when the door of the shop chimes. Ignoring it, I continue to load my arms with pretty much anything I can see.

  A packet of McVities Chocolate digestives wiggles it’s way free from under my armpit and rolls beneath a shelf just as I hear the shop assistant call to the newcomer, “Morning, Mrs. Bale, what can I do for you?”

  Mrs. Bale. I stop.

  Mrs. Bale.

  Last time I was here, Mrs Bale was dead. Interesting.

  Now, this is the quandary about me returning home after all these years. I haven’t spoken to anyone in the village since I left, no one apart from my parents, and their conversations have been generously spaced and not very consistent.

  Ten years ago they were worried I was going to ruin my life by not going to University. I ran away, didn’t go to University, and nearly ruined my life anyway but managed to pull it all back from the brink when I met Isaac.

  So I haven’t spoken to anyone, not a dicky bird, and I’m pretty sure my parents were never proudly walking around the village telling everyone what I was up to.

  Pretty sure indeed.

  Pulling into town it looked like nothing had changed, I know I’ve changed, but that said, I do have a little niggle to find out what Mrs. Bale looks like. I’ll just have a quick peek and then forget all about it.

  Edging my way around a shelf, I peer between two Cornflake boxes and catch a glimpse of the lady standing by the counter. With a dramatic crash I drop every item of produce I’ve picked up, tins of beans and spaghetti, rolling noisily this way and that. The people at the till turn to investigate as I duck out of sight, too late.

  I’m scrambling around on the floor attempting to pick up all the groceries when a pair of flip-flops walks into view.

  “Amber French?” the flip-flops question.

  Straightening from my crouch I look up at my childhood friend. “Danni,” I reply. There isn’t anything else to say. Danni was one of the things I left behind, and yeah, I thought about her over the years, wondered if she would forgive me for ditching our friendship all because some boy broke my heart and my mother was to blame, but my pride got in the way of calling.

  “I can’t believe you’re here.” She rushes forward and grabs me into her arms, squeezing me tight. “Where have you been, where did you go? Oh my God, Amber. I could kill you.” She looks good. Fresh, mature, grown up. I shift uncomfortably in my jeans and vest top decorated with bleach splatters, an outfit which stands as an endless homage to the same style I’ve worn all my life.

  I open my mouth to say something, but she carries on. “Why the hell didn’t you call, you bitch?”

  I hesitate. I’m not sure what to say to that, I don’t really want to spill my secrets in the local Cost-Cutter. I’m not sure I want to spill my secrets to anyone in the village at all.

  I could ask anything, what have you been doing for the last ten years? How are your mum and dad? Did you pass your A-levels all those years ago? But instead I just blurt, “Mrs Bale now, hey?”

  Danni looks me straight in the eye, one eyebrow raised. “Really, that’s the first thing you have to say?”

  Nibbling on my bottom lip I scrunch my face. “Maybe,” I offer eventually when all other words in the English language have escaped me.

  “I would have inv
ited you, but I guess it might have been a bit awkward.”

  “Maybe.”

  Danni laughs while I stand there slightly affronted. Is she laughing because she’s Mrs. Bale and I’m not? Or, is she laughing because I’m not Mrs. Bale and she is?

  “I married Grant, you bloody Ninny. You would have known if you hadn’t dropped me when you had your mental breakdown.”

  Mental breakdown?

  “You? Married Grant?” I don’t want to, I hate myself for doing it but I breathe a sigh of relief and the terrible sick feeling making my stomach feel like an overloaded washing machine subsides.

  “He improved with age,” she says with a coy smile, her expression that of a cat who’s just done away with a well-fed mouse.

  For a long moment we watch each other, it feels strange, two women who were best friends from childhood now standing like two strangers across a supermarket aisle.

  The weight of the groceries laden in my arms kicks me into moving on. “Listen, I’ve got to go.” I motion to the packages.

  “Sure, I’m sorry to hear your mum is sick, Amber.”

  “Yeah, me too, I guess.”

  I head for the till, and Danni aims for the door. “Listen,” she calls, turning to face me with her hand on the door. “I’d love to catch up when you’re ready.”

  “Sure.” I lift my lips into a tentative smile. “I’ll catch up with you sometime.”

  “Sure,” she echoes.

  After the door has closed shut behind her I turn to the cashier and start to pay for my groceries, a panicked fluster making my actions clumsy and unnecessarily long. When I get back to my car I find a lovely ticket flapping in the summer breeze. Snatching it off the window I dump the groceries in the boot and dive into the drivers seat, gunning my way out of town before I run into anyone else from my past.

  Back home I can hear music upstairs so I assume Isaac is settling in. “I’ve got the bread,” I holler up to the landing. “We need to eat it today.” I wait for a reply but none is forthcoming so I meander my way into the kitchen. “Mum, I’ve got eggs, would you like some scrambled?” No reply. A quick peek into the lounge shows me she is asleep on a chair, the cup of tea I made her this morning balancing untouched on the arm. I change course from the kitchen and go rescue the cup in the dingy front room. The curtains hang unwashed, the nets, my mother’s former pride, hang in grey drags like a torn cobweb. Taking a long look at my mum, with whom I’ve never had an easy relationship, I wonder if I did the right thing coming back here. It was a crazy gamble coming back and hoping I could make a new life for myself, especially as I was so desperate to escape from the one I had here before.

  With a deep sigh, I make it into the kitchen and see just how truly awful the state of it is. It’s grimy and dusty. Spider’s webs hang from all fixtures. Digging out the rubber gloves I had the foresight to buy, I tuck my hair into a lose bun and start the business of scrubbing the place clean.

  The nets are on a boil wash and I’m on all fours with sweat dripping from my forehead, my knees aching from being on the floor, when the doorbell rings.

  The only person who knows I’m here is Danni, and I believe we have exhausted our conversation for the day, so I assume it’s a neighbour coming to check on mum. I shuffle my way into the hallway, shaking my legs out as I go, but the doorbell starts to ring insistently.

  On the first try I can’t get the rubber glove off my sweaty, swollen fingers. The bell keeps ringing, becoming more and more annoying with each repetition.

  “Jesus,” I swing the door open. “Calm down.”

  “It’s Freddy, but Jesus could work too.”

  I stare up into a pair of dark blue eyes that in all honesty, I never expected to see again. My mouth would be open, but it’s too busy holding the yellow rubber glove I just pulled off with my teeth. My legs, which are burning with pins and needles, give at the knees. I clutch the door tighter, anchoring myself to the present, fighting the pull of the past as it wraps its tight fingers around me the moment I see the starlit blues.

  I breathe, and then I breathe again, forcing my lungs to work.

  “Welcome back, Amber French.” The dark blue eyes search over my face, looking for the answer to some forgotten question on a long lost ancient parchment.

  Panic grips me, making my pulse charge and my skin tingle with a now rare flush.

  “It’s Amber Williamson,” I shout in reply, louder and harsher than I intend. Then my hand swings out with a dramatic force and slams the door shut on Freddy Bale, and the past I’ve locked away for so long.

  It’s too late, as I slide my back against the rough texture of the door, grabbing hold of air like all the oxygen in the universe may be sucked out of the atmosphere at any moment, every memory that I’ve blocked over the last ten years floods back. My mind falls like a castle under siege as memories assault me. Words, laughter, smell and touch fill the deepest darkest corners of my conscience, until I’m left with only one clear thought.

  Freddy Bale.

  DECEMBER 2003: FIRST LOVE

  CARS

  I’m not going to make it.

  Tonight, the Six o’ Clock news will warn the country to leave their houses wearing appropriate clothing during the bad weather. I’m going to be known as the girl who perished during a blizzard wearing her pajamas.

  In truth, the car’s been falling apart since I had it. First it was the alternator, whatever that is. Then it was the wheel bearing. Now, well now I don’t know what’s wrong but the steering wheel seems to have forgotten what it was designed for. I bounce on my seat a little, willing the car to move on further.

  With a frustrated flick of my finger I put the windscreen wipers on to their fastest setting and peer at the gloomy scene ahead. Stark trees loom over the whitewashed road, their stance threatening as they reach out with twisted bare fingers and mock foolish travellers for venturing down dark lanes. This was supposed to be a short cut, but as per the norm, my short cut has turned into a long cut. The lane I’m on is barely visible through the snow let alone the main road. I turn the wheel to follow the bend only to be met with a Grrrr-squaw-grrrr-squaw-grrrr-squaw and the sensation of the steering wheel not doing very much at all. Definitely not turning the bloody car. Applying gentle brakes so I don’t slip on the ice, and heaven forbid total the piece of shit, I coax the grinding vehicle of doom to the side of the narrow road. Then I smack the hell out of the steering wheel for good measure. Bloody crap car.

  Cranking the door open, I groan as a full on icy blast hits me smack in the face. One large cut glass snowflake darts straight into my right eye. “Shitting hell.” I brush at the flake of hell until I can see again.

  Another groan escapes me as I see clearly for the first time where I am. Nowhere. An un-inhabited lane with just one building in sight. With a punishing bite on my lower lip, I contemplate my options. Option one: a twenty minute, wet, freezing, hypothermia-inducing walk in either direction. Or, option two: walking into the building and asking for help. Great.

  “Hello?” I try and tiptoe so I can peer over the counter, but my ridiculously short stature prevents me from seeing anything other than biro doodles on the battered blue Formica counter top. A dirty engine smell hangs in the air like an ominous cloud threatening a grease downpour.

  I try and call again, “Hello!” putting a bit more volume in my greeting this time. There is one of those brass bells, but I feel ringing a bell is rude, even if I am freezing cold and desperately seeking some form of mechanical assistance.

  I’m not exactly in the right place. Bale and Son’s is a family run classic sports car manufacturer on the outside of town. I know they aren’t in the ‘Fix 'Em Up’ end of the car maintenance business but it’s snowing and my car doesn’t like snow or apparently even working.

  I turn and peer back into the snowy downpour outside the door. I could take my chances and walk if necessary? No! For god’s sake, this is ridiculous. Someone must be here, the bloody door was unlocked. I’m jumping
up and down trying to warm up when I notice there is a gate-like hatch built into the counter with a bolt holding it shut. With one more unanswered call for assistance, I slide the bolt and swing the gate open. I’m just going to have a look to see if there is anyone here, that’s all.

  The pounding music that hits me as I walk through the back door explains why no one heard my calls. The smell is stronger here and fills my nostrils, conjuring images of overalls, plastic sheets and rusty tools as it catches the back of my throat. My eyes scan the space in front of me, taking in the cars in various states of build and repair. They are all those classic, old style, sports cars that grown men part tons of cash with to try and look cool or something. Look like a dick would be a better summation.

  “Anyone here?” I shout over the music. The clang of something heavy and metal crashes in response, followed by a resounding “Fuck.” I tiptoe around the machinery trying to follow the sound of the clang.

  Lowering myself into an uncomfortable crouch, which stretches my knees in all the wrong ways, I settle next to a racing green chassis. A pair of scuffed hob-nailed boots stick out from underneath. “Err, hey. My car’s broken down outside, I’m hoping you can help.” I don’t know why but I give an ankle attached to a scuffed boot a little tug, my fingers grazing the double-knotted wax coated laces.

  “Don’t do repairs,” A bass voice booms, reverberating loud enough to make me jump.

  “I know, I know,” I tell the boot with great feeling. “But it’s snowing and I could do with some help.”

  A slim body shoots out from under the car, knocking me off balance. Unable to gain control, I land flat on my back staring up at the high-beamed ceiling. “Holy mother of God,” I exclaim.

  “It’s snowing? Cool.” My assailant sits up straight, long legs either side of the plank and watches as I scramble up from the dirty workshop floor. It’s not a graceful recovery; unfortunately it involves a body roll and me waving my arse in his face as I struggle to find balance.