by Jessica Ames
“Yeah, it’s fun and chaos,” Dean’s voice breaks through my thoughts, dragging me back into the present and out of my dark memories. “It’s nice knowing someone always has your back. Gran did the best she could with me, but I think she liked having the brothers around to keep me on track.”
I wonder if Dean was a handful in his younger days. Hazarding a guess, I would say so. A mini-hellraiser.
“What about you, Liv?”
I grip the ladder frame tighter as my stomach roils. My trip down memory lane is not filled with smiles; my childhood—and, in fact, my adult life—was a series of nightmares, but I have to give him something, so I divulge the most basic fact I can.
“I’m one of seven.”
“Let me guess: you’re the baby.”
My eyes narrow at him. “How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess. How many older brothers do I have to watch out for?”
I furrow my brow. “Watch out for?” He just grins and I have no idea what he means by that, but I’m more than sure I missed some joke. I have no idea why I decide to give him more, but my mouth opens and words continue to spill out. “I have five brothers and a sister.”
“Christ. They’re not boxers or anything daft, are they?”
“Uh…” I have no idea what any of them do so I just smile and shrug. “I don’t know.”
He peers down at me as he tosses more leaves into the compost pile and I can see the confusion in his expression. Of course he would be perplexed by my response. He buys his entire Club Christmas gifts. I, on the other hand, haven’t received a birthday card from any of my family since I was about fourteen.
“You don’t know?”
“I haven’t seen any of them in years.” I try to keep my voice indifferent when I say this but even I hear the coldness. I’ll never forgive them for believing Simon over me. I know that’s petty and not charitable, but I don’t care. They left me to Simon’s temper for years.
He nods but doesn’t push, which I’m grateful for. I don’t want to discuss my family at all. “They live in Kingsley?”
I shake my head. “I moved here a few years ago.”
“And you work at the shelter full time?”
“I volunteer a couple of times a week—more, if I can fit it in.”
“That’s good of you.”
People always say this when I explain what I spend my free time doing, but it doesn’t feel good. I do it because I have to, because I need to. And what I am able to do is never enough.
“I wish I could do more.”
“You do more than most, darlin’.” He reaches towards the back of the guttering and I have to put all my weight on the bottom of the frame to keep it steady. “If you’re volunteering there I’m assuming you have a paid job.”
“The twenty questions game is less fun when it’s directed at me.” I smile to soften the underlying barbs to my words; I’m so done talking about my past. But he doesn’t seem to notice—or perhaps he just doesn’t care—because he keeps pushing.
“Yeah, it is. So, what’s your paid job?”
Christ, he’s persistent, not to mention nosey, but there is no reason for me not to answer him, so I begrudgingly mutter, “I do admin stuff for Pearson’s.”
He nods. “I know it, although I can’t say I’ve had any dealings with them.” It’s unlikely he would have; they sell fibre optics to telecommunication companies and the defence sector. “You like it there?”
“It pays the bills.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners. “So, you don’t like it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say you did either.”
I scowl at him for tying me up in knots.
“It’s fine. It’s just… different from what I did before.”
“And what did you do before?”
“I worked in PR.” What’s with the inquisition?
“Why aren’t you still working in PR?”
I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to throw my hands into the air. “Because Kingsley doesn’t have those kinds of businesses. What about you, Dean? What is your bread and butter?”
He doesn’t answer but starts down the ladder. “You don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?”
I move out of the way to give him the room he needs to get his boot-clad feet back on the ground.
“Apparently you don’t either,” I counter, feeling a little defensive. “I just didn’t sidestep as well.”
As soon as he hits the tarmac, he turns to me, only inches separating our bodies and the air suddenly changes.
This close to me, I’m consumed by his eyes, which are like a stormy afternoon sky. My neck feels hot and I’m sure my cheeks are pinked with colour as his eyes move over my face.
“All done,” he says, his voice a little husky. Is he feeling this too—this connection between us? It’s a palpable, visceral thing in the air, and it scares me half to death. I shouldn’t be feeling anything for anyone, let alone a man like Dean.
When I respond to him, I sound no less affected than he is. “You’re done?”
I tamp down the tingling in my belly and force my mask back in place as I glance up at the gutters, subtly stepping away from him. The distance seems to clear my head a little.
“There wasn’t that much shit in them.”
I beg to differ; I would have been there all afternoon. There was tons.
“Thank you.”
“No need for thanks, darlin’,” he says. “You need anything that requires you being up a ladder again, you knock on my door. I don’t want you up that thing. It’s a death trap.”
His words shouldn’t warm me but they do. Yep, I’m definitely developing a hero complex. That’s all this is—the mother of all hero complexes. He did, after all, save me from Monroe. Why wouldn’t I feel something towards him for that? This epiphany has my shoulders unknotting.
“Dean, I can manage a ladder.”
“I know you can.”
“So I’m not going to knock on your door every time I need to be up one.”
“Why not?”
Because it’s crazy…
“Because… because I’m not your problem.”
“No, you’re not a problem at all.” I flush at his words. Did he really just say that? He pulls the gloves off and gives them back to me. My eyes go to the colourful artwork décorating his skin for a moment before I snap my attention back to him.
He reaches into the porch to grab his vest. As he’s shrugging it on, my brain malfunctions.
“Do you want a coffee or something to eat?” I blurt the words and immediately regret asking when his brow arches. Oh my God, why in the seven hells did I ask him that? I’ve completely lost my mind.
“You want to feed me?”
Heat rises in my cheeks. “Uh, well, you did clean my gutters. It’s the least I can do.”
He laughs, and I really do love that sound. “Normally, I would love to stay for coffee, but I’ve got to run, darlin’. I’ve got a meeting at the clubhouse in an hour. Rain check?”
The clubhouse. The place where he and the others run their criminal enterprise from.
What the hell are you thinking asking him in for food and coffee?
I nod. “Absolutely.” Translation: never. Nope, not happening. I can’t believe I asked him in the first place.
“Later, Liv.”
“Bye, Dean.”
And I watch as he strides across the road back to his house, the Lost Saxons insignia glaring back at me from between his shoulder blades. Yeah, Dean is a good man, but he’s also a dangerous one—something I need to remember. It doesn’t matter if he’s easy on the eyes or if he’s kind to me; he’s a criminal and I cannot get tangled up in any more drama—least of all man drama. So as much as I like him and as much as I feel this tension between us, it can’t go anywhere, because Dean is who he is and I’m a broken disaster.
As he reaches his house, he turns and wiggles his fingers at me. I wave
back with a tight smile. Only once he’s behind his front door do I let my breath out.
Chapter Seven
“Across the twenty-two stalls at the charity market event, we raised two thousand five hundred pounds, and Derek donated another five grand on top of that,” Holly tells us at our staff briefing three days later.
“Who’s Derek?” I ask.
We’re sitting in the meeting room, four of us around the large oval table, sucking back coffee like it’s a lifeline. This morning it feels like one. I’ve barely slept the past few days. Mainly because I’ve been going over my conversation with Dean on repeat. I have no idea why I asked him in for food and coffee after he cleaned my gutters.
Does he think I was asking him for more? Was I asking him for more? I don’t know.
Food and coffee… Yeah, I pretty much asked him on a mini-date. It’s this realisation that has kept me awake—well, that and fear of Monroe turning up. He’s still at large, although the police assure me they’re doing what they can to locate him.
Luckily, Dean hasn’t been at his house since cleaning my gutters, so I haven’t had to deal with him, but I can’t avoid him forever. Right?
“Girl,” June exclaims, “you’ve been living in this town for what—over two years? And you still don’t know squat about the local area.”
I smile around a mouthful of biscuit. “I don’t need to know squat when I have you to fill me in.”
She snorts. “You need to be aware of your community.”
Probably, but I also have enough other things to think about that do not involve random men called Derek.
“When the pits were open everyone knew everything about everyone,” she says and I almost hear the collective silent groan that goes around the room.
I can’t help but smirk to myself, wondering what history lesson we’re getting today. June knows more about Kingsley’s coal trade than anyone else in town because her parents used to own a pub in town that was close enough to be used by workers from two of the collieries.
“You young ‘uns, you don’t know a thing about what’s going on around you. Too busy sticking your noses in these apps and social media pages to see the real world passing by around you.”
That was actually surprisingly tame for June, so I count my lucky stars as I ask again, “So, who is Derek?”
“He’s the Lost Saxons’ president,” Holly says before June can go off on a tirade again.
“Oh,” I mutter, my mind instantly going to Dean, “and he just donated five grand?”
“They do it every year.” Reba leans back in her chair and interlaces her fingers on her slight belly, fastidiously avoiding eye contact with the biscuits. She’s been on a diet the entire time I’ve known her, although she doesn’t need to be.
“They do?”
“They cycle through which charities they support but we’ll usually get a donation of some sort.”
A criminal gang that supports charities can’t be that bad, right? And a member who steps in to stop an assault also can’t be that bad. I’m beginning to think I judged a book by its cover when it comes to Dean Lawler. He’s nothing like I expected, and nor is his Club.
“I still can’t get over the fact we raised seven and a half grand!” Reba shakes herself even as she reaches for her mug of coffee, which is so strong I can smell it from the other side of the large round table we’re gathered around.
Neither can I to be honest. Most of what we took there was junk, which makes me think the other stallholders must have sold well.
“Some of the businesses still need to pay up,” Holly says, “so it could be a little more, but it means we’ll be able to redécorate the main common room and some of the bedrooms.”
“How much did we make on our stall?” I’m curious, although I doubt we made much of the total raised figure.
Holly’s attention goes to the sheet of paper in front of her. I assume that has a breakdown of what everyone made that day.
“Four hundred and thirty-two pounds, and seventy-two pence.”
My eyes widen at that. “Seriously?”
She nods and beams at me. Holly is weirdly chipper today. I suspect she’s been here all night—and has been chugging back coffee by the vat to stay awake. Her platinum hair is scraped back into a top knot, pieces of hair spilling out to dangle around her face.
“I know. I could barely believe it myself.”
“Well, that just proves that folk are strange,” June observes. “They’ll buy any old tat if it’s cheap enough.”
She’s not wrong, but I can’t stop the guffaw of laughter that escapes me at the pointed way she says it.
“It was quality merchandise, June,” Reba tells her around a smile.
Like me she is a volunteer. Unlike me, she doesn’t have a violent background. She’s also much better at avoiding biscuits. I’m finishing off my third.
“Yeah, quality junk.” She shakes her head before blowing the steam from her mug. “I’ll never get it.”
I love June and Reba. The two women are in their forties or fifties and they are frigging hilarious, but they also make progress slow when you’re trying to get through something fast. Like this meeting. We don’t need to be sitting here all day. Holly’s patience usually wanes quickly, but this morning she seems happy enough to let them yammer on, so I don’t sweat it either. Instead, I reach for the plate of biscuits in the middle of the table and snag yet another chocolate digestive.
“And what about Mr Monroe?” Reba asks. “Has he been found yet?”
And my good mood dissipates. I swallow the bite of food, which now feels like a solid lump in my throat.
“He’s still on the lam,” I tell her, unable to keep the worry out of my voice.
“I asked Nate to look into it.”
Holly’s admission surprises me, although it shouldn’t. Nate is a Detective Sergeant in Kingsley Police and probably the only useful officer in the whole town. He has a hell of a job trying to keep law and order in this chaotic place. He’s also known Holly since they were kids—a relationship she doesn’t utilise nearly as much as I would if I was the manager of a women’s shelter. He may also be a little bit in love with her and she may be completely oblivious to the fact.
“You did? When?”
“I spoke to him the day before yesterday.” She glances up at the ceiling, her face tight. “You were attacked while working for the shelter. I’m not letting that go, Olivia. I told Nate that he and his bloody police pals need to find him. Immediately.”
I can’t help it; I laugh. “Hol, you can’t just demand a police officer does his job your way.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a police officer.”
“So?”
I just shake my head.
The day passes in a blur of activity. If I’m not making beds and cleaning rooms, I’m serving food or helping with activities. We’re over capacity at the moment, which means we’re busy. We have nineteen residents, which is four more than we can hold, so I get my lunch break an hour later than usual. I’m just heading to the staff area when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see a message from June telling me Nate is here.
My stomach twists.
Nate being here means either one of two things: they still can’t find Monroe or they’ve made an arrest. I hope to hell it’s the latter because I’m exhausted constantly looking over my shoulder. I’m also checking Simon’s social media a lot more than usual, so I know the incident has unsettled me. I need things to go back to normal—or at least what passes as normal around here.
As I head towards the main foyer, I run into Holly coming out of the day room. She looks a little frazzled, but focused.
“Where are you off to like a rocket?” She shifts the files in her hands.
“June messaged and said Nate’s here. Clearly your arse-kicking a few days ago worked.”
“He’s arrested Monroe?”
She falls into step next to me, her pace a
faster one than I would have picked; I have to lengthen my stride to keep up with her.
“I don’t know; June’s message didn’t say, but I would guess he has an update about the case if he wants to see me.”
“Maybe he’ll finally have some good news and we can all get on with our lives.”
I stop walking and I grab her arm, halting her in her tracks. Guilt is etched into every line of her face.
“Hols, what happened—it wasn’t your fault.”
I watch as she nibbles on her bottom lip. “It’s my job to keep everyone safe. So, yeah, Olivia, it is my fault that you got hurt.”
“I didn’t get hurt.” I had a couple of bruises where I’d met the ground up close and personal, but that was it. Most of the damage was emotional—not that I’m telling Holly that. I don’t need to though, because she knows.
“You’re a liar if you say what happened hasn’t affected you.” Her hand goes to her forehead as she takes a steadying breath. “You should never have been in that situation in the first place.”
“We all know the risks when we come here—”
“But your past—”
“Doesn’t define my future,” I cut her off because it’s true. And most days I believe that. It doesn’t. There are times when I’m not strong and the doubts catch up with me, but they’re not as often as they were. Every day, I get stronger.
“You were abused for years. You’re telling me you’re not even a little affected by having a man put his hands on you again?”
I hear the scepticism in her voice, and I don’t blame her because it does sound ridiculous. I take a deep breath as I try to put my thoughts into words.
“Simon hurt me, and yes he did it for a long time, Holly. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to fall apart any time someone raises their voice. I’m scared by what Monroe did, but not because of my past, but because what he did was scary. Anyone would feel that way.”
She shifts on her feet and I can see the guilt working across her expression.
“I know you won’t fall apart, and I know you’re fine because that’s you—you’re too stubborn to be anything but fine—but I should have done better. You shouldn’t have been in a position where you needed to fight off someone. I should have realised Monroe was more of a risk and taken precautions.”