by Cara McKenna
“You must be so angry with me.”
She rubbed her fingers over the stone sill, probably scratching the band of her mom’s old turquoise ring, but not really caring. “I was. Sometimes. At first. And confused, and disappointed. And worried.”
He winced. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. But yeah, for the first few weeks I felt just . . .” She sighed, not finding the right adjective to summarize a million clashing emotions. “I felt too much. Lots of it bad. But eventually the bad stuff burned away, and I was just sad. And anxious, about what might’ve happened to you. Then I got your letter, and I was so relieved.”
“Did you think you might come back?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I went back and forth about it for weeks. I didn’t know if we’d ruined everything—”
“If I’d ruined everything.”
She shook her head. “I mean this in the most understanding possible way, but . . . you were a mess, Rob.”
He smiled weakly at that.
“I know it wasn’t my fault, but I forced you into a situation you couldn’t handle. You were reacting out of panic, right? Or fear, or anxiety. And I was just like, ‘Hey, this’ll be great! I’ll drag this man who exiled himself to the middle of nowhere back to a city and everything will be fine!’”
“No,” he said, toying with the leash. “You can’t blame yourself for triggering things I never warned you about. Things I should have warned you about. I don’t know why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you . . .” His voice became quiet, and thin with regret. “After everything else you accepted about me. I guess that one . . . I’m more ashamed of that than anything else—the drinking. The other stuff—that never felt like a choice. The drinking always seemed like a weakness, something I should be in control of. Something I even thought maybe I’d gotten control of. Until that night.”
“You didn’t drink, though.”
“No . . . But the desire was still there, strong as ever.”
“But you didn’t drink.”
“No, I didn’t.” He pursed his lips, eyes cast down once more. “I wish I knew what to say, to even begin to make that night up to you.”
“Your letter was a good start. It brought me back, after all.” She looked around them, spotting a café across the street. He’d brought her a latte from there once, in a previous life. “You feel like a coffee?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
They walked side by side, not touching, though Merry’s body begged for contact. Just to brush his shoulder, to feel a glancing of knuckles. Anything. But not yet.
He held the door, and she found them a table amid the lunchtime bustle. She eyed the dog as Rob handed her the leash. “Can he be in here?”
“The staff don’t mind. They know he gets stressed out if I leave him outside.”
She had to smile to think Rob had made a regular of himself somewhere so . . . social.
“What do you fancy?” he asked, still standing.
She scanned the chalkboard behind the counter as the dog settled between her feet. “Just a small coffee with milk.”
He left her to join the queue. Merry studied his back, those interesting shapes not quite hidden by his tee, the same ones she’d admired when he’d pulled back a bowstring or strode ahead of her across countless peaceful vales. She was glad his hair wasn’t too tidy. It still glanced the nape of his neck and curled behind his ears. And he’s still got a great ass.
She hid a guilty smirk as he returned with her coffee and a cup of tea for himself.
She waited, not saying a word, wanting him to own this conversation. Wanting to hear the things he’d rehearsed for all these months. It took him nearly a full minute, but he finally quit bobbing his tea bag and met her eyes.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, someday. I don’t know what to say to make that possible, but if I did, I’d tell you that.”
“I’ve already forgiven you,” she said.
His eyebrows rose, his relief so pure and plain it broke her heart.
“Have you? Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I think I forgave you before I even got your letter, though you still worried me. After I got your letter, and I wasn’t scared of what might have become of you . . . Then I really forgave you. It was one horrible night out of the most amazing week of my life, Rob.”
He nodded slowly, with that old worry line etched between his brows. “I’m glad. I’m so glad. I felt so badly, that I’d ruined your trip. Or hurt your feelings, or . . . Or made you doubt any of the things I said to you, before then. That was what scared me most. That I’d said all those things for nothing. That you’d stop believing them, when it was so astounding to me that I’d even been able to tell you . . .” He shook his head.
“You scared them away for a bit,” she admitted. “I doubted everything, after that night.”
His face fell.
“But not permanently. Like I said, when the bad feelings burned away, the good stuff was still waiting underneath. Intact.”
“I’m glad.”
She sipped her coffee, ready to put the apologies behind them. Ready to stop examining what had happened and turn their attention to what might lay ahead. Merry had no idea what that might be. A cautious, fragile friendship? Or could they actually return to that cottage, in spirit? Could that fire they’d kindled and stoked and warmed their bodies by . . . could it burn again, and so far removed from the vacuum of those few and fleeting days in the hills? Did she even know this man, for real? There was only one thing for it.
“Tell me about your life, since last fall,” she said. “What happened, after . . .” After you abandoned me. “After we went our separate ways.”
“Quite a lot.”
“So it would seem. You’re living here now?”
His nod was faint and pensive. “I am. It’s hard, but I’m adjusting. I’ve found new habits to crowd out the old ones, from back in Leeds. I’d rather be out in the wilderness, but I’ve found other things. Films, books. Walks. Music. Lots of music, actually. That’s what I seem to want to do, once it gets dark. Drink too much tea and fall asleep with the stereo on.”
She smiled at the image of Rob slumped peacefully in an easy chair, Marvin Gaye crooning, a saucer piled high with spent tea bags on a nearby table.
“Sounds nice. You seem very . . . at peace. The last time I saw you, you looked terrified to even be this close to all these people. And bars . . .”
“After I left you . . .” He took a deep breath. “After I left you, I went to a bar.”
Her heart froze. “Oh.”
“I ordered a glass of gin. I had it in my hand. I smelled it. I stared at it.”
“But you didn’t . . .”
“I didn’t. I wanted to, so badly. But for the first time I can remember, I made a choice, in that moment. My hands were shaking so hard. The barman saw. He knew. He asked me if I wanted to send it back, and I said I did. And I went home.”
“That night?”
He shook his head. “Not quite. I wandered around the city for a long time, waiting to see if I’d fail. Testing myself, I think. Then the pubs closed, and the off-licenses, and then I wandered some more, trying to know what to do. Whether to bother you again, or leave you be.”
“I guess I know which you decided.”
“By then it was dawn, and I knew you’d be bound for London. So I walked until I was home.”
All those hours she’d spent in transit, back to California . . . he’d spent them walking, walking, walking. The both of them homeward bound, but for such different places, on such different journeys. Goodness, what a weird man.
“I’ve found a therapist,” Rob added, turning his attention back to his tea.
“Good for you. Is it for the alcoholism, or the . . . your
personal stuff?”
“Both. Just the drinking, at first. She put me on an antidepressant for a couple months.” He met her eyes. “Which is something I never thought I’d do.”
“Did it work?”
He nodded. “Took the edge off being back in a city, and it dulled the cravings. Got me eased into the routines—you know, meetings and all that. And once the day-to-day alcohol stuff was feeling manageable, we started really talking about everything else. My childhood, everything with my family and my marriage. And with my . . . kinks,” he said softly. “I never imagined I’d share those things with a therapist, but it just sort of came out.”
“She’s not weird about it, I hope.”
“No, she talks about it like it’s a food allergy. Neither bad nor good. Just a thing I’m stuck with, whether I embrace it or simply accept it.”
“She sounds like a good fit.” Merry felt the dog sigh, warm ribs pressing her ankles like an inverted hug. “And so where are you living?”
“I was down by the river for the first few months, renting a little place, then just three weeks ago I bought a different flat. I bought the whole building, actually.” Rob smiled then, a private, humble little grin.
“You bought a building? In the city?”
“Nothing grand.”
“Are you working?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’m quite comfortable.”
She squinted at him. “How?”
“The money I got when my partner bought me out, and rental income on my house in Leeds, and whatever investment magic my broker’s been working. I’m not a millionaire by any stretch, but I’ve got a nice cushion to live off while I get myself sorted.”
“Huh.” She propped her chin on her hand, curious what other assumptions she’d gotten completely wrong about this man.
“What about you?” he asked. “How have you been?”
“Aside from heartbroken?” she teased. “I’ve been okay. Gained a few pounds back, but I’m not stressing myself out about it.”
“I’ve done that as well.” He patted his middle. “Funny how that happens when you don’t have to catch or harvest your dinner. Everything else going all right? Work? Friends?”
She told him about her new role, and how things had evolved between her and Lauren. “Everything’s a bit blah, but I can’t really complain. Frankly, I don’t know how things could feel anything but blah, after last year’s trip.”
“I’ll show you my place,” he offered, “if you’d like to see it.”
“Of course I would. Is it on the outskirts? Close to your escape route?”
He smiled. “No, it’s downtown, actually. Quite close to here.”
“That’ll be a change.”
“Quite close indeed,” he said, fiddling with his cup. Then he pointed out the café’s front window. “That’s it, there.”
“Where?”
“That one, right across the way.”
She turned in her chair to stare at that funny, skinny old building with the erstwhile candy store on the bottom. “No way—what a weird coincidence.”
He smiled. “No, it isn’t.”
“No?” Because of me, you mean? Because it meant something to you, because it had meant something to me?
“The flat’s nice. Two floors, sort of odd and narrow, with a spiral stair. But I like going up to the roof with the dog on warm nights with a cup of tea and watching the river and the people. Nights have always been hard for me. It’s been good to make a new ritual of them.”
“Any plans to rent out the storefront?”
“A few people have inquired, but none I’ve cared to make tenants of. No sense jumping into too many roles, my first year of recovery.”
“Sounds wise. So . . . where do we go from here?” she asked. “Today?”
“That’s entirely up to you. Whatever you want.”
“I haven’t got the first clue what I want. I’m here until Sunday morning, with no real agenda aside from finding you. So I’ve already accomplished my goal. What do you want?”
“I want . . . I want to show you my flat, and make us tea. And I want to sit on the roof with you and talk.” His gaze dropped to the tabletop. “I want to spend the next few days with you, and for you to see Inverness the way you’d intended. And wherever we might be by the end of it all . . . just friends, or anything more . . . I want to say good-bye to you the way I should have, last year. Before I bollocksed everything up so badly.”
She considered the invitation, visited by a dozen incarnations of misgiving and longing in the space of a single breath. After a deep drink of her coffee, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Yeah?” The hope was audible in his voice, and it intensified the pang lodged between her ribs. Yearning as deep and sharp as a blade.
She nodded. “Yeah. Yes to sitting on your roof, and to seeing what feels like the next step, after that.”
Their two cups were empty in no time, and suddenly Rob was holding the leash, holding the door, inviting Merry to come across the street.
“Would you like to see the shop?”
“Sure.”
He fished in his pocket for keys and unlocked two bolts. An alarm bleeped and he punched a code into a security panel as the door eased shut at Merry’s back.
She glanced around the store. A perfect, modest size, with a generous front window.
“It’s adorable.”
“I’ve pictured you here. A hundred times.”
She blinked at him. “You have?”
“I pictured you here, surrounded by your dresses and things. Chatting to customers.” He smiled. “Maybe that’s why I’ve found it so hard to let. No tenant’s plans can ever stand up to yours.”
“Wow. If only.” She couldn’t actually do that, though. Move here, start a business . . . But neither could she help but imagine it. This space, hers to decorate. Hers to get lost in, doing the thing that obsessed and enlivened her like nothing else.
“Come see the back.” He led her across the main floor and into a curtained-off space. It was ideal for a sewing studio, with enough room left over for a little office at one end.
This is yours, some part her brain whispered. This was made for you.
“It’s perfect,” she told him, smiling as she glanced around the back room. “If I had a business plan and a visa and the money to risk, I’d snap it right up.”
“There’s a rear stairway to the flat through here.”
She followed him out, across the shop floor and around to a back corner, then they climbed a tight set of stairs to a landing. Rob unlocked the apartment. He unclipped the dog’s leash and hung it on a peg, and the three of them entered.
The first thing that struck Merry was the eerie rightness of the place.
There was something about the long shape of the living room they stood in, or the way the light came through the three tall windows, or the black iron of the stairway that corkscrewed up from one corner . . . Something positively drenched with familiarity, as though she’d been here, or dreamed of it on a hundred nights. It was sparsely furnished, barely decorated, but it was the shapes that tugged at her, and the view.
“So this is the parlor-type area,” he said, “and there’s a tiny kitchen through here.”
She followed him into the next room—just enough space for a fridge, stove, and sink, and Rob’s table and chair from the cottage. She ran her hand over the wood, smiling.
“I’ll put the kettle on.”
Once two cups of tea were steeping, Rob showed her the spare bedroom, with a twin-sized frame done up in a fawn-colored comforter over chocolate-brown pillows, across from a writing desk and dresser.
Would Merry cancel her room at the hotel, and sleep here, in this bed? She hadn’t the faintest clue.
/> They added milk and sugar to their teas and carried them up the spiral stair to the third floor, to a landing big enough to pass for a small sitting room. Rob had only a stereo and his old rocker there at the moment, plus a little table. At the rocker’s side sat a plaid dog bed, and Merry smiled, picturing the two of them here, dozing as the sun sank, Rob filling his ears and head with music, to keep other appetites at bay.
Other appetites. Suddenly it wasn’t the alcohol she was thinking of, but other vices that had given him so much needless grief. The ones she’d indulged, and gladly. Her body warmed, that old wickedness she’d feared was wrecked forever rousing from a long slumber.
“And over here’s my room, these last few weeks,” Rob said, leading the way. He pushed in his door, and Merry stepped inside, breath gone in an instant.
A different bed frame, but his same blankets and pillow cases. Just . . . just the scent of him, subtle but unmistakable. There was a dated laptop on his desk, a bookshelf that held a couple dozen volumes plus his eReader, CDs, shoe boxes containing who knew what. Just the trappings of some ordinary life, yet they captivated her. Also on the desk sat one of his old kerosene lanterns. Smiling, she wandered over to toy with its wire handle.
“Why did you bring this back?”
“I missed the smell of it. And I like reading by it—so much nicer than some glaring white bulb.”
She looked out his window, facing the wide expanse of the city to the north. But his bed stayed in her periphery, its presence nagging like a needy child.
No, you’re not going to cancel your hotel room and stay in his spare room. She knew that now.
She’d be staying right here. Under that coarse wool blanket that surely smelled of wood smoke, between his soft, worn sheets. Against the strong body of this man, the one she’d missed with such a constant, haunting ache.
A good idea? She couldn’t say, but it was the only one her heart was going to let her make. She knew that, surely as she knew the sky above Inverness today was blue. Surely as she felt acceptance and admiration every time Rob’s gaze alighted on her. Attraction, affection. The seeds of love, already planted, ready to grow if only they could find their way to fostering them.