Dare to Love

by A. L. Brooks

  By unspoken agreement they sat in silence then and finished their wine, holding hands across the breakfast bar.

  Chapter 5

  “Maybe you should take a break.”

  Monica’s voice broke into Carmen’s thoughts, startling her.

  “What?”

  Monica stood and walked across their shared office, her expression sympathetic. “I know from being cc’d on so many emails yesterday that you put in a full day on a weekend again, and you’ve been staring into space for at least ten minutes now.”

  “Have I?”

  Shit, she’d had no idea. How embarrassing—not exactly setting the best example to my assistant lately, am I?

  The good news was the weekend work had kept her mind off Gerald. The bad news was it meant all her thoughts about him and relationships in general had decided to revisit her brain just as she tried to sleep. She was exhausted.

  “You have.” Monica chuckled, and her long red curls bounced as her shoulders shook. “Maybe you need another coffee?”

  “Probably. I’ll just get Beverley to—”

  “No, don’t do that. Get out of here for a little while. You’ve got time—your next appointment isn’t for another hour. Go to Alma’s and get one of their amazing espressos.”

  Carmen exhaled a long breath. Yeah, maybe the walk to Alma’s would be good. She laughed. “Oh, this wouldn’t have anything to do with someone wanting a Portuguese custard tart by any chance, would it?”

  Monica’s wide-eyed look of feigned innocence merely made Carmen laugh harder.

  “All right, all right. I’ll go. You’re right; I need some air.”

  “Is there…? Well, if it’s work, you know I want to help in any way I can, right?”

  “I do. But no, it’s not work. Sorry, don’t worry; I’m okay. Really.”

  To her credit, Monica didn’t push any further. Instead she returned to her desk, opened the drawer, and pulled her purse out from its depths. “Here.” She handed over a fiver. “Get me two, please.”

  Carmen ignored the proffered money. “My treat.”

  “But—”

  “I insist. You’ve used your initiative this morning, and that needs rewarding.”

  “I have?”

  “By insisting I get out of here. It’s best for all of us if I shake off this mood.” Carmen grinned at her, then retrieved her handbag. “I’ve got my mobile if anyone calls and—”

  “Carmen, with all due respect, we can handle it until you’re back.”

  Carmen rubbed her forehead. “Of course. Sorry.” Sometimes it was hard to let go, even though she had recruited Monica for that very reason. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  Monica threw her a wave, her attention already back on her own screen.

  After letting her receptionist, Beverley, know where she was going—and obtaining an order for another custard tart—Carmen trotted down the four flights of stairs and out of the main door. The morning that greeted her was glorious, with warm sunshine and a blue sky dotted with small, fluffy white clouds.

  Alma’s was located a few blocks away, tucked down a side street. The walk lifted Carmen’s spirits; the streets weren’t too busy in the middle of a Monday morning, and the air was, for once in the centre of London, fresh and easy on the nose. She smiled to herself—she actually walked with a spring in her step. Who’d have thought, given how bleak she’d felt all weekend?

  The café wasn’t very busy when she arrived. An older couple sat at one table indoors, and outside two of the four smaller tables were occupied. She was about to step through the open front door when her eye was caught by the person at the table nearest the door. Was that…?

  “Ash?” she tentatively asked.

  The woman looked up, and a broad smile split her face. “Hey! Carmen, isn’t it?”

  “It is. Nice to see you again.” Carmen didn’t know why Ash was here, but it was rather lovely to see a vaguely familiar face out and about on her escape from the office. “You live around here?”

  Ash laughed. “I wish! No, I heard this place had the best Portuguese custard tarts in town, and I made a long diversion on my way to work to find out if it was true.” She pointed at a plate that looked as if it might have actually been licked clean. “It seems it is.”

  Carmen chuckled. “It really is. I haven’t been here in a while, but I’ll be leaving with a box of five.”

  Ash’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Not all for me!” Carmen hastily added. “Tempting as that might be.”

  Ash nodded. “I’ve had one, but I’m seriously considering having a second.” She paused. “Hey, if you’re not in a rush, do you maybe want to sit and eat one with me? I’ll feel better if I’m not eating alone again.” She grinned and spread her arms as if to show how perfectly suited the table was for two people rather than one.

  The table she had chosen was directly in the warm sun, and Carmen had time, so why not? “That sounds great. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

  “No, it would be good to have some company. Especially with someone who won’t judge me for the second tart.”

  “Definitely no judgement here. Okay, give me a minute, I’ll just order.” Carmen walked into the café, paid for six of the pastries—two on a plate and four in a to-go box—and a double espresso, then returned to Ash with a large tray that held all the purchases. She placed it on the table before sitting and lifting the plate. “Here, one of these is yours.”

  “Wait, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but…” Carmen shrugged. “At the risk of sounding overdramatic, it’s good to be outside and spending time with another human being unrelated to my job, so think of this as my thanks for that.”

  “At least let me pay you for it.” Ash reached into her pocket.

  “Please, no. My treat.”

  Seeming to accept there was no point in arguing, Ash sat back. “Well, thank you. Next time will be on me.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Ash smiled at her, and once again Carmen was struck with how…handsome she was. It was a word she had always reserved for men up until now, but she realised how easily it applied to Ash. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, and she didn’t need it. Carmen loved Ash’s fashion sense—today her T-shirt was bright yellow with a big red cartoon heart in the centre of her chest. And her hair looked amazing. She’d used some kind of product to slick her long fringe to the side. It totally worked.

  “I like your hair today. I mean, I liked it the other day too,” she added, “but this style looks just as good.”

  “Thanks. I like to mix it up.”

  “You’re lucky.” Carmen ruefully pointed at her own curly hair. “Really can’t do a lot with this.”

  “I guess. But the curls totally suit you, so at least there’s that.”

  “True! It would be a lot worse if this is what God gave me and it didn’t suit me at all.” Carmen laughed.

  “Always be thankful for small mercies.” Ash pulled her plate closer. “Something my gran used to say a lot.”

  “Wise woman.”

  “That she was.” Ash picked up her pastry. “Cheers!”

  Carmen picked up her own pastry, and they touched the edges in a pastry toast before each leaning in and taking a bite from their own.

  “Oh God,” Carmen mumbled around her mouthful.

  “I know, right?”

  Carmen swallowed. “How could I forget how good these are?”

  They finished their treats in silence, but they shared smiles and chuckles as they did so. Carmen wondered why she felt so comfortable sitting here, stuffing a pastry in her mouth, with a woman she hardly knew.

  “So good,” Ash said when she’d finished. She licked a finger, pressed it against the remaining crumbs of the flaky pastry on her plate, and popped them in her mouth. The unselfconscious gesture was cute, and Carmen liked that Ash was comfortable in her own skin.

  “This could become habit-forming.” Carmen groaned and pushed her
empty plate away, then downed the rest of her espresso.

  “Well, I do owe you one, so you have to come back at least one more time.”

  “Bugger.”

  Ash laughed, the sound melodious, easy on Carmen’s ears. Then Ash also pushed her plate away and sat back in her chair, her expression thoughtful.

  “What?” Carmen asked.

  “Well, I don’t want to pry, but why did you need this escape so badly? You seemed…frazzled, when you first turned up.”

  Carmen leaned back and sighed. “I was. It’s complicated.”

  “Ah.”

  “I know. God, what a cliché.” Carmen looked away. There was no way she could share with Ash. She barely knew her and— “I split up with my partner on Friday night. He and I had been seeing each other for two years, casual but exclusive, and I just reached a point where I wondered why we were bothering.”

  The words left her mouth so quickly her brain couldn’t catch up with the fact that she’d actually said them out loud. To an almost stranger. Her face heated.

  “I’m sorry,” Ash said.

  Carmen picked at the crumbs on her plate. “You see, that’s the thing. I should be, but I’m not. That probably sounds harsh, but I wasn’t in love with him. I liked him. A lot. But that zing, that spark, it was never there. We had a good time, and he made it easy for me to fit the relationship around my work because he has a demanding job too. But it’s like it was all surface. No depth. And for a long time I thought that was fine, but now I know it wasn’t.” She wasn’t sure where all this openness with a relative stranger had come from. Normally, she kept such personal things close to her chest, only confiding in Felicity. Why had she found it so easy to say all of that to Ash?

  Ash shrugged. “Then you’ve done the right thing. You should never stay with someone just because it’s convenient, in my humble opinion. Feelings are important. They should always come first.”

  There was a bitter edge to her tone, and it didn’t take a fancy education to know that Ash had been hurt by someone in her past.

  “You’re right. I’ve spent all weekend going over and over it in my head, wondering if I’d done the right thing, feeling guilty over hurting him. Now I do feel okay about what I did. Maybe I just needed a bit more time to come to terms with it all.”

  “Or the custard tarts have worked their magic.” Ash smiled gently.

  “Perhaps so.” Carmen’s laugh burst out of her.

  Ash joined in her laughter, and God, it felt good to just sit in the sun and laugh .

  A chime from her phone brought Carmen back down to earth. “Ugh. That’s the fifteen-minute reminder for my next meeting. I have to get back.” She stood, hooked her handbag over her shoulder, then picked up the box of pastries. She looked down at Ash, who smiled again, although not as brightly as before.

  “This was lovely, Ash. I’m so glad I ran into you.”

  “Likewise.” Ash withdrew a well-worn, brown leather wallet from the back pocket of her jeans. She opened it and pulled out a business card from one of the slots. “Here, take this. Call me when you want me to repay that pastry, okay?”

  Carmen took the card. “I will. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Carmen walked down the street, careful to keep the pastry box steady, and puzzled over the sadness that overtook her as her distance from the café increased.

  No, not from the café , she thought a moment later. From Ash .

  How odd.

  Chapter 6

  Well, that was unexpected .

  Ash grimaced as she walked to the studio. While it had been pleasant chatting with Carmen, even just for twenty minutes, the fact that her brain couldn’t seem to rid itself of the image of Carmen laughing in the sunshine was not.

  God, no, you idiot. No straight women. Remember last time? Ugh.

  She unlocked the studio shutters, rolled them up, but then closed and locked the door behind her when she was inside. She didn’t officially open for another half an hour and didn’t need anyone interrupting her preparations.

  A small stack of mail rested on the doormat, and she bent to pick it up. A glance told her most of it was junk—catalogues and flyers from suppliers she’d never use. She threw it onto the desk, then made her way to the small room at the back that doubled as her office and storeroom. Mondays were always stock-checking days, and within five minutes she had her tablet in her hand and cast an eye over every shelf.

  By the time she’d finished that and placed the order, it was noon and time to open. When she flipped the sign to open and undid the latch, no one waited to enter, but she still got the same sense of satisfaction in the actions that she’d had from the first day she’d opened for business.

  Her first client was at one thirty, so she cleaned up the waiting area and refreshed the magazines and artwork folders. Then she sat at one of the benches at the back and pulled out her sketchbook. She’d been reading a high fantasy novel on Sunday afternoon and had some ideas for sketches of the characters and creatures described in the book. Sketching always grounded her.

  Fifteen minutes later, she threw her pencil onto the bench and folded her arms. That wasn’t what she was supposed to have drawn. She glared at the small sketch, as if it were somehow directly to blame. What had started out as an idea to draw one of the heroines of the story had instead become a light sketch of Carmen. Even in black and white, it evoked memories of the sun in her blonde hair, those curls lifting gently in the warm breeze, her brown eyes changing in intensity depending on whether she was laughing or pondering the state of her relationship.

  Yes, see, her relationship. She’s straight! She’s literally just finished seeing a guy she’d been dating for two years!

  Ash stood and stretched and was beyond thankful when the front door opened. Let’s hope it’s someone who can keep me chatting for a while, get my mind back in focus .

  Instead, Carmen’s friend Felicity waited for her by the desk.

  Ash almost groaned out loud. “Hey.” She forced herself to sound cheery as she rounded the benches and joined Felicity in the front of the shop.

  “Hello.”

  Felicity looked as if she were heading out somewhere important. She was dressed in a dark red trouser suit that Ash would bet had cost a fortune, a white shirt with the collars flipped up, and a Gucci handbag hung over one arm. Her make-up was impeccable, if a little too much again for Ash’s tastes, but it highlighted her deep brown eyes wonderfully, and her shiny black hair framed the entire picture gloriously. “Do you have a minute?”

  “I do. What’s up?”

  Felicity ducked her head, and pink tinged her cheeks. “Well, I’m probably worrying for nothing. I know you said it can sometimes take a while for the redness to go down, but…”

  Hmm, nine days post-tattoo. Unless she’s got super sensitive skin, which she didn’t mention, the redness should have gone by now. “Want me to take a look?”

  “Oh, yes, please!”

  “Okay, come on through to the back.” Ash walked to the back area. She motioned Felicity to stand by one of the counters, then pulled a pair of latex gloves out of their storage box.

  “Can you pull your trousers down enough for me to see?”

  “Of course.” Felicity placed her handbag on the counter. She turned back and slowly—actually, the word seductively sprang to mind—opened her trousers and eased them past her hips.

  The lacy underwear revealed by the action was, Ash had to admit, pretty sexy, but it wasn’t the first time she’d seen a female client’s underwear and it sure wouldn’t be the last. She maintained her professionalism and waited patiently until Felicity’s hands stopped moving.

  Ash stepped closer. “May I?”

  “Yes.”

  Did Felicity deliberately put that breathiness into her response?

  Ash decided not to look at her. She had a sneaky suspicion what might be going on here and wasn’t remotely interested in responding to it. Sure, Felicity was gorgeous, but she was
almost over-the-top gorgeous, and that did nothing for Ash. Not like the understated beauty of someone like Carmen, for example.

  Shit, stop that. Concentrate on your client .

  Ash bent down, worried about what she might see, and inspected the tattoo and the area around it. There wasn’t any redness at all, and her relief was soured by what she was now convinced Felicity was playing at. “There’s nothing I’m seeing here that’s giving me any cause for concern.” She stood up straight and gave Felicity a friendly but professional smile. “You’re doing fine.”

  “Oh, that’s such a relief.” Felicity placed a hand on Ash’s arm. “Thank you.”

  Oh God, I think she’s actually trying to bat her eyelashes at me . Ash eased away from Felicity’s touch under the pretence of needing to ditch the gloves. Once she’d gained some distance, she said over her shoulder, “Happy to be of help. Give me a call if there’s any more concerns.”

  When she turned back from the rubbish bin, Felicity had dressed again and stood with her arms folded across her chest, leaning against the counter. An enigmatic smile played around her lips. “Do I make you nervous, Ash?” She purred the question.

  Ash barely resisted rolling her eyes. “Not at all.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Felicity, I’m flattered, really, but…no, thank you.”

  Felicity dropped her arms, and her cheeks took on their pink hue again. “Oh, dear. Was I that obvious?”

  Ash shuffled on the spot. She just wanted Felicity to leave, not prolong this awkward conversation. “You kind of were. Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “Oh, no, I rather think I’ve embarrassed myself.” Felicity turned away and grabbed her handbag, hesitating a moment with one hand on the counter.

  Ash gave her that space to compose herself.

  Felicity turned back and walked the few paces across the room to Ash. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what came over me. I mean, God, I’ve never dated a woman, never even looked before. I just…” She closed her eyes. “I think Carmen might be right. I think I am going through some sort of midlife crisis.”