The Damaged Hearts Bargain (Tetherington Hearts #2)

Chapter Sixteen

T he fake jade box sat on the dressing table where it caught the sun and shone like a beer bottle on the beach. Cal could both hardly bear to look at it and couldn’t tear her eyes from it at the same time.

This had been the end of everything. Or the beginning of everything, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of was that she very much didn’t want the thing in the house or anywhere near her. Yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to throw it away.

The alarm on her phone beeped. She sighed and switched it off. She needed to get going. Despite not having seen Lucy for two days, she’d got a text just that morning reminding her that there was some kind of wedding rehearsal tonight.

Who needed to rehearse a wedding?

Surely it wasn’t that complicated. You walked down an aisle, said yes to whatever you were asked, and put a ring on someone’s finger. Hardly rocket science.

But she was going anyway. Not at all because she wanted to see Lucy. She owed a debt. Lucy had helped her at the house twice now, and had promised that after the weekend she was all Cal’s for three full days. That should be enough to get the place done, or close to it. And she’d signed off with a kiss. Three kisses.

Not that Cal was counting.

She left the jade box sitting on the table and walked down the stairs. She was unlikely to have a great evening, given that the wedding party was almost certainly made up of people that hated her. But then… but then Lucy would be there. Cal got that feeling in her stomach like a kid before Christmas.

When she got back to the pub she went upstairs, showered, dressed, combed her hair and slapped on a little cologne, woody and spicy. That was it. She was done and early to boot. Which gave her entirely too much time to think about jade boxes and Lucy’s eyes, so she went downstairs as a distraction.

“Well, look at you,” Rosalee said, drying a glass with a white bar towel. “You scrub up alright, don’t you?” She sniffed. “Could have done without the scrapes on your face though. You look like you’ve been in a bar brawl.”

“Can’t be helped,” said Cal, feeling a little warm at the compliment. It was a compliment, buried in there, but still.

“You off to the rehearsal then?” Rosalee asked. Cal nodded and Rosalee shook her head. “You’re a glutton for punishment, Cal Roberts, anyone ever told you that?” She sniffed again. “Still, you’ve got some stones, I’ll give you that. Just be careful.”

“Think the town might gang up on me and jump me in a dark alley?” Cal joked. But the look Rosalee gave her back told her that it wasn’t a funny one and Rosalee might even think it was true. “I’ll be fine,” she added hurriedly.

“While I’ve got you here,” Rosalee said. “See that woman over there?” She nodded toward a blonde, older woman sitting at the corner of the bar and checking her watch, obviously waiting for someone.

“Yeah, what of her?”

Rosalee scowled. “You might want to go and introduce yourself. That’s Deb Manning.”

“And?” Cal scowled back.

“And she’s a nurse. She cared for your mum at the end, spent more time at that house than you did. She deserves a bit of thanks.”

Cal’s skin prickled at the inference. She hadn’t been there for her mother. But then her mother hadn’t been there for her, so… Still, Rosalee had a fair point. She took a breath and then walked ov er to the corner of the bar.

“Hi, I’m Cal, Cal Roberts?”

The woman smiled and she had a pretty smile. “Cal, we meet at last. Deb Manning.”

“Rosalee said,” said Cal. She wiped her hands on the side of her trousers, not really sure what to say now. “Uh, I suppose I’m here to say thank you. Thanks for all that you did for mum.”

“No more than my job, dear, but the thanks are welcome anyway.”

Cal half-expected her to say something about her not being there, or at least to say that her mother had missed her or something guilt-laden. But she didn’t. She smiled pleasantly up at Cal until Cal wondered if there was something she was missing. Maybe she was supposed to tip the woman or… or pay some kind of bill?

Not that she had any money. “I, um, I’m cleaning out the house at the moment,” she said.

“Oh, love.” Deb put a hand on Cal’s arm and Cal suddenly liked her.

Okay, it helped that she was obviously new in town and had little or no idea about Cal’s history. But she still looked like a decent person. “I wondered if… I mean, you were obviously very important to mum, so I wondered if perhaps you’d like to come over and, I don’t know, choose something to remember her by?”

Deb’s eyes glistened with tears and she blinked them away. “That’s a lovely offer, thank you, Cal. Can I take you up on it early next week? Say Tuesday or so?”

“Of course, let me give you my number and we can set something up.”

Cal left the pub five minutes later with the feeling that for once she’d done something right. Rosalee gave her an approving nod as she left, which made her walk a little taller as she went.

THE REHEARSAL WASN’T what Cal had been expecting. Or maybe it had been but she wasn’t invited to that part. When she got to the hall she paused for a second, remembering the smell of gym shoes and children’s parties. But when she went inside she found just a group of people sitting around a table, eating and drinking.

No one noticed her, so she stood for a moment in the doorway, watching. Lucy’s hair gleamed in the lights and she was laughing at something somebody was saying and Cal felt her chest tighten. Tighten because she looked beautiful and for the first time Cal was seeing her like others would.

And tighten because there were at least twenty people at the table and Cal was sure that a minimum of fifteen of those hated her.

Then Lucy was turning and Cal’s stomach flipped, and she was smiling and Cal’s pulse quickened, and she was getting up and Cal’s core melted. Christ, she had it bad this time.

“You made it, come on, come and sit,” Lucy said, linking her arm into Cal’s. “You look really nice.”

“So do you,” blurted out Cal, looking at Lucy’s plain cotton summer dress. Nice. Smooth. Well done there.

“Sit here between me and George and let George tell you about his afternoon,” Lucy said, pushing Cal into a seat. “Fabio, the bookshop cat, escaped and chased a French Bulldog down the High Street.”

“Fab’s got a thing about Bulldogs,” George said. “So, there I was, coffee in hand about to get started on the online orders, when from the corner of my eye I saw this woman walking past the window…”

Cal listened and laughed as George told his story and Lucy piled her plate with pasta salad and filled her a glass. And before she knew it, she was… included. It felt nice to sit there. Pen and Ash were at the head of the table and looked to be very deep in discussion about something.

“Probably about baby names,” Lucy confided.

“They’re pregnant?” asked Cal.

George rolled his eyes. “You do know how lesbian sex works, right?” he asked. “And no, they’re not. But your little Lucy is convinced that they’re picking up a baby on their honeymoon, like they’re Madonna or something.”

“Because they are,” Lucy said.

Before they could argue further, Pen stood up and clinked her fork on her glass. Everyone stilled.

“I’m not one for big, soppy speeches,” Pen began.

“Bullshit,” called out George and everyone laughed.

“Alright, maybe I am,” said Pen with a grin. “But not tonight, I’ll save that for the actual wedding. Tonight, I, we, just wanted to say thank you for being here, thank you for being our friends, and thank you for putting up with us. And as a thank you back to you, we thought we’d give you a sneak preview of the party you’re in for tomorrow night. Lights!”

The lights suddenly blinked out, then the deep bass thud of music started in the darkness. One by one, shining disco lights illuminated until the little hall looked like a fairy dell in sparkling rainbow colors.

“It’s dance time!” Pen cried, grabbing Ash by the hand and dragging her out of her chair.

“You heard the lady,” said Lucy.

“Are you kidding?” Cal asked, looking up at her in surprise.

Lucy put her hands on her hips. “Are you about to tell me that you don’t dance?”

Cal smirked. “I don’t know a butch that doesn’t dance,” she said. “Need me to show you how it’s done?”

“By all means,” said Lucy, holding out a hand.

Knowing that she was getting herself into trouble but finding it very hard to care, Cal took the hand and let Lucy pull her toward the other dancers. For a second she was self-conscious. But then Lucy took her other hand and the music started to do its work and Cal felt her heart beat harder.

Lucy let herself go and so Cal did too, dancing and laughing until the music changed and something with a more defined Latin beat came on. Before Cal knew what she was doing, she’d taken Lucy’s waist in her hands, pulled her in closer until their hips met, forced her into the correct rhythm .

And Lucy let it happen, matched her move for move until Cal didn’t know where she ended and Lucy began. She could smell Lucy’s hair, could feel her body pressed up against her, could feel her own body responding in ways that were far from appropriate in a public setting.

For one long moment she let it go on. Then she took a deep breath and did the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. She stepped away from Lucy and walked back to her seat.