The Damaged Hearts Bargain (Tetherington Hearts #2)

Chapter Eighteen

C al’s fate was sealed when Lucy laid her head on her shoulder.

The wedding was simple and elegant, the kind of wedding that Cal herself would plan if she ever thought about a wedding. Not that she did. Ever. But it was sweet to watch and even she had to dab a tear from an eye as Pen and Ash said their I dos.

Not that it was without its problems.

“I can’t believe you’d bring her here,” hissed Doris Renton as Cal walked past arm in arm with Lucy.

Lucy glared, but Cal pulled her away. “Let it go,” she whispered. This was a wedding, not an appropriate venue for a fight.

“It’s just so unfair,” began Lucy.

“It’s fine,” Cal said, not feeling at all fine. But she suffered the eye rolls and the tuts that, at an English wedding at least, conveyed the deep hatred that ran through the town at the very sight of her.

And then they were back out in the sunlight, the heat bouncing off the pavement and the light bright and white above them. Groups of people had gathered here and there and the happy couple had gone off to… Well, Cal had a fair idea of what happened right after a wedding, or at least she hoped that’s what was happening .

“I’m glad you came,” Lucy said, pressing Cal’s arm close against her body so that Cal could feel her heat.

“You asked and I delivered,” said Cal, trying to breathe properly. “Never let it be said that I don’t keep a promise.”

“It was sweet of you.” Lucy was looking down at her, eyes deep blue and sparkling and Cal had to bite her tongue not to pull her in and kiss her. No mixed messages though. That wouldn’t be fair. “Um, there’s another few hours before the reception starts.”

“Ah,” Cal said, thinking of what the happy couple were probably doing and then, naturally thinking of her and Lucy doing the same. She cleared her throat. “Ah,” she managed to say again.

Lucy put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, I understand what you were trying to say yesterday, I really do. But I also think that you’re not being fair.”

“Me? Unfair?” Cal laughed. “I’m just trying to keep things on the up and up, make sure we’re communicating, no one’s getting hurt, all that good stuff. I’m pretty sure that’s the very opposite of unfair.”

“No, you’re assuming things,” Lucy said.

“Oh, I am, am I?” Lucy’s eyes were still sparkling and Cal couldn’t tear her gaze away.

“You are,” Lucy said quite seriously. “First of all, you’re assuming that all I want in life is a relationship based off one conversation we had when you hardly know me. Second of all, you’re assuming that anything we may or may not feel for each other would turn into a relationship.”

Cal had to squint a little against the sun. “Hmmm. And you’re saying that neither of those things is necessarily true?”

Lucy tilted her head. “I’m saying that you have no idea what’s in the box until you open the box.”

A slight shiver went down Cal’s back despite the heat. “Are you suggesting that… I open your box?”

Lucy snorted with laughter and Cal’s lips twitched because she really did have the most adorable laugh. “I’m suggesting that… I don’t know. That we think less about tomorrow and mo re about today perhaps?”

Cal was about to respond to this, she could feel the words coming, though she had no idea what she was about to say, when a thick-set man hurried up to them both.

“It’s here, it’s here,” he puffed.

“Billy?” said Lucy. “I thought you and George were setting up the hall for the reception?”

“We are,” said Billy, still slightly out of breath. “But I dropped by the post office to get the keys and there it was, just waiting, sticking out of the top of a sack like I was destined to see it. It practically had a spotlight on it and everything.”

“What are the two of you talking about?” asked Cal.

Billy shoved an envelope into Lucy’s hand. “Open it!”

Lucy looked down at it. “It’s um, it’s an artist’s residency I applied for in London,” she said, distinctly not opening the letter. “It, um… It…”

“Open it,” Billy said again.

Lucy’s big blue eyes looked at Cal and Cal nodded gently, taking the letter out of her hands and carefully opening it. Billy was practically jumping up and down on the spot as Cal withdrew the letter, but Lucy was still, eyes closed, hand on Cal’s shoulder.

And in the moment that Cal opened the letter, something happened. Her heart beat hard, her stomach tightened, and Cal realized that she was… invested in this. Invested in the life of someone she barely knew, someone she had no business being invested in.

Lucy’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “Uh, you do know how to read, right?”

“Of course I know how to read,” snapped Cal, unfolding the letter properly and feeling ashamed of herself for snapping but also wrong-footed by the fact that she cared so much.

“What does it say? What does it say?” Billy asked, hopping from one foot to the other.

Cal cleared her throat and for a dread instant wondered if she could really give bad news to Lucy. “Dear Ms. Evans,” she began, hardly daring to read the next line. “We’re delighted to inform you that—” Which was as far as she got.

Because then Lucy was squashing her into a hug and Billy was joining them and Lucy was screeching in delight and Cal was laughing.

“I got it, I got it!” Lucy cried.

Billy extricated himself from the group hug. “I’d better go and tell George, he’ll kill me when he finds out we didn’t wait for him.”

“Tell him I’ll make it up to him,” Lucy called after him. “See you at the reception!” She turned to Cal, tears sparking in her eyes again. “I really got it.”

And Cal, who hadn’t seen a single picture that Lucy had painted, was smiling so hard her face was hurting. Why the hell was she so happy? But the answer was simple. Lucy’s shining, radiant face, the joy in her, made it feel like Cal was walking in the clouds.

Lucy took her hand and dragged her away from the car park, twining fingers in with hers as they walked toward the beach.

“Don’t you have people to tell?” Cal asked. “Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, phoning your friends and all that jazz?”

Lucy’s hand tightened around hers. “Later,” she said. “Right now, I’m pretty happy with where I am.”

“Ah.” Cal let herself be led to the beach where they both kicked off their shoes and picked them up, Lucy never letting go of her hand. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Lucy was walking with purpose, not too fast but not strolling either. She side-eyed Cal. “I told you before that you were being unfair, and I think you are. I think that you’re blaming me for wanting a relationship and at the same time being the polar opposite, not wanting anything at all. When no one’s asked you for more than you’re willing to give, Cal.”

Cal bit her lip but stayed silent. It was a fair point.

“And I’m not playing that game with you,” Lucy went on, still walking. “We’re two adults and we like each other and that’s a rare enough thing that we shouldn’t ignore it. ”

“Alright,” Cal said. She was unused to this, unused to someone else taking the lead in this way.

Partly it was her nature, she’d always been the type of person to ask for what she wanted in life. Partly it was how she saw herself. Part of her butch identity, in her eyes, had always been to play a more traditionally masculine role.

She wondered now why she’d thought that. She was a woman, Lucy was a woman, nobody needed to be a man here.

And it was nice being led by the hand, nice being taken somewhere by someone whose eyes shone like sea-smoothed glass.

There was more though, and she wasn’t too blinded by Lucy to see it. Circumstances had changed. Opening that letter had suddenly meant that Lucy was leaving too, temporarily perhaps, but maybe not. And somehow that made things more fair. There was a deadline for them both. Cal would leave when the house was finished, Lucy would leave to go to her residency. It was like a built-in end point that they both needed.

Which didn’t exactly explain what was happening now.

“Where are we going?” Cal asked finally.

Lucy nodded toward a little house perched on the side of a small cliff overlooking the sea. “There,” she said.

Cal smiled. “And what, pray tell, is there?”

“My house,” Lucy said simply.

The sand crunched under their bare feet and Cal wondered if Lucy tasted of the ocean. “And what happens when we get to your house?” she pressed on, wanting this to be fully consensual, fully in the open, wanting them both to understand what was about to happen.

Lucy did stop now. She stopped and turned and raised an eyebrow. “Do you need me to explain it to you step by step?” she asked.

Something about the way she said it, the way her lips moved, the implication behind the words, made Cal’s insides molten. Cal swallowed, not sure she could trust herself to answer. She shook her head .

“Good,” Lucy said, turning and pulling at her hand, beginning to walk again.

“Good?” Cal croaked, seeing the sway of Lucy’s body, the way the sun illuminated her silhouette under her fine sundress.

“Good,” Lucy said again. “It’ll be much more fun to show you.”

The sun caught the roof of the little house on the cliff and it shone nearly as red as Cal’s cheeks. Her heart pounded and then she was laughing, the sound mixing with the waves as Lucy pulled at her hand.