The Damaged Hearts Bargain (Tetherington Hearts #2)

Epilogue

“What’s wrong with living in London?” Cal said pleadingly.

“Nothing has been wrong with living in London for the last two years. But I’m not a city painter, Cal. I paint seascapes and landscapes and I can’t keep getting on a train any time I need inspiration. Besides, the costs are extortionate, the crowds drive us both crazy, and it’d be nice to have a place of our own that wasn’t just a one room flat.”

Cal leaned on the armrest of her seat as the train shuttled down the line. “Alright, I get all that. But why Tetherington? Other than the obvious, of course. You know that the house has been sold, it’s not like we have a place to move into there.”

Lucy wriggled in her seat, glancing at the countryside whizzing by the window. It wasn’t that she’d lied, she’d never do that. But she might not have been a hundred percent open. Rosalee had told her weeks ago about the pub, she’d just never found the right time to bring the subject up.

“Lucy Evans, you’d better tell me what you’ve been up to or I’ll force you to drink tea from the dining car.”

Lucy pulled a face. “Alright, alright. Rosalee phoned me to say that Jim from the pub was retiring.” She cleared her throat. “Um, she’d heard that, well, she’d heard that you’d got your licenses, and, um, well, she wondered if you’d be interested in taking over. ”

Cal stared at Lucy for a long second, eyes deep blue and suspicious. “She heard, did she?”

Lucy shuffled uncomfortably again. “I, um, might have mentioned something about it to her.”

“Aha. And did you tell her that we’d be delighted to take over and ask her when we could move in?” asked Cal.

“No!” Lucy said. “Of course not. I just, um… I said that we’d come and look and that you could be interested, that’s all.”

Cal sighed. “I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t sign a contract for me.” She shook her head a little. “Luce, I don’t know. I really don’t. I get needing to move out of the city, I really do. Maybe it’s time we got a bit more settled. But I’m really not sure that I can live in Tetherington. Going for visits is one thing, but to live?”

Lucy looked down at her hands. There was nothing that she wanted more than to settle down. The last two years hadn’t always been easy, but her love for Cal had done nothing but grow. She was more sure now than ever that Cal was the person she wanted. What she wasn’t sure about was whether Cal wanted her.

And she was too afraid to ask.

There were moments when every fiber of her being longed to ask Cal to marry her. But she was afraid. Afraid that she’d be coming on too strong, afraid that it would just scare Cal away.

“So is all this a ruse to get me into the pub?” Cal asked, cocking an eyebrow at Lucy.

“Absolutely not,” said Lucy. “Well, maybe a bit. But Billy and George have a big announcement, that’s why we’re going, I swear.”

“Do you think they’re moving?” Cal asked. “I can’t imagine the two of them anywhere else.”

“Maybe Billy got a new job,” said Lucy, who’d been thinking much the same thing. “I mean, he’s been a postman for as long as I’ve known him. And everyone has to move on at some point, don’t they?”

“Yes,” sighed Cal. “I suppose they do.”

?? ?

It was a good pub, Cal wasn’t stupid. There was a captive audience, no real competition, and the place was in good shape. Even she could see that for a first place it would be a good choice. She eyed the end wall as the taxi drove past it, the old mural long gone.

“I can paint it again if you think it’d help,” Lucy said.

“Mmmm,” was all Cal replied.

Lucy, her beautiful, talented Lucy. That was part of the problem. Of course, there were the obvious issues with going back to live in a town she’d left. But things had improved, slowly over time people had apologized, had accepted her, and now she didn’t hesitate to walk down the street or pop into shops when they visited.

But dooming her beautiful, talented Lucy to live in a little town, to be a publican’s wife, when she should be glittering at art shows and in galleries, Cal couldn’t be responsible for that. She suspected that Lucy was pushing to leave London to get Cal herself to commit to a decent job. A job that would mean Lucy would have to follow her and therefore give up the art community that she’d learned so much from over the last two years.

“You’re finally here,” Rosalee caroled when they walked in. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“Train was delayed,” Lucy said. “And I’m dying for a pee, I’ll be right back.” She rushed off, leaving Cal and Rosalee alone.

“Has she told you?” Rosalee asked. “She said she would, she said I should let her do it, it’d come better from her, but I can see from the look on your face that you’re not… over-eager.”

Cal sighed. “It’s not that this isn’t a lovely place, Ros. It is. And you and I get along like a house on fire now. It’s not that.”

“It’s everything and everyone else,” Rosalee said, nodding. “I understand.” She hesitated. “You know Doris Renton retired. We’ve got a new cleaner in now, if that’s who you were worried about.”

Cal laughed. Old Doris had never quite forgiven her, being under the impression that if Cal was suspected of one thing it made her suspicious in general. The phrase ‘you can’t teach old dogs new tricks’ came to mind whenever she thought about Doris. “Can’t win them all,” she said.

Rosalee put a hand on her arm. “Listen, how about this? Why don’t you work here tomorrow night? Just come down, do a couple of hours, get a feel for the place and the people. If you don’t like it after that, well, we’ll say no more about it.”

Lucy was winding her way back from the bathrooms and Cal bit her lip before giving a sharp nod. “Alright then, I suppose you can’t say fairer than that. I mean, we’re staying here anyway, so it won’t be out of my way.”

“What won’t be out of your way?” Lucy asked, sliding her arm through Cal’s in a way that still made Cal’s heart beat funny. Cal explained and Lucy squeezed her arm. “I think that’s an excellent plan.”

Cal just shrugged. She had nothing to lose, she supposed.

***

Ash folded her arms. “I’m not being grumpy.”

“To be fair, you are a bit,” Lucy said.

“It’s eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning,” Ash said. “What can possibly be so important that I need to be anywhere other than in my bed reading the newspaper?”

“You adore George,” Pen said, looping her arm through her wife’s. “And if he asked you to bungee jump off the Eiffel Tower, you’d do it.”

“I absolutely would not,” Ash protested.

But Lucy was laughing and even Ash’s lips tweaked a little at the corners.

“What do they want anyway?” Cal asked, taking a croissant from the plate in the middle of the table.

“Not a clue,” Pen said, looking worried. “I mean, usually George can’t hold a secret for more than a minute. But this time even I couldn’t get him to talk. And he’s been looking pale and tired for weeks now. Something’s been worrying him.”

“Maybe he’s ill,” Lucy said. “Or maybe Billy is.”

Pen groaned and Ash patted her hand. “I’m sure they’re both fine,” Ash said.

Which was when the bakery door opened and George came in. Lucy looked him up and down, he was pale and he didn’t look well-rested in the slightest. But he was smiling. Smiling so much that it looked like his face might crack in half.

“Are you ill?” Ash asked, never one to beat around the bush.

“What?” George said, looking surprised. “No? Why? Do I look ill?”

“Yes,” Pen and Lucy said together.

“Great, thanks,” said George. “Um, no I’m not. Nor is Billy, in case you were wondering.”

“Where is Billy?” Cal asked.

George grinned even wider. “Ah, yes. Now if you’ll just give me a moment.” He bent down to fiddle with the bakery front door. The door itself was technically a double door, but no one ever used more than the one side that was typically unlocked. Now George was grating the old locks on the other side.

“What on earth are you doing?” Pen asked.

“We asked you all here to meet someone,” George said, still yanking at the lock. “Or someones, I suppose.”

“You got a dog?” Lucy squealed. Billy and George had been talking about getting a dog for as long as she could remember.

“Um, not quite,” said George, finally freeing the lock and standing up to push the second door open. “We’re ready,” he called out.

“Should I put the croissants away?” Pen said worriedly. “I’m not sure dogs can eat croissants.”

“He said they didn’t get a dog,” Ash said. “Besides… I think babies are pretty safe around croissants, aren’t they? ”

Billy was standing in the doorway, a large twin pushchair in front of him, beaming like he was fit to burst.

“I wanted to do the whole Lion King thing,” George said. “Lights, music, holding the babies up to present them. But Billy said it might be too much.”

“You… you have babies?” Lucy said, mouth agape.

Then Pen was rushing to hug George and Lucy was picking up one baby as Billy gently passed the other to Ash and the smell of milk was everywhere as Cal decided making coffee was the best way to put herself to use.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Pen asked, scooping a baby out of Ash’s arms and holding it to her chest.

“Because these things fall through,” Billy said. “And we couldn’t bear having told you then having to tell you that it didn’t work out.”

“Can I finally say my piece?” George asked.

Billy rolled his eyes, but nodded. “Formal introductions?”

George took his son from Pen’s arms. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Sam. Samuel Edward, if we’re being formal.” He held the wriggling child up.

“I wasn’t done cuddling,” Pen said, reaching for Sam.

“Just as well,” Billy said. “Because we would like to ask you and Ash if you would do us the honor of being Sam’s godparents.”

Pen looked at Ash whose cheeks had gone pink. “I can’t think of a higher honor,” she said, grinning at her wife.

George cleared his throat as he reached for the child that Lucy was holding. His daughter squirmed as he picked her up. “Second, but by no means least, because let me tell you, she’s a trouble maker already, this is Beth. Elizabeth Olivia who has kept us up all night.”

“She just had a touch of colic,” Billy said adoringly.

But George was already walking toward Cal, offering Beth to her. Cal looked at Lucy in terror, but Lucy just nodded at her. “Go on,” George said. “Take her.”

“Me?” Cal asked.

“Well, if you’re going to be her godmother, you’re going to have to hold her at some point. At least by the Christening, I’m thinking,” said George.

And then Cal was taking the baby, cradling her like she could break at any second and looking down at her, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You’d trust me with… this?” she stuttered.

“This is a her,” George said. “I mean, unless she prefers something else when she’s older. And yes, of course we would. You and Lucy will be great godparents. Frankly, if something happens to me and Billy, Sam’s the one that I’d be worried about. Pen will feed him cakes all the time and Ash will have him reading bodice-rippers.”

“Thank you,” Cal said quietly. “Thank you.”

“See,” Pen whispered to Lucy. “You’re all worried that she’s not ready for serious commitment and she’s holding that baby like she owns it now.”

Lucy sighed. “That’s not the same as actually owning one though, is it? Also, I don’t think you own a baby. Probably you just have one.”

“You know what I mean,” said Pen.

“I do,” Lucy replied, taking Sam from her arms and smelling his sweet scent. “And you know what I mean. Asking her to settle down with me is one thing, asking her to move back here is another. I don’t want to scare her. On the other hand, it’s been two years now. We can’t keep living the kind of life where she changes jobs every couple of months and we live in a one-room flat.”

“You love her and you believe in her,” Pen said. “You trust her, right? So why are you keeping all these feelings from her? You need to ask for what you want. She’s not a mind-reader.”

“I know,” Pen said, snuggling baby Sam. “I just don’t want to be without her. She’s been in therapy for over a year now dealing with what happened between her and her mum, working on her guilt and trying to stop blaming herself. I don’t want to derail that. And if getting to keep her means that I need to keep living like some kind of nomad, then I suppose that’s what I’ll do.”

Pen laughed .

“What are you laughing at?”

“Imagining the two of you in a tent,” Pen giggled. “Now give me that child back, I need my cuddles.”

***

Cal took a deep breath, her hand on the door handle.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lucy said.

“Yes, yes I do,” said Cal. “Apart from anything else, I need to put all these fears to bed. Everyone here knows the truth about me, I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

“And you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of if you decide to walk away,” said Lucy, taking hold of her arm. “It’s alright to decide that you don’t want something, Cal.”

Cal grinned at her. “I know. But you know what? I think I need to do this. One night behind the bar here, it might be good for me.”

“You might like it,” Lucy pointed out.

Cal sighed. “I might.” She didn’t know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing, to be completely honest.

The second that George had passed baby Beth to her and asked her to be her godmother, Cal’s heart had swelled in her chest. And something had happened. She’d truly seen what Billy and George had together, what they were building together, and a part of her had been… jealous perhaps.

Jealous enough that she’d wanted to turn around immediately and ask Lucy to marry her so that they could get started on building a stable life together right that very second. But then there was the question of where they were to go, what they were to do. Those big questions scared her.

“If you don’t open the door soon, it’s going to smack you in the nose as someone comes out looking for a barmaid,” Lucy said.

“Bartender,” said Cal. “Not barmaid, thank you very much.”

“Can we go inside?” Lucy asked. “I’m dying for a drink out here. ”

Cal took a final deep breath and opened the door, pushing through into the main room of the pub before she realized just how full it was. And she was half way to the bar before she realized that the clapping had started.

By the time she was behind the bar, there were cheers to join the applause and she was redder than a tomato.

“What’s all this?” she asked Rosalee.

Rosalee shrugged. “They’re pleased to see you?” she said. “No one wants an outsider coming in, changing this into a gastropub and putting on raves and slot machines and all the rest of it.”

“Enough, enough,” Cal said, lifting her arms up. “I’m here to work, get back to your drinking.”

The crowd quietened and went back to their conversations. Mr Gupta was the first up to the bar.

“Cal,” he said. “I am glad you are here, and I would like to apologize for any misconceptions I’ve held about you. I would also like to order one coca-cola.”

Cal started pouring. “To be fair, you’re the only one that I have actually stolen something off. Four packets of Monster Munch, a pack of Rollo’s, four penny chews and a copy of Smash Hits, remember?”

“Well, let us let bygones be bygones,” Mr Gupta said with a smile accepting his glass. “Although I have to be honest in that I haven’t completely forgiven you for stealing away my most valuable assistant yet.”

“Oh well, I suppose I can live with that,” said Cal, accepting his money.

“I’ll have a pint and a half pint,” Mikey Hadley said as Mr Gupta stepped aside. He sniffed. “And, um, I need to apologize. I was an arsehole and I know it.” He looked up at Cal. “I’m sorry. Won’t happen again. Well, I mean, the being an arsehole part probably will, but not directed at you. I’m really sorry, Cal.”

“Give me seven fifty for those drinks and we’ll call it even,” Cal said mildly.

Chastened, Mikey handed over the money.

For the rest of the evening, Cal was overwhelmed with orders and apologies and eventually jokes and teasing and gossip until by closing time she was almost feeling like she’d never left.

She was closing the door behind a singing Mikey Hadley when she spotted Lucy sitting at a corner table.

“I thought you’d gone upstairs hours ago,” Cal said, sitting down next to her. “You didn’t have to wait up.”

“I wanted to,” Lucy said. “I liked watching you, liked being here.”

“Yeah…” Cal looked at the scratched table top.

“It felt strange, didn’t it?” Lucy guessed.

Cal nodded.

“But it was nothing more than you deserved. A warm welcome and apologies for having done you wrong. You could run this pub, Cal, you know you could. You’d be good at it. You deserve it.”

“But do you?” Cal said, finally looking up.

Lucy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Do you deserve coming to live here and leaving the galleries and…” Cal trailed off, finally understanding. “You love it here, don’t you?”

Lucy nodded. “But could you?”

Cal took a deep breath and looked around the empty pub. “I love you,” she said simply.

“I love you too,” said Lucy. “I want you to be happy.”

“Here’s the thing,” Cal said. “It’s taken me a while to realize it, but… You make me happy. Everything about you. From the way you constantly support me and push me to do better, the way you have complete faith in me to do anything. The way that you look at me sometimes when you think that I’m not looking.”

“It’s taken you a while to realize that?” Lucy asked.

“No,” Cal said. “No, not exactly. It’s taken me a while to realize that I deserve that. That we all deserve that. That that’s what a relationship is supposed to be about, making each other better. That whole Gestalt thing, you know, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.”

“Midnight philosophy,” Lucy grinned. “Alright. ”

“You make me better,” Cal said. “And I hope that in a little way, I make you better too.”

“Are you kidding?” Lucy said with a laugh. “How many bills have you paid working behind bars while I painted? How many exhibitions have you held my hand through? You think everything I paint is amazing, even when it’s patently not. Like when I had that portrait phase.”

“Hey, surreal portraits are a thing,” Cal protested.

“They are, but I was going more for realism,” Lucy said. She shuffled closer so that they were side by side and touching. “Cal, I love you. You are my world. And if here is not where you want to be, then I get it. We’ll find somewhere else, we’ll find a home together, somewhere to build something together.”

Just the touch of her was enough. Cal took her hand and held it tight. “Will you marry me?” she asked quietly.

There was a calm silence, then Lucy simply said: “Yes.”

Cal took a breath. “And will you marry me here, in the little church down the road and have our reception right here in this pub?”

“Are you sure?” Lucy asked, turning to look at her.

“I’ve spent too long running away,” Cal said. “Syd once told me that one day I’d have to find something to run to, and she was right. You. I will run to you for the rest of my life. And if here is where you are, then it’s where I am too. There’s nothing to run from here anymore, is there?”

Lucy cupped Cal’s face in her hand. “Absolutely nothing,” she whispered.

“Then let’s stay,” said Cal. “Let’s stay and have friends and a home and a family and each other. Would that be alright?”

“That sounds like a bargain I can make,” Lucy said as she tilted her head. “But only if we can seal it with a kiss.”

Cal didn’t need to be asked twice. She lifted her chin and moved forward until her lips were touching Lucy’s and then she kissed her future wife so thoroughly that everything else in the world ceased to matter.

The lights in the pub twinkled over the beach where the waves crashed against the shore, and very slowly, the moon rose over a tiny little town that might not always be perfect, but that would always be home.