Page 8 of Dirty Ginger

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After a round of texts with Luka, Amelia parked her bright blue Yaris at the curb in downtown River Rock, the hard lump still stuck in her throat. The very last thing she wanted to do was face Luka, but no way would she let Beckett take the fall for the mess she’d caused. She kept her head down, feeling watchful stares from the locals. No doubt they wanted to give their condolences, like her life was over. Dammit, her life wasn’t over, not even close. On her honeymoon, and after a much-deserved emotional breakdown, she’d discovered a newfound steadiness inside herself. She would live her life on her terms. She had a clear head, and she was determined to listen to her heart instead of stuffing all her emotions deep down and ignoring them. And her heart was telling her that she needed to do this for Beckett, no matter how much she wanted to turn and run far away from Luka.

She crossed the road, approaching the signage that read: Hot Brew and Eats. The local coffee shop made a killer pumpkin spiced latte in the fall and a chocolate fudge brownie to die for all year long. When she entered the brown-bricked building, she found the shop quiet this morning, only a few customers sitting around the retro-style booths finished in brown leather. In one of those booths sat Luka. He caught her arrival and gave her a small, pathetic smile, which she didn’t return. Instead, she headed for the counter. “Hey Betty,” she said, reaching the twenty-something woman with the big brown eyes. “Can I get a vanilla latte?” She’d gone to high school with Betty’s older sister.

“Sure. That’ll be three sixty-five,” Betty said, giving a sweet as sugar smile. “I told him that he wasn’t welcome here, but he said you were meeting him. That’s the only reason his sorry ass is still in the shop.”

Amelia laughed softly, taking out her debit card. “Thanks for sticking up for me, but yeah, I asked him to meet me here.” Even the locals in the booths around the shop were giving Amelia a warm smile, then proceeded to give Luka the stink eye. He was the city guy out of Denver who’d broken the heart of a River Rock native. No one would welcome him back. Amelia cursed the part of her heart, albeit a small part, that felt bad for him.

Betty typed the amount into the debit machine. “If that changes, let me know, and I’ll kick him outta here.”

“Thanks, Betty. I appreciate it.” Amelia tapped her card against the machine, waiting for the beep before she slid her card back into her wallet. “Do you mind bringing my drink over when it’s ready?”

“Not at all. It’ll just be a minute.”

Amelia sent her another grateful smile both for the latte and the protection, and then she did the one thing she didn’t want to do; she approached Luka. His gaze remained glued to her every step. His expression uneasy. He didn’t rise when she sidled up to the table, something he never did when a woman approached a table. Something River Rock men always did. It occurred to her now how much that used to bother her about Luka. She wondered when she’d stopped caring that he had terrible manners.

“Hi,” she said, sliding into the booth in front of him. Only then did she get a good look at him, and she cringed. “Your face looks terrible.” His nose definitely had been broken. The middle now had a dent in it, and he was sporting two black eyes.

“My face feels terrible,” Luka grumbled, fiddling with the to-go mug. His voice didn’t sound quite right either, more nasally.

Betty approached the table. She set Amelia’s latte down in the front of her and said to her, “Enjoy.” To Luka, she snapped, “I hope you choke on your drink.”

Amelia fought her smile as Betty whirled and headed back to the counter.

Luka sighed. “Everyone here hates me.”

“Are you surprised?” Amelia asked, glancing his way again, finding his head bowed.

He shrugged. “Not really.”

She took in the slump of his shoulders and the heaviness in his voice, and her heart reached for him, even though she knew it shouldn’t. For the last two weeks, she’d been living it up, healing her heart with pina coladas and sunshine by the ocean. He’d obviously been in a living hell. She could only imagine the fury of his mother at wasting her hard-earned money on a wedding that never happened. And the embarrassment she must have endured within her catty group of friends. She really didn’t want to punish him further. “I didn’t ask you to come here to hash everything out or to make you feel bad or anything like that.”

His head lifted, surprise glinting on his face. “You don’t want to talk about what happened?”

“Actually, no I don’t,” she said, a revelation to herself too. “I don’t want to relive everything that happened. We were something. Now we’re nothing.”

Tears welled in his eyes before he looked down to his coffee cup and composed himself. “I wish I would have done—”

“Stop.” He snapped his gaze to hers, and she sighed. “Please just stop. I left River Rock heartbroken. I don’t feel heartbroken anymore. I feel raw, but okay. I don’t want apologies. I want to move on with my life.”

His head cocked, curiosity brimming in his eyes. “Then why did you call me here?”

To shake off the confusing, pitying emotion she did feel for Luka, and the slight fear that she had no clue what would happen from this day forward, she took a long sip of her latte, glad for the warmth the drink sent into her bones. “To talk about the charges that you filed against Beckett,” she eventually said.

Luka’s expression changed in a flash, all the sadness turning into something vengeful. “There’s nothing to talk about. The charges have nothing to do with you.”

“It certainly feels like it has something to do with me,” she countered, setting her drink down in front of her. “Not only did you end our engagement in the most spectacularly cruel way, but now you’re dragging all this out by charging one of my friends with assault.”

Luka pointed to his nose. “Look at what he did to my face, Amelia.”

She cringed. “Yeah, I see what he did. It’s bad.” Maisie had said that Beckett had knocked Luka out cold, but Amelia hadn’t stuck around to find out. She’d run out of the brewery and locked herself in the bathroom until everyone left. “But not as bad as what you did to my heart.”

Luka blew out a frustrated breath. He scraped a hand across his face, then groaned when his fingers reached his black eye. “I’m sorry for breaking your heart.”

Her whole plan wasn’t to go there, but her heart suddenly demanded an answer. “Are you sorry? Truly sorry?”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” He set those puppy dog eyes on her that she once loved having look her way. Her heart squeezed, but not as much as she expected, as he said, “But come on, you must have known that something wasn’t right with us. We just got stuck in the idea of a wedding. It can’t just be me. We haven’t been happy for a while. All we did was argue. I saved us from a nasty divorce down the road.”

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