Page 27 of The Damaged Hearts Bargain

“No,” said Cal. She took a deep breath. Maybe talking would help. “Actually, my mum was pretty good. Lots of biscuits baked and that sort of thing.” She laughed. “Wouldn’t let me watch Children’s BBC until all my homework was done. It used to make me so mad.”

“Teenage trauma then?” pushed Lucy.

“A bit,” admitted Cal. “I wasn’t an angel, if that’s what you’re asking. I definitely had a reputation around here as a bad girl. But to be honest, a bad girl in Tetherington is one who stays out after nine o’clock. We’re not talking drug dealing and prostitution here.”

Lucy paused in her book packing. “So… what happened then? I mean, your relationship doesn’t sound that bad to me.”

“I didn’t think it was,” Cal said, feeling a spike of pain in her heart. “But I guess it was worse than I thought. Maybe all the little arguments built up into something big, maybe it all just got to be too much for her. I don’t know.”

“And?” prompted Lucy, still not packing books.

“And… she wasn’t there when I needed her,” Cal said quietly. She looked up, trying to force herself to be more cheerful. “Let’s just say she didn’t defend my honor.”

“I’m not sure sweet femmes are supposed to do that either,” Lucy said, clearly understanding that the issue at hand was not to be dwelt on.

“You seem very caught up in this idea of what certain types of people are supposed to do and not do,” said Cal. “Maybe thissweet femme should do as she’s told and get her boxes packed up so that we don’t have to spend the whole night here.”

“Cal, are you inviting me to spend the night with you?” Lucy asked, eyebrow raised and lips pushed out into almost a kiss.

For the briefest second Cal’s libido almost made her say yes. She knew how this dance went and she was very, very good at it.

But she wasn’t sticking around long, she reminded herself. Plus, there was the fact that Lucy was very obviously looking for some kind of relationship. Something that Cal didn’t think she had to offer.

“I’m telling you to do your job or you’ll see my cranky side.”

“Bloody slave-driver,” muttered Lucy. “I might have to reconsider this whole thing.”

“Too late now,” Cal said cheerfully. “You’re fully committed, now get to packing.”

Chapter Eleven

“So, um, I suppose I’ll be going then.” Lucy shuffled her feet, feeling more awkward than she could remember feeling for a long time.

“Yes, probably. It’s getting late.” Cal wasn’t doing much better, not looking her in the eye, pretending to be busy sealing a box closed.

“I could, um, I could come back tomorrow?” said Lucy. “I’ve got an early shift at the newsagents, but I could come by when I’m done?”

For an instant Cal did look up and she grinned. “Yeah, I mean, if you feel like it.”

Lucy sniffed. “Right, I’ll see you then.”

There was an agonizing twenty seconds of silence until both of them said goodbye at exactly the same time and Cal lifted up a box that obscured her face and then Lucy finally, mercifully, fled. When the front door closed behind her, she seriously thought about banging her head into it a few times, just to knock some sense into herself.

What had all that been about? She’d behaved like a fifteen year old on a first date. All that um-ing and ah-ing. Offering to drop by like they didn’t already have an arrangement.

It was embarrassing, all the more so because they’d actually spent a rather pleasant afternoon together. Well, once you got over the fact that Cal was grieving and they were cleaning outher mother’s house.

Cal got it somehow. That difficult family thing. The thing that no one else around her got because they’d all grown up in relatively normal circumstances. She got what it felt like to be on the outside looking in, that weird ache you got every time mother’s day came along.

It was nice to share things. But there was more than that.

Whatever her online dating profiles might say, she found Cal attractive. Very attractive. She’d spent an afternoon in her company and she was absolutely sure of it now. She was also pretty sure that Cal found her attractive.

Which left her with a little smile on her lips as she strolled down the high street. A smile that kept broadening into a grin when she let it, until she was walking down the road looking like some sort of mental case or a deranged clown.

“There you are,” Pen said as Lucy pushed through the door into the bakery.

“Jesus, it’s hotter than seven hells in here,” Lucy said. “And I’m not late. We don’t need to leave for another fifteen minutes.”

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