Page 14 of Coming Home to Crumbleton

Ruby shook her head and kept marching - past the bakery… the bridal shop… the café. She kept her head down, not daring to peep through any of the windows just in case she locked eyes with someone she knew. She’d already had enough ghosts of the past pop up to greet her for one morning.

Idiot, idiot, idiot!

Ruby had been half dreaming about, half dreading seeing Oli again for more than half a decade. Surely that was more than enough time to figure out exactly what she wanted to say to him when it happened! But oh no – he’d taken her by surprise, and in return, she’d done a runner. What was he going to think?!

One thing was for sure – there was no way she was going to be able to set foot back in the bookshop now. Not after making such an epic prat out of herself. Maybe she should just keep marching all the way back to the bottom of town, head straight through the City Gates and catch a lift back to the station. She could go straight back to London and tell her editor the whole thing had fallen through.

It was a tempting thought but…

‘Damn it!’ she huffed.

In her haste to get away from Oli, she’d managed to storm right out of the bookshop without her bag.

Pausing for the briefest moment, Ruby glanced back up the hill towards the gleaming green and gold frontage. Nope – there was no way she could go back.

A bit like the café, the bookshop had always been a sanctuary - as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. Now, with Reuben gone and Oli in his place, it suddenly felt like alien territory.

He didn’t belong in there.

He didn’t belong in Crumbleton.

Then again, neither did she.

Ruby knew she was being ridiculous - expecting everything in town to remain unchanged just because she hadn’t been here to witness it. Time didn’t simply stand still – at least, not for most people. Of course things were bound to have changed.

Still, that didn’t mean she was happy about it. Crumbleton wasn’t meant to change. That was the whole point of the place. It was meant to remain solidly, unshakably the same - a fixed point in her past that she could navigate by – preferably without ever having to return!

Now look what had happened! Reuben was gone and Oli was back. Plus, it had probably happened ages ago – she’d just had no idea. No one had told her - but then, she knew she had no one to blame for that but herself.

Whenever Ruby spoke to her parents, they focused entirely on their own obsessions, with occasional bits of gossip about the university they both worked at thrown in for flavouring. They never mentioned Crumbleton – and Ruby never asked.

What about Caroline, though? Her childhood best friend visited her in London regularly. Caroline also happened to be Oli’s cousin, the reason the pair of them had met in the first place, and one of just two people who knew there had ever been anything going on between them beyond their official study-buddy status. How could she have failed to mention the fact not only had he returned from America - but that he’d bought the bookshop too?!

You know why!

The little voice in her head could be annoyingly truthful sometimes.

The only reason she’d managed to stay on such good terms with Caroline was because her friend stuck – rather reluctantly - to her “no news about Crumbleton” rule, as well as the even more important “Oliver Evans who?!” rule.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby willed her idiotic heart to calm down and figure out exactly what she should do next. Clearly, her first instinct to run away from Crumbleton forever was a no-go.

‘Come on Ruby, you can deal with this!’ she muttered, glancing back up the hill and then down again.

She was a successful writer, for goodness sake. She was an adult with a career and… and… and that was where her pep talk came to a grinding halt – just like it always did. Was writing really the only thing she had in her life worth mentioning?

Shaking her head, Ruby quickly shoved that particular issue to the back of her brain. Now was definitely not the time! First things first – she needed to get off the high street before she did something idiotic like burst into tears. As far as she could see – she had two choices. She could head to her parents’ place or go to see Caroline.

Well – there was no way she could face her parents in this state. For one thing, that would mean heading back up the hill towards the bookshop again… and for another, she really didn’t want them to know there was anything wrong. Besides, Oli knew where her parents lived – and there was a minuscule chance he might turn up there.

‘Hi Ruby! Can’t wait for your signing!’

Ruby jumped and then quickly forced herself to return the smile of the man grinning at her as he motored his way up the cobbled street. It was Stuart Bendall, the owner of the shop near the bottom of town that sold everything from groceries to hardware. Luckily, it looked like he was on too much of a mission to stop and chat. He gave her a friendly wave as he strode past.

‘Come on idiot,’ she muttered, ‘time to put the thumb-screws on Caroline!’

She’d go straight to the Crumbleton Times and Echo office for a long-overdue visit. She could really do without any more surprises - and as someone who was actually paid to be nosy, Caroline was the perfect person to fill her in.

Ruby started to head down the hill so fast that the cottages and shops on either side became little more than a cute, pastel-coloured blur. She didn’t dare slow down for fear of someone else she knew stopping her in her tracks. Right now, past and present were busy doing a kind of jumbled-up jig inside her head, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to burst into tears or laugh at the absurdity of it all.

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