Page 73 of The Damaged Hearts Bargain

“Except I do.”

“You do this time, and now that I’m thinking clearly I know that,” Cal said. “But what about the next time? And the next?”

“Even you can’t be that unlucky,” Lucy said. “If you’re around missing money that often then even I might get a little suspicious.”

Cal managed a smile. “You don’t deserve that, Lucy. You don’t deserve someone who’s always trying to second guess you. Who never thinks that you’re completely on her side.”

“I will defend you to my dying breath, Cal.”

Cal sighed. If only someone else had done that. If only her own mother could have stood up and told the truth. Then none of these problems would exist and she’d be… what? Getting down on one knee and asking Lucy to marry her? She shook her head. “I know you will, Lucy. But you deserve someone who can let themselves feel safe with you.”

“And that’s not you,” Lucy said.

Cal shrugged. “I don’t think I can feel that way with anyone. Which is what I mean when I say that this really is me and not you.”

Lucy was silent, biting her lip, her eyes watery. But she didn’t cry. “Is there nothing I can do to stop you walking away from this?”

“Short of changing history, no, I don’t think so.”

Lucy stood up and brushed off her sandy legs. “I suppose I have to take your word for it. But for the record, I really, really like you, Cal.”

“I like you too,” Cal said softly.

“If things change…”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Cal said, thinking that nothing could change. What could change all this after all these years? What could change what had happened now that her mother was dead?

Lucy was blinking now, squinting against the sun and against the tears that wanted to escape and in the end, her voice failed her. She turned and stumbled away over the sand. And Cal let her go.

Chapter Thirty

Lucy’s eyes felt like they’d been scalded with hot teaspoons. Her nose was stuffed up, and her throat was raw. It didn’t help that Billy was looking at her like she was some kind of wounded war hero.

“What about tea then?” he asked.

“Fine, yes, tea,” said Lucy, as much to get rid of him for five minutes than for anything else.

He went off into the kitchen and she sighed as best she could with a stuck nose.

It hurt, of course it hurt. Not that she’d really had a break up before, but she’d always imagined that they were painful. You come to love and trust someone and then those feelings are up-ended and tangled up with recriminations and regrets.

Not like this though, she thought to herself. Not this kind of soul pain. This had to be different. This had to be something worse, more severe.

She’d cried the whole walk home and had only tried to contain herself once she got to the front door, knowing that Billy would be home too. It had done no good though, he’d taken one look at her and gone into Mother Hen mode.

The problem was that her head understood everything. She got what Cal was talking about. Logically, she could understand why Cal would want to call things off. Not that things had ever been permanent. Her heart, on the other hand, seemed to thinkthat it had been punctured by various small, sharp knives and was bleeding to death inside her chest.

“Here you go,” Billy said, putting a cup of hot, sweet tea down beside her. It seemed out of place in the sunny garden, on a small wooden table between two striped deckchairs.

“Thanks,” Lucy said numbly.

Billy sighed as he sat. “I know it hurts, Luce. But sometimes you have to realize that relationships end. In fact, not just sometimes. All the time. Every relationship ends, one of you dies or one of you leaves, that’s the way of things.”

“Helpful, thanks.”

He smiled at her. “I’m not trying to make you feel worse. I’m just…” He cleared his throat and tried a different direction. “Why are you so upset?”

“Because Cal doesn’t want to be with me. Because for a second there I thought that maybe I’d found my person.”

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