Page 152 of You, As You Are

“Why did you help me?” he asked. “Surely it’s not in your interest to hire someone you’re going to let go six months later?”

Gareth sat up once again. “Because ten years ago, I was you. Freshly divorced, no little nippers at my knees, moving to a new town to start fresh.” The more he listened, the more Iain’s brow softened. “The boss who worked here before me could see I was a hopeless case, and he gave me a footing to get my life sorted. I promised him when I took over this job that if I could ever do for someone else what he did for me, then I would. Now, I’m not saying you were hopeless, Iain, but you were definitely hope-lackingwhen you first walked through those doors.”

Iain felt strangely filled with emotion. The only reason he’d been able to build some form of a life in this little coastal town was because of an act of kindness from a stranger. “And I thought you were an idiot all this time for hiring me,” he said outrightly.

Gareth laughed. “Not an idiot, Iain. Just passing the shovel to the next man so he can dig himself out of his trench.”

Blowing out a breath, Iain fell back into his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. He definitely would have been hope-lessif Gareth hadn’t given him this job that he was severely under-experienced for. The full-time hours and semi-decent pay had been his saving grace when, after a non-refundable cancelled wedding, he’d sunk every penny he had on being able to move far away from that life.

His brain brought back the taste of cold baked beans and plain boiled rice to his tongue, the sustenance he’d lived off for the first two weeks whilst he’d waited for a job to open up.

All those months he’d scratched his head wondering why he’d never been fired for his ineptitude, and the reason had been smiling at him when he walked in through those doors every single day. Iain didn’t know how to say thank you for the chance he’d been given, and, frankly, his tongue couldn’t untangle forthe words anyway. So he reached out his hand and nodded when Gareth took it in a firm shake.

“I’ll need a written resignation letter, just for the file.”

He sniffed as he drew back his hand. “Of course.”

“You can work out your two weeks and then you’re free to go. Actually, I believe you have some holiday days owed to you. Mari has things covered around here, so you should take them. Maybe spend some time with your redheaded friend …”

Iain squinted. “How do you …?”

“I was at the rugby game this weekend,” Gareth said with a knowing smile. “I’m glad you lads won, but I think the real winner there that day was you.”

And he’d gone and screwed it up.

Last Sunday had been a rollercoaster – and not the fun kind. The kind that dropped you into darkness without any idea of where you were or which way was up. First with his father, and then with Maisie.

The look in her eyes as he’d said that he wouldn’t risk losing everything again still haunted him. And maybe he hadn’t made himself clear enough; what he should have said that day – to answer her question – was that if there was a day where he lost her, then she was the one loss that he would never recover from.

Because he’d fallen completely in love with her.

The slow-burning, life-enduring kind of love.

The truth of the matter was that he’d felt that feeling before, been crushed by its loss, and how badly he wanted it again terrified him. He hadn’t expected for lust to transition to love so boldly, and he’d been unprepared to be confronted by it again so soon, but he was ready now.

The illusion that he couldn’t commit to something permanent had been fuelled by months of hurt and guilt, of telling himself that because he hadn’t been able to provide forone woman’s wishes there was no point in subjecting himself to the shame of letting down another.

Well, he was utterly wrong in a way that required a high level of profanity to denote.

Maisie Moss had jumped the wall of every defence he’d ever built around himself, and when Iain wondered how that had happened, he realised it was because he had let her. He’d wanted her to.

The man he wanted to be wasn’t theafter-Maisieversion of him, it was thebecause-of-Maisieversion. The reality check that she’d given him the last time they’d spoken had been the bare-faced truth. How he thought he wasn’t worthy to be someone’s person again was a lie he’d told himself for far too long. Maisie spoke words to him with all of her heart, words that no woman had ever said to him, words that made him learn that hewasworthy of every sweet smile and tender touch she gave – of holding her heart in his hands and keeping it safe from all the people who had ever caused it harm.

Instead, that’s what he’d done himself by running off and leaving when the realisation that he did feel the same way as her became too much. He wasn’t good with words – that’s why he’d still given her the box he’d carried all day in the hope she remembered what she’d once told him and see the gift for what it was: his declaration that he’d fallen in love.

Head over heels.

Out of a bus.

Rolling down a cliffside.

He’d fallen in love.

And if she still cared for him once this week of him figuring out how to realign his life was over, then he could promise on his knees that he was never going to leave her like that again.

“What’s wrong?” Gareth’s concerned face dipped into his eye-line.

Was he on the edge of being a man who cried in his boss’ office?Yes.Perhaps now was the time to admit that he’d been and touched some grass recently.

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