Page 138 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘We both respected each other’s need to keep our sanctuaries secret,’ I said.
Thom looked down at me, his dark eyes searching mine. ‘I missed you so much, Garland.’
‘And I missed you – it was like a physical ache sometimes, as if I’d lost part of myself.’
‘I felt just the same, and when you turned up on my doorstep that day, I thought I was dreaming!’ Then his mouth quirked up in a smile. ‘For a minute I thought you might lose your temper and fly at me!’
‘I nearly did! I was just so confused – stunnedandangry! Part of me wanted to hit you, and the other wanted you tosweep me right off my feet in a bear hug, like you used to do when we hadn’t seen each other for a while.’
‘You mean, like this?’ he said, picking me up and tightening his arms around me.
I looked up, laughing, into his intent, dark amber eyes in which flecks of gold dust always seemed to shimmer … and saw some deep emotion stirring there.
My heart gave a great leap. Then, as if irresistibly drawn together, we were kissing as if we’d never stop and I couldn’t have told you if my feet were on the ground or not.
‘Garland, you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that,’ Thom said with a shaky laugh, when we finally broke apart. ‘I knew I loved you long before I left London, but I was just too afraid that although my feelings for you had changed, yours for me hadn’t.’
‘No, I still thought of you as somewhere between a brother and best friend, right up to the moment I arrived in Great Mumming and you opened the workshop door. After that, I was totally confused about how I felt, though that talk of my own with Jo-Jo helped.’
‘It’s just as well I never did tell you, then.’
‘I suppose so. But we’ve wasted so much time we could have spent together!’
‘We’ll make it up,’ he said, his arms closing around me again.
‘Howverytouching!’ said a furious, familiar voice from behind us, and I looked up to see Marco framed in the doorway, white-faced with rage.
He seemed so out of place, so much part of a long-distant past, that it took me a moment to take in his sudden, demon-in-the-pantomime appearance. Then I exclaimed, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Pursuing a lost cause, evidently,’ he said, coming right in. ‘I was looking for you and when I found the museum shut up and saw this door open, I came to ask if anyone knew where you were – and heard your voice.’
His brown eyes regarded us coldly. ‘Sorry to interrupt this pretty little scene, but you didn’t waste any time, did you, Garland? But then, I suppose you must always have known where Thom was, even if you told me you didn’t.’
Thom had let me go, although he still kept one arm around my waist.
‘You’re wrong. Garland didn’t know,’ he said. ‘And she’s already told you you’re finished and she doesn’t want to see you again, so you’ve had a wasted trip.’
‘Evidently,’ said Marco, but he was now looking curiously around the workshop at the hanging marionettes.
‘Is this where you’ve been all this time – making puppets, of all things?’
‘Yes, I’m a partner in the business.’
Marco turned to me. ‘Well, I don’t believe you didn’t know where he was. In fact, I realize now that all those times you said you needed to get away on your own, you were here, cosying up withhim!’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Marco. Of course I wasn’t! It was a huge surprise to find him here.’
‘A likely story,’ he sneered. ‘And so much for the “platonic friendship” you said you had.’
‘I never lied to you about anything, Marco, and I genuinely fell in love with you, but that’s all over. Now, my feelings towards Thom have entirely changed.’
‘So I see! And I suppose he’s been poisoning your mind against me with a lot of lies, and that’s why you haven’t answered any of my messages.’
‘Thom had already warned me, when I told him I was going out with you, that you hadn’t changed your old ways since you used to hang out with Leo and Mirrie and that crowd,’ I said. ‘But I thought he was wrong. He didn’t tell me then that he’d caught you and Mirrie together, when she was still married to Leo. I found that out later.’
‘That meant nothing at all, like our recent fling,’ he said dismissively.
‘Your moral compass and mine seem to be on entirely different settings,’ I said coldly.
