Page 1 of Melting His Grumpy Heart
CHAPTER ONE
“Come on, come on, come on,” Ru urged through gritted teeth. “I’ll give you anything you want. An oil change, a new pine tree air freshener, a pair of fluffy dice. Only don’t give up on me now.”
The car inched along the narrow country lane, the rattling and grinding sounds growing louder. Ru gripped the steering wheel hard, his knuckles white. He should have got the car checked over, booked in a service… he should have done it all before he’d made the sudden, urgent, all-consuming decision to high tail it out of London. Not daring to stop to think, he’d chucked his bag on the back seat and kangaroo jumped down the busy city road to a background of the blaring horns of other drivers he’d cut up, and colourful invective from pedestrians who’d been forced to jump out of his way. Ru was surprised he even remembered how to drive, because who needed a car in the middle of London?
Ru threw a glance at the digital clock on the dashboard. It was only just gone five in the evening but his eyes stung and itched with tiredness. He’d set off just before lunch time, which felt like eons ago, only wanting to get away from the rubble of his wreck of a life and not pretend Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year.
Bollocks to that.
“Where the hell am I?” He peered into the darkness beyond the narrow beam of his headlights. Orheadlight. The other one had blinked and died near some little town he’d barely heard of.
Tall, spindly hedges pressed in on either side of the car, looming and dark. Ages back, he’d passed a sign that welcomed him toDevon, Home of the Cream Tea, and had followed the satnav directions onto roads that had grown smaller and narrower, until they became lanes, until the satnav had shut down and refused to work. Just like his car was threatening to do.
“Thank god,” he breathed, as the glare of his one working headlight picked out a signpost, leaning at a drunken angle. Relief rushed through him. Bobblecombe. A tiny village, where the cottage was waiting for him. He’d hunker down and lick his wounds, which after almost six months had no right to still feel so raw and so, so,sodamn, fucking humiliating, and work out how he was going to build a new version of the life he’d naively thought of as a fuzzy edged fairy tale and brimming with sunshine, a life that had instead turned into a very public nightmare.
“Screw you, Cooper. I hope your very tiny, very ugly willy drops off.”
Ru slammed his foot on the brake. The car skidded to a screeching halt. He squinted up at the sign. “Fourteen miles?” he wailed.
Ru glanced around the interior of the car. Would it make it? At best it was touch and go. He wrinkled his nose. Was that a burning rubber smell? Ru breathed deep to push down on the worry that teetered on the edge of panic. The car had to make it, because in the middle of nowhere, in the black of night, there was no Plan B. Jesus, there had barely been a Plan A. Grindingthe gears, wincing at the angry squeals, he crept along a lane that was even tighter than the one he’d emerged from.
“You can do it, you can,” he muttered, urging the car on through sheer will and determination. He sniffed again, sure the burning smell was getting worse. Maybe he should have subscribed to one of the big breakdown companies. Maybe he should have bought road tax and insurance. Maybe he should have caught the train and then hired a car in Exeter.
“Maybe I should have bloody well thought what I was doing.”
The car grunted in agreement, and ground to a halt.
“No! No, no, no, nono!” Ru smashed his palms against the steering wheel, over and over, before slumping forward and pressing his forehead into the worn, rubbery covering. “We’re so close. Only a few miles to go. Please don’t do this to me. Please.”
Ru didn’t care that he sounded pathetic, dejected, and defeated, because they were exactly what he was. He blinked back the tears that threatened to fall.
Reboot. He had to reboot the engine. It’s what you did with laptops and tellies when they played up. Turn them off, then on again, throwing in a thump for good measure. The same principle had to work with cars… Sucking in a long, deep breath and holding it tight, as though that might somehow help, Ru switched off the ignition, counted to ten, and turned the key.
The car coughed into what passed for life. Ru exhaled, noisy and relieved, and his fast and jumpy pulse calmed. The engine protested as he tried to move off in fourth, the gears complaining as he wrangled the sticky gear stick into first.
Setting off at a crawl, Ru peered into the narrow, puny tunnel of light ahead of him. Another fork in the lane, and a signpost that was leaning so far it was almost on the ground. Bobblecombe was… the left turn? It looked like it, but…Oh, god, give me a break, please…
Ru made his decision.
The car grumbled.
And then it began to snow.
CHAPTER TWO
The deer came out of nowhere, ghostly in the steadily falling snow. It paused in the middle of the lane that had turned into little more than a track, before bounding away. But Ru was already wrenching the steering wheel from one side to the other, crying out in panic as the car skidded from hedge to hedge, before it jerked to a halt as the engine died.
Ru’s heart thumped hard, his breathing fast and shallow as his hands clamped tight on the steering wheel. And then he began to shake. Sickness boiled in his gut and he fumbled to release his seat belt, pushing open the sticky door just in time to lean out and throw up what little there was in his stomach onto the snowy ground.
Collapsing back against the seat, he closed his eyes. A few seconds, just to calm down, that was all he needed, before he’d crawl the rest of the way to the village that felt like it was on the edge of nowhere.
He felt for the bottle of water on the seat next to him and rinsed out his mouth. He couldn’t be far from Bobblecombe now… could he? He pulled the car door closed with a thud. Jesus, it was cold. The heater was just about the only thing thatworked on the rusty pile of shit, but rusty and shit though the car was, it was all he had. Ru turned the key in the ignition.
“Please. If it’s the last thing you do, just get me there,” he whispered, offering up his desperation like a prayer, hoping someone or something would hear and take pity. Relief burst in his chest as the engine rumbled into something resembling life before it spluttered and stopped. The headlight went out and the steady whir of the heating fell silent. The puny lights on the dashboard died.
Ru blinked.No. Please, don’t do this…He turned the key in the ignition off, and on, and off again.
Nothing. Nothing. And nothing.
