Page 10 of Love Walked In

He smiled, showing teeth that hadn’t seen the best of NHS dentistry.

“It’s fascinating,” he said, waving his hands in a positively un-British way.

“I hadn’t realized that there were POWs in Turkey during the Great War, let alone that they’d tried to escape.

That clever young American woman makes good recommendations.

” He glanced around. “Is she about, so I can ask for more?”

I tried very hard not to gape at his enthusiasm.

Mari hadn’t driven him away. She’d been right.

It’d just… taken time. I barely resisted the urge to bang my head on the counter.

I’d given her so much grief for being impatient and bullish, but I’d been just as heedless and stubborn, dismissing her ideas without even giving them a second’s chance.

“Mari’s off ill, I’m afraid,” I said finally.

Mr. Gissing’s shoulders slumped a little. “Oh, well, just my luck.”

I hastened to reassure him. “She’s working here until spring, so once she’s recovered, I’m sure she can make more suggestions.” And for the first time, the thought of Mari running around the shop for the next few months didn’t fill me with dread.

Optimism. It was a strange feeling.

“I’d like that,” he said quietly. He looked down at his hands, covered in liver spots and greenish-blue veins.

“I wanted a chance to think about it, you know. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be like that with me.

” He shook his head. “I’m used to being invisible, these days.

But I couldn’t get what she’d said out of my head, about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

” A sigh. “Made me miss being young, I suppose. That kind of energy, that sense that I could just do anything. But being old doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy things. Try to get the most out of life.”

I stood there, blinking at him. It was like I’d been hibernating, and someone had shone a torch into my burrow. When was the last time I’d genuinely enjoyed, well, anything?

“Are you giving the books away now?” he asked peevishly. “Because I have places to be.”

Ah, there was the Mr. Gissing I was more familiar with. “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head as I took a paperback from him and scanned it. “That’s ten ninety-nine.”

He handed over crumpled-up bills and coins and I put the book in a paper bag with his receipt.

As he turned to leave I found myself asking curiously, “Did you want me to tell her all that?”

He sniffed. “Certainly not. No need to get all soppy about it.”

I repressed a smile as he walked away. Once he’d climbed down the stairs, I found myself looking up the stairs toward the garret and worrying.

Maybe she was just sleeping. But Mari had been so chatty before; total silence from her didn’t make sense.

Telling her she’d been right about Mr. Gissing might cheer her up. I could check on her at the same time, just to shut up the small part of my brain repeating that something was terribly wrong.

I went to my office to find and put on a spare mask from pandemic times, then climbed up the stairs quietly to the very top, tapped on the door to the garret.

No answer.

I tapped again, a little louder this time.

Was that a groan? The urgent voice in my head started to panic. I turned my tap into a proper knock. “Mari?”

“Go away,” I finally heard Mari’s voice say faintly. It sounded much hoarser than yesterday, like she’d been swallowing sand.

“Mari, it’s Leo,” I said loudly.

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I told you to go away.” She coughed explosively.

No chance, not after hearing that horrible sound. I tried to smile. “I have some good news. It’s about Mr. Gissing.”

A moment of quiet. “Who the heck is Mr. Gissing?”

“The old man who dresses like he works for MI6. He’s reading The Confidence Men and loves it, and now he wants more recommendations from you, once you’re better.”

“Well, that’s just peachy,” she said, her tone a little warmer. “I’m more than happy to talk to him.” She paused. “If you’ll allow me to.”

I rested my forehead against the door. I knew I deserved that. I was about to apologize when I heard a horrific sound, retching and coughing combined into one. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” she finally said breathlessly.

This was getting absurd. “You sound really ill.”

She coughed and laughed bitterly at the same time. “A-plus for observation! Now, go the fuck away.”

“Sounds fun, maybe later,” I immediately replied, and was rewarded by a snort. I couldn’t hold back a small smile. “But you really do sound awful,” I said more seriously.

“Like you care. You never wanted me around.”

I bumped my forehead against the wood. She may have been acting like a stroppy teenager, but how much confidence had I actually given her?

My self-hate took on a new serrated edge as I realized, not much at all.

“Mari, I really am sorry I said those awful things to you. You didn’t deserve them.

And I’m sorry I haven’t been listening to you and taking you seriously.

But I do care that you’re ill, and I need you to let me in and make sure you’re all right. ”

“Or what?” the smartarse said.

Of course Mari Cole was the worst patient in the history of medicine. “Or I’ll…” Think, Leo, think… “Or I’ll use the master key and let myself in,” I said quickly, my whole body jerking with surprise as I said it.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, outrage and astonishment blending together in her voice.

In for a penny, I supposed. I took a deep breath. “Try me.”

After some top swearing and a rummaging noise, the door opened. “There,” she said through a surgical mask. “Happy now?”

“Fucking hell,” I blurted. No, I wasn’t happy at all.

Her skin was as pale as blancmange except for two dots of bright color high on her cheeks.

Her long hair was flat and lank in a ponytail, her usual upright posture crumpled.

She was wearing red flannel pajama bottoms and a gray sweatshirt that said HUNTINGTON COLLEGE on it in forest-green letters, and had one of Judith’s crocheted afghans wrapped around her shoulders.

Fluffy green slippers shaped like frogs completed the cozy outfit, but the fingers that held the afghan around her were white to the tips, not pink.

My fingers twitched with the urge to press my hand to her forehead, to tug her into me and warm her up.

I walked in and closed the garret door behind me instead. A heavy chill sat in the air, and I internally cursed the single-glazed windows.

“You know you could get sick, too,” she said, the fight mostly out of her voice.

“I don’t care,” I said flatly, knowing in my bones it was true. “On a scale of one to ten, how ill do you feel right now? Honestly?”

She thought for a long moment, then held up seven fingers.

“Right,” I said, worry a stone in my stomach. “Can I touch your forehead?”

Another pause. If she could still be this stubborn, she clearly wasn’t at death’s door. “I appreciate you asking first,” she said quietly. “Go ahead.”

As I’d suspected, she could have started a fire, her skin was so hot. “I need to go get the first aid kit to check the exact number, but you absolutely have a temperature.”

She feebly grabbed my wrist before I could take my hand away. “Keep it there for a second, please. Your hand is cool, it feels good.”

Something inside me shifted. I had done something right for her, and it was… satisfying. It made me want to look after her even more. “All right,” I said. “Just say when you’re ready.”