Page 17 of Love Walked In

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mari

When we got off the train at Frome in weather that was half mist and half drizzle, I took a deep breath of air that smelled like rain and green things, then another and another.

I wished I could bottle it up and take big, deep swigs of freshness when London’s smell of exhaust and grime was too much.

Once we were in the cab, Leo seemed happy to look out the window in silence as we drove out of the town and into the velvet-green countryside.

I leaned my temple against the cool glass and closed my eyes.

I told myself I was getting centered for the meeting with Tommy Clifford, but my mind kept circling back to the last hour.

Leo was so soft for his family, the way his every word glowed like embers when he talked about his sisters and Judith.

He made me want to listen to Gabi’s cello too, to watch Sophie play soccer.

And I knew Judith felt the same affection from how warmly she looked at him, how clear she’d made it to me that she was on his side no matter what.

I’d had that warmth once.

Now I closed my eyes hard as a wave of sadness went through me.

It was a strange kind of travel through space and time, how Mom felt so close to me now, six thousand miles from home.

The memories felt clearer, brighter. When Leo had asked if she’d read to me, all of a sudden I was back in my childhood bed with its worn pale pink comforter, soft shadows dancing on the walls from the lamp, giggling as Mom recited Shel Silverstein poems in a goofy voice, or totally rapt as she told me about Odin and Loki, Zeus and Athena.

I was remembering more and more… and I wanted to tell Leo what I remembered. Even if the stories had a bitter aftertaste, knowing the pain and the loneliness that had come after.

He’d been so focused sitting across from me, so intent, forearms resting on his thighs and his hands clasped as he listened.

Like he wanted to absorb every word. Part of me knew that he understood more about grief than anyone I’d met before, that he knew what it was like to lose your center of gravity and be left spinning helplessly.

He wouldn’t cringe, wouldn’t change the subject, wouldn’t throw up his hands and walk away.

But I still didn’t want to look back for too long. Didn’t want to get trapped in the past. I wasn’t helpless anymore, and I refused to be that way again.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at what had to be Tommy Clifford’s cottage, since there hadn’t been another house in sight for the last half of the drive. It was built out of stoop-shouldered red bricks, small square windows glowing warm in the gray.

“Is that roof made of real straw?” I asked.

“Thatch, yeah,” Leo said as he climbed out of the car after paying the driver. “Still works as a building method after hundreds of years.”

I shut the car door behind me. “Bilbo Baggins, eat your heart out.”

A tall, thin man with a slight stoop to match his house opened the front door as Leo and I walked up the gravel driveway. His hair had turned stark white, but there was still plenty of it, needing a trim like it had in that picture fifty years ago.

“Tommy?” I asked, reaching out my hand.

He smiled, his aquamarine eyes wrinkling in the corners as he shook. “The charming Mari, how nice to meet you. I enjoyed your letter. Very pretty.” He sized up Leo and his mouth turned down. “And you’re a Ross. I’d know you from a mile away.”

“Leo,” he said stiffly.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Of course, for the Holy Leopold, Father of the Ross Myth.”

Leo was finding the toes of his black brogues fascinating, and I smiled as winningly as I could at Tommy. “It’s a helluva drive from the station, isn’t it? All those steep hills and dips. Must be a pain in the butt if it snows.”

That got me a tiny smile and a head shake.

“It’s already a palaver in the rain. Come in out of the weather, then,” he said, gesturing us into the hallway.

As he shut the door behind us, he said, “Before anything else, my answer is going to be no to anything related to Alexander Ross.” As he took my parka, he said, “But since you’ve come all this way, you can have a cup of tea with me before you get a car back to the station. ”

Leo and I glanced at each other, our faces both falling. “Then why did you let us come all the way here?” Leo asked for both of us, clearly trying to keep the pique out of his voice.

Tommy looked me up and down. “Curiosity, I suppose, at whoever had the audacity to write to me. And my latest book has been going a bit more slowly of late. I thought a change of pace might jog my mind.” He snorted. “I can’t recommend getting old.”

“It’s not for cowards, my boss has always said,” I replied, and he chuckled.

After Tommy waved me away from the tiny kitchen while he made the tea, Leo and I settled on an overstuffed brown sofa in the living room.

A fire crackled cozily in a little stove in the corner, and the straw roof seemed to do a good job at keeping the heat in.

Old walnut bookcases sagged under the weight of hundreds of battered paperbacks, literary fiction, mysteries, and old-school sci-fi shuffled in with each other.

I smiled at the sight of a complete collection of Georgette Heyer novels, the spines thoroughly broken.

The author may have been dubious in her personal views, but I couldn’t deny that she wrote a good romance.

Even though Tommy didn’t seem like the Regency romance type, I suspected that he was more of a dark horse than anyone knew.

“One black tea, one with milk,” Tommy said as he placed a big wooden tray with two chunky white mugs in front of us. “Honey for you,” he said, nudging a small jar and spoon toward me, “and sugar for the Ross heir.”

“What are those?” I asked as I sweetened the steaming black tea, pointing to the golden sandwich cookies on the tray.

Tommy’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve never had a custard cream? Finest biscuit ever made. He knows.” He gestured to my partner in crime, who’d already jammed a whole one in his mouth and was eyeing up the rest of the plate.

“T’ey’re ’orrible,” Leo said, his hand over his mouth to block the crumbs. “You don’ wan’ ’em. Trus’ me.”

Leo Ross? Being greedy? What a delightful sight. I’d thought of him as the kind of annoying person who never wanted dessert at a restaurant.

Out of nowhere, a low-down part of me wondered: What other sweet things did he like to devour?

I blinked away that erotic train of thought, quickly plucked one of the cookies off the plate. “You lie so beautifully.” I took a bite and got a direct hit of creamy, crunchy sweetness, a happy sigh coming out of my mouth.

Tommy eased himself down into a beige armchair that had a body-shaped indent in the cushions.

“Now that I’ve been sufficiently hospitable, what do you want from me?

” He nodded to Leo. “I know a bona fide Londoner such as yourself wouldn’t come to the deepest, darkest countryside unless he felt he had to.

Another celebration for the great literary tastemaker Alexander Ross? ”

His tone was light, but I could hear a thread of contempt, too. Judith had tensed up when I’d pressed her about what had caused Tommy and Alexander’s break. She squeezed out a terse “artistic differences,” before she’d changed the subject.

I glanced at Leo and he dipped his chin to tell me to take the lead.

I took a deep breath to start my song and dance and gave Tommy a big smile.

“No, not at all.” I explained our plan, to draw in the community around the store, to think about what the future of Ross & Co.

could be, instead of living in the past.

I inhaled for the big finale, but a harsh rattle in my chest stopped the words and a round of machine-gun coughs bent me over. It was like the flu had one last tentacle that was refusing to let me go.

“Do you need water, Mari?”

Leo’s concerned voice was a lifeline, and everything in me reached for that safety. I nodded, too winded to speak.

“Kitchen’s through there,” Tommy said, worried. “Glasses to the right of the sink.”

I concentrated on getting the oxygen back into my lungs, until Leo was in front of me again with a small glass and a paper napkin. The tap water was cold and soothing. I gulped it down, patted my mouth, cleared my poor throat.

Leo’s hand rubbed gentle circles between my shoulder blades, and I closed my eyes for a second, let myself feel that reassurance.

“Better?” he asked, sounding closer, and I realized that I was leaning into him, a flower looking for a little bit of warmth. I looked up, my cheeks burning, about to back off and apologize for invading his personal space, when—

“I’ll remind you that I’m an old man who probably shouldn’t catch a lurgy like that,” Tommy said querulously.

I shook my head as I sat up straight. “I was sick two weeks ago,” I said a little hoarsely. “Sounds worse than it is, please don’t worry.”

“This trip was too soon,” Leo said. “We should have waited.”

I glared at him for that piece of high-handedness, and he snorted unrepentantly.

Tommy’s eyes had zeroed in to where Leo’s arm still stretched out to reach my back. “You’re looking after her?” he asked, studying Leo’s face.

Leo grimaced. “As much as she’ll let me. But she’s her own person.”

And finally, Tommy’s face softened. “It’s the clever and bloody-minded ones that get you in the end. When they let you in, it’s better than getting a Nobel Prize.”

I enjoyed being called both smart and stubborn, but the rest of Tommy’s words left me feeling like I’d been blinded by a spotlight. “We’re not…”

“We’re not like that.” Leo talked over me in a rush. “We’re just colleagues.”

I nodded, ignoring the feeling that a link was forming between us, something stronger than just saving the store.