CARA MADDOX WAS two sets in on a five-set high-intensity weights workout when her phone went off. The scary ringtone she’d allocated to her father filled the fire station’s small gym and she debated whether to ignore the call. But familial duty got the better of her and she set the weights down with a sigh.
Wiping her face with a soft towel, she accepted the video call. ‘Hi, Dad.’
Her father smiled at her. ‘Hello, darling, how are you doing?’
He was sitting in a comfortable leather chair, and his background told her he was in the library of Higham Manor, her childhood home. Shelves and shelves of leather-bound books behind him reached from floor to ceiling.
He peered closer, then frowned. ‘You look shattered. Are you taking care of yourself?’
‘I’m in the middle of a workout, Dad.’ She checked her watch to note her heart rate and then paused her workout.
‘Right. Of course. Got to stay fit in your type of job, I guess.’
‘That’s right.’
She stiffened slightly when he mentioned her job. Felt herself instantly go on the defensive. Her father had never been a fan of her joining the fire service. If he was calling just to have another go at her about it, or to suggest she change jobs, then she’d end the call. She really didn’t have any time for that kind of nonsense any more.
‘What can I do for you?’ Best to get right to the point.
‘I was wondering if you were going to come back home at the end of the month, for your mother’s party? We haven’t seen you in a long time, and it would be nice to see you.’
As he finished speaking, Michaels, her dad’s butler, came into view, carrying a tray with coffee and biscuits.
‘You’re seeing me now.’
‘Come now, Cara, you know it’s not the same. It’s your mother’s birthday. She’d want you to be there.’
‘She’s been dead for years, Dad. She’s not going to know whether I’m there or not.’
Her father bristled, waiting for Michaels to leave the room before he began speaking again. ‘But your family will. Our friends will. The servants will. What will they think?’
‘It doesn’t matter what they think. I don’t know them. They’re your friends and associates. Not mine.’
‘It’s her birthday, Cara,’ her father said, as if that should be enough explanation for everything. As if that should be enough motivation to get his daughter to do everything he wanted.
She felt guilty for trying to avoid it, but she’d been to many of those evenings before. They were meant to be about her mother, but all they were was a huge chance for her father to network with his friends and/or try to fix her up with the son of one of them. There would be a speech. Her mother would get a token mention. Heartfelt but short. Everyone would raise a glass and then her father’s pals would go back to whatever business deals they were arranging, exchanging cards and contacts over cigars and brandies. And the entire time Cara would stand there, feeling awkward, trying to make conversation with a Tarquin or a Theodore—people she didn’t know, who were all rather surprised that she did the job that she did.
It wasn’t what they expected. She was the daughter of an earl, and they expected her to be something other than a firefighter. The patron of a charity, perhaps? Someone who had a lot of lunches with her lady friends and cared way too much about handbags and nail polish. She was Lady Cara Maddox, after all.
But Cara didn’t care for titles, or expectations, nor did she have lady friends. Most of her friends were guys. Her best friend was a guy. Tom Roker. Sweet, dear Tom. Handsome Tom. Paramedic. Father to a beautiful little boy called Gage. And widower of Victoria, who’d been willowy and tall and exquisite. Preened to perfection. The kind of woman Cara’s father obviously wished his daughter would be more like. The kind of woman Cara could never be, which put Tom—dear, sweet, lovable, handsome Tom—completely out of her league.
Cara had always preferred the company of men. But that was what happened when you grew up with three older brothers and didn’t quite fit in with the young ladies at your posh school. You hung around at rugby and polo matches, you laughed and joked with the boys, you competed with them, wrestled with them. You got to know your brother’s friends and they were mostly guys. On the odd occasion when one of her brothers had brought home a friend who was a girl, Cara had had no idea how to talk to them! They’d seemed a different breed. Alien! Not interested in the slightest in Cara’s topics of conversation, such as rugby or whether they wanted to arm wrestle! Clothes and designers and parties had been completely off her radar.
‘I know. You don’t have to remind me. I can remember all by myself.’
Her mother’s birthday had also been her death day. For many weeks Serena Maddox had lain in bed, trying vainly to fight the ravages of breast cancer that had metastasised to her lungs, liver and bones. Cara had sat by her mother’s bedside in those last few days when she was mostly asleep, listening to the fluid building up in her mother’s lungs and throat, sponging her dry lips as her breathing got slower and slower, and she’d held her mother’s hand as she’d taken her final, agonised breath.
It was a day etched into her brain. A memory filled with so much pain and so much guilt that she had never been the daughter Serena had dreamed of. Cara had let her mother down, and her father knew that, and she hated it when he used that to his own advantage.
‘Come home, Cara. Your brothers will be here. Clark is flying in from New York next week. Cameron will arrive a few days after that,’ he said.
‘And Curtis?’
‘In Milan, still, but he promises he’ll be back for the party.’
She could hear the tone in her father’s voice. The tone that said, I’m glad my boys have flown the nest and are upholding the Maddox name, but I do wish they lived closer to home.
Her father, Fabian Maddox, Earl of Wentwich, was a proud man, and often boasted about his three sons, but Cara knew he would prefer to have them close by, so that the Maddox men could be a force to be reckoned with. Instead they were spread out across the globe, and their father could only preen, in their absence.
Clark ran a prestigious law firm in New York, specialising in family law and pandering to the rich, Cameron was in Cape Town, South Africa, running a business that built cruise ships, and Curtis was the CEO of Maddox Hotels, whose head office was in London. But she knew they were currently constructing a new hotel in Milan, which he was overseeing.
She spoke to her brothers often, and though she’d never felt any judgment from them, she wondered if they, too, questioned her choice in jobs.
But being a firefighter was all she’d ever wanted to do. Ever since she’d been little, when a fire had broken out in the kitchens and her family and the staff had rushed from the building, only to watch in awe as firefighters rushed towards the flames. They’d arrived in huge fire engines, unloading equipment and hoses, and the flames licking out of the downstairs windows had soon been transformed into thick, grey smoke, billowing up into the sky.
She’d felt a nervous excitement at seeing them, had felt herself come alive watching them. It had been a heady feeling, and one she’d wanted to chase from an early age, even telling her parents, when she was just six years old, that she was going to be a firefighter. Oh, how they’d laughed at that, and Cara had felt flummoxed and confused by it. Why was it such a funny suggestion? Why did they all keep telling her that she’d change her mind when she got older?
She sighed. If all her brothers were coming back, if they were making the effort... She’d not planned on going this year. She’d done her duty, honouring her mother’s birthday over the years. She’d been ready to start missing a few. Remembering her mother in her own way instead. Laying a wreath at her grave. Saying a few words, perhaps. Just...remembering, without having to stand around feeling uncomfortable, with people she didn’t know, in order to fulfil some duty that her father had imposed.
Thankfully, she was literally saved by the bell.
The siren blasted out through the station. ‘Gotta go, Dad.’
‘But you’ve not given me your answer!’ He leaned forward in his chair, filling the screen with his face.
‘Sorry! Speak later!’ And she ended the video call, pulling on a navy tee shirt and trousers over her workout clothes.
When that siren sounded you dropped everything.
Including any guilt.
In fact, she was grateful for it.
The siren meant that whatever was happening with her right there and then had to be put to one side for later. It wasn’t important. What was important were the people who needed help. Those trapped in cars after an accident. Those who watched their businesses and often their livelihoods burning to the ground.
Green Watch often couldn’t save someone’s car or house or factory, but they could try to save lives—and that siren meant someone or something needed to be saved.
And that was what Cara lived for.
Tom Roker had just finished eating his sandwich when the call came through from Control about a house fire in Wandsworth and he was asked to attend.
‘Roger, Control. ETA three minutes.’
‘Roger that, four, three, two. Take care.’
He started the engine of his rapid response vehicle and reversed out of his spot, switching on the blues and twos as he raced towards the destination provided by his onboard computer.
The traffic was light today. The kind of traffic he wished he had to deal with most days. People got out of the way, they pulled over in the right place, the traffic lights were kind and he got to the destination quickly. His only problem was that cars lined both sides of the street. Pedestrians, neighbours—all had stopped or come out of their homes to gawp at the flaming spectacle of a house in full flame. Two fire engines blocked the street, and he could already see the fire crews doing their best to tame the fire. He wondered if Cara was on duty today?
It was a strange thing. He always hoped to see her, and yet also feared that she would be there. The idea of her running into a burning building... She might get a thrill out of it, but he didn’t. Not until she was out again.
Tom sounded his horn to make people get out of the way, so he could get closer, and in the end managed to park behind one of the fire engines. Behind him, a normal ambulance arrived, and by the sound of the sirens he could hear many more emergency services were on their way.
He looked over at the house that was burning. It was a mid-terrace house, and the two front top windows were full of flame. It was licking at the bricks and there were holes in the grey slate roof through which more flame could be seen. Maybe the fire had started on the upper floor? On the ground floor the windows looked dark with smoke, occasionally strobed by torchlight as the fire crew made their way through the property, most probably looking for someone not accounted for.
His heart thudded at the thought.
People were crowding around the perimeter established by a police officer, filming it on their phones, their faces masks of awe and fear.
A firefighter wearing a white helmet came to meet him. He realised as he got closer that it was the Chief Fire Officer of Green Watch, known simply as Hodge, so Cara was most probably here somewhere, doing her thing.
‘I’ve got Mum and Dad out, as well as two of the kids, but we’re still looking for the third child. I think we’re dealing with some basic smoke inhalation for most of them, though Dad’s a COPD sufferer. He’s also got a decent burn on his arm and left hand. They’re over there in that appliance, receiving some oxygen.’
Tom nodded. Smoke inhalation could cause all manner of problems, from the simple to the most severe. Especially if the sufferer had medical issues to deal with, like asthma or COPD—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A patient with a respiratory issue could crash quickly, so it was important to keep a close eye on them.
‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘Cheers, Tom.’ Hodge headed back to co-ordinate efforts.
Tom made his way to the fire engine. Liam Penny, one of Cara’s crew mates, was inside monitoring his patients. ‘Hey, Liam. Whatcha got?’
‘This is Daniel Webster and his wife Maria. The little one on her lap is Teddy and the brave girl over on your right is Amy.’
The mother removed her oxygen mask. ‘Is there any word on Joey? Have they found him?’
Tom clambered in. ‘They’re still looking.’
‘I need to be out there!’ The mum tried to get up and push past him, but he managed to stop her.
‘They’ll come and find you if there’s any news. Right now, I need you to stay here.’ He replaced the oxygen mask. ‘It’s safer for you in here. The fire crews are doing their utmost to find him, but what I need you guys to do is try to stay calm and breathe in the oxygen for me.’ He didn’t need any of them running out there, getting in the way of the rescue operation. It was dangerous out there. ‘I’ll just put this SATs probe on your finger.’
The SATs probe measured oxygen and pulse rate. Normal oxygen levels for those without COPD were between ninety-four and ninety-eight percent. As he waited for the reading to appear, Tom used a tongue depressor and a pen light to look at the back of the dad’s throat. The smoke inhalation and the COPD were more of a concern than the burn on his arm and hand and would need to take priority. He saw soot deposits. He’d need to be kept under observation in hospital for a while.
More than half of all fire deaths came from smoke inhalation. The smoke could cause inflammation of the airway and lungs, making them swell up and become blocked, and depending upon what types of gases were inhaled some of the inhalations would be toxic or poisonous. This dad was lucky he’d got out.
He began to cough, his eyes reddening and watering with the effort to try and clear his lungs, so Tom set him up with some extra oxygen and tried to coach him through his breathing. The two kids didn’t look too bad. Shocked more than anything.
‘Do we know yet how the fire started?’ he asked Liam.
‘We think it began upstairs, but the flash point... We’re not sure.’
‘I was burning candles,’ the mum said, crying. ‘And I... I think I might not have switched off my curling iron. Could that have started this? Is this my fault?’ She looked at Tom in fear. Fear that he would tell her that it might be. But no one knew. Not yet.
Tom noted that her oxygen SATs weren’t too bad at all. Ninety-three to ninety-four. On the lower end. ‘We don’t know for sure. Accidents happen all the time. You’ll have to wait for the investigation results.’ He moved the SATs probe from her finger to the dad’s, whose laboured breathing sounded much more exhausted. He didn’t like the man’s colour.
At that moment a couple of paramedics arrived, dressed in their neon yellow jackets. ‘Hey, Tom, what have we got?’
Relieved to have back-up, Tom handed over his patients, explaining about the dad’s medical history and soot-covered throat. The paramedics offloaded the small family and escorted them to the ambulance, even though the mum kept protesting that she wasn’t going to leave without knowing if Joey was okay.
Tom ached for her. But at that moment he saw a firefighter emerge from the building, carrying a dog.
‘Bella! Oh, my God, Bella! How could we have forgotten about you?’ The mum ran free of the paramedic and towards the Boxer dog, which was limp in the firefighter’s arms.
Judging by the firefighter’s walk, Tom knew it was Cara and, as always, he felt relief that she’d got through this fire okay. He knew it was her thing to run into the flames to help. It was her job, after all. But he always worried about her. She was a tough little cookie, who could hold her own, but that still didn’t stop him from feeling he needed to protect her. Feelings of gratitude that she was out of the fire washed over him as usual. He wanted to see her face, but she still wore her rebreather mask.
Cara laid the dog down by the appliance and pulled off her own mask to get out some of the special equipment that he knew had been donated to them by an animal charity—a mask to fit around a dog or cat’s face. He didn’t realise he was holding his breath until he saw the dog trying to fight the mask and wagging its tail at its owner’s approach.
‘You might want to get her checked out by your vet,’ Cara said as she gave the dog oxygen, pulling off her helmet and laying it on the side of the appliance.
Her hair was sweaty. Some of it was plastered to her skull, dark, as if it had been dipped in molasses, the rest was wispy and golden, almost auburn. Her hair, he often thought, was like flame itself. A mass of burning colours. Autumnal.
The first time he’d ever seen her with her hair loose and hanging down her back he’d realised he was staring, mesmerised by how beautiful it was. But that had been ages ago. In another time, it seemed. Back then...before he’d known her properly and they’d become the best friends they were now, he’d been attracted to her. How could he not have been? Cara Maddox was a stunning young woman. The sight of her had taken his breath away, but he’d been in no place back then to do anything about it. He’d been a married man. It would have been wrong.
So they’d just been associates. People who met at emergencies, until slowly they had become friends.
At that moment she met his gaze, noticing him, and her face broke into a hesitant, almost shy smile. ‘Hey, Tom.’ She touched her hair, as if ashamed of how it looked. As if she knew that it was sweaty and plastered to her head, that her pale skin had dark smears from the smoke upon it, that there were red marks on her face from the mask. That maybe she didn’t look her best.
But to him she looked beautiful. The only problem was he couldn’t tell her, in case she thought he was hitting on her.
‘Hey. How was it in there?’
‘Hot. Like it always is.’ She laughed and unzipped her jacket a little.
‘Any idea of what started it?’
‘Not sure. But something upstairs in one of the bedrooms.’
One of the woman’s neighbours had taken the dog, Bella, offering to look after it for the Webster family, so they could go to hospital in the ambulance and get checked out.
‘How are all the patients?’ Cara asked.
‘Not bad. Smoke inhalation, minor burns. Dad will need an eye kept on him. He’s got COPD, his SATs were low, and he has soot deposits on the back of his throat. Any sign of the missing boy?’
‘House was empty apart from the dog, which I found whimpering under a bed.’
‘Then where is he?’ Tom frowned.
‘Don’t know. He could have gone out and not told anyone he was going, so they thought he was still inside.’
At that moment they became aware of a commotion amongst the crowd of onlookers. They both turned to look and noticed a young teenage boy struggling to get past the police presence.
‘Mum? Mum!’
‘Joey!’
‘Mum!’
Mother and son ran into each other’s arms, the mum bawling her eyes out with relief.
Tom and Cara both let out a breath, small smiles creeping onto their faces.
Cara turned to Tom. ‘Happy ending in that respect.’
‘Yeah... Ever feel like happy endings only happen to other people?’ Tom mused.
Cara laughed. ‘Oh, yeah.’ She looked down at the ground, almost as if she couldn’t think of what to say next. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
He shrugged. Everyone still expected him to be riddled by grief. ‘Oh, you know how it is.’
She nodded. ‘I do. How are things with Gage? All okay?’
‘He’s asking a lot of questions about his mum lately.’
‘What do you tell him?’
Tom looked at the remains of the burnt house. The blackened bricks, the holey roof. Windows blown out from heat. The flames were gone and all that was left were plumes of thick, grey, swirling smoke, billowing up into the sky. Nobody had died today. Not here. And for that he was grateful.
‘I tell him that she loved him very much. He doesn’t understand if I tell him she got sick before she died, because he doesn’t remember that. It happened so quickly sometimes even I struggle to understand it.’
‘In those early days of Covid we all struggled to understand it. Don’t be too hard on yourself.’
Cara laid a reassuring hand on his, before turning to look at what was happening with her crew. She had no idea what her touch meant to him.
‘I’d better go. You going to be at The Crusader tonight?’
The Crusader was the preferred pub that all the fire crews attended—situated, as it was, just half a mile from their station.
‘You bet. My parents have got Gage for a sleepover, so I’m free.’
She pulled her helmet back on, and gave him a warm smile and a wave before jogging back to her team. He watched her go, kicking himself for not saying anything to her.
Yet again.
The ambulance was pulling away, with the Webster family on board, and all Tom had to do was return to his rapid response vehicle and write his notes on the call.
The Websters had survived this terrible event and he was glad for them. It could have turned out so differently. A house and possessions could be replaced. People couldn’t.
He thought about his son. How did you fully explain Covid to a near four-year-old? It would get easier, he hoped, as Gage got older and could understand more, but right now all his son knew was that he was the only child at his pre-school who didn’t have a mummy. There were a few who didn’t have dads, but mums...
Am I enough for my son?
Could he give Gage the cuddles and hugs he needed, the way his mother would have? He hoped so. Victoria had always shown her son affection. And he missed her, too. Missed her voice. Her presence. Which was strange, considering how they’d been with each other towards the end.
They should never have got married. They should never have got carried away with the romanticism of having been together since they were so young. The signs had been there, but they’d ignored them, because Gage had been on the way and Tom had wanted to do the right thing by Victoria and his unborn child.
Gage was his utmost priority now.
He couldn’t be getting carried away with how he felt about Cara. He wasn’t the best partner in the world for anyone to have, quite frankly. He’d failed Victoria and he couldn’t go getting involved with anyone else right now. Gage wouldn’t understand that.
And Cara? She would no doubt think badly of him if he declared his feelings for her so soon after losing his wife to Covid.
As the appliance pulled back into the station, the members of Green Watch descended from the vehicle and got into cleaning and maintenance mode. After every job they checked and maintained all equipment and cleaned the appliance if they’d attended a fire.
Cara began an audit of the equipment and checked the breathing apparatus supplies. She was glad of this respite. It was always a confusing moment after seeing Tom. Her feelings for him were confusing. He was her best friend, yes. Absolutely. She would give her life for him. But if she was being honest with herself then she had to admit that deeper undercurrents ran beneath the surface. Like a riptide of attraction that she had to fight every time they were together. But she was being respectful to his late wife. Acknowledging that he’d married his childhood girlfriend and had never looked at anyone else in his life so far.
Also—and she didn’t like admitting this—she knew that she could never be as good as Victoria.
She’d known Tom when he was married to his wife. Had socialised with both of them. She’d liked Victoria. Had seen why Tom was so in love with her. She’d been funny and warm. Friendly.
Cara had met Tom just half a year before Victoria had died. Their eyes meeting over the crumpled, steaming bonnets of two cars that had been involved in a head-on collision. At first she’d been startled by her reaction to a man she’d only seen for a couple of seconds. A man she had not yet heard speak. Whose name she didn’t know. A man she had not spent any time with, nor yet seen smile.
She’d watched him clamber into the rear of one of the vehicles, to maintain a C-spine in an unconscious female driver who had suffered a head injury, and for a brief moment she had just stood still, watching him, mesmerised, her eyebrows raised in surprise at how she’d been frozen into place, stunned.
Is this lust at first sight? she’d mused, before her brain had kicked in and allowed the rest of the world to re-enter her consciousness. She’d heard instructions from the Green Watch Chief Fire Officer, Hodge, on how to tackle the incident. As she’d covered the driver with a blanket, to screen her from the glass of the windshield breaking as the Jaws of Life were applied, she’d stolen another glance at the paramedic who had intrigued her at first sight.
Dark hair. Dark lashes around crystalline blue eyes. High cheekbones. A solid jawline and a mouth that looked as if it was made for sin.
Cara had had to look away from him, pulse racing, face flushing, and she’d had to concentrate on what she was doing. Once the roof of the car had been cut off, she’d worked with Tom to co-ordinate the extrication of the driver. He had C-spine control, so he’d taken charge—counting them down, telling them when to get the backboard in. She’d helped to slide the patient on, then levelled the back board and helped carry her out of the car and onto a waiting ambulance trolley.
Then she’d turned away to help with the extrication of the second driver and her passenger, who were less injured, and conscious still, but who would no doubt have horrible whiplash injuries and dislocated shoulders to endure through the next few weeks. The engine block of their vehicle had crumpled inwards, trapping the legs of the driver, but thankfully had broken no bones. She’d been extremely lucky.
With the patients off to the hospital, and the crew organised to begin clearing up the equipment, she’d heard a voice behind her.
‘Thanks.’
She’d turned. It had been him. Cara had done her best to keep her breathing normal, but it had been hard when he’d placed the full force of his gaze upon her. It had done alarming things to her insides. Her heart rate had accelerated. Her blood pressure had risen. Her mouth had dried to the consistency of a desert.
‘Thanks to you, too.’ She’d smiled. ‘A job well done.’
She’d been pretty impressed that her tongue had still worked and that she’d not stuttered or tripped over her words. Because she had never felt this before. Not even with Leo.
He’d nodded. ‘Absolutely. I’m Tom. I’m new.’
He’d held out his hand for her to shake and she’d taken it, glad that he couldn’t ascertain that inside she felt molten.
‘Cara. Nice to meet you. You’ve just moved to this area?’
‘To be near my wife’s family.’
My wife. Ah. Of course. A man like this wouldn’t be single.
Disappointment had washed over her.
‘Great. Well, welcome to the area.’
He’d thanked her and then headed back to his car, and she’d watched him go like a love-sick puppy. It had been then that Reed Gower, one of her Green Watch crew mates, had sidled up beside her, draped an arm around her shoulder and said, ‘You know, if this were a cartoon your eyes would be on stalks and there’d be little love hearts on the end of them.’
She’d shrugged him off, annoyed that he’d noticed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! He’s new—I was just introducing myself, that’s all.’
Reed had laughed as he’d walked away. ‘Sure you were! Keep telling yourself that.’
After that she’d done her best to try and keep things distant, but he’d kept turning up at most of their shouts and eventually, as these things happened, someone on Green Watch had invited him to join them at the pub—The Crusader.
And Tom had turned up. With his wife, Victoria, in tow.
A small part of her had hoped that his wife would be an ugly toad, but of course she wasn’t. Victoria had been tall, long-limbed, gazelle-like, with wave upon wave of shiny honey-coloured, hair. And she’d had a very worthy job—but what else could Cara have hoped for? It had turned out that Victoria was a paediatric nurse. An angel.
Her perfect figure and shiny white teeth had been a hit with the guys, that was for sure, and very quickly Tom and his wife had become part of their group.
Until Covid had hit.
Emergency services had been classed as essential workers, so they’d still had to work, and somehow—terribly—Victoria had got Covid. The stunning Amazon Cara had considered her to be had been struck down, her fight against the disease complicated by asthma, and Victoria had been taken into hospital and placed on a ventilator.
Cara hadn’t seen much of Tom after that. Understandably, he hadn’t been at any of their shouts. She’d hoped he was at home, looking after his son, and not ill with Covid himself. There had been some talk of developing a vaccine, but the government had said it was at least a year away.
And then had come the news, passed down from someone in the ambulance crew to Blue Watch, to Green Watch. Victoria had succumbed to Covid.
She was the first person Cara had personally known who had died from the disease and it had struck her harder than she’d ever imagined. It had come close, this invisible disease, and it could be fatal.
She had only been able to imagine how Tom had felt.
She hadn’t wanted him to think that she didn’t care enough about him to ring. So she’d rung Tom’s house, left her condolences as an answerphone message. She’d hand-delivered a card through his letterbox, called his name, but there had been no answer and nothing else she could do.
When the funeral had been announced, she hadn’t been able to go. Numbers had been extremely limited. But the funeral home had offered to stream the service online, so she’d watched it that way—attended that way whilst on duty at the station, watching on a laptop. Wishing she could be there to support her good friend Tom. She’d only seen him briefly in the stream, but he’d looked pale and shattered and her heart had ached for him and Gage.
He’d been off for about a month in total. The first job she’d seen him at, she’d gone to him and wished she could wrap her arms around him tightly, hug him and hold him in her arms for ever, but due to Covid restrictions the most they’d been able to do was bump elbows.
It hadn’t seemed enough. Nowhere near enough. Her heart had still ached for him.
‘How are you?’ she’d asked him, standing a good two metres away.
‘I’m okay. Thanks for asking.’
‘You and Gage doing all right? Is there anything I can do?’
He’d shaken his head. ‘No. Thanks. I got your card. It meant a lot.’
‘I wanted you to know you were being thought about. I couldn’t come to the funeral because of the restrictions.’
‘I know.’
‘I watched it online.’
‘You did?’
She’d nodded, smiled warmly at him. ‘If you ever need anything...even if it’s just someone to talk to... I want you to feel you can call me. Any time and I’ll listen. Rant. Rave. I’m here for you, okay?’
She’d seen his eyes redden and water, and had been touched that her offer had affected him so. If only she’d been able to reach out to hug him!
That all felt so long ago, but it wasn’t. Not really.
So, yes, her feelings for Tom ran deep. There was attraction, but there was respect for all that had gone before—and the knowledge that no matter what she felt for him she could never live up to Victoria.
Cara was everything that Victoria had not been. Cara was a good head shorter than Tom’s late wife. She had thick, strong muscles, from weightlifting at the gym every day, whereas Victoria had been lithe from Pilates. Cara had tattoos around both wrists and running up her forearms. Tom’s wife had had none, and her only body modification had been pierced ears. Cara considered herself to be stocky, and there was nothing she loved more than to hang out in her gym clothes, or in boots and jeans and a tee. She’d never worn a heel in her life. Had never worn a pretty dress. Cara was a tomboy, through and through. Victoria...? She’d seemed to go everywhere in long, silhouette flattering dresses, that flowed and billowed around her, as if she was some sort of ethereal nymph. Graceful and elegant. Something Cara could never hope to be.
They were chalk and cheese.
So any feelings she had for Tom could never be reciprocated.
He just wouldn’t see her the way she wanted him to.