Chapter 10

Ten

"S o, why do your friends call you Chip?"

I'd changed into leggings and a slouchy sweater, and now we were sitting in the kitchen with the scarred oak table the previous owner had left behind between us. I'd also combed my hair. Honestly, I was surprised Eis hadn't left when he saw the bird's nest on my head this morning, but he was still here, and he'd even wedged a fresh piece of cardboard under the wobbly table leg.

"You know I fought MMA?"

I nodded.

"Most fighters have a ring name."

"You were Ironman."

"Right. Because Eisen means ‘iron' in German. But for my first fight, one of my buddies was commentating, and he thought it would be funny to introduce me as Raging Chipmunk."

I nearly spat a mouthful of croissant across the table, which would have been a shame because they were the good ones from the fancy bakery in the next town.

"Raging Chipmunk?" I pretended to study him. "Yes, I can see it."

He threw a piece of croissant at me.

"Perhaps you could try a movie career?" I suggested. " Crouching Hamster, Hidden Pussycat ?"

He picked up both of our knives and whirled them like tiny swords. "Chipmunks have rules too."

"That movie had some great lines."

Eis laughed. "You still watch a lot of movies?"

"I love movies and books. Anything to escape from the real world."

He reached across the table to cup my cheek. It was the first time he'd touched me since he'd hoisted me skywards in his walled garden, and I leaned into him. I couldn't help it.

"Maybe someday, you'll build a world you don't want to escape from."

My emotions were there, bubbling so treacherously close to the surface, and I blinked back tears again.

"That's just a pipe dream."

Quite literally.

"Tell me what you need, Janie."

"What I need?"

"Right now, what do you need to make your life easier?"

My turn to laugh. "A plumber."

"A plumber?"

"I already paid a small fortune to one cowboy who made everything worse, so now I'm waiting for the guy that everyone says is good, but he has a waiting list longer than War and Peace . Ditto for the roofing chap."

"What's wrong with the plumbing?"

"What isn't wrong with it? Joints leak, pipes leak, the shower that doesn't leak needs a new pump, and the central heating doesn't work."

"Want me to take a look?"

"Since when did you go to plumbing school?"

"Since I was in prison and there were a bunch of classes we could take. I can weave a decent basket too."

"I'm not even sure whether you're joking or not."

"Give me cane and raffia, and we'll find out." He kissed my palm. He kissed my freaking palm . "And I'm serious about the plumbing. I've done a bunch of work at the cottage since I moved in as well."

"The cottage?"

"Twilight's End."

"Twilight's End is not a cottage. And I'm really sorry about your grandma."

"Me too. She was a tough old bird. We all thought she'd be around forever, but her gin habit finally caught up."

"You got along well, huh? Were you visiting with her when we first met?"

"I came to drown my sorrows before the trial. But she locked the liquor away, so I went to the Hand and Flowers, and that was when I met you again. Funny how fate works, isn't it? The court case brought us together, and then it forced us apart."

"And now you're here."

"Now I'm here."

There was a long silence as our gazes locked, and we both smiled at the same time. Maybe later, much later, I'd raise a glass to Grandma Renner.

* * *

Eis dug through my meagre toolbox and tutted a bit, then poked around the rest of Marigold Lodge. His verdict?

"You're right; the plumbing's fucked."

"Super. Maybe I could just knock the house down and start again? At least a tent would be waterproof."

"I've written a list of the stuff we need. You'll have to get an engineer for the boiler, but I can help with the rest."

I didn't want his help. No, actually, that wasn't quite right. I didn't want to need his help. But pride was a luxury I could no longer afford, along with branded groceries and the electricity bill.

"The big hardware store has plumbing stuff, I think. I mean, there are pipes and joints and tubes of sealant."

"I'll get everything delivered this week."

"Here?"

"No point in getting it delivered to my place."

"Uh, okay? I have some clients booked in, but if I know when the delivery might come…"

"Clients?"

"At Cutting Edge. I work as a hairdresser, but only during school hours. Mostly the older clientele because they're retired. I was supposed to be doing Mavis Butterfield's perm today, but her brother's in the hospital, and— You don't really need to know any of that."

"Right."

"What did you think I was doing all day?"

A shrug. "Being a mother?"

"That's not a job."

"Yeah, it is."

"Okay, it's not a job that pays money. Did your mum stay at home all day?"

"No, but we had a nanny."

Eis and me, we came from different worlds. His family had staff. He lived in a mansion-slash-castle and owned a thriving business. I lived hand to mouth and prayed we had a mild winter because the boys and I would freeze otherwise.

"Well, I've got to work, Eis. I'm really lucky because my sister won the lottery and bought this place for me to live in rent-free, but we need to eat."

He sucked in a breath. "We'll go to the hardware store today."

"But you don't want to." I'd have to be blind to miss the tension in his shoulders and the way his fists clenched at his sides. He hated the idea. But why? Then I realised. I realised that in all my googling, I'd never found anything recent. His online story stopped with the incident in the car park. He'd been carted off in an ambulance, and after that, he'd disappeared from public life. And at Twilight's End, he'd been fine with my anger but not with my pity. "You worry about people looking at you?"

"Either they stare, or they do that thing where they pretend to be engrossed in something else and keep glancing in my direction. Strangers can't look me in the eye anymore, and I know what they're thinking— poor dumb fuck, what happened to him? Sometimes I want to wear a sign: it was acid, I know it's ugly ." He gave the heaviest sigh. "It used to be much worse. Right after it happened, my skin was red and angry, and Edie keeps telling me it looks okay now, but I'd still rather stay at home. Fuck," he spat. "Now who's having the pity party?"

"Edie's right."

"I wish I was still the man you met thirteen years ago."

"You are the man I met thirteen years ago. Just with slightly better communication skills, I hope."

"But I look different."

"And you think I don't? Eis, I've had two babies. I hate taking the boys to the pool because I don't have a bikini body anymore, and my boobs need a push-up bra to look anything close to perky. You're sitting there looking as if you want to eat me alive, and I'm sitting here thinking that you'd better be fond of rice pudding because that's what my cellulite looks like. And then there's my stretch?—"

"Enough."

Eis shoved his chair back and stalked angrily around the table. Before I could properly process, I was in his arms, pressed tight against his hard chest with his day-old stubble tickling my forehead.

"Don't talk shit about yourself, Janie. You're beautiful."

"You really think that?"

"It's the truth."

"Then why won't you believe you're beautiful too?"

We clung to each other for an age. Just stood there in the kitchen, silently finding our way back to each other, our embrace saying more than words ever could. At some point, I started crying. Finally, Eis loosened his grip and kissed my hair.

"Let's go out."

"This is going to be messy."

He knew I wasn't talking about the shopping trip. "It is."

"We're going to fight a lot."

"The make-up sex will be spectacular."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

I'd never had make-up sex with Steven. We never really used to argue. I'd always thought that meant we were compatible, but standing there with six feet of cocky red-blooded male in front of me, I realised the truth. I'd never fought with Steven because I'd never been bothered enough to care. If he worked late, so what? I'd just read a book. If he said he was too tired for sex, who cared? I had a vibrator hidden in the bathroom cabinet, and it did a better job than him anyway. Most of our tiffs had been about the boys. About Steven letting them down when they needed him most.

Eleven years ago, I'd found myself pregnant and done what I thought was the right thing at the time.

Which turned out to be the wrong thing.

Now I was at the top of a roller coaster, waiting for the ride to start. For the twists, the turns, the exhilaration. The safety bar was probably faulty, but I couldn't get off, even if I wanted to.

"Is it okay to be a little bit scared?" I asked.

"I'm fucking terrified. Terrified of screwing this up, terrified of losing you again."

"Can we take things slowly?"

"How slowly?"

"No side trips to the nature reserve today."

Eis chuckled into my hair. "It's raining anyway."

"Be serious."

"Fine, we'll take things slowly, but understand this. I'm your past, Janie, but I'm also your future. Don't think for one second that I'm not."

A few months ago, Marissa had told me that the best thing about being with Liam was having someone who was hers. An ally who fought in her corner, who loved her to the moon and back, and who was always there for her, no matter what. At the time, I'd been baffled by her words because the best thing about being with Steven was that he paid half the rent and occasionally picked up a chippy tea on his way home from work.

But now I understood.

I understood that Eisen Renner was going to shake my world to its very core, and then we were going to build something new from the rubble.

And we'd start our journey at the hardware store.