The Butterfly Cove Collection

‘If that’s what you need, I can muddle through to the weekend. You’ll at least help me make the arrangements? You are so much better at the practicalities.’ That was true. With their father wrapped up in his work and their mother self-medicating with gin, it had fallen to Mia to take care of her sisters and run the house.

‘I’ll speak to Kiki and see if I can stay with her.’ Staying with her sister and the git she called a husband wouldn’t be a picnic, but she’d get to see the kids and maybe get a chance to talk to Kiki at the same time.

‘Will you stop using those ludicrous nicknames? You and your sisters all have perfectly good names.’ There was no point in pursuing the old argument so Mia ignored the sharp retort. Their father had named them after the Horae—a trio of minor Greek goddesses, fathered by Zeus. The teasing at school had been painful, but served as another cord to bind the three of them closer together.

Mia watched Daniel gather their cooling plates of food and slide them into the lower shelf of the Aga to keep warm. He pointed towards the door and raised a brow, clearly offering to give her some privacy. She shook her head and held out her hand towards him, relieved when he crossed to her side and gathered her small hand between his own. He chafed her knuckles gently with his thumb.

Mia stared absently at their joined hands as she listened to her father go on and on about how busy he was, how hard it was for him to cope with work and hospital visits. How vital the dinner was to the future grant plans for his department. She wasn’t prepared for the bombshell when it landed. ‘And of course the staff at the Royal Brook are taking great care of your mother.’

At the mention of the hospital where she’d had to identify Jamie’s body, her legs gave out and she found herself slumped on the floor, staring up at Daniel. With a worried frown creasing his brow, he knelt beside her. The oxygen she hadn’t missed from her lungs came rushing back and the first sob shook her whole body. A worried squawk came from the handset dangling between her fingers. She tried to speak, tried to take a calming breath, but grief rose like a wave, rolled her over and dragged her into its salty, bitter depths.

She barely resisted as Daniel eased her fingers free of the handset and exchanged a few quiet words with her father before hanging it back up on the wall. Strong arms banded around her back as he picked her up and carried her towards the kitchen table. He found a seat, tugged her down into his lap after him. His warm arms curled around her, cocooning her, and Mia let him press her face into the crook of his neck.

His hands circled around her back and up to her shoulders, massaging gently, soothing the tension from her body. Mia pressed her nose deeper into the space between his neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply, allowing the familiar warm, masculine scent of this man to fill her senses as she drenched his neck and shoulder in her tears.

Chapter Eleven (#ulink_98c19776-5c72-5a35-9803-2c491bd73f24)

He hadn’t got the full gist of the conversation between Mia and her dad, had tried hard not to listen to something obviously personal and painful. Hot, wet tears slipped down between his collar and his neck, soaking his skin, and he clenched his jaw against the virulent anger stirring in his gut. He wanted to smash something, grab up a sword and slay the dragon who’d caused this precious woman so much hurt. He tightened his arms around her back.

A harsh sob ripped from her throat and Daniel pushed away his feelings. This wasn’t about him. Mia needed him to be a man and take her pain. Even if every drop of salt seared him to the bone, he would take her tears and be the shoulder she needed to cry on.

‘I’ve got you. It’s okay, love; let it all out.’ He cupped her head, pressing her face into his shoulder. ‘Is it your mum?’

‘Yes, no. She’s…it’s the hospital…and Jamie…I’m sorry…’ Her voice rose on a wail of such pain it hurt him to hear it. They’d been rubbing along so well together he’d almost forgotten about the invisible barrier of her husband between them. There was no way he could compete with the love she still held for him. He hadn’t even been in the running.

Shattered, he squeezed his eyes tight against the sting of his own tears and laid his cheek upon the top of her head. ‘Shh. Don’t be sorry; don’t ever be sorry for how you feel,’ he murmured. Something he needed to remember too. She was a woman worth loving, even if they would never be more than friends.

On and on, the storm of her grief battered him and he held firm, giving her an anchor until she subsided into a series of hiccupping sobs. She shivered, burrowing closer to him, and he rubbed her arms to try and soothe the goose bumps forming. He stood gingerly, tucking his hands under her thighs to take her slight weight. Mia wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and pressed closer, clinging like a monkey, and Daniel adjusted his grip until he knew he could hold her safely.

He didn’t speak as he slowly climbed the stairs to the first floor and turned towards his room. He didn’t want to invade Mia’s space without invitation and she had always been protective of her room on the top floor; besides he knew where everything he needed was in his own room. Forgoing the light switch, not willing to let go of his precious burden, he kicked the door wide and navigated to the big bed. She didn’t speak, but sat on the edge at his gentle urging. He bent to slip off her shoes. The blouse she wore had rucked up around her middle.

A quick rummage in his bedside drawer produced a soft T-shirt. It was an old favourite band shirt from his youth, the pattern barely visible any more and the cotton washed so often it was as soft as butter. He unbuttoned her blouse, left her bra in place and pulled the T-shirt over Mia’s head. ‘Stand up for me a minute?’

Her movements robotic, she stood. The blank stare on her face worried him more than the hysterical weeping from before. Taking care not to touch her bare skin, Daniel unfastened her jeans and helped her step out of them. He tugged back the thick quilt and then stopped and turned to Mia, cupping her face gently in his hands as he raised her face to look at him.

‘Do you want to sleep here tonight, or would you rather go up to your room?’ he asked.

‘Here, please,’ she whispered. ‘Here with you.’

That wasn’t what he’d meant. Not at all. The sofa downstairs had served him well enough and he’d planned on tucking her in and leaving her in peace. If company was what she needed right now then it was the least he could offer, given how much she’d done for him.

He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and urged her towards the bed, scooting her across the sheet as he climbed in beside her and drew the quilt up over them. Mia curled in to him, and he pulled her closer, shielding her body as though he could protect her from the pain she was suffering. She nestled in against his shoulder like a kitten seeking warmth. He lay back and stared upwards, the light from the bathroom casting shadows across the ceiling.

‘I didn’t mean to lose it just now. Mum’s in hospital, the same one where they took Jamie, you know, afterwards. I told you last time it’s the strangest things that set me off.’ She shook her head to ward off the tears gathering in her throat. ‘Anyway, things with Mum and Dad have never been easy. I think they must have loved each other once, but when I look at them through grown-up eyes they seem such an odd match. He’s a scholar, career-focused and obsessed with all things ancient Greek. She drinks.’

There was so much pain wrapped up in those two words. Shame washed over him. How many people had he hurt like this in his own pursuit of oblivion? She needed to know. ‘I drank. Took stuff too. Nothing too hard, pills, a bit of blow now and then. It started as a way to handle the attention, a quick shot or a sniff to calm my nerves. Became a bit more than that, but everyone around me was doing it so it felt normal. If I hadn’t left town when I did, I’m not sure where I might have ended up.’

‘Do you miss it?’ Her soft question startled a bark of laughter from him.

‘Christ, no. It’s the thing that scares me most about the idea of going back to London. I don’t know how to live that life and not get sucked back into it.’

***

She could feel him trembling against her, sense the fear in his voice. What had it taken for him to make such an admission? He’d shown no signs of needing a drink, and she knew them all by heart from watching her mother. The nervous check of her watch, the glances flicked towards the drinks cabinet as the afternoon ticked past to an hour deemed acceptable for alcohol. The not-so-funny jesting remarks. ‘The sun’s past the yardarm. It must be five o’clock somewhere.’ And five o’clock became four, then three, then a quick tipple with lunch, a nip of sherry at eleven, a splash of vodka in the breakfast orange juice.

She couldn’t cope with another alcoholic in her life. ‘Promise me you’ll say if that changes.’

‘I swear, if I even think about a drink, I’ll find a programme. I don’t want to be that man, Mia. Fitz is the past, a character I played for a while, but he isn’t me.’

He was filling up the dark empty corners of her heart, piece by piece, and Mia had to make him understand what she was feeling before things got any more complicated between them. She didn’t want to be a pity project, a way for Daniel to make himself feel better by taking care of her. If he was looking for a cause to champion, he’d have to look elsewhere. If they were going to make something of the growing bond between, it would need to be on equal footing. She would have to do her part and take care of Daniel and his needs as well.

‘I was thinking today, before the phone call, when I was making dinner,’ she started to speak and then sat bolt upright. ‘Damn, you put the plates in the oven to keep warm and we’ve left them in there.’ Mia started to scramble for the edge of the bed, but he stopped her with a gentle touch.

‘Stay here in the warm and I’ll go and sort them out. If it’s still edible I’ll bring it up or we’ll be starving later. Can you manage a bite to eat?’ Mia nodded and sat back against the pillows.

‘You don’t have to wait on me, Daniel. I’m really okay; I can help.’

‘Indulge me, please? I’ll be two minutes.’ Good to his word, he was soon back with the two plates of pasta on a tray with some cutlery and a large bottle of water, cold from the fridge. Once they stirred the food, it was fine as she hadn’t stinted on the cream sauce, and they sat together in the bed sharing the water between them as they ate.

‘So, you were thinking when you were cooking…’ Daniel prompted.

It was crunch time. ‘Oh. Yes, well. I was thinking about how much I like you being here with me. I’m not saying I want anything to happen between us.’ She blushed and felt a little ridiculous when he grinned at her.

‘You sure know how to boost a man’s ego.’ The teasing tone set her at ease.

‘I’m not saying I don’t either. I just…’ She huffed out a breath. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’

‘I don’t think either of us are in the place to be making big steps beyond friendship. I like being around you, and I want to stay here with you. I want to see you achieve your dreams here.’ He glanced away then quickly back. ‘I’ll be honest, I think about what might be. A lot.’

She stared down at the remains of her pasta. ‘Me too.’

‘I know it’s overstepping the mark, but I can’t help myself making plans for the future. Whatever may or may not happen between us, I want to stay. This house feels like the first home I’ve had in years. I want to stay. With you. As friends, if nothing more. I’ve even got some ideas for converting the barn.’

Mia knew she probably looked dumbstruck as she stared open-mouthed at Daniel. It was almost as though he could read her mind as his words echoed perfectly her own feelings. ‘I want the same thing, whatever else happens here, I want us to always be friends, Daniel. I feel like we came together at a moment in time when we both needed the other so badly without even realising it. You have become so special to me in just a few weeks and I can’t bear to think that we might spoil this by rushing too far ahead or striving to feel something that just might not be there for us. I think we need to promise to be honest with each other, no matter what we fear the other person might say because it is only by staying true and trusting each other that we can hold this together. Do you agree?’

Mia reached up to cup his bearded cheek and he turned his head to press a kiss into the centre of her palm.

‘Yes, I agree. I also think we need to start sharing some of those sad stories, but not tonight and not all at once. The dark should be for whispering about our dreams and hopes for the future. Let’s save the tough stuff for the daytime, okay?’

It was such a sweet idea that it appealed deeply to Mia, to keep their most intimate times a haven, knowing that she could lie beside him and be safe and warm and not have to face anything upsetting or difficult. A time to plan and look to the future. It was perfect.

‘So tell me about these plans of yours.’ She settled back against her pillow and let him tuck the quilt under her chin as if she were a child. He drew back to his own side of the bed, leaving a clear space between them. He mimicked her position. Snug as two bugs in a rug, as her mother used to say when she still used to put Mia to bed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then listened with her heart open as Daniel described his fledgling ideas for converting the barns.

***

‘The air here is different, even the sky looks different. I didn’t realise how much the darkness of the city was getting to me until it was almost too late. You end up living this life that isn’t yours, if you’re not careful, and then you lose that part of you that your creativity and artistry needs to survive and thrive. I was so full of hope, so full of ideas and excitement when I moved to London. My pictures reflected that positivity. All my themes were of things to be celebrated.’

Daniel paused, trying to find the right words. ‘I need to show you my portfolio and then you would understand.’ He sat up intent on fetching his tablet, but she stopped him with a light touch on his arm.