That One Summer: A Collection of Steamy Contemporary Romance

Chapter 1

Rose

Oakheart Glen Library’sHead Librarian huffs as she returns to the reception desk.

“Carelessness, utter carelessness. Personal documents just left lying. Anyone could have read them!” she grumbles, waving a thick white envelope in the air.

Woe betide the culprit when Elsie Boardman gets her hands on them. I hope they present themselves to the desk with a grovelling apology in jig time or they might find their library card cancelled. Mrs. Boardman takes transgressions in her domain incredibly seriously. She hasn’t run this place like clockwork for the last fifty years by letting people do exactly as they please.

She slaps the envelope down on the table.

“And what exactly are we meant to do with this now?” she grouses, busying herself with the last pile of books of the day waiting to be tucked up on their shelves for the night. “Typical rugby-lout, just leaving things lying at his backside, expecting me to clear up after him, look after it for him. Spoiled, they are.”

I look at her, gathering books into her arms as though to protect them from this unexpected happening that is sending shockwaves of disgruntlement through her perfectly ordered world. She guards those books like a dragon sitting atop a clutch of eggs. Looking after those precious paper babies has been her life for five decades. Now I’m here—a newbie, not even a local—looking to steal them away, and her heart is breaking. I know that’s what’s at the bottom of her crotchetiness.

I have to work with her, make her see that I’m someone who can help her look after her leafy brood. Not someone who wants to steal them.

“I’ll return it on my way home, Mrs. Boardman, if that’s okay? We don’t want any data protection issues,” I offer.

The head librarian casts her eyes over my face, checking for the tiniest hint of insincerity. When she finds none, her look softens into something that could almost pass for approving.

“Indeed,” she says curtly. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, that would be very helpful of you. But Rose...”

“Yes, Mrs. Boardman?”

“Be careful. Those rugby boys are a bad lot. And he’s the worst of them.”

I take the papers from her, turning the envelope over in my hand to read the label.

Murray Walsh.

The name means nothing to me, but out of respect for Mrs. Boardman’s significantly more extensive knowledge on such matters, I agree, “I’ll be careful, Mrs. Boardman.”

She nods approvingly.

As I leave the library, it strikes me that that might be the first time she’s actually used my name.

* **

The satnav guides methrough the still relatively unfamiliar roads of Oakheart Glen without any difficulty. As it directs me onto the road that leads up onto Ben Breg, one of the hulking dark mountains lying to the southeast of the town, I raise my eyes. The sight of its towering majesty never fails to bring my heart into my throat. I grew up in a city, and the mountains ringed round the shining silver loch whose shores house my new home still catch my breath every time I lay eyes on them.

Life in a small town in the Scottish Highlands has taken some getting used to. Everyone knows my name. Everyone asks how I am. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who can help me with anything I need. The butcher knows I like unsalted bacon. The local shopkeeper knows which papers I read. The postmaster knows how many stamps I go through a week. The local dairy farmer jokes that I must bathe in the multiple pints of semi-skimmed milk I have delivered each week and calls me his new retirement portfolio.

None of them know that the hot chocolates and bacon sandwiches that I enjoy while looking through the window, trying and mostly failing to capture the splendour of my new surroundings in the words that I scratch onto my wee notepad, never quite take away the sadness, the loneliness. That all the beauty can’t quite salve the gut-gnawing uneasiness I feel every day as I navigate my way through my new life whilst wondering what is happening in the world I left behind.

Will I know if Mum’s health takes a turn for the worse? Will I know if Caledon is behaving himself? My younger brother seemed to be on the right road when I left but things can change so quickly...Of course, the patchy mobile connectivity up here doesn’t help. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d find myself contemplating having a landline installed.

Not that it would help much.

If they were struggling, they’d never tell me.

The sporadic messages that make their way to my mobile phone are upbeat, cheerful, carefully curated by my loved ones to let me know that they miss me but that they are doing fine and that I’ve to get on with chasing my dream.

The Assistant Head Librarian post in Oakheart Glen was too good an opportunity to turn down. Such posts are rare as hens’ teeth, so when I spotted this one, I knew I couldn’t turn it down, not even if it meant moving to the far end of the country. So I packed my English degree, my notebook with my fledgling novel in it, and my best can-do attitude and headed to Oakheart Glen, ready to advance my career.

I didn’t bargain on that involving a climb up a very narrow, bumpy road up the side of a mountain in my rickety little rundown car. My heart slowly rises into my mouth as the road carries me higher and higher up the mountain, my trundling little motor rattling laboriously round every twist and turn in the road.

I’ll admit it. I was secretly hoping for some adventure when I upped sticks and moved to a new town. But getting lost in the mountains wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

I was more thinking along the lines of perhaps candlelit dinners with a man who actually loves me.

Ah, the old, “it’s not you, it’s me.” Surprising how much it stings after eight years together. I never thought when we posed together for a picture on my thirtieth birthday that it would be the last time I would be in his arms.

I shake my head. No time for that now. It is in the past. He’s in the past. I should have seen it coming, should have realised that the silence and the distance wasn’t just because he was busy in his new job. Deep down, I think I knew. I just didn’t want to face the fact that the relationship was over.

Now here I am, climbing Ben Breg. Well, kind of.

The satnav directs me to turn onto a tiny dirt track. I follow, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of civilization. The thick forest swallows my tiny car. It trundles on, like a wee black beetle scuttling through the towering oaks.

The road ends next to a wooden cabin. I climb out of my car, looking about for the main house, but there is no other property to be seen. This appears to be my destination.

The air is humid as I step out of the car. I pluck at my shirt, trying to unstick it from my body. I eye the clouds gathering on the horizon with trepidation. Better make this quick.

I grab the envelope from the passenger seat and approach the cabin. The paint on what I presume to be the front door is peeling in long red strips. As I knock, red dust flies into the air.

The door opens almost instantly. I step back in surprise.

It is him. He’s Murray Walsh. Of course. The photocopier...

“Sorry,” he says. “I was working on the other side of the door.” He waves the paint scraper in his hand aloft. Then his eyes light on my face, “Oh, hi.”

“H....hi...” I stammer.

Murray Walsh isn’t wearing a shirt.

I try to retain my composure, try to remember that I’m supposed to be wary of this rugby-lout-bad-boy-doer-of-naughty-things-per-the-Book-of-Elsie-Boardman, but the sight of his muscled chest with its thick thatch of black hair curling over his pecs knocks the air from my lungs.

He wipes his hands on a filthy rag hanging from his belt.

I swallow, my mouth suddenly devoid of any moisture whatsoever.

“Hi,” he repeats, his voice friendly. “What can I do for you?”

Indeed.

I open my mouth and Elsie’s voice comes out. “You left these at the library. Anyone could have read them.”

The handsome giant looks at me. He shakes his mane of black curls, an amused smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Could they now? Well, that would have been rather nosey of them. And it would have made very dull reading.”

“Not the point,” I grumble. “Data protection is everyone’s business...”

“Indeed,” he says, the sides of his eyes crinkling.

I slap the envelope into his outstretched hand with slightly more force than necessary.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing...” I chirp.

“Thanks. And thanks for bringing this up....er....?”

“Rose,” I answer, grateful to get my own name out without saying anything else that might make me want the ground to swallow me whole. Until I unnecessarily add, “Wallace” in an oddly formal tone.

“Thanks for this, Rose Wallace,” he says, his eyes sparkling with quiet amusement. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

As I climb into my car, he gives me a cheery wave and shuts the door. I turn the key, grateful as the car growls then shudders to life. Thick blobs of rain splatter the windscreen.

As I turn the car and head back into the cover of the trees, I wince.

Data protection, Rose?

Really?

Really.

I really did just tell that god-like creature that data protection is everyone’s business.

No wonder I’m single. I’m going home for a hot chocolate and a bacon sandwich.

* * *

I stare at the treein dismay. Its beautiful branches lie broken and scattered across the main road, its fractured trunk gaping in a silent, spiked yawn. There’s no way I’m getting home this way tonight.

I sit in my car, watching the windscreen wipers clear the torrential rain from the windshield. What to do? I’ve never been this far up the mountain before. I don’t fancy trying to navigate unknown mountain roads in this deluge. A crack of thunder peals over my head, making me jump. My hands tremble against the steering wheel.

I gulp down some deep breaths, trying to quell the panic rising in my chest. I can’t stay out here.

I sling the car into reverse, turn from the fallen oak, and head in search of a safe haven.

* * *

Murray

The piece of paperconfirming my divorce lies on the table. Old Murray might have marked the occasion with a nice bottle of whisky, but instead I find myself sipping on a cup of steaming hot tea. I stare into the fire as darkness shrouds the room.

So many changes, so little time.

Life after was always going to be hard. Life after rugby. Life after marriage. Life after being an arsehole with a huge chip on his shoulder and a drinking problem. Each tricky to navigate in its own right, but together forming a maelstrom of change that feels almost insurmountable.

At least I didn’t lose Maisie. At least after everything, she still wants to see me. I didn’t lose my daughter.

I might not be her father. But I’m still her Dad. And that means the world to me.

I pick up my book and settle back into the couch. My muscles ache from the work I was doing on the cabin earlier. I’ve been slacking. Need to get back in the gym.

I sound like my dad.

The thought rattles round my head as I stare at the pages of my book. My dad hated me reading. Said it was for wimps. Anytime he caught me reading, he’d smack me over the head, put a ball in my hand and shove me out the door.

I’d read in bed at night with a flashlight. Anything and everything, from comics to Dickens. Anything with words in it. Hell, I would have read the back of a cereal box.

I remember the time he found my stashed copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. You would have thought he’d stumbled across my porn collection. I got it for that. And so did my mum for buying it for me.

“Are you trying to turn him into a pussy? He doesn’t have time for that shite!”

Funny how he was always so all about my future career until it came time to make sure I was clothed or fed, or to take me to practice, or a game. Wasn’t so attentive then. He was always happy to leave that to others.

I look over the book at the piece of paper that marks my return to single status. I must remember to put that somewhere safe. It was a bit remiss of me to leave my divorce decree lying in the library.

It wasn’t all bad though.

I couldn’t believe it when I opened the door and saw her standing there. The curved goddess, her brow furrowed into a little crease, her shirt clinging to her curves in the humid evening air, nervously fiddling with the waistband of her skirt.

Would the semi-sheer material covering the curve of her calves be stockings or tights?I wonder idly. The thought of stockings under that skirt is enough to make me groan, but my money would be on tights. I generally consider them horrible-looking things, but the thought of peeling them off, rolling them down her legs, slowly exposing her skin to my touch is definitely appealing.

Stop.

I turn my thoughts. What would be the healthy thing to do?

I’ve picked up many women in my time, but that’s not what this is. I don’t want a hookup. I’m more than just attracted to her. She intrigues me. That tiny smile she gave me in the library hit me straight in the heart. I want to know more about her, not just tear her clothes off. Or drag her tights off with my teeth.

I could drop into the library, ask her if she’d like to go on a date? Dinner perhaps.

The thought makes me unexpectedly nervous. What if she said no? My pick-ups of old were almost exclusively in bars or clubs, and almost always with the assistance of liquid confidence. But this. This would be very different.

I shake my head.

No.

No dating.

No falling in love.

Not even with a librarian with gentle eyes and curves shaped for my hands.

I’m going to take some time, figure out what I want in life. Figure out my next steps. I don’t need complications. And for me, women are always a complication.

A loud peal of thunder breaks my thoughts. That storm is really ramping up. Then I realize that it isn’t thunder. It is the door. Another knock booms through the cabin.

“Yeesh, okay, I’m coming,” I grumble, heaving myself to my feet and padding across the floor to the hall.

Who the hell is out and about in this weather?

I yank the door open with a little more vigor than I intended.

Rose is standing on my doorstep, soaked to the skin. There’s gooseflesh where her skin shows at her collar, and her white shirt has gone completely see-through.

“What on earth? What are you doing here?” I ask, averting my eyes.

“I’m sorry...there’s a fallen tree,” she stutters, her lips shaking with cold. “I almost ran into it.”

“Okay...okay...uh, please, come in.”

I usher her into the cabin, then grab a blanket from the back of the couch and wrap it round her shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, thanks.” She pulls the material tightly round herself, burying herself in its warmth. “I wasn’t hurt. I just don’t...I don’t know how to get back down the mountain. And the thunder...” Her shoulders shake.

“Hey, don’t cry, it’s okay. You are very welcome here.”

“Thank you. I just... I...didn’t know where else to go.”

She looks at me, brow furrowed as she fights to hold back the tears.

“Are you sure you are okay?” I repeat.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her face crumpling. “It’s the storm. I hate thunder.”

“You’ll be safe here.”

“Thanks,” she says. “I should know better and not let it bother me...” she says woefully. She’s trying to hide her tears, but her bottom lip is still trembling.

In a heartbeat, I would reach out and fold her into my arms, showing instead of telling her that she is safe in my care. But I don’t want to frighten her so, unsure of what to do, I give her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

She looks up at me. Her face breaks into the smallest of smiles.

“Why don’t you go and grab a shower, get out of those wet things. The bathroom is straight through there. I’ll get you some clothes, then I’ll put the kettle on.”

She nods and plods off in the direction of the bathroom, her shoes squelching across the carpet.

Who would have thought a rain-soaked, trembling woman in a thick tartan blanket could do such things to me.

I listen until the bathroom door clicks shut, then head to my bedroom to dig out some clothes for her. The thought of her in my bathroom, peeling those soaking, clinging clothes from her body is almost too much for me. I ignore the aching in my balls.

Enough. She needs assistance, not a come-on.

I gather the clothes then leave them outside the bathroom door and head to the kitchen.

At this rate, I’m going to need bromide in that tea.