Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Freya
F reya wasn’t sure when Luke would come to see her, but she was nervous. She had been besotted with him for so long, but now that he was coming home for good, Freya didn’t know if they had a chance to move things along. She saw the looks his brothers gave them. Even Heidi and Erica gave her knowing looks, but Luke had been adamant that they were friends. Freya had dated while he was away. It wasn’t like they’d promised to marry at thirty if they were still single. The last time they’d spent any real time together was before Luke went on the rigs nine years ago. Minds and bodies had changed a lot in that time. Luke was definitely a late bloomer. He was taller and broader the first time he came home from the rigs. Her best friend was no longer the beanpole he once was. He could easily have fitted in with the elite hotties she’d just salivated over .
She felt anxious, like she was going on a first date. Maybe she could be 21 st century and ask him out.
Back in her small but cosy terraced house, Freya dashed upstairs to her sock drawer and pulled out the engagement ring box that Heidi had asked her to look after. It had been months ago her best friend had asked her to take care of it.
Every day Freya would bring it out and slip it on her engagement finger to see how it felt to have an extravagant piece of jewellery on her hand. The diamond sparkled under her side lamp. It was a little too small for her engagement finger, but she shoved it on, regardless. Tilting her hand this way and that, she admired the ring and wondered what would eventually come of it. For five minutes, she allowed herself to dream of getting a proposal with an obscene ring, and then she slipped it off and put it away.
Maybe from Luke.
Watching the men get hot and sweaty at six in the morning had turned her hormones riotous, hoping they might have their last night in the pub once their endurance week was over. She could admire them up close and personal. As she thought about tight abs and buns of steel, she went to pull off the ring, but it wouldn’t budge. The more she yanked on her finger, the more swollen it became.
She ran downstairs and smothered her finger in washing up liquid, but it still wouldn’t come off. Fretting and pacing, she wished she’d had ice in her freezer, but she rarely drank at her place. Heidi took care of the ice for their cocktails.
Heidi.
She would help her.
Freya grabbed her buggy keys off the hook by the door. She picked up her handbag from the side table and headed for the door. Unfortunately, when she swung it open, she wasn’t looking up and walked straight into a wall of male muscle.
“Oomph,” she muttered and then looked up. “Luke,” she said, hugging him tight, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Freya,” he said with a cool voice.
That was not the welcome she was used to when Luke came back to the island. Instead, this was a cold, stony voice that was clearly pissed off. She dropped her arms and stepped back onto her side of the threshold.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she righted her clothing and looked up at his face to see if his voice matched his expression.
It did.
“What in the fuck is that?” he barked, pointing at her hand.
He saw her hand for a split second before she threw her arms around him. How the hell did he see it so quickly? And why was he angry about it?
She went for the obvious. “An engagement ring.”
His eyes widened like I was sassing him, and he had zero patience.
“I can see that. Someone proposed to you?”
Luke said it with so much disdain that she was hurt and immediately angry. How dare he be so shocked someone loved her enough to want to spend the rest of their lives with her? She was lovable, even if Mr Morris hated her existence.
So she lied.
Looping her handbag over her head, she tossed it on her sofa. There was no need to go and see Heidi now. She had a wedding to plan. And a fiancé to make up. She instantly went to the elite men on the lawn.
“Yes, why is that so hard to believe? ”
“Because in all the letters you sent me, you never mentioned a boyfriend, let alone a fiancé. Also, you didn’t have a ring on your finger the last time I was home a few months ago for Jason’s wedding.”
“It was a whirlwind affair,” she offered, shoving her hand in her pocket, ashamed she was pleading her case. “I am lovable, you know,” she said, huffing.
Freya lifted her hand to hook her keys on the nail hammered into the door frame. It paused halfway when Luke said, “You’re entirely lovable. Who is he?”
Wait? What? She was thoroughly confused. But she had already told a lie. She needed to continue it. Freya hoped Luke had forgotten all her tells when she lied.
“No one you know,” she said, hearing her snippiness.
Luke took a step forward, leaned his shoulder on the doorframe and folded his arms. He had an affectionate grin playing around his mouth as he spoke. Was she already busted?
“That’s not hard, Freya. I haven’t been back for any length of time in nine years. So I’d be hard-pressed to recognise more than ten people.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is, Luke Turner,” she said.
Now she felt like she was talking like a ten-year-old.
“Yes, it fucking does, Peaches,” he said, stepping closer, holding her face in his hands. “You’re the closest thing I have to a best friend outside my siblings. No one will be good enough for you. So I want to meet the man who has proposed marriage.”
Peaches. It had been years since she’d heard her nickname. Freya tilted her head to the side, snuggling against his palm, feeling warm everywhere.
“What happens if you don’t approve?” she whispered .
“I’ll talk you out of the marriage. Get some dirt on the guy and then convince you not to marry him.”
He was immediate with his response. Was he being brotherly? Wherever this was coming from, he was possessive.
“You’d do that?”
“Fuck yeah, I would.”
She’d never met this side of Luke. Possessive, protective and all fired up. His hands on her face heated her body in areas she wanted his mouth. Freya couldn’t look away from his mouth. She was supposed to behave like an engaged woman.
“Are you going to let me go?” she said quietly, looking but not moving her head to see who was watching.
Luke stepped back onto the pavement and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “What are you up to?”
Trying to get a ring off my finger that cost half a quarter of a million quid.
“Not much. It’s Saturday. What do you want to do?”
“I have a puzzle that needs solving,” he said and grinned.
They’d spent most of their childhood trying to solve the Turner puzzles. It was what kept them amused until he went off to train as a medic and then onto the rigs.
“There is something unsolved?” she asked.
“Yeah, and I think it is going to reveal something massive. I feel it in my gut.”
“You always say that, and it turns out to be something we could’ve found on the internet.”
Luke gave her a mock shocked face and then pouted. “Where is your sense of adventure?”
“I’m not sixteen anymore,” she replied .
“No, you’re not,” he replied, boring holes into the pocket where her hand was still stuffed.
“All right, when do we start?”
“Are you free on Monday?”
“I work, Luke. I’m a teacher. Did you forget?”
“Are they still in school?”
“Yeah, for like another three months.”
“Shit, well, maybe we can do it in the evenings.”
“Can’t. The head teacher hates me, and I have four weeks of evening classes.”
“What did you do to piss him off?”
“Exist, apparently. The downside of not being married is I get all the evening classes.”
Luke looked thunderous, frown lines marring his handsome face.
“Is that why you’re marrying Bozo?”
“He’s a nice guy,” she argued.
“Is that right?” he asked, giving her an insolent smile.
She was sure she was busted.
“Tonight, come up to Archer and Erica’s place. They’re having dinner to celebrate my return. Jason’s cooking.”
“Okay, what time?”
“Six.”
“I’ll be there,” she said.
“I’ll see you later,” Luke said, not moving an inch. “Why won’t you give me his name?”
“Because it is none of your business. I don’t want you scaring him off.”
“You know I like a puzzle and will stop at nothing to find out who he is. I bet he’s a teacher.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed nervously.
“See you at six, Luke. It’s good to have you home at last.”
Grinning, Luke took a step into the road, got a ring on a bicycle bell for nearly toppling over a cyclist and then walked away.
She had ten hours to get the ring off her finger. Otherwise, Heidi and Jason would take one look at it and reveal she was a big fat liar.
Ten hours later, Heidi slid from the leather seat of the buggy with gloves on. She’d had to rummage through her mother’s gloves to find a suitable pair that enabled her to hold a knife and fork. Or a glass. All her gloves were woolly, and she had to carry everything with two hands. Her mother had elegant gloves in every colour to match her winter coats. Freya imagined her mother could give Cynthia Turner a run for her money in the glove department.
She knocked on Archer and Erica’s front door and kept her hands stuffed in the pockets of her trousers. She wore a loose-fitting pair of white trousers and a baggy blue blouse with cuffs that were too long. If need be, she could hide the ring under the cuffs. So long as she didn’t raise her arm.
Erica opened the door and wrapped her in a big hug. “Come in. We’re all out the back under the heat lamps. It’s unusually warm for March, but I’ve switched them on just in case.”
“Warm, do you think it’s warm?” Freya asked with her best innocent-sounding voice.
“Don’t you think so?”
Freya was almost home free when Erica spotted she was wearing gloves.
“Oh, are you cold? Let me get you a hoodie to wear over your blouse as we’re outside.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine. ”
I’ll roast alive if I wear a hoodie.
“You’re wearing gloves, honey.”
Erica raced away from her up the staircase to her left and was back less than a minute later. Freya pulled on the hoodie, and to her joy, it had a front pouch pocket.
Even better than her pockets and cuffs idea.
“This is great, thank you.”
Freya followed Erica through the kitchen and out into the open back patio area to the assembled group. Luke sat alone on one sofa. Heidi and Jason sat on another couch, and Archer sat on the oversized armchair. Erica went straight to her husband and sat on his lap.
Her only option was to sit next to Luke. She hadn’t thought this through at all. He was going to mention the ring.
He absolutely would mention the ring when he saw her gloves.
Fuckit.
“Hey Freya, did you bring your fiancé tonight?” Luke asked as she sat down next to him.
Shit.
Four versions of what the fuck came her way. Heidi’s was the one that cut the deepest. Freya didn’t know where to look and had the urge to burst out laughing through sheer terror.
“I’ll get you a drink while you show your closest friends your ring,” Luke said.
It was almost like he knew she was lying through her teeth.
He kissed the top of her head as he passed her like he always did. At least some things stayed the same. Luke disappeared out of sight and into the kitchen. Luke knew what she drank, so there were no delaying tactics about what she could drink.
“What the hell?” Heidi hissed. “Show me the damn ring and then tell me why you kept this engagement from your best friend since birth,” she yelled.
Freya could feel her shoulders rise so high that she had no neck left. Pulling her hands out, she was met with a laugh from Erica. “Is that why you’re wearing gloves?”
“Yeah,” she said, feeling sheepish.
Freya pulled off the glove on her left hand and waggled her finger.
“I know that ring,” Erica said.
“Me too,” Archer, Heidi and Jason said at the same time.
“It’s stuck,” Freya whispered. “I tried it on this morning, and it won’t come off. I’ve tried everything. Then Luke rocks up unannounced, and he was so incredulous that someone wants to marry me, I pretended it was real.”
“Who does he think you’re marrying?” Heidi said through her snort laughing. She slapped her chest to stop choking.
“A teacher at school.”
Heidi guffawed before she said, “But all the male teachers are already married.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Freya hissed, checking over her shoulder to see if Luke was coming back.
“This is a movie waiting to be made,” Erica said, leaning forward to get her wine glass.
“I got you a dirty martini. Took a while to find the olives,” Luke said, coming out with a fancy glass with her cocktail.
“Thanks, Luke,” Freya said, taking the drink from his hand.
“Did you show them?” he asked gleefully .
“Yep.”
Freya took a long gulp of her drink. Her wide eyes scanned her friends to see them all stifling their laughter.
“I’m so glad I’m married,” Freya heard Archer mutter, then kissed his wife on her neck.
“And did you spill a name?” Luke inquired.
“Nope. Thanks for letting the cat out of the bag before I could tell Heidi. Real gentlemanly.”
“Aww, sorry, Peaches. I’m really happy for you. It’s something to celebrate,” Luke replied, then paused. “Don’t you think?”
“Well, I’m sure Freya will introduce us to her future husband when she’s good and ready. So stop cajoling her,” Jason said.
“It’s a hell of a ring,” Heidi remarked. “Worthy of the Turner name.”
Freya wanted to kick her best friend in the shin for her comment. If Freya wasn’t in such a state of remembering all the lies so far, she’d laugh.
“Half a mil, I’d say,” Erica commented. “Better never take it off, Freya, so you don’t lose it.”
“That’s a great idea,” Freya said, raising her glass. “Super idea.”
Erica jiggled from her giggling on Archer’s lap. She buried her face in his neck and stifled a howl.
Freya’s heart stopped for a moment. She’d thought it was worth a quarter of a million but double? She was glad it was stuck because she wouldn’t know what the hell she would do if she lost it.
“He must be filthy rich, Peaches. I bet he really knows how to treat you well,” Luke said with so much smugness that she wanted to punch him for the first time.
“What’s for dinner, Jason?” Freya asked.