Bedful of Moonlight - Raven Held (best love novels of all time txt) 📗

such a brat and send him back for –”
“Okay, you know what.” He turned his body so that he was completely facing me. “Pretend I’m Blake for five minutes.”
“What?”
“Humour me. Pretend I’m Blake. Tell me whatever it is you want to tell him.”
I considered this absurd proposal. “Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Okay.” The truth was, when it came down to this, everything was stuck in my throat. I felt it swell and throb, and the tears came running again.
“Say, I’d like to tell you, Blake…”
“I’d like to tell you, Blake,” I repeated, “that first and foremost, I love you. I always will.”
It felt strange telling Caleb that, but he simply nodded and waited for more.
“And I’d eat mango yoghurt everyday if that would bring you back. It’s my fault that you left, and you never deserved such a spoilt girlfriend like me. I wish you were here to rub my hands when I get difficult, or tell me how the week’s almost over even though it might only be Monday, or count cattle with me at night over the phone when either of us can’t sleep.”
“Cattle?”
“He thought sheep were creepy.”
It had gotten easier towards the end. Caleb did not give any other response apart than that.
“That’s all,” I said. “I’m done.”
Caleb only stared. “You’re deifying him. He can’t possibly have no annoying habits that you can’t stand. Bring them all out. Everything you love and hate about him.”
“Well, okay, I can’t stand the fact that you are so unbelievably patient with me all the time,” I said. Then I looked at Caleb, frowning. “Actually, that’s what I can’t stand about you, too.”
“Who, me? What’s wrong with being patient?”
“Nothing,” I said. We sat in silence for a while, and then: “I just miss him so much.”
Caleb nodded. “When my grandmother died, I could tell a piece of grandpa died with her too. He just wasn’t the same anymore. The Old Belle became meaningless to him, so he handed it over to Aunt Belle.”
“What about you?”
He said nothing, and I knew how it was like for him.
“But they’re always there,” he said, with a smile. “At least, that’s what I prefer to believe. It’s one of the reasons why I love the cemetery so much. I like the idea of them being around, the people we once knew, even though we can’t see them anymore.”
“I like that idea, too.”
And with that, I was sobbing my heart out like I never had in the past month. In this too-bright estate with its fresh greenery and neat little rows of white houses and clean lanes, I found myself back to where I was, where I had been so eager to run away from.
Caleb waited, like always, until I was ready. He held my head to his chest, and I could hear the gentle thudding of his heart. When I was done and pulled away, he smoothed the hair out of my face.
“And, you know,” he said after a while, picking up the conversation from where it got cut off by my mortifying bawling, “I don’t know about Blake, but my grandma used to tell me how it’s always the people we meet that determine the value of our lives.”
I nodded. “Blake would subscribe to that.”
“And Blake had met you,” he said, rubbing my arm. “You must have given it value just as he had given yours … just as you’ve given mine. All that value has to be worth not hiding out in your own solitary world.”
There was nothing I knew to say to that, but he looked away quickly, his ears slightly red, so I simply said, “Thank you.” I wanted to say more than that, but some things did not have to be laid out in the open to be heard.
Reilly, Jade and Tate had arrived. They were at the knitwear stall, and as I watched them squeeze through the crowd (Tate not so much), I saw Reilly nudge Jade as she suddenly looked up and spotted us.
Smirking, she made her way towards us. Jade followed suit, unable to close her slack jaw. Behind them, Tate stumbled slightly on a yellow shawl that caught his feet. When he saw us as well, he raised his brows but then got exasperated with the shawl. He foot-wrestled with it and it fell to the ground, almost taking the entire rack down with it. A girl threw him a dirty look as she forestalled the disaster.
I knew how we must have looked, sitting there together, leaning towards each other, his arm almost around me.
Once they reached us, Jade said, “Whoa,” She looked at me, then at Caleb. “What did you do to her?”
Caleb and I exchanged a look, and burst out laughing. For some reason, I couldn’t stop, and neither could he.
The three of them exchanged a look.
There was nothing else to be said, nothing else to clarify or explain. In the end, words were the things that could take you to the edge of the world and reel you back again.
At that moment, it was release I felt within me, even if it was only for a little while. I imagined a space, bright and airy, now taking over the dark place choked up with raw hurt.
And the funny thing was, it all started with a mug.


Twenty-two


“A promise made is a debt unpaid.”
~ Robert Service (English poet and writer, 1874 – 1958)


“It’s written all over your face, so don’t even try to deny it anymore.”
I tried distracting her with a knitted cushion cover. “I like the colour for this one.”
She yanked it out of my hand and bought it. “I knew it, I knew it! And you blatantly told me nothing was going on!”
“I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. I’ll try not to break your brother’s heart, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She laughed. “Hardly,” she said. “It’s scandalous. That’s why it’s a big deal. You guys live in the same house.” After a while, she added, “You know, I didn’t really like you when you first came here.”
“I know.” A middle-aged lady elbowed me out of her way to reach for a cardigan.
“You do?” She shrugged and rubbed her neck. “I’m sorry if I was ever rude to you. I mean, I shouldn’t have listened to what those people said about you. People in Wroughton…”
“That’s okay,” I said.
But then I saw something that made me freeze in my tracks. Okay wasn’t quite the word to use right then, not at all.
Belle was behind the photo frame booth, running her hands through her hair in her usual frazzled manner – except that she was exceptionally so this time.
And I could see why.
Gareth was here. He was here, right in the middle of the marquee, where everyone who knew who he was and was civic-minded enough would pick up the phone and call the police to arrest his unapologetic ass.
“Kristen?”
“What?”
Jade was staring at me, her face half-buried behind a teetering pile of craft fair paraphernalia. “Wow, you sure zone out easily.”
“Sorry. Hey, you know, I’m going to go look for Hyde and Belle. Can you manage?”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll just call Ri.” She tried unsuccessfully to fish out her cellphone. “Give me a hand with this for a sec?”
After getting rid of Jade, I headed over to the photo frame booth, wondering if I should call Caleb or Hyde. But Caleb was with Oliver in the washroom, and Hyde was busy with the crowd at the candles booth. There was no need to alert anyone – yet.
“Belle, come on,” Gareth was saying when I got there. I slid behind a rack a couple of metres away from them. “Just see it as doing me a favour.”
“And why would I want to do that, Gareth?” Despite looking like she was ready to fall apart any minute, Belle’s voice could cut glass.
“You won’t let me work in the bookstore, you won’t even see me, and now you won’t even spare a starving man a dollar?”
“If I remember correctly, you asked for three thousand – in cash. Where do you expect me to get that kind of money? And you know exactly why I don’t want to have anything else to do with you. You should just be glad I’m not handing you over to the police.”
Gareth grinned. “You wouldn’t. Of course you wouldn’t do that, Belle, because that would implicate Caleb. And you’re just not the handing you over to the police sort. I know you.”
“Things have changed, Gareth. I just might.” She made to leave, and I slid back behind the rack. “Now, you should leave.”
“Belle.” When I peered out again, he was gripping onto her hand. His eyes pinned her to where she was.
She levelled her gaze at him. “Let me go. Now.”
“I don’t regret anything I did with you.” His voice had turned soft. “We could go back to the way we were. You don’t have to turn me away like that.”
For a fraction of a second, I could see Belle hesitating, but she said instead, “If there’s one place I don’t ever want to be again, it’s where we were. Anna still isn’t talking to me, and you’ve never been much of a father to Oliver, if you think about it. Hyde has done –”
He glared at her. “Oh, Hyde’s saved me the trouble, is that what you’re saying? Maybe I can’t be there for Oliver because you keep him away from me, and –”
“No, Gareth. You can’t be there for Oliver because for one thing, you were in jail,” she snapped, squirming out of his grip. “And for another, you’re on the run for all the stupid things you did once you got out. You don’t have a single responsible bone in you, never had.”
Gareth tightened his grip on Belle’s arm, and she winced, though she kept her lips pursed.
Okay, maybe it was time to call someone now.
“You can’t hold Caleb as some sort of leverage,” Belle said, trying to wrench her arm out of his steely grip. “Anna doesn’t know yet. Maybe she will now if you don’t let go of me right now.”
He smirked. “And how are you going to tell her when she doesn’t even want to see you? Besides, she’s probably too busy with her new husband’s business to bother about all this petty dealings.” Shaking his head, he said, “Why do you always have to complicate things like that? Just give me the money and I’ll leave quietly. No fuss, no drama. It’s only three thousand bucks, Belle.”
“It’s three thousand dollars that I can use to give the Old Belle a revamp.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” a voice boomed behind me.
I jumped and lost my footing with the rack. The rack fell with a crash, and I tumbled along with it.
When I looked up, Hyde was reaching down to help me up, but he kept his eyes pinned on Gareth. Gareth and Belle reminded me of a pair of lemurs I saw in the zoo once, glassy-eyed with caution and fear.
And then Gareth dropped Belle’s arm and fled.
There was a shout, and Hyde started to give chase.
“Hyde, don’t!” Belle cried as the two men raced around on the field. It was a good thing we were far away from the general crowd, but a couple of old people at the photo frames booth witnessed the action.
“Ooh, here’s a photo frame! Knock him out with it!” a skinny old lady with an explosion of