One Day (A Valentine Short Story) (8 page)

I swear I’ve never felt worse than that moment in the car park watching you drive away, knowing I didn’t know anything about you but your name. Not even a surname. Just Hazel.

Do you know how many Hazels live in Scotland? A lot. A depressing amount of Hazels, and very little hope of finding the one that I wanted. Watching you go, feeling desperate and powerless, it made me realize that I don’t give a damn if this is crazy. I don’t. I even watched Dharma & Greg. It was funny. I liked it. I got it.

Do you get it? Did you fall as hard as me?

If you did, I want you to meet me at the pub we spent the night together. Meet me there May 16th at 3PM.

I miss you every day. Liam.” Shona turned to face me, her eyes tracking the tears running down my face. “Who the hell is Liam? What did I miss?”

Instead of answering her I threw my arms around her and she immediately caught me. I cried into her shoulder as she hushed me gently, and finally when I managed to calm myself she let me go. I swiped at my wet cheeks with a trembling hand. “Fucking Valentine’s Day,” I laughed through a sob.

She frowned at me in concern. “What?”

“I met a man on Valentine’s Day. I fell in love.”

“In a day?” she said incredulously.

I nodded. “In a day.”

For a moment my friend stared at me like I was a loon, and then finally she sighed. “Are you sure you both weren’t just really, really drunk?”

Knowing she’d never understand without my telling the whole story I started from the beginning; from the moment he caught me with my underwear down in the woods, to my speeding away from him without giving him a bloody chance to explain.

By the end of my tale, she was staring at me in amazement. “That is the most fantastically fucking romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to go, right?” she snatched up the magazine and waved at me. “You have to!”

I laughed at her sudden turnabout. “Yes, I’m going.”

She squealed and bounced up and down like a kid. “Oh my God, oh my God! What date did he say again?”

“The 16th,” I hurried over to my phone, “Which is—”

“Today! Fucking Today!” Shona cried.

I whirled around, realizing she was right. “Fuck.”

“Okay, what time is it?” She glanced at the digital time on the oven. “Okay. It’s eleven o’ clock. Plenty of time.”

“The pub is in Fort William. As in over three hours away! I’ll need to borrow your car. And I need to shower. I can’t turn up all sweaty and icky. Ahh!” I rushed by her, thundering upstairs.

“You’ll make it!” she cried up after me. “You have to bloody make it! I’m invested in this now! If you don’t make it, I’ll kick your arse!”

Since she was a black belt in Taekwondo, I had no doubt Shona could do just that.

I’d never showered faster in my life.

***

The whole way up to Fort William I had to coach myself to stop speeding. Every now and then my foot would take on a life of its own and I’d check the speedometer on Shona’s Golf and see I was ten miles above the limit.

My brain was whirring the entire time.

I kept lecturing myself about how mad this all was, and then my heart would tell my head to fuck off as it remembered the way Liam had made me feel. One day. Just one day. But he had made me feel more interesting, more at peace, and more safe than anyone I’d ever met.

And the sex.

“Oh the sex,” I moaned, just remembering.

I had gotten through many a vibrator-induced orgasm remembering the details of that night over the past few months.

And his letter!

My God, how romantic was that?

But Lola… I had a mind to kill Lola! I could understand my editor refusing to pass on a message to me because he was crusty old git who was extremely pissed off at me for leaving the magazine. But Lola! She could have just sent me Liam’s letter rather than waiting until publication day. The day I was supposed to bloody well meet him! For all she knew we met in a pub in Istan-fucking-bul!

“Advice columnists,” I huffed. “All about the drama.”

Gravel kicked up under the wheels of Shona’s car as I whizzed into the car park at the pub at five minutes to three. Not wanting to look like I’d dashed up to Fort William like a maniac, I got out of the car with a casualness I did not feel. In fact I very much felt like a little girl at Disney World. Like one who had spotted her favorite Disney Princess but whose mother wouldn’t let go of her hand, so rather than running and throwing herself at the princess, she had to walk at the agonizingly sedate pace her mother had set.

My legs felt a little wobbly as I walked in my low-heeled boots across the car park and into the cozy pub. I gave the bartender a tremulous smile as I walked into the barroom, and then swept the space for Liam.

He wasn’t there.

My heart fell.

What the…?

Glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner it read ten minutes to three.

Okay.

Shona’s car clock was fast. I was early.

“Can I get you anything?” the bartender called to me.

“Soda water and lime, please,” I said, needing to be completely sober for this moment.

“Grab a seat, I’ll bring it over.”

I nodded my thanks and took my shaking legs over to a table by a window that faced the car park. I wanted to be able to see Liam arriving so I could ready myself.

That thought made me snort to myself.

How could I possibly prepare myself?

I smiled my thanks at the bartender as he put my drink on the table and left.

Not only was I excited at the prospect of seeing Liam again I was also terrified. What if that one day we’d spent together had become so mythical that it didn’t live up to the actual reality of being with him?

And if we did decide to be together, how were we going to work it all out? He lived outside Aberdeen. I lived in Glasgow.

You could live anywhere.

I tried to ignore that insistent thought. It would be insane to move to Aberdeenshire to be with a man I’d known a day.

But you want to.

I did.

Oh hell, I was so screwed.

“I hoped you’d come.”

I froze, every little hair on my arm rising at the sound of his voice behind me. Turning to look, I stared up at Liam Brody as he walked around the table and took the seat opposite me. Those gorgeous green eyes of his never left my face as he did.

My God, he was even more handsome than I remembered.

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he said softly. “I forgot just how beautiful.”

I smiled, stupid, girly tears pricking the corners of my eyes.

“There they are,” he grinned back. “Those dimples.”

“These?” I pointed to them, teasing.

He nodded and let out a long, shaky exhale. “I was worried. Really worried. I thought you might not see the letter.”

“I did. This morning. I may have broken the speed limit a couple of times getting here.”

He laughed, and that warm ache, that ache only he could make me feel, suffused my chest. For what felt like minutes but was perhaps only seconds, we just sat there, staring at one another, drinking each other in.

“There were moments over the last few months that I wondered if you were real.”

I nodded. “I had those moments.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” My smile faltered a little. “But… Fiona?”

Liam sighed. “I went home and I broke it off with her for good. That was my intention all along. Even before we met. I couldn’t be with someone that betrayed me. And I realized that if I could meet a woman and fall harder for her than anyone in just one day, then what I had with Fiona wasn’t the real thing anyway.”

“I fell for you, too.” I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine, delighting in the feel of him. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you explain. I just… I just didn’t want you to see how much it would hurt when you told me you were sorry but you were going home to your fiancé.”

“I realized that was what was probably in your head.” He clasped my hand tightly in his.

Laughter bubbled past my lips as excitement and fear mingled inside me. “We’re crazy. Everyone is going to think we’re crazy.”

He leaned over the table toward me. “Fuck everyone else. And anyway,” he suddenly stood up, tugging gently on my hand so I had no choice but to stand up. He pulled me into his body, and I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. I’d forgotten how bloody tall he was. Brushing my hair back from my face, Liam cupped my cheek in his palm and leaned down to murmur against my lips, “What a great story to tell our grandkids.”

I laughed at his outrageous romanticism, secretly loving it, and relaxed as I let myself give into this madness. “What? That their grandfather caught their grandmother with her knickers down in the woods?”

My body shook against his as he laughed. “Great fucking story. For the rest of my years I will not forget the sight of your cute little ass running away from me in those woods.”

I snuggled closer, wrapping my arms around him. “So what now?”

“One day at a time. Together.” He kissed me softly, but I felt the bite of his hunger in his grip on my waist, hunger he was holding back because we were in public.

“Let’s get a room,” I whispered.

His eyes darkened. “I already did.”

I smirked. “Well that was awfully presumptuous of you.”

He patted my arse playfully. “Awfully.”

Without any fight at all, I let him lead me out of the barroom and upstairs.

“And just think,” he murmured, his hands roaming over my body as if he couldn’t help himself. “Our anniversary will be on Fucking Valentine’s Day. Suddenly your name for it has taken on a whole new meaning.”

I shivered in anticipation at the sexy promises in his eyes. “In that case, let’s make every day Fucking Valentine’s Day.”

Liam slammed the door shut behind us and then started guiding me toward the bed. “I’m planning on it.”

I would never advise any woman to invite a strange man that caught them with their knickers around their ankles in the woods into their camper van. Or follow him around for the day.

Unless of course he’s Liam Brody ;)

 
Other Contemporary Novels by Samantha Young

On Dublin Street Series:

On Dublin Street

Down London Road

Until Fountain Bridge (a novella)

Before Jamaica Lane

Castle Hill (a novella)

Fall From India Place

Echoes of Scotland Street

Moonlight On Nightingale Way

One King’s Way (a novella)

Valentine (a novella)

Standalone

Hero

Into the Deep Series

Into the Deep

Out of the Shallows

Young Adult Urban Fantasy titles by Samantha Young

The Tale of Lunarmorte Trilogy:

Moon Spell

River Cast

Blood Solstice

Warriors of Ankh Trilogy:

Blood Will Tell

Blood Past

Shades of Blood

Fire Spirits Series:

Smokeless Fire

Scorched Skies

Borrowed Ember

Darkness, Kindled

Other titles by Samantha Young

Slumber

Drip Drop Teardrop, a novella

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