Blurb:
The
world could use a lot more love, which is why being united in love is the theme
of this short story collection. Each of the characters are dealing with
horrific and heartbreaking situations—loss, grief, war, divorce, dementia,
disputes over land and more, but what they all have in common is that, with the
help of love, of unity, they come through. It may not be all happily-ever-after—since
life just doesn’t work that way—but positivity and solidarity shine through in
each of the tales and will warm your heart.
So
enjoy these stories of unexpected companionship, old lovers reuniting, second
chances and creative problem-solving, with the knowledge that the proceeds from
your purchase will also have a deeply positive effect—with every penny going to
the British Red Cross’s UK Solidarity Fund.
Featuring
stories from Gina Wynn, Lily Harlem, Rebecca Chase, Rosie Jamieson, Skye
MacKinnon, M H Heyer, Alyssa Drake, Arizona Tape and Lucy Felthouse.
Available from:
Excerpt from What’s Past is Present
by Gina Wynn
Connie always believed she’d know
it was summer when the rain got warmer. And that meant summer was today.
She ran along the pavement, trying
to dodge the drops as they fell in big splats on her bare arms like sloppy
kisses, hunching as she attempted to shield the package of fish and chips she
carried. The aroma of the hot food and warm paper tickled her nose, and she
could almost taste the contents. Declan would be lucky if she arrived back with
anything more than soggy, empty wrappings at this rate.
Picking up her pace as the smell of
rain-splashed tarmac filled the air, she hurried the rest of the way back to
the house. His house. She shook her
head. It would take a while to see the house as anything but Mr Pearce’s
place—an adjustment it felt like she’d only just made. Now, it was Dec’s. Just
Dec’s. In her head, it’d only just stopped being his place where he lived with
his dad. Glancing at the windows in hopes of glimpsing him inside as she walked
past had been a habit for a very long time.
When her doorbell had rung the
previous night, she hadn’t expected to find a very crumpled, travel-weary Dec
in the dingy entryway to her bedsit. In fact, he was probably the last person
she hoped to ever find gracing the stoop of what she not-quite-laughingly
referred to as her hovel.
She’d barely had chance to move, or
slam the door in his definitely unwelcome face, before he wrapped his arms
around her, folding her into a perfect bear hug of long-ago familiarity. Caught
off-guard and unprepared to see him, she rested her cheek against the soft
brushed cotton of his shirt, listening to his heartbeat, as his fingers splayed
over her cheek, and she pretended not to notice the rough gasps of air he drew
or the silent tears landing in her hair. Her chest hollowed, her heart breaking
both for him and over him anew, and a lone teardrop of her own slid noiselessly
down her nose.
Of course, she’d promised to help
him today because she could never deny him anything, even though she’d spent
the past five years regretting him. Getting over him. The bastard. She’d never stopped loving him.
Five years had crept by in a lazy
blink of his beautiful brown eyes. And now, in the place where she’d spent so
many of her stolen days and illicit nights, she could almost imagine the clocks
had rolled back and he’d never left. She’d certainly wished for it enough
times.
Short of pressing the doorbell with
her nose she had no way to attract his attention, so she pushed on the door
handle with her elbow and shouldered her way through the unlocked door into the
narrow hall. The same worn carpet, lending a musty smell to the house these
days, ran straight ahead to the kitchen and up the stairs. She walked towards
the kitchen, ignoring the grime of a house where the owner hadn’t cared as much
for the fabric of the building over the years as he did the family members
within it. Framed portraits and holiday snapshots of Dec and his dad lined the
walls, but she brushed past each of them. She could describe the position and
content of each—perhaps accurately pinpoint the date of a few if she appeared
on Mastermind with ‘The early life of
Declan Pearce’ as her specialist subject.
But as she turned to push through
the door into the next room, she caught sight of some new pictures and
swallowed down a mixture of envy and bitterness at the juxtaposition of
Declan’s life before and after—the part where he’d moved on without her. Even
after Dec left, his dad must have continued to hang pictures of him because
there he was, framed with as much care as anything that gone before.
Dec in an office of black leather
and gleaming chrome—a vista of New York spread like a map through the huge
picture window behind him; Dec beside an aeroplane bearing his name—sunglasses
on, wide grin in place, and a suit that must have been expensive but one he
wore without effort and made it look
good.
Dec behind a podium.
Dec in an apartment so swish she’d
have believed someone had Photoshopped him into it if she didn’t know better.
Dec…
Dec… Dec. Just him.
Her gaze skimmed the remainder of
the newest frames, and her thoughts stalled. She leant closer. No. They weren’t photographs. They were
pictures that had been cut with great care from glossy magazines and newspaper
articles, as if someone was reduced to simply scrapbooking a loved one’s life
rather than being part of it.
Regret flashed through her. It
didn’t show the future—the life together— she and Dec had planned in all those
late nights that somehow turned into seeing the dawn. If she was honest, it
didn’t show any sort of life she’d ever imagined for anyone she knew, let alone
someone she loved. And especially not for Dec. She’d always believed they were
the same type of person. But maybe not now she could see his life through
someone else’s eyes.
She shrugged, trying to throw off
her sudden melancholy. The fish and chips wouldn’t eat themselves.
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