take it very personally.”
There was a point when Ruth would’ve brushed those words away. When she would’ve been uncomfortable at the pure love in his voice, in his eyes, in the way he held her.
But she was used to it now. She was happy with it. And she deserved it.
So instead, she turned her head to kiss him, soft and chaste. Then she said, “You are correct, I suppose. We’re both perfect for each other.”
He smiled. “That sounds about right.”
The End.
Next Up: Laura Burne gets a second chance with her first love… away from Daniel. Keep reading for Damaged Goods.
Or, if you can’t wait for Hannah Kabbah’s nanny vs single dad romance, skip to Untouchable.
Damaged Goods
Ravenswood Book 1.5
For Truly Scrumptious, my blessing.
Content Note
Please be aware: this book contains descriptions of domestic abuse, intimate partner violence, and child abuse that may trigger some readers. Specific warnings below.
Chapter 5: Detailed discussion of child abuse.
Chapter 9: Depiction of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence.
Chapter 12: Gaslighting and internalised misogyny.
Chapter 16: Confrontation with abuser and gaslighting.
Chapter 18: Depiction of childbirth.
1
The stranger arrived on a Saturday night.
Her great, sleek Range Rover rumbled into the seaside village, gleaming like whale skin under the full moon. A young lad walking his dog watched it pass in awe, his jaw slack. Not even during the season, when the middle-classes descended upon Beesley-On-Sea for their summer holidays, had he seen such extravagant rims on a car. And he’d certainly never come across a private plate like that.
BURN3, it read.
The car drove past the astonished youth without pause. Its driver barely saw the boy, just as she’d barely seen the Welcome to Beesley-on-Sea! sign she’d passed five minutes ago. It didn’t matter, though; she knew exactly where she was. Even after all these years, the briny tang of seawater on the breeze made her muscles loosen and her heart rise. By the time she reached her destination, the old beach house, she was grinning like a ninny.
The driver’s name was Laura, and she left her rings in the glovebox.
They were irritating, anyway, you see. The teardrop diamond of her engagement ring always dug into her other fingers. The wedding band was alright—if one forgot the part where it symbolised her legal attachment to the biggest piece of shit on earth. But, she reminded herself, that attachment would soon be dissolved. Thank fuck.
The beach house of Laura’s memory was a grand old thing, but fifteen years later it was simply… well, an old thing. Her father-in-law’s monstrous Range Rover looked ridiculous on the driveway, gleaming smugly beside the house’s battered wood panelling and chipped, white window frames. And yet, in an instant, she loved the beach house quite unreasonably. The car she loved far less, even if it had allowed her madcap escape.
The house keys had been left in the old post-box by the door, because the estate agent overseeing this rent was an older, small-town man. The older, small-town man, Laura knew, was a curious specimen. They tended to lack the proper survival instincts, so they did ridiculous things like… well, like leaving the keys to a house in said house’s post-box and trusting that no-one would steal them.
Thankfully, no-one had. Laura glanced over her shoulder as she fished them out, squinting into the moonlit darkness, searching for potential home invaders. All she saw was leafy isolation across the street and scattered stars lighting up the night. All she heard were the familiar sounds of night creatures hooting and rustling and whispering on the breeze. She could almost pretend she was back home in Ravenswood.
But not quite. There were three key differences, so far, between Ravenswood and Beesley. The first: Ravenswood didn’t have a beach, and thus its breeze lacked the raw, wild, salty scent of Beesley’s. The second: in Ravenswood, she would’ve been secure in the knowledge that her friends—or at the very least, her father-in-law—were within walking distance. The third: she would also have been terrified by the knowledge that her husband was within walking distance.
That last point alone made Beesley far preferable to Ravenswood right now. She hurried into the house.
Its interior was as charmingly faded as its exterior had been, filled with mismatched furniture and outdated appliances. Laura hadn’t brought much with her, so it didn’t take long to unpack. Everything had its place: designer clothes stuffed into the bleached-wood wardrobe, La Mer arranged on the eighties-style tiles of the en-suite’s counter, phone charger plugged in by the dusty-rose divan. She wandered downstairs, stomach growling, and