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“Dave, I—”
“Gotta go, son,” he said, slapping his shoulder. “I’m needed inside. But I trust you’ll do the right thing, yeah?” And then the sneaky old bugger slipped back inside the pub, leaving Ollie to deal with Mia.
Mia, who was drunk.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, then dropped his head back and stared up at the night sky, silently praying for patience, because if there was one thing Oliver loathed, it was dealing with drunk people.
People with lowered inhibitions and a heightened sense of not giving a fuck. People who did and said things they would never remember while he was stuck with a head full of memories playing on an endless loop at the back of his mind in vivid fucking Technicolour.
“I never wanted you. I certainly never loved you. You were nothing more than a blip on my radar.”
A loop he could never quite drown out, no matter how hard he tried.
He needed a distraction before the loop could snag on a particularly unpleasant thorn. And he’d never found anyone more distracting than Mia Caldwell.
Anchoring his hands on his hips, Oliver shifted his gaze to follow Mia as she continued poking around the edges of the garden beds. She looked so different from the girl he’d known. So worn around the edges. The baggy clothing didn’t help, nor the way her hair hung limp around her face and neck, and maybe it was just the dim yellow glow cast by the light above the loading bay, but she looked much older than her thirty-five years.
This woman wasn’t his Mia.
This woman was a stranger.
Oliver sighed quietly and shook his head. His Mia or not, she still needed help.
“What exactly do you think you’ve lost?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, as though she’d forgotten he was there and was startled at the reminder she wasn’t alone. She frowned. “My flask. I just had it.”
Patience.“I think you’ve had enough for one night, don’t you?”
That made her look at him. For the first time since he’d gone out there, she stopped hiding behind that bloody hoodie and finally looked directly at him.
Scowled at him was more appropriate. “I am not drunk!” Ollie raised one brow and continued staring at her until she lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Okay, fine. I’m a little bit tipsy,” she conceded with a wave of her hand. “But I need my flask. I must’ve dropped it when I fell, so it has to be here somewhere.”
“You don’t need it, Mia.”
She stilled for a moment, then continued searching. “It was Dad’s,” she said quietly.
Casting a quick glance around them, Oliver couldn’t see the flask anywhere obvious, which meant it probably was in the garden somewhere, hidden within the lush tropical foliage. It wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “We can come back tomorrow and look for it then.”
“No. What if someone steals it?”
“This is Melville’s Cross, sweetling. No one would dare steal your dad’s flask.”
“No one local,” she grumbled. “I’m not worried about the locals.”
She had a point. Unlike the Bennett family, the Caldwell family was well respected in their tiny town. No one would dare steal the late colonel’s flask. But there were plenty of outsiders in town who wouldn’t know the significance of the flask or what it meant to Mia, and while Ollie always sought out the best in people and hoped whoever found it would turn it in, he was all too aware of the worst in people too. He knew it was possible some wanker would find the family keepsake and pocket it without a second thought.
“How about this? I’ll come back and find it after I take you home, okay?”
Mia stared up at him, her eyes glistening in the dull light. “Really?”
Was it really so surprising that someone would do something nice for her? Or was it just because it was him making the offer? Either way, he nodded. “Really, really.”
A small smile preceded an even smaller exhalation of breath, one of relief, if he had to guess. “Thanks, Ollie. You’re a good friend.”
Restraining the urge to snort, Oliver helped Mia over to the milk crates again, flipped one over, and eased her down onto it. “I have to say goodnight to someone, and then we’ll go. Will you be okay for a minute?”
“I’m not an invalid,” she snapped, suddenly scowling again. “I’ll be fine.”
