Let Me Be Your Hope (Music and Letters Series Book 2)

by Lynsey M. Stewart

  Let Me Be Your Hope

  Music & Letters Series: Book 2

  Lynsey M. Stewart

  Edited by

  DUCKMAN PROOFREADING

  ‘Let Me Be Your Hope’

  Music and Letters Series – Book 2

  By: Lynsey M. Stewart.

  Let Me Be Your Hope

  Copyright© 2017 by Lynsey M. Stewart

  All Rights Reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the author of this book. The only exception is brief quotations to be used in book reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, brands, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction that have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing: Duckman Proofreading

  Proofreading: Duckman Proofreading

  Cover design: Taylor Sullivan at Premade Cover Café

  Formatting: Duckman Proofreading

  Contents

  About the Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Lynsey M. Stewart

  About the Book

  Abi Sinclair is a determined social worker and committed party girl. She’s independent, ballsy and living the single girls’ dream. But underneath the bravado and empty one-night stands, she’s hiding a broken heart…

  Jamie Dawson is Abi’s lost love, the only man who ever made her feel alive. When he left Nottingham two years ago to take care of his terminally ill mother, they agreed to communicate only by letter, both believing their love was meant to be.

  One regrettable lie forced them down very different paths.

  One rash decision forced them apart.

  But Jamie is back. And he’s Abi’s new manager. Only he’s a different man—too different.

  Desperate for answers, Abi won’t stop until she uncovers the truth behind Jamie’s two-year absence…

  This novel touches on themes of loss, which may cause upset to some readers.

  This novel contains strong language, mainly from Abi. She can’t help it. Jamie is guilty too, particularly when passion gets the better of him.

  There are also descriptions of sex, therefore this novel is only suitable for 18+

  This is the second book in the Music and Letters series but can be read as a standalone.

  To all the second chancers…be brave.

  Prologue

  Then…

  ‘That right there…’ he said, drawing his finger across my collarbone, ‘is crying out to have my initials stamped across it.’ He leant down and kissed his way across the ridge, causing my skin to twist and twirl, my movements to jerk and shiver. ‘It has to be the sexiest bone I’ve ever seen.’

  I watched him. He had a thin white scar above his right eyebrow. It was straight, but also a little jagged and uneven. Fuck, it was sexy and gorgeous and told me everything about this beautiful man in my arms. He was bold, took risks and lived. He wasn’t afraid of the dark; he welcomed it and all of the adventure it could provide.

  ‘Let me take care of you. No one ever has,’ he said on a faint gasp as I kissed his neck. I didn’t need him to take care of me. I wanted to take care of him. Every single piece.

  I was highly aware of the blood rushing through my body. The normal, subconscious function that kept me alive was now beating my body down to a single shake and quiver. The pulse points throbbed and flickered, causing me to feel faint and highly aroused at the same time in perfect, wonderful sync.

  I held his face in my hands and watched his eyes smile and his jaw flex as he nestled in, burrowing his face into my neck, clashing his mouth against my collarbone. He snuggled in, resting and claiming the space under my ribs so close to my heart. It opened up wide to let him settle and find the spot that would be forever his.

  He made me feel alive in a way no one had ever done before. I felt completely accepted, wonderfully safe and protected. That’s why the hurt was harder than the fall.

  How I found myself saying goodbye to him, I will never fully understand.

  Chapter One

  Abi

  Now.

  There was a mix up at the hospital when I was born. I should have been Adele, lyrical queen of the breakup. So she was three years older than me and the numbers didn’t quite work, but every one of her albums was the soundtrack of my life. It was like she had a telescope peering into my fuck-ups as her own brand of inspiration for the next album of tearjerkers and haunting songs of lost love and broken hearts.

  In my personal life, I was winging it, but in work, I had found my calling. It was the only place I knew what the fuck I was doing. I qualified as a social worker three years ago and loved it. I wasn’t the type of person who knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life the moment I entered the world. I didn’t even know my calling when the final bell rang at secondary school. I left when I had just turned sixteen, a summer baby, and waited for my dream job to find me. While waiting, I fell into tedious job after tedious job, and when I hit eighteen, I was sure that I had already worked hard enough to earn my pension and made enough tax contributions to build a whole housing estate and grit the winter roads.

  Working various factory jobs meant absolutely nothing to me. They only helped to layer my devil-may-care attitude. After a short stint making pork pies, I left after witnessing a bloke casually push a scampering rat into a vat of pig meat. This turned me flexitarian and made me realise a dream job wouldn’t just turn up and knock on my door.

  I guess I was steered towards social work. And thank God I was because two weeks into packing socks for a well-known clothing store, I honestly tho
ught I was going to die of boredom. I had visions of the night manager finding me under a pile of argyles and slipper socks, an empty bottle of whiskey at my side proving I needed a pick-me-up to continue the count.

  I lived for meeting new people and learning things about them, accepting their fuck-ups and dramas, but guiding them in a different direction. Social work just clicked for me. As did Elle, my best friend, my guiding light and partner in crime. We trained together, shared the same placement, and were now working in the same child protection team.

  Elle and I were polar opposites from the moment we entered the world. She was born without complications and was lovingly placed on her mother’s chest as her father wrapped his arms around them and welcomed their beautiful new baby into their family. I, on the other hand, was born by emergency caesarean, kicking and screaming with an unconscious mother and a father who didn’t know a baby’s arse from its elbow. I was a whirlwind child. I loved the water and was only happy when I was in a pool or a bath. Elle’s mum always described her as a quiet, lost in her own anxiety kind of child. She was always thoughtful, pensive and watchful, but I was a storm in a broom cupboard waiting for my next adventure.

  Elle went on to achieve more than she thought she was capable of because she worked her arse off through university. My pass was a complete fluke because my views were simple: If I could do the direct work, care about the well-being of the children and their families and keep that central to my practice, writing an essay about social theory was pretty fucking secondary.

  Our views on love were different too. Elle wanted the fairy-tale that was imprinted from the books her parents read to her every night at bedtime. I’d seen nothing of those Prince Charming characters, no kisses to wake you up after falling into a deep sleep, and no promises to live happily ever after. I didn’t learn my stereotypes from fairy-tales; I saw first hand that love had the capacity to build you up but then knock you down just as fast.

  Glancing at the clock after hearing the intercom buzz, I picked up the phone and pressed the button to open the main door. A minute later, I heard a knock and launched towards it with a sock skid. ‘Hey roomy,’ I said, flinging my arms out as I answered the door to a large cardboard box with Elle standing behind it, her blonde hair curving round the sharp edge of the box. Another cube of cardboard walked across the landing and Ben, her boyfriend, peeked out from behind it.

  ‘Oh my God! Roomy! This is so exciting!’ she squealed, dropping the box to the floor and clambering over it to give me a hug.

  ‘Hey, Abi.’ Ben was used to us. They had been seeing each other for a few months and I took credit for their somewhat insta-love connection after I’d talked her into signing up to a dating website. Totally out of character and thoroughly ballsy for her.

  ‘Ben, my honey bun,’ I called. He was easy to tease, so I was rewarded with a heavy blush. ‘We’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other now Elle’s moving in. Ground rule number one: You can stay, but keep the noise down. Ground rule number two: I don’t want to wake up to find you naked in my kitchen. From Elle’s description, you’re blessed, and depending on my mood, I don’t want to be thinking about it all day or dry heaving at my desk.’

  ‘OK,’ he smiled hesitantly, still unsure of how to take me.

  ‘Take no notice. Come on, let’s get settled in,’ Elle said, lovingly stroking her hand down his arm as I ignored her.

  ‘Ground rule number three: If you eat it, replace it. If you follow the rules to the letter, we’ll be fine.’

  I took her through to the recently renamed spare bedroom, previously known as the dumping ground. I cleared so much shit out of it when she agreed to move in and I was sure I had done my back in carrying an old mattress down the stairs.

  It was a tiny box room, but anyone would think I’d offered her a suite in Buckingham Palace. I was looking forward to sharing again. Although it pained me to admit, I was feeling the stirrings of loneliness, usually starting at around 9:00 p.m. every weeknight, the early hours of Saturday mornings, and pretty much all day Sunday.

  ‘You don’t have much with you,’ I said as I watched her unpack the two boxes.

  Ben laughed. ‘You should see what she’s left behind.’

  ‘I need to clear it all out. My parents want to turn my old room into a gym. What a cliché,’ she laughed. ‘I’m really grateful for the room, but I’m not going to fit much in it, so I have to be selective.’

  ‘Very,’ Ben said, raising his eyebrows as he pulled six designer handbags from the cardboard box at his feet.

  I smiled as I leaned against the doorframe. I was an only child and had craved the company of others for as long as I could remember. My mum was wild and unpredictable. She lived life to the full, pushing limits and shaking the world around her. Selfish was a word I used to describe her, especially during my teenage years. Now I look back and see a damaged woman lost to her grief and desperately trying to cling on to the good.

  Dad died when I was eight. I was the textbook example of complicated grief. I loved him as a daughter loved her father, the unconditional love for a parent written in the small print after the sperm chases its way to the egg and makes a life; a love so often taken for granted and misunderstood, especially when a father fucks it up. With that love, came hate. I was often on the end of his temper, fuelled by the alcohol that would eventually poison his system. For a long time after he died, I felt numb. I told my grief counsellor that I felt nothing for my dad, but that wasn’t entirely true. I actually felt a heap of guilt for feeling nothing.

  Mum remarried three times. All colossal cock-knockers. All out for themselves and couldn’t give a flying fuck about the daughter because of her filthy mouth and bad attitude. I usually ignored them or lashed out. They hated me, which was fine because I hated them with ten times more passion and grit. Teenage angst and a hormonal mother struggling with grief and a growing alcohol dependency did not make a happy home. She blamed me when her marriages broke down, and I blamed her for being a shit mum. Cut to now—two years of grief counselling, a three-year social work degree, and working with families who really were in the shit had helped our relationship immensely. Officially, I was still flat sharing with my mum. We moved in when I was nineteen, just before I started my degree. She paid the rent but rarely stayed over, preferring the company of her man of the month—Eric with the man bun who was far too unattractive to get away with; he was young enough to be her son but they were around the same mental age. Mum was bold, ballsy, and everyone’s best friend. She took no prisoners and didn’t suffer fools gladly, but she had a heart of gold.

  The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

  My couldn’t give a fuck attitude was inherited directly from my mum. I was always a free spirit and hated being tied down to her constant stream of husbands, boy toys and evening entertainment.

  Moving in to a flat that was essentially mine wedged my feet on the ground and collected up my ego and wildness in one swoop, encouraging me to be more responsible and allowing me the freedom to settle.

  ‘I’ve got you a present to say thank you for letting me move in.’ Breaking my thoughts but keeping the smile on my face, Elle held out a gift bag. I unwrapped the tissue paper, crinkling it apart to reveal a small, spotty teapot with the words tea solves everything across the belly. She knew I collected pottery. I loved bold designs and mismatched patterns. I also had a mug collection covered in expletives. Coffee tastes better in a mug emblazoned with the words fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck.

  ‘I love you. Do you know that? This is amazing. Thank you.’

  ‘I wanted to carry on the tradition. We’ve drank enough tea, coffee and hot chocolate to solve our problems over the years.’

  ‘And wine. Don’t forget wine,’ I laughed.

  ‘Well, maybe we can tip a bottle in if things get really bad,’ she replied.

  ‘Not going there. We’ve only got good times ahead of us. I can feel it.’

  Chapter Two

  Jamie
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  Now.

  Noise. Chatter. Fucking laughter. I didn’t need to hear it, and I didn’t need to be there. I was nursing a beer. The once cold beverage of choice was now warm after my hands evaporated the beads of condensation around the glass. I wondered if I could be poisoned from a beer that had hit room temperature thirty minutes ago. Maybe if it made my guts roll, it would delay the journey home by another hour.

  ‘Mate! What the hell? In here again?’ A firm grasp on my shoulder made me jump. ‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’

  ‘Funny. How’s your life? Obviously not great or you wouldn’t be in here either.’ I eyed him from behind my shoulder and gave him a wry smile.

  ‘You know me too well,’ Mark laughed as he pulled a bar stool over, clanking me on the knee.

  ‘Fuck me. I was fine until you rolled in,’ I said, circling my palm to reduce the sting. Mark was gigantic. A man-mountain rugby stereotype. His trademarks were cauliflower ears and a wonky nose moulded by a sharp elbow on the field. He normally wore a rugby shirt and jeans, and you could hear him before you saw him. Loud didn’t cover it. We met fourteen years ago when we both started uni, unsure and fucking terrified to be sitting amongst a plethora of confident women and very few men on a social work degree course. He took the loud, obnoxious route, and I took the isn’t he sweet and adorable? route. I quickly realised that women loved a shy but funny guy, and before long, I was batting them off with my Social Work Theory and Methods textbook.