Harry got very little done that afternoon. Mostly he just sat at the table by the window in the kitchen, staring across the lane at Ruth's little cottage, thinking about how he'd ruined things between them. She had been trying to tell him something, he was sure of it, but as always he was no good where emotional things were concerned, and he'd managed to destroy whatever it was that had blossomed between them in the storeroom.

Stupid man, he thought.

He didn't know what time Ruth usually came home from work; somewhat improbably, he hadn't seen her anywhere in the nearly five weeks he'd been here, except at the shop. He hadn't allowed himself to spend too much time looking for her at home before now, certain that if he contemplated the reality of her going about the business of her life so close to him he might well go mad. Now, though, he couldn't take his eyes away from the hedgerow where he'd first met her.

On his way out of town he'd stopped by the supermarket, and wheedled Ros's mobile number out of Jo. It hadn't taken that much work on his part, to be honest; Jo was the one who'd seen George entering the shop, who'd called Ros in the first place and alerted her to his presence. Jo had seen Ros and Harry walk into the shop, and she had seen Ros walk out again, alone. The young woman had reached her own conclusions about what that meant, and despite Harry giving her a rather brilliant excuse, she seemed to know exactly what he was after. He was staring at the slip of paper she'd scribbled the number on, considering his next move. It would be nice to have someone to talk to about all this, and despite her acerbic and deeply untrusting nature, it seemed that Ros knew more about the whole situation than anyone else. And it would be nice to talk to her about it, policeman to policeman, as it were.

He sighed, took a very large sip of scotch, and called her.

Ros answered before the second ring.

"I was wondering when this call would come," she said bluntly, and despite the dreadfulness of everything that had happened that morning, Harry had to smile at her opening line, just a little. "Jo told me you asked for my number."

"I was wondering if we could have a little talk."

"Harry, I know you….care about Ruth," Ros said, pronouncing those last words as if the entire concept was something she found deeply distasteful, "but what you have to understand about Ruth is, she's had a really hard time of it. Not just with George. With her parents, and her brother, and everything. She doesn't want any trouble. I've been trying to get her to report him for years but she won't do it. She doesn't want the ugliness of a trial."

Harry sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "We can't just let him get away with this, Ros."

She laughed harshly. "Do you think I like this, Harry? For God's sake, Ruth and I were at school together. I was a bridesmaid in her bloody wedding. We've got no proof. She'll go to her grave saying she fell and hating us both for trying to spoil her life over it."

Harry stared dumbly down at the table. Ros was a bridesmaid in Ruth's wedding? He couldn't quite picture it somehow, the pair of them laughing together and smiling and wearing pretty dresses. It seemed so out of place, given the palpable animosity he'd noticed between them in the shop the other day.

He really didn't know anything about her at all.

"I'm afraid I've made a real mess of things, Ros," he said quietly. He wasn't sure why he was telling her this, and he could tell from the incredulous silence that followed his statement that she wasn't sure why, either.

"I'm not sure why you think this has anything to do with you," Ros said eventually, "but if you think you've done something wrong, then you need to apologize to her. Women like that."

"I'll…take that under advisement, Ros," Harry said, smiling faintly again. She was harsh, and not very personable, but somehow speaking to Ros made him feel a bit better about the whole thing. "About George-"

"If you see him again, do me a favor, Harry. Make him hit you, instead. That way we'll have a complaining witness."

That was one solution to the problem, at least. "I'll do my best. Thank you, Ros."

"Have a good night, Harry," she said, and without waiting for an answer, she hung up.


Somehow Harry resisted the urge to barge right up to Ruth's door and demand to speak with her the moment he saw her come home. Instead he watched the lights flick on inside and, satisfied that she was home safe and sound, he set about making himself something to eat. He had determined to follow Ros's advice, and apologize to Ruth the very next morning. He had also resolved to ask her to have a meal with him, bugger the bad timing and all. Dwelling on her possible response left him apprehensive, to say the least, but he was no longer content to pretend that he wasn't interested in anything more than a casual acquaintance with Ruth. He wanted to know her; wanted to know how she liked her tea, and where she had gone to university, and how she felt about pop music and Jane Austen and Charlie Chaplin films, he wanted to know if she sang in the shower and what she looked like when she came and if she'd stay and let him make her breakfast the next morning. He wanted everything, and he felt the time had come to let her know it.


The next morning, Zoe at the café gave him his breakfast for free. When he tried to insist that he pay for it, she simply shook her head. "Everyone knows," she said, leaning towards him and whispering conspiratorially. "About what happened yesterday. It's good that you were there for her. Just say thank you, and make sure you pay tomorrow," she added with a smile. Harry stared at her dumbfounded for a moment, still clutching a wad of bills in his hand, but finally his brain caught up with him.

"Thank you," he said, tucking the money back in his wallet.

"Have a good day, Harry," Zoe said warmly.

"And you," he said, turning on his heel to make his way out into the morning sunlight.

By the time he reached Something Wonderful, Ruth was nowhere in sight, but the front door was propped open and the shelves out front were bursting with bright flowers. He stepped inside the shop, butterflies fluttering in his stomach in a way they hadn't since he was a boy. Harry Pearce had never had any difficulty asking a woman on a date, but Ruth wasn't just any woman, and he found he was actually quite nervous.

He found her behind the counter, and though she didn't look up as he approached, she did sigh and slump her shoulders in a manner that seemed to indicate she knew exactly who had just entered her shop.

"Good morning, Ruth," he said, keeping his voice low and warm, willing her to look at him.

She didn't. "I've got a lot on today, Harry," she said, not raising her gaze from the countertop. "I don't have time to do… this, just now."

"I just came by to say I'm sorry, for yesterday."

That got her attention. She straightened slightly as her eyes snapped up to his face and her fingers tightened around the stack of roses she was holding. Harry noted with some relief that she was wearing a pair of faded leather work gloves; he hadn't forgotten the sight of her bloody hands the day before. The cut on her lip was still plainly visible, but the mark on her cheek had faded, barely noticeable beneath her makeup and her natural, nearly permanent blush.

"I think I may have given you the wrong impression of…my intentions, such as they are." The words felt stilted and wrong, even as he said them, but he couldn't come up with any other way to phrase it. The corner of her mouth ticked up in an almost-smile, and that gave him hope. "To be perfectly honest, I came round the shop yesterday with the sole purpose of…of," he stuttered a little, and he could hardly believe how poorly he was handling this, but he had to soldier on, and so he continued in a rush, "of asking you if you would like to have dinner with me, sometime."

All traces of that almost-smile vanished, only to be replaced by an expression that could best be described as thunderous.

"Harry, I told you yesterday, I don't like pity," she said sharply, turning her attention back to the roses and a small, very dangerous looking pair of pruning shears on the counter before her.

"For God's sake Ruth, don't be such a stubborn old mule."

He regretted it the instant the words left his lips, but to his surprise, and his delight, she dropped the shears with a clatter and stared at him, smiling in an adorably outraged sort of way.

"Mule?" she repeated incredulously.

"Ruth, I would like, very much, to have dinner with you, and I've been waiting for weeks to ask you, and I most certainly do not pity you."

"Oh," she said faintly, her ire disappearing as she looked at him, really looked at him, and seemed to see for the first time that he was completely serious. "Oh," she said again, softer this time. She stared at her hands, gloved fingers twisting and twisting around the stems of the roses.

How long was one supposed to wait for an answer in this sort of situation? He didn't want to pressure her, but he desperately wanted an answer.

"Ruth," he ventured nervously, uncertain if now was the time to press, but she rewarded him with a timid smile.

"I'd love to, Harry," she told him.

He beamed at her. "That's good," he said, a bit lamely.

"I do have one request, though," she said, still fiddling absently with the roses.

"What's that?" he asked, feeling the nerves return. She'd finally said yes, he was finally going to spend time with her outside the shop, away from everything, but he couldn't help but worry about what she was going to say next.

"I'd love to have dinner with you, but, please, just not in the village. Everyone here always knows what everyone else is doing and I absolutely hate it. I hate the gossip."

Harry made a mental note to never, ever tell her about the free breakfast Zoe had given him.

"I have been known to cook, Ruth," he said before he could think better of it, and he groaned inwardly as he saw her raise an eyebrow at him.

"That's a bit…presumptuous," she said, and he couldn't be sure, but he thought she might have been teasing him.

"Ruth-"

"I'm kidding, Harry. A home-cooked meal would be lovely. I can barely manage pasta on my own."

Harry was smiling again. He realized, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he had smiled more in the last five weeks than he had in the last five years combined, and if he were being honest with himself, it was all thanks to a certain pretty florist who was currently looking at him with the sort of affection that had not been directed his way in quite a long while.

"Excellent," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Friday night?"

She nodded, cheeks reddening slightly. "That sounds wonderful. But, Harry, you do realize, Friday night is tomorrow night?"

He hadn't actually, and that surprised him. Despite the general lack of definition between one day and the next, now that he was retired, he was usually very good about keeping up with that sort of thing, if for no other reason than that Something Wonderful was closed on Sundays.

"Is that a problem?" he asked.

"No," she said.