‘Are you sure you don’t mind looking after Wren for a little while?’ Gabe asked as they stepped outside after breakfast.
‘Of course not. I love spending time with her,’ Pip said, as she watched Wren try to repair bits of Buzzpip that had fallen off. She was looking forward to spending some time with Wren and getting to know her a little better. If things were going to work out with her and Gabe then Wren would have to get used to having Pip around and she wanted to make sure Wren was OK with that.
‘And it’s only for an hour. Joy and Finn should be back from the doctor’s in Unst by then and they’re going to have her until after lunch, then Boris is coming to collect her and Rebecca this afternoon for Chester’s birthday party and sleepover,’ Gabe reassured.
‘I don’t mind, honestly,’ Pip said.
‘I feel bad, you’re here on holiday and I have you feeding the reindeer, decorating the houses and now babysitting my daughter.’
‘And I volunteered to do all those things. I wouldn’t be offering to do them if I didn’t want to. I want to help you, I want this place to be a success for you and for the people in the town and if I can help with that I will.’
‘I know you must think I’m a terrible dad. Shifting her from person to person. I had a nanny for her, so at least she had some stability and would be with the same person every day. It worked fine. I’d get up in the morning, have breakfast with Wren and I’d always make sure I was back to have dinner with her, bath her and put her to bed in the evenings. Wren adored her and then last week the nanny just quit. I was going to get another one, but Wren starts school in January and, after the official opening of Stardust Lake Hotel, it will hopefully get easier and less busy.’
‘I don’t think you’re a terrible dad at all. You’re raising her on your own and trying to co-ordinate the opening of a brand new hotel – of course it’s going to be stressful.’
He stepped closer and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’m not looking for a new mum for her, or a new nanny, that’s not why I want to be with you.’
She reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. ‘I know. That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Stop worrying. We’ll go and feed the reindeer and then make our way down to the village. Go and help with the repairs, I’ll see you down there shortly.’
Gabe bent his head to kiss her, just as Wren careened into them both, wrapping her tiny arms round both their legs and hugging them both.
‘If you get married, can I have a baby brother? Rebecca is having a brother and I think I’d like one of those too.’
Gabe smirked and bent down and scooped Wren up. ‘Will you look after Pip for me this morning? Show her how to feed the reindeer?’
Wren nodded.
‘And after you’ve seen the reindeer, Pip will take you to play with Rebecca for a bit.’
‘OK, Daddy.’
Gabe peppered her face with hundreds of kisses, resulting in Wren giggling loudly before he plonked her down on the ground.
‘Now kiss Pip like that.’
Gabe smirked and gave Pip a brief kiss on the cheek, whispering in her ear, ‘I intend to kiss you all over tonight.’
Pip blushed and with a little wave he walked off down the track towards the village.
Wren took Pip’s hand.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,’ Wren said, seriously.
‘Thank you, I was worried about being on my own but now I don’t need to be. Shall we go and see the reindeer?’
‘Yes, and after, Daddy said we can go and see the ice palace,’ Wren said, following Pip down the track towards where the reindeer were kept.
Pip laughed. ‘He did not. Daddy did not say that because he wants to take you to see it himself on Christmas Eve.’
‘But that’s ages away.’
‘It isn’t that long; it’s only five days until Christmas, so four days until Christmas Eve. I’m sure you can wait four days.’
‘I’ll try.’
Pip smiled as they pushed open the gate to walk into the reindeer enclosure. The reindeer clearly knew they were about to get fed as they all ambled over towards them. Wren handed over baby carrots that Uri, the chef, had given her. She wasn’t fazed at all when some of them started nudging her to get a second one. In fact she even started to tell them off, though that didn’t stop them. When the bag was empty, apart from the one Wren shoved in her pocket for Rudolph, the reindeer left her alone and went back to nibbling on the hay.
Wren joined Pip and they went into the barn.
‘They need four buckets of food,’ Wren said knowledgeably, although Pip already remembered the instructions from the day before.
‘That’s right, will you help me to fill the buckets up?’
Wren nodded and they worked together to fill up two buckets of food.
‘Are you going to be my step-mummy?’ Wren asked, suddenly plucking the question from the air.
‘I don’t know, honey. Remember what I said on the first night I met you, that the person your daddy marries has to be perfect in every way. It may take a while for your daddy to know whether I’m perfect for him or not.’
‘I think you’re perfect,’ Wren said, trying and failing to lift one of the buckets. Pip tipped a tiny bit out into another bucket so Wren could carry that one.
‘Thank you. So if I was your step-mum, you wouldn’t mind?’
It was a bit optimistic to think that far ahead, but she knew she was falling in love with him all over again and, with the way he looked at her, she wondered if he was starting to feel the same.
‘Daddy needs someone to look after him,’ Wren said, lifting the mostly empty bucket. ‘And so do you.’
Pip smiled at the wisdom of someone ten times Wren’s age as she walked out of the barn. They poured the food into the troughs and went back to get some more. Once they had finished giving food to the girls, Pip poured half a bucket for Rudolph.
The man himself was watching them and the other reindeer astutely, obviously wondering when it was going to be his turn for food.
Pip opened the adjoining gate and Wren was following her through, when suddenly Rudolph charged towards them. Pip dropped the bucket and scooped Wren up out of the way, stumbling backwards and landing in a pile of hay with Wren on her chest. Rudolph thundered past, not even giving the food a second glance.
‘Are you OK?’ Pip quickly turned her attention to Wren.
Wren nodded. ‘I think Rudolph wants the other reindeer’s food.’
Pip glanced over at Rudolph and swore softly.
Rudolph had mounted Blitzen and was pounding away at her as if he was in a race. Blitzen didn’t even look up from the food. Clearly not impressed by her lack of reaction, Rudolph dismounted her and mounted Dasher instead. Dasher let out a bellow, obviously not expecting to be snuck up on from behind, but Rudolph didn’t let go, his little furry bum going up and down like a pneumatic drill.
Pip quickly stood up.
‘What are they doing?’ Wren asked.
‘Rudolph is just really pleased to be with the girls again,’ Pip explained, lamely. ‘Let’s get him back in his own pen, shall we?’
Pip raced over, but Rudolph wasn’t wearing a harness like the girls were so there was nothing to grab to try to stop him. She clapped her hands, she shouted at him, but he was undeterred, his eyes taking on a glaze as he focussed on the job in hand. Dasher had resumed eating again, obviously as equally unimpressed with his sexual prowess as Blitzen had been. And no wonder: a second or two later his body rippled to show he was clearly finished and he grunted and then dismounted.
‘Brilliant,’ said a voice from behind her, dryly. She turned round to see Luke walking towards the fence. ‘We’ve managed to keep Rudolph away from the girls for the last three weeks. You look after them for five minutes and he’s probably got at least one of them pregnant if not two.’
‘Pregnant?’ Wren said, her eyes wide. ‘They’re going to have reindeer babies. Daddy will be so excited.’
‘I hardly think so,’ Luke muttered.
‘I didn’t think he would charge at me,’ Pip said defensively, as she rubbed her hip where she had landed hard on the ground.
Luke came through the gate, towering over her like an angry bear. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Though that wasn’t to say her pride wasn’t hurt.
To her great surprise, Luke unbuckled his belt and dragged it off his jeans. In the next moment he looped it round Rudolph’s neck and with some gentle words of encouragement walked him back into his pen.
‘Can you get some more food for him?’ Luke said. ‘The boy is going to be hungry after all that.’
Pip scowled at Luke for taking over and because it looked as though she couldn’t even feed the reindeer without needing help. Though she had to admit that she’d never have managed to get Rudolph back in his enclosure by herself.
She quickly grabbed the bucket and went back into the barn and filled it up about halfway, then returned and poured it into Rudolph’s trough. Luke was busy stroking Rudolph and whispering soft endearments to him and the stag stood there, listening to him patiently. She walked back out of the gate, returning all the buckets to the barn. When she came out Rudolph was already munching away on his food and Luke was closing the adjoining gate firmly behind him.
He scowled at her and she scowled straight back. ‘I thought you were down in the village helping Gabe with the houses. Or did you come down here to check on me?’
‘I would have been but Blaze escaped again and I had to find him. Looks like today is the day for escapees. Good job I was here really.’
‘Yes, I’m beyond grateful,’ Pip said sarcastically, and his eyes narrowed as his scowl deepened.
He strode out of the enclosure, grabbing Wren’s hands and swinging her onto his back in one swift movement. Wren laughed.
Pip reluctantly followed him, making sure she closed the gate firmly behind her.
‘If you’re going to the village, I can give you a lift,’ Luke said, climbing back on his snowmobile and transferring Wren in front of him by dragging her over his shoulder so she was upside down. Giggling helplessly, Wren righted herself and sat astride the snowmobile too.
‘I’d rather walk, thanks.’
‘Don’t be stubborn. If you really want to help Gabe, then saving yourself the half-hour walk and using that time down in the village would be the best thing right now.’
Pip conceded this. She reluctantly climbed on behind Luke. He passed a giggling Wren over his shoulder and Pip sat Wren in front of her, wrapping her hands round her tiny stomach. However, Luke grabbed her hands and wrapped them round his stomach, which made more sense as Wren was now trapped between them.
‘Hold on, I’ll go slow.’
Luke fired the engine and took off and she was grateful that he kept to his word. Though they reached the village in five minutes she knew he could have gone a lot faster.
He pulled over by the six houses. ‘I’ll take Wren to Joy and Finn’s. You can go and see Gabe and find out what needs to be done.’
She didn’t want to argue with him, but she didn’t like the way he was taking over and bossing her around. Knowing when to pick her battles, she slid off and as she walked away he roared off in the direction of the village.
As she approached the houses she could see there were six men working on one house, painting or hammering or repairing the roof. Gabe was among them.
‘Great, you’re here.’
He hopped down from a ladder as she got nearer and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I can’t wait for tonight,’ he whispered, causing Pip to blush.
She was trying really hard not to think about the night ahead because every time she did it made her shake with nerves. It was silly, she knew Gabe, and she’d already made love to him before, albeit twelve years before. But in reality, the thing that was probably making her most nervous was that after making love to him she knew there would be no going back. She was falling in love with him all over again and making love to him would cement that bond between them. What if he turned around in a few weeks or months and rejected her? She would be devastated all over again.
Not knowing the turmoil that was tormenting her, he took her by the hand and led her to the nearest house. ‘If you start in this house then work your way through them all. Some of them may need a bit of dusting and hoovering before you decorate, the tall cupboard next to the bathroom should have all the cleaning gear you need. There’s a tree inside each house and there are two big boxes of decorations in this one, but you’ll need to make sure there are enough decorations for all six trees so go sparingly. There’s also a box of garlands which you could use around the room, over the fireplace or on the windows, and there’re some candles and other things too. It’s basically just window dressing. Is that OK?’
She saw the look of concern in his eyes.
‘Yes, it’s fine, stop worrying.’
Just then Luke roared up on the snowmobile.
‘Did you tell him the good news?’ Luke asked, getting off the snowmobile and walking towards them.
‘No, I… Not yet.’ Pip glared at him, trying to suppress the urge to smack him in his stupid smug face.
‘What news?’ Gabe said.
‘You’re soon going to be hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet.’
‘Who’s pregnant?’
‘Probably Dasher, possibly Blitzen too.’
Gabe turned back to her in confusion. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Rudolph got in the girls’ pen while Pip was feeding him.’
Pip stared at Luke as he sold her down the river. What an ass.
‘Wait. You let him through the gate? Did you not try to stop him?’
‘To be fair to her, she was too busy getting Wren out of the way of being trampled. Rudolph was on a mission, I doubt anyone could have stopped him,’ Luke said.
Well, that was a quick about-turn. Had Luke just defended her?
‘He knocked Pip over too, she banged her hip. You might have to kiss that better later.’
With that Luke sauntered over to join the other men.
‘Are you OK, were you hurt?’ Gabe asked.
‘No, I’m fine. I’m sorry. It just happened so quickly and the only thing I cared about was Wren.’
‘It’s OK. Don’t apologise. The last thing I’d want is you or Wren getting hurt. Besides, baby reindeer will be a good draw for the tourists. I was going to breed them at some point anyway, we’ll just get there a little earlier than expected, that’s all.’
‘Gabe,’ Luke shouted. ‘Give us a hand with this, will you?’
‘I better go, I’ll see you later,’ Gabe said as he jogged over to join his brother.
Pip let herself into the house and looked around. It was like a much smaller version of the lodges up at the resort. A small lounge area with a bedroom and bathroom off the lounge, plus a tiny kitchenette at the back. It had the same wood walls and cosy sofas, with brightly coloured cushions and throws. The large empty Christmas tree stood in one corner ready for her to work her magic.
The place did need a clean. It wasn’t filthy, but there was a thin layer of dust over every surface. She found the cupboard and set about dusting and wiping down all the surfaces and then gave the floor a good hoovering.
Just as she had put the vacuum cleaner away, her phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and smiled when she saw it was Wendy. She answered it and then put it on loudspeaker so she could continue with her work.
‘Hey honey, how’s it going?’
‘I’m working on the review,’ Pip lied. There had been no time for that and at the moment she didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about it. She would do it and she would hand it in before Christmas, but at the moment she was just enjoying spending time with Gabe again. For the first time in ten years, work was taking second place.
‘I don’t care about the review. I want to know how it’s going with your gorgeous ex-boyfriend or was it ex-husband?’
Pip smiled as she turned her attention to the boxes of decorations and started to divide them equally into six piles in order to see what the allocation was for each house.
‘It’s going good,’ Pip said, vaguely. ‘And no we weren’t married. He was my best friend and then he was my boyfriend.’
‘I need more than just “It’s going good.” I’ve just sat through the most boring meeting in the history of all boring meetings and I have another one to go to shortly where Arsehole Marcus will no doubt drone on about how wonderful he is. Give me something to make me warm and fuzzy. Are you two giving it another go?’
‘Yes we are. I’ve agreed to stay here for a few weeks or months to see if we have anything worth fighting for. It was hard to get involved with each other when we both knew that I was leaving in two weeks.’
‘Aw honey, I’m so happy. Everyone needs a bit of love in their lives. Even if this isn’t forever, it’ll still do you good to have someone who cares about you for a little while. Have you kissed yet?’
Pip blushed. Was this what it was like to have real friends, to talk about stuff like this? There was a part of her that wanted to shout about it from the rooftops, but there was a part that wanted to keep it private, just something special between her and Gabe.
‘Yes, a few times.’
‘And? Was there pizazz?’
Pip laughed. ‘There definitely was that.’
‘And, um…have you done anything else?’
‘We’re taking it slow, Wendy,’ Pip lied, knowing that if she told her that they planned on sleeping together that night, Wendy would be ringing up at nine o’clock the next morning to get all the gory details about their night of passion.
‘Of course, yes, good idea. Don’t want to rush things. But you already know him. You can skip most of the preliminaries. No, you’re right, be careful. Have you told him you’re there to review the hotel?’
‘Oh god, no. He doesn’t need to know that. Everything is so fragile between us, I don’t want to rock the boat if I don’t need to. He is already so stressed about the journalists coming in two days and apparently there’s a big hotel reviewer among them who is making him worried. I’ll tell him once things are a bit stronger between us and things have calmed down at the hotel. I’m sure he’ll laugh about it. But as the review is going to be the best review I’ve ever written, it won’t affect him, so I don’t think he really needs to know.’
‘Honey, if you are going to be in a relationship, honesty is really important.’
‘I know. I will tell him, but maybe in a few days when he isn’t so worried about the hotel.’
‘Well, I’m sure you know best. Go and have fun with him and then let me know all about it.’
‘I will. Well, most of it.’
Wendy laughed and they said their goodbyes.
Pip draped garlands over the fireplace and hung them in the windows, placed candles around the bottom of the fireplace and over shelves around the room, then she turned her attention to the tree decorations. Among the gold baubles and red ribbons there were hand-carved wooden ornaments that Joy had obviously created. There were also mini glass snow-globe type baubles which Mikki had clearly made. There were other decorations that had obviously come from some of the other village shops too. It was a lovely touch; not only was it great buying products from the village to support the shops, but it helped make the Christmas trees local and more personal. It might also encourage some of the guests to go and buy some of the decorations as souvenirs.
She draped the lights over the branches, working her way up towards the top and then slowly she started adding decorations, being careful to intersperse the different decorations across the tree. It took a lot longer than she’d thought it would. She’d never decorated a tree before – spending every Christmas since her dad had died in a hotel in different locations across the world meant that the hotels were already decorated. After her mum had died, her dad had never wanted to decorate the house for Christmas; he hadn’t even wanted to celebrate it. Pip had no memory of whether she had decorated a tree before her seventh birthday, but she guessed not; her mum liked things a certain way.
There was something almost sad about reaching the age of twenty-nine and having never decorated a Christmas tree. She wondered if Gabe decorated the tree in his home with Wren or whether the professional Christmas decorators they’d hired to bedeck the lodges up in the resort had done his house too. What would it be like to be part of a family, decorating the tree together, maybe making mince pies, spending Christmas Day together unwrapping presents? She had envied Gabe and his family growing up because they had all that togetherness that she simply didn’t have.
Pip stepped back to admire her work. It looked good, the tree sparkling and twinkling with the lights and decorations.
The door opened and she turned to see Luke filling the room. God, the man was so big he’d give Hagrid a run for his money.
‘Lunch has just been delivered, thought you might want a sandwich, there’s ham or turkey.’ He offered a sandwich in each of his hands.
‘Turkey please.’
He tossed it over to her.
‘Gabe’s gone back to the hotel to deal with something, he said he’d be back soon.’ He looked around. ‘The place looks good, not as good as the lodges the professional decorators did, but you know, it looks OK.’
Pip let out a laugh of indignation. ‘You’re such an ass.’
His eyebrows shot up at this before she saw the first smile she had probably ever seen from him. ‘Mind if I join you?’
She did mind. She would much rather eat alone than have to deal with his company, but if things were going to work with Gabe and she stayed here on the island, then she and Luke would have to learn to put aside their differences and at least be civil to each other.
She nodded and he sat down on the sofa. She sat down on the chair facing him.
A silence descended on them, and where silences with Gabe were never awkward, this was tense and weird. She watched him as he ate his sandwich, but it seemed he had no intention of talking to her.
She decided to see if she could get to the bottom of this angst between them. She had no idea what she had done wrong.
‘Why do you hate me? What did I do?’
Luke paused in eating his sandwich. ‘I don’t hate you.’
‘OK, you don’t particularly like me very much. Even growing up you made that very clear.’
‘That was different. You weren’t the only one with issues growing up, Pip. You think you have the market on crappy parents; you don’t.’
This surprised her. Lizzie and David had always been such loving, doting parents to Gabe, Neve and Luke. Although she had to remember that Lizzie wasn’t Luke’s mum. She’d never really considered Luke to be Gabe’s half-brother before and neither had the rest of the Whitakers, though technically he was.
He sighed. ‘I didn’t hate you, I was jealous of you. You fitted into my family so easily. They all adored you and I didn’t feel I fit at all.’
‘That’s not true. Lizzie loved you.’
‘I know that now. I have a better relationship with her now than the non-existent one I have with my real mum. But when I was a child it was easier to hate her for breaking up my parents’ marriage.
Pip didn’t know how David and Lizzie had met; she had been too young to really ask. They had been together before Pip was born, so she hadn’t really comprehended that there was a whole other life that had happened before then.
‘Did your dad have an affair?’
Luke bit into his sandwich and chewed slowly. He swallowed and took a swig from his water bottle.
‘Yes. Mum and Dad were always arguing, screaming at each other. Well, it was mainly my mum who was screaming at him. When I was five he came home and announced he was leaving. That he’d been having an affair with Lizzie and that he loved her and wanted to be with her. The only thing I got from that conversation was that he no longer wanted to be with us. From what I can gather after talking to Dad years later, Mum wouldn’t let him visit or see me after he left. Mum got together with a new man very quickly and…’ He swallowed. ‘Well, long story short, this new guy used to beat the crap out of me every chance he got and Mum…well, she used to let him.’
All the anger she felt towards Luke vanished in an instant. Her dad had been an arsehole to her, treated her like scum, but he had never once raised his fists to her. ‘I’m so sorry you went through that.’
He shrugged, though she knew he was trying to be blasé about it. ‘The school knew that I wasn’t living with Dad any more and that Mum had this new guy. When I was getting changed for PE one day, the teacher spotted the bruises and called my dad in. I went to live with him after that and I barely saw my mum again. Lizzie lavished me with attention and love, but I just blamed her for everything that happened. She was already pregnant with Neve by that point and the baby, when she arrived, became their new focus. Gabe quickly followed and they were this perfect little family unit with me as the third wheel. They never made me feel like I was the outsider. I know now that those feelings were more about me than about how I was treated, but it was easier to hate all of them and you were part of that. As far as I could tell, Lizzie loved you more than she loved me, probably because you were cute and adorable and I was a brat.’
‘I had no idea you felt that way towards me.’
‘I didn’t always. By the time I hit my teens I had grown up enough to realise that I was pretty damned lucky to belong to such a great family and that my mum was probably the root of my parents splitting up, not Lizzie. By that time my hatred towards you, Gabe and Neve just turned to frustration at having all these little kids around. I was fourteen; you were seven. We were years apart. You were the annoying little sister that was always hanging around. Although to be fair, you only remember the times I was an arse to you, you don’t remember how many kids I threatened to beat up who were giving you a hard time or Thomas Campbell who called you a freak and I punched him in the face.’
Pip smiled. ‘I remember him coming to school with a massive black eye the day after he called me that. I didn’t realise you were the one who had stuck up for me.’
‘Of course I did. As far as I was concerned you were my kid sister. The only one allowed to give you a hard time was me.’
‘So what changed? OK, you didn’t hate me when we were teens, but what’s with all this angst now?’
He finished his sandwich and wiped his hands on his jeans, which were already dirty. She’d probably have to hoover the sofa again once he had left.
‘As much as I found Neve and Gabe annoying growing up, I love them and want to protect them too. I was the big brother, that was my job. Gabe loved you so much, it was ridiculous how much he loved you. When you left, you physically broke him. He was a mess. But that day your aunt came up to sort out your dad’s house, Gabe saw her car in the drive and came down to ask where you were. She told him that you were never coming back. He came back to the farm absolutely heartbroken. He collapsed and we had to rush him to hospital.’
Pip felt her breath catch in her throat, her heart missing a beat. Gabe had never told her this.
‘He kept on having these panic attacks, heart palpitations, blacking out. The doctors didn’t know what was causing it. It went away after a few days and they released him saying it was likely to be stress. And although it didn’t happen again, he was broken for years after.’
She had destroyed him. It broke her heart to hear that. She swallowed down the emotion, determined she wasn’t going to cry in front of Luke.
He looked like he wanted to say something else but was wrestling with it.
‘My wife had an affair,’ he said, eventually.
That threw her. Where was he going with this?
‘The only woman I ever loved, the only one I have ever trusted and she betrayed me. I was working at the zoo when I met her. I loved my job, never wanted to leave. She was working there during the high season and we met, fell in love and married eight months later. My job at the zoo wasn’t enough for her. I wasn’t good enough for her. We had enough money to get by but she wanted me to leave and get a job that was bigger and better paid. We argued about it constantly. In the end we had a big row and she left.’ Luke took a swig of water. ‘She came back three months later, pregnant and in tears, claiming the baby was mine, said that she was a fool and she loved me and wanted to get back together again. I knew that kid wasn’t mine. We hadn’t had sex at all in the last few months we were together. I also knew that she had been sleeping with one of the big corporate sponsors of the zoo. And I knew he’d kicked her to the kerb when his wife found out, so she’d come crawling back to me, and you know what I did?’
‘Told her to sling her hook?’
‘I took her back. Because stupidly, I still loved her and I thought maybe she still loved me too. She wouldn’t let me sleep with her though, said she didn’t want to hurt the baby. A month later, I come home and find her screwing the baby’s dad in our bed. She came back to me with nothing, no home, a child that wasn’t mine and I took her back and then she betrayed me with the bloke who dumped her as soon as she found out she was pregnant. As he was screwing her, I heard him say how he wanted to keep seeing her but they had to be careful that his wife didn’t find out again. He wasn’t man enough to end things with his wife and be with her; he wanted the best of both worlds, his adoring wife and his illicit affair, and I could hear her agreeing to it. She had told me that I wasn’t good enough for her, but the bloke she screwed behind my back was complete scum, so what kind of arsehole does that make me if this lowlife she was sleeping with was better than me?
‘I kicked them both out but it destroyed me. They say that anger is one of the stages of grief. Well, I’ve been stuck on anger ever since she left six months ago and I don’t seem to be able to move on from that. I’m sorry if you caught the brunt of it. But you turn up after all this time and I could see it all happening again with Gabe. You left, broke his heart and then he was taking you back as if nothing had happened, just like I did.’
‘I’m sorry you went through that and I’m sorry that I hurt him so badly, you have no idea how guilty I feel.’ She hated that her voice had caught in her throat and that Luke had clearly heard it. ‘But it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for me either. As far as I was concerned he had cheated on me. I was heartbroken too. And yes, looking back, I should have asked him about it. I should have talked to him but I was seventeen and my dad had just died.’
Luke nodded. ‘I can’t hate you for it or even blame you. When you first got here I didn’t want anything to do with you. But Gabe told me what happened and I know you must have gone through hell. I just don’t think he should get involved with you again. As much as it wasn’t your fault and I’m a firm believer in second chances, I honestly don’t think you are capable of having a proper relationship. Talking from experience of being abandoned and rejected as a child myself, I know that fear of abandonment never goes away. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to trust someone enough to be in a relationship with them.’
‘That’s not fair to judge me on one mistake I made when I was seventeen years old. A lot has changed in twelve years. I would hope I’ve grown up a little since then. I really like Gabe and I’m going to do everything I can to make this work again.’
‘I’m not saying it because I’m an ass. But just because you really want it to work doesn’t mean that you can trust him enough to put aside all those deep-seated fears of rejection. My guess is the first bump in the road and you’ll run and you’ll break his heart even harder than last time.’
‘I don’t want to hurt him, that’s the last thing I want. I really hope you’re wrong.’
‘For Gabe’s sake, I hope so too.’