CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Louise had convinced Jack to help her make gingerbread decorations for the Christmas tree. However, she’d overestimated the attention span of an eight-year-old less than a week before Christmas. Once Jack had consumed vast amounts of biscuit dough—mainly while she’d been demonstrating how to use the different-shaped cookie cutters—he’d run off. She’d had to tell him off for sliding down the banisters twice already.

Carefully, she removed another tray of golden-brown angels from the oven, replaced them with uncooked stars, and shut the oven door, smiling. She really should stop, but she was having too much fun. As it was, they’d have enough biscuits for ten Christmas trees!

Later this afternoon, once Jack calmed down a little, they’d decorate the tree in the drawing room. She couldn’t wait to see his little face when they dimmed the house lights and hit the switch for the twinkle lights. Yes, late afternoon would be best, when the sun was behind the hills and everything was getting gloomy.

In the meantime, she had twelve minutes to kill until the next batch of biscuits was ready. As she scooped the slightly cooled angels off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack she drifted into one of her top-ten daydreams …

It was a balmy summer day. A large picnic blanket was stretched out in the walled garden. Somewhere in the distance children squealed. Her eyes were closed and her head lay on Ben’s lap as he twisted lengths of her hair around his finger, then released them again. Time had slowed, the seconds now hummed out by the bees in the lavender rather than the hands of a clock.

Louise sunk into a chair and rested her elbows on the kitchen table. Supporting her chin in her hands, she shut out reality by lowering her lids.

In the daydream, she opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, pure admiration on his face, and she knew he saw into every part of her. It took her breath away. For so long, all she’d seen in men’s eyes was a certain predatory hunger. They admired the packaging, but very few were prepared to take the trouble to unwrap it. And those who did, like Toby, considered the gift inside disposable.

She shook her head. This was supposed to be the bit where Ben leaned in to kiss her, and she was not having it invaded by the likes of Toby. He had no place here in her summer garden.

Just as the imaginary Ben blocked out the sun by leaning forward, leaving her in a cool shadow, better able to see his darkening pupils … just as she could feel his breath on her skin …

The phone rang. The real phone.

Damn!

Louise snapped her eyes open and she jumped up from the chair. She could let the answering machine get it, but whoever it was would only ring back and interrupt her later. Reluctantly, she grabbed the handset from its cradle on the kitchen counter.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Lulu.’

The rich deep voice was as familiar to her as her own. All thoughts of bees, lavender and sunshine vanished.

‘Toby.’

She wasn’t going to ask him how he was; she was past caring, actually. And she certainly didn’t need to hear about his cosy new life with twenty-year-old Miranda, thank you very much.

Toby said nothing, and she was tempted to put the phone down on him. He’d always done this—made her do the talking, ask the questions, prise information out of him. Well, she wasn’t playing his games any more. He obviously had something to tell her or he wouldn’t be phoning. He could just spit it out all on his own.

He coughed. Nope, she still wasn’t biting. Not even to say, What do you want? This time he could do all the work, do all the giving instead of the taking.

‘Louise? … I wanted to talk to you about Christmas.’

‘Talk away.’ She leaned against the counter and waited.

‘Well, you see … I’ve been given a freebie, a holiday in Lapland. And I wondered if you’d mind if Jack came with me.’

Louise’s stomach went cold. She’d been trying very hard not to think about the fact that Jack was spending Christmas Day and the following week with his father. It would be her first Christmas without him. But Lapland … Jack would be enthralled!

‘That’s fine with me, Toby. I’ll pack warm clothes for him. Are you still coming down on the twenty-fourth to pick him up?’

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.

‘Toby?’

‘The flights are booked for the twenty-first.’

Monday? That was a whole three days early! Just like that, the bottom fell out of Louise’s Christmas.

‘Can’t you change it?’ she asked, forgetting to hide the panic in her voice.

‘Sorry. It’s now or never.’

‘I … I …’

Toby let out an irritated breath. ‘Come on, Louise. Lapland. Jack will love it—and I’ve missed seeing him since half-term because I’ve been on location. It will be just Jack and me. Father and son time. He needs it.’

Unfortunately, Toby was right. Jack did need it. He’d missed his dad terribly since he’d left London.

‘Just you and Jack? What about …’ she wanted to say her, but she managed to force her mouth into the right shape ‘… Miranda.’

There was a short silence on the other end of the line. ‘Miranda decided she’d rather see her family.’

Louise’s eyebrows rose. Toby didn’t seem very happy about that. Much as she didn’t want to admire the tramp who’d stolen her husband, Louise couldn’t help it. At that age, all she’d been able to say to the man on the other end of the line was Yes, Toby … No, Toby … She wasn’t sure if she was irritated or impressed that the pre-schooler had more backbone than she’d given her credit for.

Louise had already said a giant No to Toby when she’d asked for a divorce, and now she found she didn’t want to say anything but no to him. Silly, but true. However, this was Jack’s Christmas too, and she knew he’d dearly love the trip. Saying yes to this didn’t mean she was a pushover; it just meant she was a good mother, thinking of her son, keeping relationships with his father amicable.

She sighed. ‘Okay. You can take Jack to Lapland, but I want extra time at Easter.’

Toby blew out a breath. ‘Sure.’

Louise almost dropped the phone. She’d been all geared up for a fight, hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

‘Thanks, Lulu,’ he said, sounding less like the movie star and more like the decent man she’d once married. ‘I appreciate that. I’ll need to pick him up tomorrow afternoon, though. We have to leave early Monday morning from Gatwick.’

Disappointment speared through her, harder and deeper than before. ‘Fine.’ She brightly, even though no one could see her. ‘See you then.’

And then she hung up without waiting for any pleasantries and drew in a long steadying breath. Now all she had to do was tell Jack the good news without bursting into tears.

There was a strange car parked slap-bang in front of Whitehaven. Ben noticed it the moment he stepped out of the woods and onto the front lawn. Strange, because it was unknown to him but also strange because no one in their right mind would drive such a low-slung sports car in countryside like this. If it rained hard, he’d give the owner five minutes before it stalled in a ford or got stuck in some mud.

He was just wondering if he should check whether Louise was okay when she emerged from the house with Jack in her arms. She was hugging him tight, oblivious to anyone else. A man followed her out of the house, dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses. Ben snorted to himself. They were only days away from the solstice and there was no crisp afternoon sun, just relentless grey clouds.

The guy removed his glasses and shoved them in a pocket and Ben suddenly realised who he was. Weren’t most people in films supposed to be shorter and uglier than they looked on screen? Unfortunately Tobias Thornton was neither. He looked every inch the action hero. He smiled at his soon-to-be ex-wife and kissed her on the cheek. Ben thought he lingered a little too long, but Louise smiled up at him.

Right. There was no use standing here like a lemon. This was family stuff. Private stuff. He might as well go and check on the greenhouses, as he did first every Sunday afternoon.

On reflection, he thought he might have over-pruned the first plant that received his attention in the greenhouse. Seeing Louise and Toby standing there in front of the house had reminded him of all those photos Jas kept shoving under his nose.

It was as if, until that moment, he’d known that Louise was Louise Thornton, but the woman in the magazines and the single mother who liked baking and walking in the countryside had seemed like two very different people. But now, without warning, those two completely separate universes had collided. It had left him reeling.

He spent as long as he could watering and feeding the plants. Then he tidied up the greenhouses and swept the floors. All the while, a snapshot of Louise smiling stayed in his head, her lips stretched wide, her teeth showing. He stopped sweeping and rested the broom against the wall.

Realisation hit him. That was as far as the smile had gone. Her eyes had had the same hollow look he’d seen in those magazine pictures. She’d been faking it. For Jack.

Ben smiled to himself. The sun was starting to dip low in the sky and he was now definitely ready to head towards the kitchen for one of Louise’s bottomless cups of tea.

But when he reached the back door it was locked. There was no warm cloud of baking smells wafting through the cracks. No light, no noise—nothing. He tried the front of the house but it was the same story. There was no movement in the study or the library. The curved French windows round the side of the house revealed nothing but a darkened drawing room with a bare Christmas tree standing in the corner.

Where was Louise? Had she gone off somewhere with him?

Well, if she had, it was none of his business. And, since his work was done here, he might as well go home.

He hardly took in the scenery as he tramped through the woods on the way down to the boathouse. He did, however, spot the loose brick in the boathouse wall as he passed it. Someone might guess the key’s hiding place if it was left like that. Slowly, he slid it back into position until everything on the surface looked normal again.

It was only when he had jumped into the dinghy and was about to untie it that he noticed a glow in the arched windows of the boathouse. Someone was in there. And he had a pretty good idea who. What puzzled him was why. Why was she hiding out in a dusty old boathouse when she had a twenty-roomed Georgian house standing on the top of the hill?

There was only one way to find out.

He clambered out of the boat again and ran round the back of the structure, up the stone staircase and rapped lightly on the door. ‘Louise?’

The silence that followed was so long and so perfect he started to think he must have got it wrong. Maybe a light had been left on a few days ago … but, he hadn’t noticed it when he’d arrived. His fingers made contact with the handle.

A weary voice came from beyond the door. ‘Go away.’

A grim smile pressed his lips together. No, his first instincts had been right. She was hiding.

He pressed down on the handle and pushed the old door open. Everything was still inside. She didn’t move, not even to look at him, and at first he was too distracted by the transformation of the once dingy little room to work out where she was sitting. The inside of the boathouse now looked like the inside of a New England cabin. When had all this happened?

The cracking varnish on the tongue and groove walls was gone, sanded back and covered in off-white paint. The fireplace was still there, along with the desk and cane furniture, but something had happened to them too—everything was clean and cosy-looking. Checked fabric in blue and white covered the chair cushions and a paraffin lantern stood on the desk, adding to the glow from the fire.

A movement caught his eye and he twisted his head to find Louise, sitting with her knees up on something that looked like a cross between an old iron bedstead and a sofa, the firelight picking out her cheekbones. She was looking at him, her face pale and heavy. She didn’t need to speak. Every molecule of her body was repeating her earlier request.

Go away.

He wasn’t normally the kind of guy to barge in where he wasn’t invited, but instead of turning around and walking out the door, he walked over to the opposite end of the sofa thing and sat down, hoping his trousers weren’t going to leave mud on the patchwork quilt that covered it.

‘What’s up?’

Louise returned to staring into the orange flames writhing in the grate. ‘Christmas is cancelled,’ she said flatly.

He shifted so he was a little more comfortable, avoiding the multitude of different-sized cushions that were scattered everywhere. ‘That explains the tree, then.’

Louise made a noise that could roughly be interpreted as a question, so he pressed on.

‘The one in your drawing room—standing there naked as the day it was born.’

Another noise, one that sounded suspiciously as if she didn’t want to find that funny. ‘There didn’t seem to be much point in decorating it now. Jack’s gone to Lapland.’

‘Lapland?’

She turned those burning eyes on him. ‘Father Christmas? Reindeer? Who can compete with that?’

He shrugged. ‘Think yourself lucky. At least Lapland is worth being deserted for. All I’m competing with is a few days in the Cotswolds with mum and the suave new boyfriend and I still came in second best.’

Okay, that got a proper snuffling sound that could almost be interpreted as a chuckle.

‘You win, Ben. Your Christmas stinks more than mine. Pull up a chair and join the pity party.’ She gave him a long look, taking in his relaxed position on the opposite end of the sofa-bed thingy. ‘Not one to stand on ceremony, are you?’

He grinned at her. ‘Nope. So … how does one throw a pity party at Christmas? Is it the same as an ordinary pity party or is there extra tinsel?’

A loud and unexpected laugh burst from Louise. Very soon there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them away with the side of one hand. ‘You rat, Ben Oliver! You’ve just ruined the only social event on my calendar for the next two weeks. I’m going to have to reschedule my party now … Will the twenty-fifth suit you?’

It was good to see her smile. He knew from experience just how lonely a childless Christmas could be—and the first one was always the killer.

‘This place looks nice,’ he said, standing up and walking around to room to inspect it further.

Louise nodded, pulling her knees into her chest and tucked the cream, red and blue quilt over her legs. ‘It’s not bad, is it? I’ve even had the windows draught-proofed.’ She glanced around the room and then her eyes became glassy. ‘I’m tempted just to camp out here for the rest of the festive season. The house is just so … it’s too … you know.’

He nodded. The bare Christmas tree had said it all.

He took a deep breath and walked over to her, holding out a hand. She frowned at him and pulled the quilt tighter around her.

‘Come on.’ He wiggled his fingers. ‘I’ve got a lamb casserole that will feed about twenty ready to heat up at home. Come for dinner.’

She didn’t move. ‘Won’t Jas mind?’

‘Mind? She’ll have so many invitations to go to tea after a visit from you that I’ll hardly see her until she’s twelve. I’ll even let you be miserable at my house, if you really want.’

Louise smiled and shook her head. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

He stuffed the hand he’d been holding out in his jacket pocket. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘To quote a man I know: “Nope”. In my experience, people say they want to you to be real, but only as long as it involves living up to their expectations of you at the same time.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I learned a long time ago that disappointing them costs.’

He held out his hand again. ‘Well, I already know how grumpy you can be, so I wouldn’t mind at all if you disappointed me on that front.’

Despite herself, she smiled at him, the firelight reflected in her eyes. ‘You’re not going to give up, are you?’ She lifted her arm, placed her long, slim fingers in his and pushed the quilt aside.

They both smiled as they anticipated his response.

‘Nope.’

His hand closed around hers, slender and warm, and he pulled her up to stand. Without her shoes she seemed smaller and he stared down into her face. The fire crackled and the light of the paraffin lamp flickered and danced. He realised that neither of them had taken a breath since he’d taken hold of her hand.

Louise dropped her head, letting her hair fall over her face and disentangled her fingers from his. ‘I think you might be my guardian angel, Ben Oliver.’

He liked it when she said his whole name like that. Somehow it made it seem more intimate rather than more formal. She walked over to a hat stand by the door and pulled her coat off of it. While she did up her buttons, she risked another look at him. ‘You always seem to be there when I need someone to make me think straight.’

He pretended not to be touched as he turned off the lamp and ushered her out of the door. And he tried very hard not be stupidly pleased at being what Louise Thornton needed.

Louise locked the door and hid the key in its usual hole and they walked the short distance down to the jetty in silence. He was still mulling it over, standing in the boat with the rope in his hand, ready to cast off, when Louise stepped into the boat beside him and, as she brushed past him to sit down in the stern, she stopped. He felt her breath warm on his face as she leaned close, just for a second or so, and the soft skin of her lips met his cheek.

He whipped his head round to look at her, but she was already sitting on the low wooden bench looking up at him. ‘Thank you, Ben.’

A realisation hit him with as much force as the cold waves buffeting the little boat. He wanted to be what she needed. And he wanted to keep being what she needed. But she didn’t need a man in her life right now. It was too soon. The divorce wasn’t even final.

What she really needed was a friend. He fired up the motor and untied the boat before heading off across the choppy water and as he crossed the river he knew just how he could cheer Louise up.

And cheering Louise up would be a good idea. Because then she wouldn’t look so lost and lonely, and he wouldn’t have to fight the knight-in-shining-armour part of himself that wanted to charge in and be everything she needed.