Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

CHAPTER TEN

WHAT a pity the old stable block had deteriorated so badly. Louise pushed gingerly at one of the doors. The building was huge-a double-height room with gigantic arched doors at one end, big enough to take a carriage or two. The low-ceilinged central section had enough stalls for one, two, three…ten horses.

There was a hatch in the ceiling above one of the abandoned stalls. What was upstairs? Those skylights in the steep slate-tiled roof had to be there for a reason. She was dying to find out. Or, at least, she was dying to think of something other than the email that had blithely pinged into her inbox earlier that morning, and pulling things apart and putting them back together again was a familiar displacement activity for her. Safe. Comforting. All-consuming.

In a corner she found a stepladder, obviously not authentic Georgian as it was made of aluminium. Still, it would do. She dragged it underneath the hatch and unfolded it, making sure the safety catches were in place.

She was up the steps in a shot and, when she pushed the hatch door, she was showered with dust and dirt and probably a hundred creepy-crawlies. Holding on to the ladder for support, she brushed her hair down with her free hand.

When she’d stopped coughing, she poked her head through the hole. Enough light was filtering through the streaky grey skylights for her to see a long loft, with fabulous supporting beams in the roof. She turned round to look in the other direction. Goodness, this must run the whole length of the stables. It was easily sixty feet long. Just think what a great space this would be if it was converted into a guest house.

Now she’d finished with the main house and the boathouse, she needed a new project.

Louise turned round and sat on the large, flat step on the top of the stepladder.

She already had a house full of rooms she didn’t know what to do with. What on earth did she need a guest house for?

‘Louise!’

That was Ben’s voice. A second later, he appeared in the stable door, breathless and dishevelled.

‘Up here,’ she called, her skin cold and tingling as he peered into the dingy interior. He spotted her and ran to the bottom of the ladder. How was she going to tell him? How did she prepare him for the poisonous taste of her world? He was going to hate her for this.

‘What are you doing…? Never mind.’ He held a hand out and she used it to steady herself as she descended the ladder. He looked unusually pale and serious, his mouth a thin line. Her heart began to stammer.

‘Ben? What is it? Is everything okay?’

‘No! Everything is not bloody okay!’ He pulled away from her, then marched to the door.

It was too late. He already knew. Just as she thought he was going to disappear out of the door, he turned and strode back towards her.

‘Louise, I’m sorry. It’s not you…I’m not angry with you, but I could happily throttle-’

‘Ben!’ He wasn’t making sense, and that really wasn’t like him. Cold horror dripped through her at the thought that something else-something far worse-might have happened. She swallowed. ‘Start from the beginning! Is somebody hurt?’

He looked at her, a confused expression on his face, then shook his head. ‘No. But…’He pulled a folded newspaper from his back pocket and she was surprised to feel relief that her original assumption had been correct.

‘It’s Megan. She’s outdone herself this time and I am so, so sorry…’

‘Ben?’

‘I just went into the newsagent’s this morning and…well, there it was…and the whole village staring…’

She tried to make eye contact but he was talking to himself, reliving some memory more than he was talking to her. ‘Ben!’

‘And we were trying to keep it secret, for the kids…’

She grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Ben!’

He stopped mid-sentence and stared at her.

‘I know.’

He blinked, then looked down at the paper in his hands.

‘Toby’s agent sent me an email. He has a press agency that deals with all his cuttings…’She shrugged and gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. ‘Seems the cat is out of the bag.’

The frown lines on his forehead deepened. ‘How can you be so blasé about it? Don’t you know what she said about you…about me? Don’t you know how she made it sound?’

Yes, she knew. She knew Megan had told the papers that she and Ben had been on the verge of a reconciliation when nasty old Louise had slunk up and stolen her man away. People would believe it. Even after it had come out that Toby had been unfaithful, the public had forgiven him and, somehow, there seemed to be an undercurrent that it had been her fault. She was too cold, too remote. Couldn’t give him what he needed.

Well, they were right about that. What Toby really needed was a good kick in the pants, but she wasn’t about to generate even more column inches for herself by being the one who provided it. She only cared about the smudged print on the paper if it affected how Ben felt about her, about starting something with her. Anything else was irrelevant.

‘Forget it,’ she said.

He stared at the paper again, then hurled it into the nearest stall. ‘I can’t!’

Louise thought back to her first really awful press story. It had hurt, cut deep. Nowadays she just ignored them. But Ben wasn’t used to this. In one fell swoop, his ordered, stable little universe had been set on its head.

Silently, she walked over to him and put her arms round him. He was shaking with rage. She kissed him gently on the cheek, on the nose, on the lips, until he threw his arms round her and kissed her back.

It didn’t matter what anyone else thought. He’d understand that eventually.

‘Ben,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘the only thing that matters is that I love you.’

He pulled away and looked intently at her, as if he were trying to peel open the layers and look right inside her head. ‘You do?’

She laughed. ‘Of course I do!’

He began to smile. ‘You never said so before.’

A blush crept up her cheeks. ‘Well, I’m saying it now-’She took a deep breath and let out a shout that would have scared the horses, had there been any left. ‘I love you, Ben Oliver.’

All of a sudden, her feet were off the ground and she was spinning round. Ben had grabbed her round the middle and was just twirling and twirling, all the time laughing in her ear. And then he kissed her, and it thrilled her to her very toes because this kiss was all about promises, about the future, about tomorrow.

When the euphoria wore off and her feet were finally on the ground again, his frown reappeared. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Do? Nothing.’

‘Nothing.’ He repeated the word as if he didn’t understand its meaning. ‘What do you mean, “nothing”?

She shrugged. ‘As far as the press is concerned, we just don’t comment. Any response from us will just keep the story running.’

‘But I don’t want people to think those things about you. It’s not the truth!’

She silenced him with a kiss. ‘The reporters don’t care about truth. They care about the story-what’s juiciest, what’s going to sell more papers. The people who read that trash might think I’m a man-eating witch, but I don’t care. What we think matters-what we believe about ourselves.’

‘I know that’s true, but it doesn’t seem fair.’

‘But that’s how it is and we’ve just got to deal with it.’ She exhaled long and hard. ‘You might want to take Jas away for a few days, just in case people turn up wanting an interview or a picture. You’ve seen for yourself what some can be like.’

He nodded. ‘I could ring up my sister in Exeter. She’s back home now and could certainly have us for a few days, but you’ll be here…all on your own.’

She took him by the hand and they walked out into the bright December morning, the sun so low in the sky it hadn’t risen above the tops of the bare trees. ‘I can deal with this-I have done for more than a decade. It’s Jas who matters at the moment.’

He nodded. ‘She’s with a friend in the village right now. I’d better go and tell her we’re off on an impromptu visit to Aunty Tammy’s.’

Much as he’d like to wring Megan’s neck right this very second, there were some important issues they needed to discuss. He jabbed at the doorbell of her flat for a third time and left his thumb on the button so it rang loud and long.

Nothing. And any calls he made to her mobile were going straight through to voicemail.

Why? Why had she done this? Had she not thought what sort of effect this would have on Jasmine?

No, of course she hadn’t. Megan always thought of herself first and everyone else second. It had been her decision to end their marriage, her decision to leave Jasmine with him-saying she needed to learn to be a whole person herself before she could be a truly devoted mother-and now that he’d finally picked himself up and was moving on with his life, she was trying to sabotage that too.

Perhaps it was just as well he hadn’t caught up with her, he thought as he climbed into his car and slammed the door. Choosing to hurt Louise had been cowardly; she was an easy target.

He put the car into gear and made the thirty minute drive back to Lower Hadwell. By the time he got back to his cottage it was almost two o’clock and he was supposed to be packing, then picking Jasmine up at three. It wasn’t until he’d parked his car and walked round to the front that he noticed the figure on his doorstep. Megan was sitting on the low step, her face buried in her knees, drawing in jerky breaths.

He realised he wasn’t angry with her any longer. If anything, he felt pity. How messed up must she be to think that selling her story to the papers would cause anything but a headache?

She stopped sniffing when she heard him walking towards her and raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were pink and her face was blotchy and puffy. He might feel sorry for her, but that didn’t mean he was going to let her off the hook completely.

‘Why, Megan?’

Her face crumpled, then she sniffed loudly again and wiped her nose with a crushed tissue. ‘I spent the last two years following my heart, trying to work out what will make me happy, what will fill the hole in here-’ She jabbed a finger at her chest.

Ben put his hands in his pockets. ‘Well, maybe you did the right thing in leaving me. You obviously weren’t happy, living here with me and Jasmine.’

She shook her head and rearranged the almost disintegrated tissue so she could use it for one last blow. ‘No, I was happy-sort of. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted more.’ She fixed him with her clear blue eyes. ‘Only I don’t seem to be able to work out what more is.’

Welcome to the human race, honey.

He nearly always had a small packet of tissues in his pocket-required kit with a child in tow. He fished a packet out of his jacket and offered them to Megan, but her eyes were glazed and she was staring off into the distance.

‘And then I realised-oh, about a month ago-that not only was I no happier than I had been when we were together, but that I was less happy. The grass truly wasn’t greener on the other side of the fence.’ Spotting the tissues, she reached up but, instead of taking them from him, she clasped on to his hand. ‘You’re a good man, Ben. And I was too blind to see that.’

She looked at him with large blue eyes and her breath caught in her throat. Oh, no. He had a feeling he knew what was coming next and he willed her not to say it. He pulled his hand away and stuffed the packet of tissues into her fingers.

‘Megan, we can’t go back. You don’t really love me that way any more, not really. And I don’t want to be with you by default, because you can’t find anything or anyone you like better. I deserve more too.’

She pressed her lips together and nodded and a fresh batch of tears ran down her face. She squeezed his hand. ‘Yes, you do. And I’m sorry for what I did. I suppose I got into a real state because I was…’ she struggled getting the next word out ‘…jealous.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘It was pretty obvious, you know. The pair of you couldn’t keep your eyes off each other. Just…don’t let her hurt you, Ben. I see the same ache in her that I have inside me.’

No. Megan was wrong about that. Louise was stronger than she was. But he wasn’t going to stand on his own doorstep and discuss that right now. He reached for Megan’s hand and pulled her up to stand.

Sometimes his ex-wife could seem like a force of nature-a cyclone-twisting her way through other people’s lives and leaving destruction in her wake but, right now, she looked more like a frightened child.

He put his arms around her and gave her a brotherly hug. ‘We both deserve more, Meg. Don’t you forget that.’

She nodded and kissed him softly on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Ben. Jasmine is lucky to have a dad like you. And I think-’ she paused to take a shuddering sniff ‘-she ought to stay with you for the time being. I reckon I have a few things to sort out first.’

Relief washed through him. That had to be the most mature and sensible decision Megan had made in a long time. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.

Louise found herself back in the stables after Ben had left. She could tell an idea was brewing about this place, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it at present. There was no reason to redevelop this area, other than to keep herself from getting bored. But she sensed a need for a bit more logic in her plans. It was time to stop floating, to stop being pushed around like a sailing boat buffeted by the wind, and make some choices.

These stables had something to do with it, she could feel it. She shook her head and muttered to herself. New Year’s Eve was the day after tomorrow-time to think about fresh starts and new beginnings. A shiver of happiness ran through her. Time to start a new relationship with a wonderful man who said he loved her.

She corrected herself quickly. That had sounded all wrong inside her head. They hadn’t been just words. It wasn’t just that he’d said it. Ben did love her. He did.

She walked round to the front of the house and took a few moments to look at the view down the river. This morning’s clouds had evaporated and the river now twinkled and the cool sunshine made the windows in far-off Dartmouth glint and shimmer. Through the haze, she could even see the chain ferry endlessly crossing the river, touching first one bank and then the other.

Inside the house, the phone started to ring so she dashed in the front door and grabbed it before the answering machine kicked in.

‘Hello, gorgeous.’

She had to prise the grin off her face to answer. ‘Ben.’

‘I just wanted to let you know that Jas and I have arrived at my sister’s.’

‘That’s good. Did you see anyone, you know, hanging around your house?’

There was a pause. ‘No photographers or anything like that.’

She breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Anyway, I’m also calling to ask you out on a date.’

‘A date?’

Ben laughed. ‘Yes, a date. It’s what men and women do when they like each other, and I’ve kind of taken a shine to you.’

‘Like dinner and a movie kind of a date?’

‘Not quite,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps it was fate that this all came out in the press. I’d wanted to ask you, but I didn’t think we’d be going out in public for a while.’ He paused. ‘Lord Batterham is having a New Year’s Ball at his home and I would like you to come with me.’

Oh. That was kind of scary. Talk about a baptism of fire.

‘Louise? Are you still there?’

She glanced up at her reflection in the big hall mirror and immediately was reminded of the day of the fireworks display, of how he’d stood behind her and all of her senses had suddenly retuned themselves so they registered nothing but him.

‘Yes, I’m still here,’ she said quietly. ‘And I would love to go to the ball with you.’

Somehow, she could hear him smiling on the other end of the line. ‘Fantastic. I’ll see you in two days. I can’t wait.’

Once they’d said their goodbyes, Louise hugged the phone to her chest. A ball. Normally, she’d have found an excuse not to go, but she’d be there with Ben, and that would just make the whole evening seem magical.

Slowly, she replaced the phone in its cradle. When she looked in the mirror again, she was frowning. It would be magical. It would. She forced her reflection to soften.

Then why was a sense of foreboding hovering about her? Why did she feel that everything was so perfect that something absolutely, positively had to go wrong?

How Ben had volunteered to take Jas and her two younger cousins shopping he couldn’t quite remember. His sister was subtle like that. Dangerous. Especially when the twin nephews in question were at that in-between age when they were too big for a pushchair but too young to behave themselves in crowded shops. He supposed it was his penance for foisting himself on Tammy like this.

One slippery little hand wriggled free from his and one small boy was suddenly running into the busy crowd in the shopping mall. He yelled for Jas to follow him, scooped the other boy up into his arms and gave chase.

Thankfully, Peter-the tearaway-was stopped in his tracks by a rather fed-up-looking man in a furry turkey costume. Confronted with over seven foot of slightly disgruntled bird, he began to cry.

Angus, who was fidgeting frantically in Ben’s arms, saw that his brother was in distress and started to howl too. Great. The end to a perfect shopping trip. Tammy was going to wonder what sort of ordeal he’d put them through when he got back to her house.

He was now in grabbing distance of Peter and he hauled him up to join his brother. The turkey guy gave him a dismissive look.

‘Ought to watch out where them kids are going,’ he said, and waddled off.

Ben was tempted to yell something after him, but compromised by muttering, ‘Aren’t you past your sell-by date, mate? Christmas was almost a week ago.’

Jas giggled beside him.

‘Remind me what else is on the list, Jas.’

She gave him a self-satisfied grin. ‘A magazine for me and colouring books for the boys.’

Ben hefted the twins, who had obviously been overdosing on Christmas pudding, under his arms and set off back to the other end of the mall. One of the large chain of newsagents had a shop up that way and he could kill two birds with one stone.

As he walked into the magazine and newspaper section at the front of the shop, something very much like déjà vu made his skin pop into goosepimples. Although he was sure it was just tiredness, he took a quick look around the shop.

Jas was heading over to look at the magazines and, in one swift action, he grabbed her arm and steered her in the opposite direction. ‘Why don’t you go and look over there?’ he said, pointing to the slightly older teenage magazines.

‘Cool!’ Jas didn’t need to be told twice.

He was probably going to hate himself for buying her one of those later, but it was a far better option than letting her see the front page of one of the newspapers on the other display stand.

There, in full colour, was a picture of Megan kissing him on the cheek, accompanied by the heading: ‘LOUISE FOILED IN LOVE AGAIN.’ There wasn’t much text, but he could make out another small picture of Louise. She seemed to be sneering.

Of course, the main photo looked much worse than the actual event-like an intimate moment between lovers.

Hell.

He couldn’t let Jas see that. Surreptitiously, he wandered over to the display and pulled another paper across to hide the offending article. Then he accepted the magazine that Jas was waving at him, stopped by a pile of colouring books, grabbed a couple and headed for the till.

His blood was one degree off boiling temperature.

After paying, he grabbed a twin in each hand and bustled Jas out of the shop so fast she gave him one of her ‘madam’ looks.

Problem one dealt with.

Problem two? How was he going to explain this to Louise?

When another email popped in her inbox from Jason, Toby’s agent, Louise just knew that her perfect little daydream had exploded. Nausea swirled her stomach and every part of her body went cold.

‘Front page of today’s Daily News,’ the header read. The message was short and sweet: Sorry, love. Jason xx.

Her finger hovered above the mouse button. She waited a second, and then another. Finally, she squeezed her eyes shut and clicked. When she opened them again, she stopped breathing. Ben was looking awfully cosy with his ex-wife. Everything inside her seemed to melt and slide away. Blood rushed in her ears.

Think, Louise. Think. Don’t just react.

She tipped her head to one side. A pointless gesture. It wasn’t going to look any better from a different angle. But she forced herself to remember the hundreds of photos she’d seen of herself in the past, all seeming to tell a true story when a split second taken out of context could tell so many lies.

Ben had said he loved her.

And she’d seen the way he was with Megan. He tolerated her, nothing more.

She closed the file but a ghost of the photograph lingered, a trick of the light, so she got up and walked to the window. She’d thought those days were behind her-the dread each morning when she watched the news or walked past a paper stand. And she’d never thought she’d have to worry about that with Ben. But then, she’d wanted him, and having him meant dragging him into her world and dealing with the consequences. It was more pressure than a fledgling relationship should have to take.

Ninety-nine per cent of her knew there was nothing to worry about. But too many years of looking over her shoulder, of second-guessing everything the man in her life did, had left her wary. And that one per cent was like an itch she couldn’t help scratching. What if…?

She pressed her forehead against the cold glass and let her breath steam the window. Wishes and dreams were all very well when they stayed inside your head but, once they crossed the threshold into the real world, they were fragile, vulnerable-like the paper-thin glass baubles on a Christmas tree.

What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she wanted someone to look at her the way Ben looked at her? To see right inside her?

But there was her problem. Daydream Louise had been her better self, her angel. When Real Louise looked deep down to see what Ben saw, it wasn’t comfortable at all. No sugar, no spice, no all things nice. Just fear and loneliness and broken parts of the person she’d once been that she didn’t know how to fix. And if Ben couldn’t see all that, maybe he wasn’t really seeing her after all.

Abruptly, she pulled away from the window. Stop it! You’ll make yourself crazy playing mind games like this.

The crunch of boots on the gravel outside had her spinning round and pressing herself against the window once again. For the second time that day, she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

Ben?

He was supposed to be in Exeter.

She flattened a palm against the window, wanting to reach out to him, but glad the barrier was in place. Her movement must have caught his eye because he suddenly spotted her there and walked straight towards her.

His eyes said it all. Believe me.

Pinned by his gaze, she stood motionless as he raised his hand and pressed it against the outside of the window, covering the outline of her hand completely. She studied it, then let her eyes meet his again.

Let me in, they said.

Wordlessly, she peeled her hand away and moved towards the study door. Ben mirrored her and when she opened the heavy panelled front door he was standing there, waiting. Now, with no transparent barrier between them, they both hesitated. It was Ben who broke the silence.

‘I can explain.’

She almost didn’t need the words. His face told her everything she needed to know. The pain etched there broke her heart and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. He gave no resistance and walked into her arms, burying his face in the hollow of her neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered against her skin. ‘She came to apologise. I was careless.’

She nodded, her chin butting into his shoulder. ‘Why are you here? Where’s Jas?’

He took a step back and steadied himself-or was it her?-by placing a hand on each of her shoulders.

‘She’s with my sister. Believe me, I’m heavily in debt in the babysitting stakes. But I had to see you, to know you were okay.’

He smoothed the hair away from her face with such tenderness. Her eyes began to tingle and fill. ‘I’m okay. We’re okay. It just…shook me for a moment.’

Colour that she hadn’t realised had been missing returned to his face and his whole body seemed to exhale. She tried a shaky smile and it seemed to work.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s do something normal. How about a cup of tea?’

Ben began to laugh. ‘Please, no. Anything but that! I finally think I’ve drunk my fill.’

‘We’ll have to switch to coffee, then. You go ahead and put the kettle on. There’s something I’ve got to do.’

He looked over his shoulder twice as he disappeared down the hall to the kitchen, and she watched him until he disappeared. Then she nipped into the study, highlighted Jason’s email and deleted it.

As she turned to leave, she spotted Ben’s palm print on the window. She felt it must mean something, but she didn’t know what, and that bothered her. Some vital piece of information was missing, something she needed to know but couldn’t yet. And that just made the one per cent of doubt tickle all the harder.