Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

CHAPTER SEVEN

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. They’d have enough biscuits for ten Christmas trees once they’d finished.

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 twinkling 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 on to 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 sank 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 wolfish 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, Louise.’

The rich, deep voice was as familiar to her as her own. All thoughts of bees, lavender and sunshine washed from her head on a tidal wave of irritation. ‘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-three-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-second.’

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 for the last month 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 Gloucestershire.

‘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 sigh on the other end of the line. ‘Miranda is…Actually, Miranda’s history.’

Her eyebrows rose. Really?

‘I miss you, Lulu.’ His voice had that soft, gravelly tone that used to turn her insides to mush.

‘I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to get over it, Toby.’

She shuddered. No way could she ever go back to that life. No matter how far the tabloids thought she’d fallen, or how many celebrity magazines had her at the brink of suicide. She knew in her heart that she was free, happier now than she’d been in more than twenty years.

‘Don’t be like that, hon. I’m just trying to be friendly.’

It all came sharply into focus. Poor little Miranda probably hadn’t realised what hard work a movie star fifteen years her senior would be. And Toby was a movie star who’d grown used to having absolutely everything his own way for most of that time.

Guilt washed over her. That was partly her fault. She’d let him get away with murder, had fooled herself she’d been doing it out of love, when really she’d just been scared he’d see through her glamorous exterior and reject her if she wasn’t everything he wanted.

Well, he had. And she’d survived.

No way was Mr Tobias Thornton talking her into being his doormat again! She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it, desperate to tell him to go to hell. However, she had to keep the relationship amicable for Jack’s sake. It was hard enough for a kid to have to deal with his parents’ divorce, let alone hearing the bullet points of every argument in the playground. This wasn’t about her; it was about Jack.

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

Toby blew out a breath. ‘Thanks. I’ll need to pick him up tomorrow afternoon. We have to leave early Monday morning from Gatwick.’

Disappointment speared through her, harder and deeper than before. ‘Fine. See you 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 on to the front lawn. Strange, because it was unknown to him and 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, the shortest day, 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 recognised him. 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 ex-wife and kissed her on the cheek. Ben thought he lingered a little too long, but Louise smiled brightly 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 had seemed like two very different people. And, suddenly, those two completely separate universes had collided. It had left him reeling. Get a grip, Ben. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

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.

Suddenly it 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 definitely ready for one of Louise’s bottomless cups of tea.

When he reached the kitchen 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. Megan was due to drop Jas off in an hour and a half.

He hardly noticed 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 the why. Why was she hiding out in a dusty old boathouse when she had a twenty-five-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 that 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 door handle.

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

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

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 cross-legged on something that looked like a cross between an old iron bedstead and a sofa, staring into the fire. She turned to look 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 of 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. His gaze too was drawn to the fire. ‘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.’

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…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 the room to inspect it further.

Louise nodded, pulling her knees into her chest and tucking 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 more tightly around herself.

‘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 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’re 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 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 to 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. The only thing was, he had no idea if it was a role he could ever play. She didn’t need a man in her life right now. What she really needed was a friend. He fired up the motor and untied the boat before heading off across the choppy water.

A friend. Now, that was a role he could manage.

The house seemed empty without Jack in it. Maybe moving to the country had been a mistake. If she’d been staying in London, she could have lost herself in the last-minute Christmas Eve panic in Oxford Street. It might have even been fun to try and spot the most harried male shopper with a look of desperation in his eyes.

Louise stopped by a shallow pool surrounded by bamboo. A copper statue of a Chinese Buddha, covered in verdigris, stared back at her. He was the closest thing to a human being she’d seen since Sunday evening. The statue stared past her, looking serenely through the trees to the river below, and she decided he probably wasn’t the life and soul of the party, anyway, and moved on.

She only entered the house to collect a few things and make a flask of tea. In the last few days she’d spent a lot of time at the boathouse, preferring the cosy little space to the multitude of echoes that seemed to have appeared around Whitehaven.

Tonight, she was going to sleep in the boathouse, tucked up under both the duvet and the quilt, with the fire and a good book for company. Hopefully, Santa wouldn’t discover her hiding place, set between the beach and the woods, and he’d fly straight past.

She pottered around the house, wandering from the kitchen to her bedroom and back again, picking up the few things she’d need. All the while, she distracted herself with her favourite Christmas daydream. At least in her imagination she could keep the loneliness at bay.

The fire was glowing and coloured fairy lights twinkled on a huge blue spruce in the bay window of a cosy cottage sitting room. It was early in the morning, the sky a deep indigo, and Jas and Jack were fighting good-naturedly about who was going to hand out the presents. She and Ben were laughing and eventually they let the kids get on with it, just to keep them quiet.

Then, amidst the sounds of giggling children and wrapping paper being ripped, Ben drew her to one side and presented her with a silver box with a delicate ribbon of white velvet tied round it. She stopped and smiled at him, a look that said ‘you shouldn’t have’ glowing in her eyes.

Then she gave in and tugged the wrappings free with as much abandon as the children had. Before she opened the box, she bit her lip and looked at him again. Then she prised open the lid to reveal…

This was the bit where she always got stuck. What could be in the box? She didn’t want fancy jewellery and body lotion and stuff for the bath was just a bit too blah.

Louise stood from where she was, putting a change of warm clothes into a holdall, and stared in her bedroom mirror. You’re losing it, girl. Seriously. Hasn’t this fantasising about the gardener gone just a little bit too far?

It had. She knew it had. But it was warm and comforting-like hot chocolate for the soul-and heaven knew she needed a bit of comfort these days. She gave herself a cheeky smile in the mirror. And it’s one hundred per cent calorie-free too!

Her reflection gave her a look that said, Yeah, right. She turned her back on it, zipped up the holdall and slung it over her shoulder. The clock on the mantelpiece showed it was three o’clock. She needed to get a move on. No way was she trudging along the rough paths coated with soggy leaves in the dark.

Louise took her time wandering back to the boathouse. There was something hauntingly beautiful about her wild garden in winter. However, when she was only minutes away from her destination, it began to rain-hard, stinging drops with a hint of ice-and she decided to hurry.

She ran up the stairs to the upper level of the boathouse, only pausing to retrieve the key from its hiding place, and burst into her cosy upper room, only to stop in her tracks, leaving the door wide open and a malicious draught rushing in behind her.

What…?

She couldn’t quite believe her eyes. What had happened to her sanctuary while she’d been gone?

On almost every available surface there were candles-big, thick, tall ones, the sort you’d find in churches-some balanced on saucers from the old china picnic set she’d rescued from the damp. The fire was burning bright, crackling with delight at the fresh logs it was hungrily devouring. There was holly and ivy on the mantle and, in the corner, near one of the windows…

Louise laughed out loud. How could this be?

A Christmas tree? Not a huge one, but at least five feet high, bare except for a silver star on top. She walked over to it and spotted a box of decorations sitting on the floor, waiting to be hung. Red, purple and silver shiny baubles would look amazing in the candlelight. She picked one out of the box and fingered it gently.

How…? Who…?

An outboard motor sputtered to life outside and suddenly all her questions were answered. She ran out on to the balcony and leaned over. ‘Ben!’

The little wooden dinghy was already moving away from the jetty and he looked up at her, a sheepish smile on his face. He waved and yelled something back, but his words were snatched away by the billowing wind.

Her natural response would have been to stand there and shake her head in disbelief, but the rain-which was rapidly solidifying into sleet-was bombarding her top to toe. She pushed her wet hair out of her face, ran back inside and closed all the doors.

Not knowing what else to do, she sat cross-legged in front of the fire, staring at the patterns on the blue and white tile inserts until they danced in front of her eyes. Was this guy for real? No one had ever gone out of their way to do something so special for her before. Her father would have if he’d been able to, but he’d always been so fragile, and it had been her job to look after the others, to cheer them up and keep them strong when things had got tough.

Toby had been good with show-stopping gifts-diamonds, cars, even a holiday villa in Majorca once-but none of those things measured up to this.

Louise stood up and placed a hand over her mouth.

Oh, this was dangerous. All at once, she saw the folly of her whole ‘daydreaming is safe’ plan. It was backfiring spectacularly. Her mind now revolved around Ben Oliver, her thoughts constantly drifting towards him at odd moments throughout the day. And now her brain was stuck in the habit, it was starting to clamour for more-more than just fantasies. Especially when he did things like this. She was aching for all the moments she’d rehearsed in her head to become real.

Heaven help her.

So much for standing on her own two feet and never letting a man overshadow her again. Ben Oliver was an addictive substance and she was hooked. And the last thing she wanted was to lose herself again, not when she’d come so far. In the last few months she’d started to feel less like Toby’s wife and more like someone else. It would be so easy to fall into the role of the woman who adored Ben Oliver, and nothing else.

Dangerous.

She looked around the room. As a declaration of independence, she ought to just pack it all up and leave it outside the door, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. If she did, the boathouse would seem as stripped and hollow as the mansion sitting on the hill, and she’d come here to escape that.

The decorations piled in the cardboard box twinkled, begging her to let them fulfil their purpose, and she obliged them, hanging each one with care from the soft pine needles, hoping that the repetitive action would lull her into a trance.

When she’d finished, she pulled the patchwork quilt off the day-bed, draped it around her shoulders and sat on the floor in front of the fire, her back supported by one of the wicker chairs. In the silence, all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and the happy licking of the flames. She hadn’t been sitting there more than a few minutes when there was a knock at the door.

She stared at it.

Whoever it was-and let’s face it, she’d win no prizes for guessing who-knocked again. Slowly, Louise rose to her feet, keeping the quilt wrapped tightly around her, and walked over to open it. Her heart jumped as if it were on a trampoline when she saw him standing there, his wet hair plastered to his face, a large brown paper bag in one hand and a rucksack in the other.

‘Ben.’

Nice, she thought. Eloquent.

‘Louise.’

At least they both seemed to be afflicted by the same disease.

He brandished the paper bag. ‘Can I come in?’

She stepped back to let him pass and he handed her the paper bag, which was warm and smelled of exotic spices. He moved past her and placed the rucksack on the floor.

‘I ought not to let you in, really. Seeing as you’ve already indulged in a spot of breaking and entering today.’ She kept her voice deliberately flat and emotionless.

He stopped halfway through struggling off his green waxed coat. ‘You don’t like it? Oh, Louise! I’m so sorry. I was just trying to…’

How could she be cross with this wonderful, sweet man? She grabbed the back of his coat with one hand and tugged at it, smiling. ‘You succeeded.’

The relief on his face was palpable. ‘Thank goodness for that. I have food in here and I didn’t want to have to sail it back across the river and eat it cold.’

She peered in the top of the brown bag. ‘Curry? That’s not very traditional.’

Ben took the bag from her and began unpacking its contents on to the low coffee table in the centre of the room. ‘Nonsense. I’m sure I read somewhere that Chicken Tikka Masala has now overtaken traditional Sunday roast as the nation’s favourite dish.’

Louise reached for the old picnic set and pulled out a couple of plates and some cutlery, grateful she’d given it all a thorough wash yesterday. Pretty soon they were sitting in the wicker chairs, feasting on a selection of different curries, pilau rice and naan breads. She broke a crunchy onion bhaji apart with her fingers and dipped it in some mango chutney before popping it in her mouth.

While she ate her bhaji, she looked at Ben, who was absorbed in his meal. Finally, when he glanced in her direction, he froze.

‘What?’

How did she say how much this all meant to her? There just weren’t enough words, so she settled for simple and elegant. ‘Thank you, Ben.’

The hesitation in his eyes turned to warmth.

‘Why did you…I mean…why…all this?’

He put his plate down and looked at her long and hard. ‘I reckoned you needed some cheering up. I remember how awful it was my first Christmas without Jas.’ He gave a half-grin. ‘Put it down to me being a single dad with too much time on his hands. Jas is away, my parents live in Spain now and my sister has gone to visit her in-laws. I can’t even rely on work to be my saviour-no one wants any gardening done at this time of year.’

Oh, that just sounded too good to be true. Too nice.

‘Yes, but you didn’t have to do all this.’ A horrible nagging thought whispered in the back of her mind: nobody does anything for entirely altruistic reasons. He must want something. ‘I’m not sleeping with you,’ she blurted out.

Oh, Lord! Had she really just said that? Her cheeks flamed and burned.

Ben’s grin turned to stone and he stood up and practically threw his naan bread down on the table. ‘If that’s what you think, I’d better leave.’

Instantly, she was on her feet. ‘No! I’m so sorry! I don’t know what made me say that. After you’ve been so kind…’ At that moment, she hated herself more than she’d ever done for wearing fake smiles in front of the paparazzi and pretending her life with Toby was a glorious dream.

Ben was pulling his coat on, his back to her. She laid a hand on the still-wet sleeve, tears blurring her vision. ‘Please, Ben! It’s just…’ Oh, hell. Her throat closed up and she couldn’t hide the emotion in her voice. ‘Nobody ever does something for me without wanting something-without wanting too much-back. I’m just not used to this.’

He turned to face her, his expression softening slightly. ‘Really? No one?’

She shook her head, too ashamed to speak any more. How did you tell a man like him that nobody had ever thought enough of you to make that kind of effort? She always had to earn people’s love-by being the one who gave and gave and gave. Even Toby had only kept around as long as he had because it was good for his image, nothing more. And her younger brothers and sisters had grown up thinking she never needed anything, and they had their own lives now. It was their turn to shine. She couldn’t burden them with all her problems.

She turned away from him and sank down into the nearest chair, hiding her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God. I’m such a mess.’

Ben wasn’t sure what to do. Louise had the ability to make his head swim, to prompt him into doing outrageous things that the sensible side of his brain knew he shouldn’t be doing. He looked round at the holly, the candles, the stupid tree. It was all too much.

Then he did a double-take and looked at the tree again. It was dripping with baubles. He’d abandoned the box when he’d seen Louise emerge from the woods, deciding it was best not to be standing there like a prize banana when she walked in. But, while he’d been away getting the curry, she’d decorated the stupid tree. Hope flared within him.

Louise was sitting, all curled in on herself, staring at the floor. With startling clarity he realised she was one of those people who didn’t know how to accept things. She gave of herself constantly-any fool could see that if they looked hard enough-but she’d forgotten that giving was only half of the equation. Or perhaps she’d never known.

He’d pieced enough together from their chats over the last couple of months to realise that she’d had it tough growing up. She’d always had to be the responsible one, the one who carried everyone else. No wonder she didn’t know how to receive what had been freely given. And her life since her childhood hadn’t helped. Every good deed came with a web of strings attached.

He pulled his coat off and hung it on the hat stand. Louise turned round and stared at him, her mouth gaping in shock.

She hadn’t expected him to stay. Not even after her heartfelt apology. Why did she think so little of herself?

He refused to answer the questions written all over her face with words. Instead, he walked calmly over to the chair he’d just vacated, sat down and crossed one leg over the other, resting his ankle on the other knee. She arranged her features into a more neutral expression and relaxed back into her chair, but her hands stayed tightly clasped in her lap.

‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I could do with some dessert.’

Louise’s mouth formed a circle of surprise. ‘Dessert?’

He smiled to himself and reached down into the rucksack he’d dropped by the chair earlier and pulled out a bottle of red wine. Nothing extravagant. Just a bottle of supermarket Cabernet.

In one smooth second, Louise unclenched. She smiled at him, started to speak and then just shook her head. She rose, extracted a couple of teacups from Laura’s picnic set and plonked them on the coffee table. Thankfully, the bottle had a screw cap, because he doubted the picnic set came complete with corkscrew. After pouring a generous amount of wine into each cup, he handed one to her.

‘A toast-to Christmas,’ he said as they cheerfully clinked teacups.

Louise just laughed. ‘Something weird is happening here…To Christmas!’

Ben took a sip of the warm, rich wine and kept his thoughts to himself. He knew exactly why he’d phrased the toast that way. Christmas was about giving-and receiving. That weird feeling Louise didn’t recognise? That was the joy of letting someone show you how much they cared. If there was one thing he could give as a present this Christmas, it would be to show her that not all gifts had hidden traps, and that receiving them could be a pleasure.

She needed a friend. A true friend. And that was the sort of gift a friend could give safely.

As they worked their way through the bottle of wine, a tiny teacup at a time, they retreated to the sofa thing that was piled high with cushions. Even though it was on the opposite wall to the fire, the boathouse’s upper room was small enough for them to get all the benefits of its warmth. They talked about anything and everything before falling into a comfortable silence. The candles flickered, the sun set and the temperature outside began to drop.

He was just starting to think that it was about time to get going when Louise suddenly said, ‘I don’t think I know who I am any more.’

Uh-oh. Good deeds, practical gestures, he was good at. Touchy-feely, girl-type conversations were not his forte. Thankfully, Louise seemed happy for him just to listen.

‘The curse of being an ex-WAG,’ she said, turning to smile at him weakly.

What was a WAG, anyway? He’d never been exactly sure what the term meant.

‘Short for “Wives And Girlfriends”,’ she added, obviously able to read the look of confusion on his face. ‘Probably more accurately used to describe the other halves of famous sportsmen, but it seems to fit me too. WAGS hunt in packs, love shopping and having their photographs taken and-above all-they love bling.’

‘You’re not a WAG!’ he said, rather too quickly, forgetting he didn’t know what to say in situations like this.

‘Well, not any more-having divorced Toby.’

Ben shook his head, frowning. He couldn’t see how that definition could ever have applied to Louise. She hated having her photograph taken! He was about to say so, but she preempted him again.

‘Oh, I was at the start,’ she said. ‘I embraced it wholeheartedly-the parties, the magazine covers, the bling.’ She chuckled to herself.

Didn’t she realise what a rare quality that was-to be able to laugh at oneself?

‘But, eventually, it grew old. I was famous because of him, because I was Tobias Thornton’s wife, not because of anything I had done.’

He shifted to face her a little more. ‘I thought you were a model when you met him.’

She nodded and looked into her teacup of red wine. ‘I was. And we made it work at first. But it was hard to keep a marriage going when we spent weeks at a time on different continents. And then Jack came along and it seemed only right to give him a home and some structure…’

Why was she punishing herself for that? That was Louise all over-she’d thought of her family first instead of selfishly pursuing what she wanted.

She was lost in a daydream, staring at the rain lashing against the windows. There was a wistful expression on her face, as if she was remembering something or wishing for something she couldn’t have.

Maybe it was time Louise did something for herself, got something for herself. Not out of selfishness, but because she deserved it. He rubbed his chin with his thumb. Now all he had to do was to discover what she wanted.

Pulled out of her daydream by some unknown thought, she turned her head, and the look she gave him sent a shiver up his spine.

Surely not.

Her pupils were large and dark, and there was such a heat in her eyes. He’d received that kind of look before from women, but he’d never expected to receive it from her. Surely, she didn’t want…him?

His heart rate tripled.

Uh-oh. That put Being What Louise Needed on a whole new level.