Carole Singer's Christmas (13 page)

She stiffened, wondering if he meant she would also recover with some love and affection – and whether he was offering either, or both.

‘It’s at the garage so I’ve got a hired one for the next few days.’

‘I’ll pay–’

‘No you won’t,’ he interrupted, ‘We had this conversation yesterday. The insurance company will, and it’s not a problem so forget it. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt. I could never have forgiven myself if any harm had come to you.’

She met his eyes. ‘Same here,’ she said.

He stepped towards her and she quickly moved away, grabbing a spoon from the drawer and picking up four mugs by their handles.

‘I’d better get this tea out to them and then be off,’ she said. ‘Gran’s expecting me home for lunch.’

‘Carole?’ he said, barring her escape. ‘I ... I’m going to the pub tonight for the quiz and I wondered if ... if you’d like to join me ... as a friend of course, nothing more. I know you have a boyfriend, of course. I ... well I just thought it might be fun.’

‘Oh. Um. I would have liked that but ... unfortunately I’ve made other plans for this evening.’

She saw him stiffen and a strange glint appeared in his dark eyes. ‘Oh. Another time perhaps?’

He stepped aside so that she could pass. She could guess what he was thinking.

‘Yes. That would be good,’ she said. ‘Sorry about tonight but I’ve promised Gran and Josie I’ll spend the evening with them ... at Gran’s obviously.’

He visibly relaxed. ‘That’s good,’ he said.

‘Yes. I think we’re going to have a very ... exciting night. Oh, and there’s no need to come round and take gran upstairs. We’re having a ... sleepover party and we’ll all be spending the night in the study. The sofa bed is fine for Gran for one night and Josie and I will just curl up with Arkenarten on some cushions on the floor. Have a good time tonight, Nick. I’ll see you in the morning. Your tea’s over there,’ she said, nodding her head to the sole remaining mug on the worktop.

She carried the other mugs out to the staff, feeling happier than she had all morning.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Carole drew back the curtains in the study and stared out at a pristine blanket of white. It was not yet light and the glow of the street lamp opposite cast a pathway of sparkling snow crystals in the direction of the cottage. Small snowflakes were still falling and they danced before her eyes, twirling round and round in the gentle breeze.

She felt like a child again as she watched the flakes land, slowly building up a layer of snow like a
Lego
version of a winter wonderland. She smiled; she couldn’t wait to see Nick’s face when he opened the centre this morning and saw what she, her gran, Josie and Matilda had created last night. Christmas Tree Land might not look amazing exactly, but it did look rather pretty and it would be even more magical now that there was snow outside.

Mitsy stirred and opened her eyes, which grew wide when they spotted the snow.

‘Oh Good heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s snowing, sweetheart!’

Carole giggled. ‘It looks so pretty, Gran and what perfect timing? The first day of December and the opening of Nick’s Christmas Tree Land. It couldn’t be better. I’ll go and put the kettle on. He should be here soon.’

She kissed Mitsy on the cheek and skipped into the kitchen, chuckling as she did so. She had no idea why she felt so light-hearted, so carefree, especially as nothing much had changed since yesterday. She was still possibly in love with three different men and she still had no idea what to do about it.

One thing she did know though. After just a few short days, she’d gone from being annoyed by Nick’s constant ‘popping in’ to actually looking forward to it. She wasn’t sure whether that was a step forward or back, given her current predicament.

She thought about Dom. He would still be in Manchester, no doubt nursing a hangover after his night at
Rob The Rich
’s concert and the subsequent drinking session she knew he and his friends would have gone on. Not that he would be awake yet, of course. Dom definitely wasn’t a morning person; he was a night owl.

She sighed at that thought. Despite lying to Nick on that first morning by telling him she wasn’t a morning person, she definitely was, although not quite as early a morning person as he.

Sebastian was a morning person too, she remembered. When they were dating he’d often called her at six-thirty just to say, ‘Good morning’, and on the rare occasions they had been able to spend the night together, when they were on holiday, he had woken her with urgent kisses and passionate caresses almost as soon as the sun was up.

She could remember it so clearly; picture it so vividly, the feel of his hands on her body, his lips on hers, his–

The shrill ring of the doorbell brought her sharply back from her daydreams and she was both startled and annoyed. She realised she still wanted Sebastian, still longed for his touch and if that had been him at the door right now and not Nick, whom she knew it was, she thought she would have had a difficult job stopping herself from tearing Seb’s clothes off and making love to him on the kitchen table.

She splashed cold water on her face and dashed to the door to let Nick in. To her utter astonishment, it wasn’t Nick. It was Sebastian and she nearly passed out on the doorstep.

‘I know you probably don’t want me here,’ he said, ‘but Nick told me what happened yesterday and I had to come and see for myself that you were all right. Good God, Carole, you might have been killed!’

Carole was stuck on the first part of that sentence, thinking how wrong someone could be and trying very hard not to show him just how wrong that was.

‘Carole!’

‘What? Sorry Seb, I was ... what did you say?’

His eyes creased into tiny slits. ‘Are you okay, Carole? You’re not suffering from the after effects of yesterday, are you? You seem ... miles away.’

‘Yesterday? Oh! The accident. No, no. I’m absolutely fine. Did ... did you say that Nick told you?

‘Yes. Last night in the pub. He said that you were crossing the road and that he almost knocked you down because he hadn’t seen you but he managed to swerve and avoid you.’ Sebastian sniggered suddenly. ‘It must have been very funny to see him covered from head to foot in red paint though.’

‘Funny! Sebastian, I was terrified! I thought ... I thought I’d killed him. I don’t know what he told you or why he tried to make out it was his fault because it wasn’t. It was mine. I ran across the road without looking and he had to swerve to avoid me – that part is true, but he hit a tree and smashed up his Land Rover. All because I wasn’t looking where I was going!’

‘Oh! Sorry I ... well at least you’re both unhurt, that’s the important thing. I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you, Carole. And ... and that made me realise something. I’ve told you I still love you and that I want you back but not even I’d realised how much until last night. Last night, I knew that no matter what, I have to be with you.’

Carole watched, open-mouthed as Sebastian got down on one knee on the snow-covered doorstep of the cottage. He held out a ring. And not just any ring. It was her old engagement ring, the one he’d given her eleven years ago on an eerily similar morning to this one.

It had been snowing on that morning too, she remembered, although it wasn’t the 1
^st
of December; it was on Christmas Eve and it was one Christmas Eve she thought she’d never forget. It had been the happiest of her life since her father’s death.

‘I know I’m still married,’ Sebastian was saying, ‘and I know you’re living with ... Dominic, but Carole Ann Singer, will you make me the happiest man on earth by saying you’ll be my wife ... as soon as my divorce comes through, that is?’

She tried to form the word but couldn’t. Only minutes earlier, she’d been daydreaming about being in his arms and here he was, like the granting of her very own Christmas wish, kneeling in front of her and holding her dreams in his fingers.

‘You ... you kept the ring?’ she asked, incredulous that he still had it after all these years.

She’d asked Josie to give it back to his parents the moment she received the note saying he was now married. Foolishly, she’d kept it until then, still worn it even, although she had moved it over from her left hand to her right. But once she knew he was married she couldn’t bear to wear it, couldn’t bear to see it and although she’d put it out of sight in her jewellery box, it had taunted her. Like
Gollum
and
The One Ring
, she kept taking it out and twisting it round and round in her fingers. She’d wished it had the power to turn back time and bring her love back to her.

‘Mum kept it,’ Sebastian said, still down on one knee with his hand raised in the air, holding out the ring to her.

‘Oh Sebastian,’ she said, her voice raised by the heat of the emotions running through her, ‘you don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment!’

As Sebastian smiled triumphantly and began to struggle to his feet, after kneeling on freezing snow for several minutes, a dog barked and ran towards Carole, barging past Sebastian and into the hall.

Carole’s head shot up, and over the top of Sebastian’s she saw Nick, standing transfixed beneath the lamp post opposite.

A hissing, spitting Arkenarten, fur raised, back arched, came bounding out of the front door, yowling in shock as his black paws disappeared beneath the snow. He’d been sauntering happily towards Carole as if to see what he was missing when Nicodemus had spotted him and assumed he’d want to play.

Nicodemus followed him out into the snow. Arkenarten lashed out and then leapt onto Sebastian’s bent back, claws still out, in an attempt to avoid the hound’s wet muzzle.

‘Arrgh!’ Sebastian yelled as Arkenarten’s claws dug deeper, piercing the layer of coat and jumper to gain a firmer grip. He clung onto Sebastian’s wildly gyrating back for one of his nine lives.

Carole watched as if in slow motion as the ring shot out of Sebastian’s hand, up into the air, made a perfect arc and landed in the soft snow, sending tiny fragments of frozen water rocketing upwards like pieces of Carole’s shattering heart.

She reached out for it but Nicodemus trampled the snow where the ring had fallen and a spinning Sebastian stomped on it further as he attempted to grab hold of Arkenarten and remove the cat from his back.

And all the while Nick stood motionless beneath the lamp post with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his thermal jacket as if he were encased in a block of ice and couldn’t move.

‘What on earth is going on?’ Mitsy yelled from the study.

Suddenly, Nick dashed across the road, grabbed a snarling Arkenarten with one hand and deposited him in Carole’s outstretched arms, where the cat seemed to immediately feel safe because he retracted his claws. With the other hand, Nick restrained Nicodemus by the collar and instructed him to sit, which Nicodemus did instantly.

‘I think you should take Arten into Mitsy,’ Nick said to Carole. ‘Sebastian, are you okay? Perhaps you should let Carole take a look at your back.’

‘The ring!’ Carole pleaded, staring directly at Nick.

He hesitated for a moment. ‘I’ll look for your ring,’ he replied without a trace of emotion in his voice.

‘That cat ought to be classified as a lethal weapon,’ Sebastian declared.

Arkenarten hissed at him and huddled closer to Carole’s chest.

‘What?’ she said, still staring at Nick before coming to her senses. ‘Oh, Sebastian, he was frightened. What do you expect?’ She glanced up at him, irritated now. ‘Come with me and I’ll put some antiseptic on your, no doubt severe, wounds.’

‘There’s no need for sarcasm, Carole. It bloody well hurts. You try having several needles stuck in your back and see how you like it.’

She tutted. ‘I have,’ she said. ‘It’s called acupuncture, and I can assure you, I didn’t make anywhere near the fuss you’re making.’

She marched off towards the study and Sebastian followed her.

‘That’s totally different and you know it,’ Sebastian said.

Carole deposited Arkenarten with Mitsy. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later, Gran. Sebastian has war wounds and I need to see to them for him. Nick’s outside but he’s got Nicodemus with him so I don’t know if he’ll be coming in.’

‘Good morning, Grandma Mitsy,’ Sebastian said somewhat sheepishly.

‘Is it?’ Mitsy said. ‘This is rather early for a social call, isn’t it, young man? I hope you haven’t been scaring my cat.’

‘It wasn’t–’

Carole stopped him by grabbing his hand and dragging him down the hall.

‘Leave it,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain it to her later. Take your clothes off.’

Sebastian brightened. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you say that, angel.’

‘Not now, Sebastian. I’m really not in the mood any more. You know what I meant. Take your coat and jumper off so that I can see the damage to your back.’

Sebastian did as he was told, wincing slightly as he moved. Carole watched him, aware that his body was as good as she remembered, possibly even better, and it was still tanned from the Australian sun he’d only recently left. Less than ten minutes ago, she’d have liked nothing more than to have Sebastian standing exactly where he was now, removing his clothes. Now she wondered why she had not the slightest inclination to pounce on him or assist in any way.

Probably because she knew Nick was outside, she reasoned, scrabbling in the snow looking for her engagement ring. Such irony wasn’t lost on her. The entire situation seemed to be getting more bizarre by the minute.

‘How bad is it?’ Sebastian asked, turning so that she could examine his back.

Carole flinched as she saw the long red weals covering a substantial portion of his back. She’d been too hard on him. They probably did hurt like hell.

‘You’ll live,’ she said, ‘and there won’t be any permanent scars but I’m going to have to put antiseptic on it and it’s going to sting.’

She cleaned the scratches thoroughly and administered a coating of soothing ointment.

‘Oh God, that feels good,’ Sebastian said. He turned and smiled down at her, sliding one arm around her waist and pulling her towards him. ‘I never thought my proposal would end like this. Are you going to kiss me better?’