The Unexpected Holiday Gift (7 page)

It was just too depressing. Who wanted to admit they were probably still in love with their husband, five years after they'd walked out on him?

CHAPTER SEVEN

O
UTSIDE
,
PARKED
ON
the street in a miraculously free parking spot, was the car Clara knew instantly had to be Jacob's. Top of the range, brand-new, flashy and silver—and only two seats. ‘Why would I need more?' he'd always said when she'd questioned his penchant for two-seater cars. ‘There's room for me and you, isn't there?'

Jacob, she knew, would never understand the need for space; a boot to fit the shopping in, or even a pram. The joy of a tiny face beaming at you from the back seat the minute you opened the door. The space for toys and spare clothes, cloths and nappies and board books and, well, life. Everything she'd lived since she left her marriage.

And everything she'd felt was missing while she'd stayed.

Jacob opened the door for her and she slid in, trying to keep her feet together in their tall black boots, even though her skirt came down to touch her knees. It was all about appearances. Decorum and manners could mask even the most unpleasant of situations.

Wasn't that the British way, after all?

Except Jacob had clearly been living in America too long. The moment he shut the door behind him and started the engine, he dived straight into a conversation she'd been hoping to avoid.

‘So, what little extra is Merry bringing to Scotland that you don't want me to know about?'

‘It's nothing to do with your perfect Christmas,' Clara assured him. ‘Nothing for you to worry about at all, actually.'

‘And here was me hoping it might be my Christmas present,' Jacob said lightly, but the very words made Clara go cold.

She could almost imagine it.
Happy Christmas, Jacob! Here's your four-year-old daughter! Just what you never wanted!

No. Not happening. Not to her Ivy.

‘Not a present,' Clara said shortly. ‘Just something I need with me this Christmas.'

‘Intriguing.'

‘It's really not.'

Jacob was silent for long minutes and Clara almost allowed herself to hope that he might let the rest of the journey pass the same way. But then he spoke again.

‘Were you planning to see your family this Christmas?' he asked. ‘Before I made you change your plans, I mean.'

The question startled her. Her first instinct was to reply that she
was
spending Christmas with her family, except of course Jacob didn't mean Ivy. He meant her mother and stepfather, or father and his girlfriend of the week, and all the little half-siblings that had replaced her on both sides.

‘No. Why would I?'

‘I know things were difficult between you—' But he didn't really know, she realised belatedly. She might have hinted that they weren't close but she'd never gone into detail. Never explained what her childhood had been like. Why? Had it just never come up? After all, they'd eloped to Vegas a month and a half after meeting, and she'd left him the following Christmas. There had been no wedding invitations, no seating plans. And whenever he'd mentioned meeting her relatives she'd put him off—until he'd stopped suggesting it altogether.

She supposed she hadn't wanted him to know how unlovable her own family had found her. Not when she was still hoping he really did love and want her.

And so he'd been left with the impression that her family relationships were ‘difficult'. Understatement of the year. ‘Difficult' implied differences people could move past. Problems that could be solved.

Being unwanted, unnecessary—those problems didn't have easy fixes. Once her mother had remarried and started her new family, after Clara's dad had walked out, there'd been no place in her mother's life for the accidental result of a teenage pregnancy and shotgun marriage. Clara was merely a reminder of her mistakes—to her mother, her stepdad and the whole community.

Far better to let them get on with their lives, while she made her own. The Fosters had been the closest thing Clara had had to a family in years—until Ivy came along. Now she knew exactly what family meant, and Clara wasn't accepting anything less than a perfect family for her or her daughter.

‘I just wondered if things had changed. Since you left, I mean,' Jacob went on, apparently unaware of quite how much she
really
didn't want to have this conversation.

‘I can't imagine any circumstances under which they would,' Clara said firmly.

‘You might be surprised.' Jacob sounded strangely far away, as if speaking about something he was experiencing right then, only elsewhere.

‘My family have never once surprised me.' The words came out flat—the depressing truth by which Clara had lived her life since the age of seven. Until the day she'd turned eighteen and Clara had taken matters into her own hands instead. In the eight years between her mother's remarriage and her eighteenth birthday, Clara had learned a most useful truth: never stay where you're not wanted.

‘Wait until you get a phone call from them one day that changes your whole life,' Jacob told her. ‘Then we'll talk.'

He was thinking of his father, Clara realised, almost too late. The way
life
changed, never mind relationships, when days became sharply numbered.

That phone call would never come for her—just like she'd never make it. She didn't even have contact numbers for her parents any more. But that was
her
decision—made moments after Ivy was born, and Clara had known deep in her bones that this tiny scrap of a baby was all the family she would ever need. She'd vowed silently, lying in her hospital bed, that Ivy would always be loved, wanted and cared for. She didn't need grandparents who were incapable of doing that.

But that call
had
come for Jacob.

‘When did you find out?' she asked. ‘About your dad, I mean.'

‘Six months ago. I was in New York on business when he called.'

‘And you flew home?'

‘Immediately.'

She smiled. That was further evidence that Jacob was beginning to realise the importance and the power of his family. The Fosters were the sort of family that stuck together through everything, because they were glued together with the sort of love that ought to come with a birth certificate...but sometimes didn't. She didn't understand how someone who'd grown up with all of that could be so against the idea of having it for their own family, their own children.

She'd been jealous of that kind of love, once. Even when they were married, she'd always felt on the outside. Now she could only imagine the kind of words they used to describe her in the Foster family.

But she'd been right to leave, Clara knew, and right to stay away. Even if she had been wanted in Jacob's world—and if she'd been sure of that she'd never have felt she had to walk away in the first place—she knew that Ivy wasn't. She wouldn't put her daughter through that, not for anything.

‘Dad sent me back to the US,' Jacob went on and Clara turned to him, surprised.

‘Why?'

‘Because he didn't want his personal ill health to impact on the health of the business.' That was a quote from James Foster, Clara could tell, even though she hadn't seen the man in five years. Success mattered to the Fosters almost as much as family, she'd always thought.

Now she wondered if, sometimes, it might matter even more.

Still, she'd always been very fond of James Foster. A self-made millionaire who had made his fortune by inventing a medical instrument Clara didn't even truly understand the application of, James had all of Jacob's charm, good looks and determination. But it was his son who had taken the company—Foster Medical—to new heights. It was his business brain that had seen the opportunities in a shrinking market, and the path they needed to take.

And James had trusted Jacob to do just that. Not many fathers, Clara thought, would have so happily surrendered the reins of their life's work to their son. She'd always admired James for making that decision.

Of course, he'd been repaid handsomely since then—in money, prestige and the simple pleasure of watching the company he'd founded go from strength to strength. Watching his son succeed, over and over again.

‘How is the
business
?' she asked, trying not to sound bitter just speaking the word. She knew for a fact that business success had mattered more than
her.

‘Booming. As is yours, by all accounts.'

That knowledge surprised her, although when she thought about it she realised it shouldn't. He was hiring her company, not just her. Of course he'd look into how well they were doing.

‘Merry and I have worked very hard at building up Perfect London,' she said.

‘I could tell.' Jacob glanced across at her from the driver's seat. ‘I'm glad everything worked out for you.'

‘Really?' Clara raised her eyebrows. ‘Remember, I was married to you. I'm pretty sure there's a part of you that wishes I'd failed miserably so that you could have swept in and told me you told me so.'

‘I never told you so,' Jacob said, frowning. ‘I never even realised that you wanted to run your own business. If I had, I'd have helped you. Maybe we could even have worked together.'

Had she even known herself? All she knew for sure was that Jacob had never thought she wanted anything more than he could give her—and that she hadn't known
what
she wanted to do with her life.

Had they really known each other at all? Their whole relationship—from meeting to the moment she'd left—had lasted a year and two days, and it seemed that they'd never talked about the things that really mattered until it was too late. All Jacob had known was the person Clara had shown him—a person so starved for love and attention that she'd done everything she could to be what he wanted.

She'd escaped her family, found a job and a flat-share with a friend, and thought that was all she needed until she'd met Jacob in a London bar one Christmas Eve. Then, all too quickly, really, she'd found love and friendship and family and marriage and for ever...and suddenly she was twenty-one, a wife, and still had no idea what she wanted for herself beyond that.

She hadn't found herself until she'd left him, Clara realised. How sad.

Now she didn't need his approval, his attention. Not just because she had Ivy and Merry in her life, but because she knew who she was, what she wanted—and she believed she could achieve it all. Realising how she'd changed over the past five years made her want to weep for the girl she'd been.

Turning away, Clara stared out of the window at the passing countryside and wondered what else spending twenty-four hours preparing the perfect Foster family Christmas would teach her about her marriage.

* * *

Clara hadn't thought she'd actually be capable of sleeping, not with Jacob in the car next to her, and certainly not the whole way to Scotland. But she'd figured it would at least curb the disturbing conversations if she
pretended
to be asleep, so she'd kept her head turned away, her breathing even, and hadn't even stirred when they stopped for petrol fifteen minutes later. But somehow when she next opened her eyes the scenery around her was decidedly more Highland-like in appearance.

‘Sorry about the bends,' Jacob said, his eyes never moving from the road, and Clara realised what had woken her up. ‘The satnav seems certain it's this way.'

The car turned another nausea-inducing curve and Clara looked up to see an imposing stone building looming ahead. Crenellations, thick grey stone, arrow slit windows... ‘I think that's it!'

‘Thank God. Hang on.' Jacob swung the car onto the side of the road and pulled to a stop. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he angled himself out of the car and held it up to capture the view. Clara watched him snap a few shots, then climb back into the car and start the engine again.

‘I don't remember you being much of a photographer.' It was an easy subject, at least. With the castle so nearly in sight, and the realisation that she still had the rest of the day and most of tomorrow to spend in his company, at the least, Clara was very grateful for that.

Jacob shrugged. ‘It's for posterity. I want Mum and Heather to have something to remember this Christmas by for the rest of their lives.'

‘I'm sure they wouldn't forget,' Clara murmured. ‘But the photos will be lovely.'

It struck her again what a big thing this was for Jacob to do. Not in terms of money—that was nothing to him, she was sure. No, Jacob had poured something far more valuable into this Christmas weekend. His time, his energy and his thoughts. Jacob was a busy man; Clara knew that better than most. Usually, showing up in time for Christmas lunch and staying long enough for pudding was an achievement for him. This year, not only was he giving his family a whole weekend, he had also helped with the preparation. Well, after some nudging, anyway.

He wasn't just giving his father a perfect last Christmas; he was giving his whole family memories of James that they'd treasure always.

Clara stared up at the castle and pretended the stone walls weren't a little blurry through her suddenly wet eyes.

Maybe Jacob
had
changed, after all. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man she'd walked out on would never have even thought of arranging a Christmas like this one, let alone being so involved in making it happen.

But could she trust him with her daughter's heart—when he'd already broken her own?

CHAPTER EIGHT

J
ACOB
PULLED
THE
CAR
to a halt just outside the imposing wooden doors of the castle and got out to take a closer look at the location of his Perfect Christmas.

‘It doesn't exactly say
homely
,' he said, staring up at the forbidding grey Scottish stone.

‘Nor do any of your homes.' Clara slammed the boot closed, their suitcases at her feet, and he winced at the noise.

‘My homes are...' he searched for the words ‘...state-of-the-art.'

‘They're all white.' She'd always complained about that, Jacob remembered now. But he couldn't for the life of him remember why he hadn't just told her to decorate if it bothered her that much.

Probably because white was what his interior designer had decided on—what she'd told him was current and upmarket and professional. In fact, he distinctly recalled her saying, ‘It screams success, darling. Says you don't need anything to stand out.'

Jacob wondered if Clara would have stayed if the walls had been yellow. Or covered in flowers.

Probably not.

‘My parents' home isn't white,' he pointed out instead. ‘Honeysuckle House is officially the colour of afternoon tea and Victoria sponge.' His mother went out of her way to make their house, by far the largest in their village, appear just like all the others—at least, inside the security gates. As if they didn't have eight times the money of anyone else in their already very affluent surroundings.

‘So, somewhere between brown and beige, then?' Clara asked.

‘I meant it's homely,' Jacob replied, taking his suitcase from her.

‘It is,' Clara admitted. ‘I always loved Honeysuckle House.'

‘You should go and visit. Dad would love to see you.' The thought of Clara in that space again, the place where he'd grown up, made Jacob's spine tingle. As if his past and his present were mingling and he didn't know what it might mean for his future.

It was something he'd been contemplating on the drive, while she'd slept, merrily scuppering his plans to talk her into staying for Christmas Day with his family. Organising this Christmas had brought Clara back into his life and he couldn't help but think that couldn't just be the end of it. After five years of only communicating through lawyers, they were here together, being civil—friendly, even.

Maybe there wasn't any hope for their marriage, but could they manage to be friends after this? People did become friends with their exes sometimes, didn't they? And the thought of going back to a world without Clara in it... It felt strange. Unwelcoming.

Distinctly unhomely.

Clara ignored his suggestion about visiting his father and instead hefted her handbag onto her shoulder and extended the handle of her tiny suitcase to drag it along behind her. He assumed that she'd sent most of her stuff up with the courier, or poor Merry, because there was no way she had more than the bare essentials in that bag. It was another sign, as if he needed one, that she didn't plan to stay any longer than necessary.

Well, he had the whole of Christmas Eve to work on that. And perhaps her fondness for his father was his way in. After all, it had persuaded her to take on the job in the first place. What was a couple more days at this point?

The thought that he might actually end up paying his ex-wife to spend Christmas with him caused him to frown for a moment, but if that was what it took to give James Foster his dream Christmas then Jacob knew he'd swallow his pride and do it.

Clara pulled a large metal key from her pocket and opened the doors, using her shoulder to help shove them open. Jacob couldn't help but feel that fortifications didn't really scream cosy Christmas, but Clara had said this place was just right so for now he was inclined to trust her.

‘Okay, so this is your grand hall,' she said, turning around in the expansive space just beyond the doors.

‘There's a suit of armour.' Jacob crossed the hall to touch it. It was real metal armour. ‘Are you planning on festooning it with tinsel?'

‘I'm planning on putting the tree—which should be arriving this evening, incidentally—here at the bottom of the stairs. I guarantee that by the time I've finished decorating it, no one will be looking at the armour.' He turned to see where she was pointing and clocked the massive staircase that twisted its way up to the first floor. He could almost imagine his mother and Heather descending it, dressed in their Christmas finery. Another photo for the album.

‘Besides,' Clara went on, ‘I rather thought your father would enjoy the armour. Doesn't he have a thing about medieval military history?'

Jacob blinked. How had he forgotten that? ‘Actually, yes. Okay, I'll give you the armour. Now, how about the grand tour?'

‘Absolutely.' Clara nodded and, leaning her suitcase against the wall, disappeared down a passageway.

Jacob followed, wondering whether medieval castles also came with central heating.

* * *

Clara headed for the kitchen, her heart racing. Okay, so maybe she'd underestimated quite how...
castley
this place was. Still, she could already see it, decorated for Christmas, with the scent of turkey wafting out from the kitchen, presents under the tree...and a couple of glasses of something down everyone's throats. Then it would be perfect.

But first she had to convince Jacob of that.

He'd said that the original perfect Christmas had been spent in a cottage in the Highlands, so she started with the kitchen. She knew from the photos the owner had sent over that it had a large farmhouse-style kitchen table that would be ideal for breakfasts or board games or just chatting over coffee. Between that and the Aga, hopefully Jacob would start to get the sort of feel he wanted from the place.

‘This is nice,' he said as he ducked through the low doorway behind her. Rows of copper pots and pans hung from the ceiling and the range cooker had been left on low, keeping the room cosy and warm.

‘The owner did the whole place up a year or so ago, to hire out for corporate retreats and the like. It must have cost him a fortune to finish it to this kind of standard but...' She remembered the rates that she—well, Jacob—was paying, and why she'd been so desperate to fill the castle and not have to pay her cancellation charge. ‘I guess he figures it's worth the investment.'

‘He's done a good job,' Jacob admitted, running his fingers across the cascade of copper on the ceiling. ‘So, what is he—some sort of displaced laird, trying to make money from the old family pile?'

‘Something like that,' Clara replied. ‘Do you want to see the rest?'

Jacob gave a sharp nod and Clara took off through the other door into the next part of the castle. That was another reason why she really wished she'd been able to get up here first and alone. She'd have been able to get the lie of the land, get her bearings. She had a feeling that studying the castle floor plans the night before might not totally cut it.

Still, Jacob seemed impressed by the pantry, already filled with the food she'd ordered for the festivities. And, once they found their way back into the main part of the castle, the banqueting room, the snug, the parlour and sunroom all went down well. Whilst Jacob managed to make a cutting comment about each, Clara could tell that he was secretly impressed.

So was she. And relieved.

‘I still say that nowhere in Scotland needs a sun anything,' Jacob grumbled as they made their way back through the grand hallway to the staircase.

‘Ah, but imagine the views from the sunroom if the sun did actually come out,' Clara said. ‘And I know you think the banqueting hall is too large—'

‘It has a table that sits thirty,' Jacob interjected. ‘There's going to be four of us. Five if you agree to stay. You should, you know, just to make the numbers up.'

‘But it won't feel big once I've finished decorating it. Well, not so big, anyway,' Clara said. ‘And I'm not staying.' He was joking, right? The last place she wanted to spend Christmas was here with her ex-in-laws.

But the look Jacob gave her told her that she was missing something. What on earth had he got planned now? He couldn't really be expecting her to stay, could he? If so, she really needed to nip that idea in the bud.

‘We'll see.' Jacob started up the stairs before she could reiterate her determination to head back to the hotel for Christmas Day.

Oh, he was infuriating. Had he been this infuriating when they'd been married? Most likely; she had left him, after all. And if it hadn't been so obvious before their elopement, it was probably only because they'd spent so much of their time together in bed.

A hot flash ran through her body at the memories, making her too warm under her knitted dress and thick tights. Clara bit down on her lip. There was absolutely no time for thoughts like that. Not any more.

She was spending Christmas with Ivy and Merry and that was all she wanted in the world. She followed Jacob up the stairs, ignoring the small part of her mind that pointed out that her Christmas with Ivy could be all the more perfect if Jacob was there too. She needed to time things right. There was too much at risk to just rush in and tell him.

‘Now, this room I definitely approve of,' Jacob called out, and Clara hurried towards his voice to find out where he'd got to.

Predictably, he'd found the master bedroom—complete with its antique four-poster bed that looked as if it could sleep twelve and the heavy velvet hangings that gave the room a sumptuous, luxurious feel. This, she could tell from the moment she entered, was a room for seduction.

But not this Christmas, thank you very much.

‘This is the room I'd earmarked for your parents,' she said, stopping him before he got too carried away with thoughts of sleeping there. ‘It's the biggest, has the easiest access to the rest of the castle and has the largest en suite bathroom. It's also the warmest, thanks to the fireplace.'

Jacob looked longingly at the bed. ‘I suppose that makes sense,' he said.

‘Come on. I'll show you the rest.'

The other bedrooms were all impressive in their own way but, Clara had to admit, none had quite the charm of the four-poster in the master bedroom.

By the time their tour was finished, Jacob looked much happier with the set-up at the castle.

‘Okay,' he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘This is going to work. So, what do we do next?'

‘
I
need to do some final checks before I have to head to the hotel for the night. I'll do the decorating and so on tomorrow, before your family arrive. They get in at four, right?'

Jacob nodded. ‘Yeah. But why don't you just stay here tonight? It's not like there aren't enough bedrooms.'

For one blinding flash of a moment Clara's brain was filled with images of her and Jacob taking advantage of that four-poster bed.

No. Bad brain.

‘I need to check in to the hotel,' she said, trying to banish the pictures from her mind. ‘Besides, Merry will be arriving this evening too.'

‘Of course. Merry.' What was that in his voice? Could it be...jealousy? No. She didn't remember him ever being jealous about who she'd spent her time with when they were actually properly married. It was highly unlikely he was about to start now.

‘Anyway. I need to get on, so you can...settle in, I guess. Work, if you want to.' And didn't he always? She was surprised he'd made it this long without setting up his laptop. ‘I can get you the Wi-Fi password if you want.'

‘There's nothing I can do to help?' Again, Clara felt that strange tug on her heart as she realised how eager he was to be a real part of the planning.

‘I'm mostly just checking that the local supplies I ordered have been delivered, and waiting for the courier company to arrive and unload the boxes. Then I'll grab a taxi down to the hotel and make a few calls to confirm the bits being delivered tomorrow—fresh greenery, fresh food, those sort of things. After that, everything can wait until tomorrow. I've got it all in hand. You really don't need to worry.' It was all there on her time plan.

She checked her watch. In fact...

The knock on the door, precisely on time, made her smile.

‘That will be Bruce,' she announced.

Jacob frowned. ‘Who is Bruce?'

‘Bruce the Spruce,' Clara said with a grin. ‘Your perfect Christmas tree.'