Christmas under a Cranberry Sky Page 4

  ‘Just to say the food has arrived. It’s in the lounge.’

  He should have offered to bring it to her room but he needed answers and he intended to get them.

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  He stared at her for a moment – her eyes were ablaze – and then he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Piper stared at the closed door, feeling the tension in her shoulders. Gabe Whitaker was here. Infuriatingly he had got even better looking than when she had last seen him. He had filled out in every way, his arms and legs were huge and strong, those piercing sea-blue eyes under that black messy hair were bluer than she had remembered. He was beautiful and she hated him a little bit because of it.

  She had thought about him so often. She had known him her entire life, they were best friends growing up and that friendship had grown into something beautiful and wonderful, something that was supposed to last forever. She had fallen head over heels in love with him and that love had been impossible to switch off no matter how angry she was at him for betraying her.

  In the months after her dad’s death, when she had been staying with her aunt in London, she had often thought about calling him to get some explanation for what she had seen that day. But every time she thought about him and Jenny Maguire she found herself thinking about the events that had happened that day – her dad, the accident, being trapped under the ice – and it was easier not to think about any of that. She’d had horrible nightmares and panic attacks and her aunt had arranged counselling, but in the end it was easier to file all those memories in a box marked ‘Do not open’, and Gabe and Jenny Maguire were part of that.

  She should have demanded an explanation there and then in the barn, but she’d felt so let down, not just by him but by the Whitaker family’s refusal to take her in when her dad no longer wanted her around. She had always considered them to be like a second family, but she had clearly been a burden to them and not one they wanted. She couldn’t help thinking Gabe might have been part of the reason that they had said no. Maybe having her there permanently would have cramped his style with the other girls he was secretly dating.

  After seeing him with Jenny Maguire, she had managed to make it to the drive leading up to the farm where there was a payphone, which was closer than going up to the farmhouse anyway. She had called the emergency services and hysterically explained that her dad was dead.

  The next few hours had been a blur as she somehow managed to make it back to her own house, get changed and answer questions from the police when they arrived. Divers had come to retrieve the body, though she wasn’t there when they pulled him out, and when there was nothing left to be said or done, they’ asked if she had anyone nearby she could stay with. She’d shaken her head, told them she had no one but that an aunt in London was expecting her. She packed her bags, they took her to the train station and she left the tiny village in the Lake District behind forever.

  She had locked away all those memories from that fateful day, but now they were back and she didn’t know how to deal with them. Though keeping herself shut away in her bedroom was certainly not going to help.

  She got dressed and went downstairs.

  Gabe was sitting on the sofa waiting for her, the log fire burning merrily in the fireplace making the whole room seem cosy, even though Piper felt cold.

  She sat down in the furthest corner away from him and pulled the plate onto her lap. She took the lid off, curled her legs under her and started eating, feeling Gabe’s eyes on her the whole time.

  To his credit, he let her finish eating before he spoke.

  ‘What happened, Pip? It’s been twelve years. You just disappeared. No phone calls, no letters, nothing. I had no idea where you were. The last time I saw you was the morning after we had made love for the first time. How could you walk away from that?’

  She stared at him in shock. He had no right to be angry. ‘Funny, the last time I saw you, you were wrapped in the arms of Jenny Maguire.’

  He stared at her in confusion. ‘Jenny Maguire? Who the hell is Jenny Maguire?’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you threw away what we had for someone so special.’

  He frowned and then his face suddenly cleared with recognition. ‘Jenny Maguire is Anne-Marie’s daughter, my mum’s best friend. Nothing ever happened between me and her. I don’t know what you saw but it certainly wasn’t…’ He stalled, his face suddenly turning to guilt and horror. ‘That day. You saw us in the barn?’

  Piper nodded. ‘The worst thing was, when my dad crashed the car into the lake, when the water was seeping into the car from every crack, when I was desperately trying to rouse him and free him from the seatbelt, when I got out and was trapped under the ice, all I kept thinking about was you. How I couldn’t give up because I couldn’t be without you. Then when I got out of the lake, I just wanted to see you, to feel your arms around me and hear you tell me it was OK. As I struggled up the hill to your farm to get help, I knew if I could just find you, everything would be OK. And I did find you and you were in the arms of someone else.’

  Gabe stared at her in horror. ‘You… You were in the car?’

  ‘Yes. The worst day of my life and seeing you with another woman was probably the final straw.’

  ‘I didn’t know. God, that week was a mess. We didn’t hear about your dad’s accident until a few days after he died. We heard that you’d gone to stay with your aunt in London, but I just assumed you would be back after a few days. I had no way of contacting you to see if you were OK. I tried to phone you, I emailed, but you just vanished.’

  ‘Why would I come back? I had nothing for me there.’

  Gabe winced. ‘My parents adored you, you could have stayed with us.’

  ‘Your parents tolerated me. They certainly didn’t want me living with them on a permanent basis.’

  Gabe looked more hurt about that than anything else. ‘They loved you, they always loved you.’

  ‘Did you know that my dad asked them if I could move in with them? He offered them five thousand pounds if they took me in. They turned him down.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for one second.’

  ‘All my life, I’d dealt with rejection, the knowledge that my birth parents never wanted me and even my adopted dad only agreed to take me in because my mum wanted me. Something he reminded me of almost daily after my mum died. But I always consoled myself with the fact that you and your family loved me even if no one else did. But it turned out you guys didn’t want me either. That was the hardest rejection for me to take.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. My mum and dad loved you. Mum was always asking me to ask you round to dinner, they took you on holiday with us. Can I remind you that your dad was vile to you after your mum died, always putting you down and making you doubt yourself? Whatever crap he told you about my parents not wanting you is an absolute lie. They’ll be here in a few days, you can ask them yourself.’

  Piper shook her head, all the hurt and confusion she had felt after that fateful day came crashing back now.

  ‘The day your dad died, it seems the Grim Reaper was out in force. Jenny’s dad had died earlier that morning. His car had slid on some ice and collided with a wall. He was killed instantly. My mum and Jenny’s mum, Anne-Marie, were best friends and Anne-Marie was apparently a complete wreck. She’d sent Jenny to get my mum to come over. I’d seen Jenny when she walked past the barn and I could see she was upset. She told me what had happened and she was crying. I was giving her a hug to say I was sorry, I promise it was nothing more than that. I loved you, you were the only one I ever loved. There was never any other woman for me.’

  Piper stared at him, feeling the tears prick her eyes. It couldn’t be true. Had she really thrown away the love of her life over that?

  She had been so young and traumatised over the accident. For months after she had tried to cope with the guilt of what had happened under the ice, reliving the moment she had flooded the car so many t
imes in her head and in her dreams, desperately trying to figure out if she could have done something differently. It didn’t matter that the autopsy revealed her dad had died of a severe heart attack and had probably been dead before he even hit the water. It didn’t matter that her dad had been horrible to her for the last ten years of her life, or that he was driving her to the train station to get rid of her with nothing more than the clothes on her back, she had still been racked with guilt.

  While she had tried to come to terms with that, it had been easier to be angry at Gabe for not being there when she needed him and at his family too. It had seemed better to pick herself up and move on with her life, never staying still long enough to build relationships with anyone, never putting her trust in anyone again for fear of being let down. And now to find out that the one person she had trusted and loved in her life hadn’t let her down at all?

  ‘I thought…’

  ‘You honestly thought that I would betray you like that, after spending the night before telling you how much I loved you, how much you meant to me? How could you possibly believe that I would be with another woman a few hours after I left your bed?’

  Piper stared at him.

  ‘You never trusted me. I should have guessed that you would have run at the first bump in the road. You kept asking me why I was with you when I could have anyone, you never believed me when I said I only wanted you. You were waiting for me to let you down just like everyone else had and when you saw me with Jenny it was all the proof you needed to know you had been right all along.’

  Piper had nothing she could say. She felt so tired all of a sudden.

  ‘I’m…tired, I’m going to bed.’

  He watched her leave but made no attempt to stop her.

  * * *

  Gabe watched Pip’s bedroom door close, feeling so angry.

  He switched the lights off and went upstairs to his own bedroom. He got undressed and caught his reflection in the mirror, his eyes falling on the tattoo he’d had done across his chest. Four savage-looking scars clawed across his chest as if it had been ripped open by an animal. At the age of eighteen it had seemed a good idea at the time, a symbolic reminder of the pain he’d been in when the only girl he had ever loved walked away and didn’t look back, ripping out his heart and taking it with her on the way out. He was obviously one for theatrics when he was younger; not content to just cry and move on, he’d got a tattoo to signify his pain. He smiled, rolling his eyes at his younger self.

  He had moved on, though. After bumping into Pip’s aunt several months after her disappearance when she came to sort out Pip’s house and hearing that Pip was never coming back, and later, after he’d got out of hospital, he had vowed it wasn’t going to destroy him. He’d gone to university, thrown himself into his studies in business management and astutely ignored any woman who tried to get to know him better. The agony had stayed with him and eventually he had tried to get over her by sleeping with any woman who would have him. The pain eventually went away and looking back now it was unlikely they would have even lasted, that their love was anything beyond puppy love, but yet he still thought of her often.

  And although the tattoo was a reminder of a period in his life that he never wanted to go back to, he was in a much happier place now than when he had permanently tattooed his pain across his chest. Since Wren’s mum had walked out on her when she was tiny, Wren had been his entire world and he didn’t need anyone else. Pip being back wouldn’t change that. He had closure now and he realised that Pip was too messed up to ever be able to sustain a proper relationship. She was not someone he wanted to get involved with again and certainly not someone he wanted around Wren.

  Tomorrow, if the power was not back up, he would move her to the lodge in the village they had prepared for her arrival. He would treat her just like any other guest who stayed in his hotel and he would secretly count the days until she left and he wouldn’t have to see her again.

  Chapter 6

  Gabe lay in bed staring at the bright moon as it lit up the hills and woods around the hotel, cursing that seeing Pip again had prevented him from finding any sleep.

  A stupid misunderstanding had been the reason he had lost his best friend. Now that most of the anger had receded, it broke his heart that he hadn’t been able to be there for her after the accident, that she had seen him comforting a girl who meant nothing to him instead. If Pip had arrived five minutes before or five minutes after, none of this would ever have happened. But he was angry that after seventeen years of friendship and a love as deep and intense as theirs, she would throw it away after seeing him hug someone else. Her insecurities over being abandoned at birth obviously ran deep and she had been waiting for him and his family to reject her all along.

  But now he had the answers he needed, although he still didn’t feel any better for it.

  Suddenly a cry for help rang out in the darkness. Gabe leapt out of bed and out onto the landing and was running for Wren’s room as fast as he could when another cry for help came and this time he knew it was from Pip’s room, not Wren’s. He peered round his daughter’s bedroom door just in case, but when he saw her lying sprawled out like a starfish in her bed, snoring softly, he quickly ran to Pip’s room. As another moan came from the other side of the door, he burst in and saw her fast asleep too, struggling against unknown forces as, somewhere in her dream world, things were not good.

  He hurried to the side of the bed and gently shook her awake. She woke with a jolt, let out a little yelp at seeing him leaning over her and shuffled quickly off the bed away from him, backing into the wall.

  He quickly flicked the bedside lamp on, illuminating the room in a soft warm glow. Pip was standing against the wall, clutching the duvet to her chest, her eyes wide and terrified. But when she saw it was him and where she was, she let out a sigh of relief and sank to the floor.

  Gabe was still angry at her and he didn’t want to be in a position to comfort her. He would simply check she was OK and then leave. He stared at her as she pushed a trembling hand through her hair. It hurt him to see her like this.

  He still cared about her.

  That thought was like a punch to the gut because he certainly didn’t want to feel like that. He hated himself for being so weak and hated her a little bit for stirring all those feelings up in him that had long since been dead and buried. He would just go back to bed. But as he continued to watch her, the need to protect her outweighed the need to protect himself. She needed someone right now and he was all she had.

  He moved over to her side and, after a moment’s hesitation, he sat down next to her.

  She sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. ‘God, Gabe, I haven’t had those nightmares for twelve years. I had them for months after the accident, but then they just stopped. I guess seeing you again today has jolted all those memories back to the surface.’

  ‘Do you want to talk to me about the accident, would it help?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  He sat in silence for a while. If she wanted to tell him, she would. After a while she spoke. Telling him everything about that fateful day and he felt even guiltier about not being there for her when she needed him the most.

  ‘I’m so sorry that you went through that. I can’t even imagine what that was like for you. What about the dreams? What are they about?’

  ‘They vary. Sometimes I’m trapped in the car and my dad leaves me to save himself. Sometimes I’m just trapped under the ice. Sometimes I’m standing on the side of the lake and I can hear my dad banging on the car door trying to get out.’

  ‘Your dad died of a heart attack, he didn’t drown. There was nothing you could have done to change that.’

  ‘I know.’ Pip closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder. For a second it was just as it had been twelve years ago, when they’d sit in the barn or at her house, with her head on his shoulder as they talked about anything and everything. Sometimes they’d talk about their futur
e and the big house they would have, the children they wanted and what they hoped to do with their lives. It was heartbreaking that in the blink of an eye all of that had changed.

  It didn’t seem right now, having her cuddle up to him. So much time had passed, so much resentment on both their parts.

  He moved his arm to wrap the duvet around her, forcing her to lift her head, but when he moved back into his position he ensured he was far enough away from her that she wouldn’t be able to lean against him.

  He thought he had been subtle, but she had clearly noticed. Hurt crossed her face for a second but then it was gone.

  ‘I’m sorry I ruined everything,’ Pip said.

  He looked out into the snow-covered darkness. ‘It wasn’t your fault, not really. You’d had a shock, you weren’t thinking straight. Your dad had died and you’d been trapped under the ice. If you had found me and Jenny hugging on any other day, I expect you would have been a lot more rational about it. Instead, with the trauma of the accident, it seemed worse than it was and with your grief you didn’t have a chance to be logical about it.’

  She sighed.

  ‘And who’s to say that we would have lasted anyway,’ Gabe said, practically. ‘If we’d gone to university, travelled, would the puppy love of two teenagers really have been enough to keep us together all this time?’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. At the time I thought what we had was forever.’

  ‘I did too,’ he said, softly.

  ‘I also thought that Myspace was really cool and Brad and Jennifer would last a lifetime.’

  He smiled. ‘A lot has changed in twelve years.’

  They were silent for a while but it wasn’t awkward, silence had never been awkward with her.

  ‘We could still be friends, though. When I leave here we could keep in touch,’ Pip said.

  Could they be friends again?