Christmas under a Cranberry Sky Page 5

  She looked at him hopefully and then her face fell when she saw his doubt. ‘You’re probably too busy to have a pen pal.’

  ‘I’d like it if we stayed in touch.’

  He cursed himself. Why would he want to stay in touch with her? But there was something about sitting here with her. Now she was back, he didn’t want to lose her again. He knew they could never be in a relationship again, but they could be friends. He wanted to be friends with her.

  ‘You would?’

  ‘I really would. I’ve missed you. We were best friends long before we were in a relationship and although we can never go back, maybe we can move forward as friends.’

  Her face lit up into a big smile. ‘OK, so we’re friends. Tell me what you’ve done for the last twelve years. You’re a dad now, were you married to Wren’s mum?’

  He shook his head. ‘Ellen was never someone I would have wanted to spend the rest of my life with. She was someone I was seeing, she was fun, a bit of a party girl, but it never would have lasted. We’d been seeing each other for about three months when she told me she was pregnant. She was supposed to be on the pill, so it came as something of a shock. I wanted to get married: if I was going to be a dad, I wanted to do it properly. She wasn’t interested in that at all. She was too busy enjoying herself. When Wren was born her party lifestyle barely changed at all. She hung around for six months before she left me to raise Wren alone. It was something of a relief. We argued constantly and she was never going to win any mother of the year awards. She drifted in and out of our lives for the next year, visiting occasionally, sending the odd present. She died in a jet-ski accident when Wren was eighteen months old. Ellen was drunk and…well, it was an awful accident. I really felt for her family.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. I felt sad for Wren that she would grow up without a mum but…I know it’s horrible to say, but I think Wren is better off without her. I love her so much, she is the best thing that ever happened to me and we’re doing great with just the two of us. She doesn’t need a mum.’

  ‘That didn’t stop Sally from trying to take the role.’

  Gabe laughed. ‘You did have a nice little chat with Wren, didn’t you?’

  ‘She told me that Sally had told her she was going to be her new mummy.’

  ‘Not on my life.’

  Pip laughed. ‘Wren said that too.’

  ‘I liked her but she lied to me. Frequently. And it’s important I have people around me that I can trust. I’ve made some good decisions over the years and I now own a few hotels. There are…certain financial benefits that come from dating me. I guess there are quite a few women that would see me as good husband material because of it. Sally was one of those women that saw pound signs when she looked at me. She was just a bit of fun.’

  ‘So have you ever dated someone seriously? Anyone you loved?’

  ‘There’s only ever been one woman I fell in love with.’ Immediately he regretted saying that. He didn’t want to give her any hope that they could rekindle their relationship.

  ‘So you’re not seeing anyone at the moment?’

  ‘No.’

  For a brief moment he thought he saw hope flare in her eyes and that annoyed him a bit. After what had happened, after what she had done, she couldn’t possibly think they could just pick up where they left off.

  ‘I like it that way. I’ve been with lots of women over the years, but dating someone when I have a daughter just isn’t practical. I’m not going to hand her over to a babysitter every night just so I can go out with some random woman. It’s bad enough that I have to do that when I work, I don’t want to do it in the evenings too. I’m certainly not looking for anything serious. Someone who thinks they can swoop in and play step-mum to my daughter, I don’t think so.’ He ignored the hurt in her eyes and decided to change the subject slightly. ‘What about you, any serious boyfriends or husbands?’

  He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know the answer to that question when he had no plans of pursuing anything romantic with her, but there was something inside him that needed to know.

  ‘Not really.’

  He looked at her. She was so beautiful, he imagined there must have been several men over the years, even if none of them were serious. That thought alone filled him with a pang of jealousy. ‘You must have had men swarming around you.’

  ‘Hardly, but then I’ve perfected the “If you don’t leave me alone, then you might lose body parts” look.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Plus I sometimes wear a wedding ring, it deters most men.’

  ‘You push them away?’

  She paused before she spoke. ‘Let’s just say, I have trust issues.’

  Guilt gnawed at his gut. Partly because of her terrible upbringing and partly because of him, she hadn’t allowed herself to trust anyone since she had left her home twelve years before. There was something really sad about her never letting anyone in and spending her whole life alone.

  ‘Besides, I’ve never really stood still long enough to have any kind of serious relationship.’

  ‘What have you been doing for the last twelve years?’

  ‘I lived with my aunt for a while, but she didn’t really want me around either. I stayed with her long enough to sell Dad’s house – my aunt gave me all the money and told me to go and see the world.’

  He forced down the anger that someone else had let her down. ‘You always dreamed of travelling.’

  ‘I did. And I never really stopped. I was lucky enough to get an amazing job which involved a lot of travelling and I’ve been doing that for ten years.’

  ‘Oh? What’s the job?’

  ‘I’m…a photographer. I take pictures of hotels and holiday destinations for travel brochures.’

  ‘You’re living your dream. You always wanted to be a photographer. I’m so pleased for you.’

  She smiled sadly, but he couldn’t interpret it. He had noticed the pause too when she had said what she did for a job. Was it not what she had imagined it would be? Pip had always wanted to be a photographer, travelling the world and taking beautiful photos of the different countries, not just the views but the people. Maybe her job didn’t allow her to be as creative as she wanted.

  ‘So you own hotels? How did you get into that?’ Pip asked.

  He sensed she was changing the subject away from her job, but he decided not to push it.

  ‘When my grandad died he left us all a ton of money. No one really knows where this money came from, though there were rumours it had something to do with North Sea oil. I’d been doing business and tourism at university so I knew I wanted to move into the hotel industry. I invested the money in a small London hotel, bought it cheap, did it up, changed how it was run, and sold it on for almost four times what I paid for it. I repeated the process several times over the years, got good people to come and work for me, made the hotels the best they could be. Some I sold, some I kept. I currently own four hotels, one in London, one in California, one in New York and now here.’

  ‘I bet your family are so proud of you,’ she said and he noted the wistful tone in her voice.

  ‘I hope so. Mum and Dad used their money to travel the world, so I only see them every few months.’

  ‘And Neve, how is she? Is she still into horses? She had such a way with them, I always expected to see her on the Olympic equestrian team over the years. Wasn’t she working at the stables where the British Olympic team trained?’

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated, not wanting to impart the full story because it wasn’t his to tell. ‘That ended badly for her. She works for me now, she’s here as my hotel manager and she’s completely brilliant. I’d be lost without her.’

  ‘She’s here?’ Her whole face lit up. Pip had always adored Neve. She was two years older than Pip and so they were never really properly friends, but Neve would do Pip’s hair and make-up. Pip looked up to Neve like the big sister she never had and he knew for Neve the feeling was mutual
, that she loved having a little sister figure to talk to and look after.

  ‘I bet she’ll be really pleased to see you again,’ Gabe said, encouragingly.

  Her face fell a little. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. She was always very protective over you. I imagine the welcome might not exactly be a warm one after I left you the way I did.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about her.’ He hesitated. ‘Luke on the other hand…’

  The smile completely fell from her face this time. ‘Is he here too?’

  Luke, his half-brother, was six years older than him and they’d never had the easiest of relationships growing up. He seemed to hate everyone, and that extended to Pip too. Gabe was much closer to him now, but he was still such a closed-off person.

  ‘Yes, he mainly helps with all the animals but also with a few of the manual labour jobs, construction and repairs. He’s gone through a really rough time recently and I think he came up here hoping to get some solitude.’

  ‘God, he hated me growing up.’

  ‘He hated everyone. I wouldn’t take it too personally. He was like you in many ways, he had an awful start to his life.’ Despite Luke being the older brother, Gabe still felt really protective over him and worried about him. He certainly wasn’t winning any friends around the resort at the moment. The only friend Luke had made in the three months since he had been here was Audrey, one of the girls who ran a shop in the village. That was going to end in disaster as well. She was completely head over heels in love with him and he had no idea. He was going to end up hurting her and pushing her away too. He sighed. ‘Don’t worry about him, you probably won’t even see him while you’re here. You know he keeps himself to himself.’

  ‘Well, I’ll certainly keep an eye out for him.’

  Gabe sighed. That would be another thing he’d have to worry about while Pip was here. That and the fact that he was enjoying talking to her again way too much.

  ‘So you must have seen some fantastic sights on your travels, where have you been?’ Gabe asked.

  Pip’s face broke into a huge smile. ‘It’s been amazing. I’ve travelled around the world and the seen the most beautiful things…’

  He smiled as she talked and for a while everything seemed right with the world. He had his best friend back. He would ignore the fact that she would be leaving again in just over two weeks and he’d probably never see her again.

  Chapter 7

  Piper woke up to the bright winter sunshine streaming in through the window. She opened her eyes a crack and realised she was lying on the floor with her head in Gabe’s lap. How did that happen? They had talked all night, catching up on what they had been doing for the last twelve years and it had been almost like old times, as if that gap had never happened. At some point she must have fallen asleep, but she wasn’t sure how she had ended up like this.

  Suddenly she realised something else: Gabe was stroking her hair. The feelings she’d once had for him but suppressed came crashing back now at this sweet, intimate gesture. She couldn’t fall for him again. She had spent almost her whole life believing she couldn’t trust anyone, that she wasn’t loveable or worthy enough. To find out Gabe had truly loved her and she had thrown that away was utterly heartbreaking. He would never love her like that again, so falling for him would only lead to rejection, and she couldn’t face that.

  She felt him stir and stretch slightly under her and she quickly closed her eyes, hoping to prolong the moment with him just for a few seconds.

  ‘Hey beautiful.’ Gabe’s voice was all croaky and sleepy but also filled with love and adoration. ‘What are you doing in here?’

  Odd question. It was her room after all.

  ‘You weren’t in your room, Daddy, and then I saw Piper’s door open,’ Wren said and Piper realised it had been Wren stroking her hair, not Gabe. Gabe had clearly just woken up. ‘I’m combing her hair and making it look like Elsa.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you. Oh, you’ve brought all your snowflake hairgrips in here too. I’m sure Pip will love that when she wakes up,’ Gabe whispered.

  Piper smiled and kept her eyes closed for a moment, intrigued to listen to their conversation.

  ‘Will you plait her hair for me? I was going to do it but plaiting is hard. Then I can put all the snowflakes in the plait.’

  ‘Erm, we might wake her up if I plait it and she had a long day yesterday, I’m sure she’s really tired.’

  ‘If you do it gently she won’t wake up and it’ll be a nice surprise for her to be Elsa when she wakes up.’

  Gabe clearly hesitated for a moment as he weighed up doing what his daughter wanted and doing something that could be considered to be quite intimate with Piper.

  ‘OK, then, but we must be really quiet,’ Gabe whispered and Piper stifled a smile. He had a beautiful way with his daughter. She had overheard him reading a story to her the night before and it made her heart ache at how much he clearly loved her.

  She felt him lift her hair carefully and gather it gently into a ponytail and then his fingers were moving deftly through her hair. His touch at the back of her neck sent goosebumps down her spine.

  ‘She’s so pretty, isn’t she, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes she is.’

  ‘And she has golden eyes that the angels gave her.’

  Gabe’s fingers paused in their work. ‘Is that what Pip told you?’

  ‘Yes, she said that her mummy told her that her real parents might be angels.’

  After a moment Gabe’s fingers carried on moving through her hair. ‘Yes, her mummy said that often when Pip was little. Pip noticed that her eyes were a different colour to everyone else and she worried about being different. Pip’s mummy told her that she was a gift from the angels and that’s why her eyes were gold.’

  ‘Is it true, Daddy?’

  Piper regretted saying that now – it was an offhand comment – but she certainly didn’t want to confuse Wren.

  ‘When I was about your age, I heard people talk about Pip being adopted and I asked my mummy and daddy what it meant.’

  ‘Nanny and Pops?’

  ‘Yes, and they told me that Pip’s real parents were unable to look after her so they gave her to Louise and Simon because they knew that they would love her and care for her better than they could.’

  That wasn’t true of course. She’d been left in a wooden apple box in an orchard when she was only a day old. Her birth mum hadn’t even cared enough about her to arrange for a proper adoption or to leave her somewhere she would be found more easily.

  ‘Louise and Simon desperately wanted children of their own but couldn’t have them, so they applied to adopt a child and they were given Pip to raise as their own daughter. Long before Pip was old enough to ask about her eyes, Louise always said that she was a gift from Heaven, her perfect little Pip.’

  Piper felt the lump in her throat as she listened to Gabe explain about her past. Her mum, Louise, had loved her even if her dad hadn’t. She forgot that sometimes. Louise had died when Piper was only seven years old and it was hard to remember the good times they’d had when the next ten years had been blighted by so much darkness.

  ‘Nanny and Pops also said that Pip needed us to love and look after her too because when she got older she might be sad that her real mummy couldn’t keep her, but if we showed her how much we loved her then she might not be sad any more.’

  Tears formed behind Piper’s eyelids at this beautiful gesture from Gabe’s parents.

  Gabe’s fingers stopped plaiting and Piper felt the end being secured with a hair tie. She felt Wren’s tiny fingers press things into the plait.

  ‘And did you love her, Daddy?’

  ‘I loved her very much.’

  ‘Like you love me.’

  ‘In a different way to how I love you.’

  ‘And did Louise and Simon look after her and love her too even though she wasn’t really their daughter?’

  There was a pause from Gabe. ‘Louise loved her a lot
. But both Louise and Simon died a very long time ago.’

  Wren’s fingers continued to press and twist things into Piper’s hair. ‘But who looks after her and loves her now if they are both dead?’

  ‘She’s grown up now, she doesn’t need anyone to look after her any more.’

  ‘But, Daddy, you still have Nanny and Pops to look after you.’

  ‘They don’t really look after me. They love me but I can take care of myself now.’

  ‘And Neve looks after you.’

  ‘Yes, I guess she does.’

  ‘And I look after you.’

  ‘Yes you do, Princess, you do a very good job of looking after Daddy.’

  ‘And Piper has no one to look after her?’

  Gabe hesitated again. ‘No, I don’t think she does.’

  ‘We could look after her.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, honey. She’s not a pet, we can’t keep her.’

  ‘She needs someone to love her. Nanny and Pops said that if we love her she won’t be sad.’

  ‘They meant when Pip was a child, not now.’

  ‘She doesn’t need loving now?’

  Piper would have laughed at this awkward conversation had it not been so heartbreaking.

  ‘She does, but she is only staying here for just over two weeks, then she will be leaving. It’s hard to love someone who you don’t see.’

  ‘But you don’t see Nanny and Pops very often, but you still love them?’

  Gabe sighed. ‘Yes I do… Do you want some breakfast?’

  ‘Yes, I’m starving. Can I have pancakes?’

  ‘You can have whatever you want.’

  ‘Why do you call her Pip when her name is Piper?’

  ‘It’s a nickname, Princess. Just like my name is Gabriel and everyone calls me Gabe. Pip is short for Piper. I’ve always called her Pip, it would be difficult for me to think of her as Piper now.’

  ‘What should I call her?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her that when she wakes up?’

  Piper felt a slight weight lean over her and then Wren whispered in her ear, ‘It’s time to wake up.’

  ‘Wren, I didn’t mean wake her up now,’ Gabe said, sternly.