A Very Lucky Christmas

by A Very Lucky Christmas (retail) (epub)

  ‘Your mother asked me to come.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Duh! Because you were crying your heart out.’

  ‘She knows?’

  ‘The whole street probably knows. Do you realise, you wail a lot when you’re crying?’

  ‘Great.’ Daisy managed to produce a small smile. It felt fake, and she wondered whether smiles were always going to be like this from now on – a pretence at happiness, a sop to persuade the world she was okay when she was, in fact, never going to be okay ever again.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Zoe said. ‘I need to go shopping.’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock in the evening. Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?’

  ‘That’s a laugh! David’s leg is still in plaster, and we’ve got no food in the house, and with me being back in work, the only time I can go is in the evenings or the weekends.’

  Daisy felt awful. Since she’d started work and had been seeing Noah, she’d let her caring duty slide a little. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she offered.

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I want to.’ She didn’t, but she also didn’t want Zoe lugging carrier bags full of groceries around, either. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to the baby. ‘Give me a minute to make myself presentable.’ Splash cold water on her face to try to hide the fact she’d been crying, was what she meant. When she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she winced. Red and blotchy, she looked hideous.

  Oh, who cared! It wasn’t as if she would see anyone she knew – who else went grocery shopping on a weekday evening?

  Melissa, that’s who.

  Daisy spotted her in the chilled section of Sainsbury’s pushing a half-full trolley, and her already low spirits sank even further. If Daisy ever did the shopping (not that her mother trusted her to bring back what was on the list) she usually went to Tesco, and she’d never shopped at Sainsbury’s when her and Freddie had been together, because Tesco had been nearer. If she had even so much as an inkling that she might bump into her former friend and colleague she would never have offered to accompany Zoe. Melissa was the last person on earth she wanted to see, especially since she knew she looked like something the cat had dragged in.

  She did an about turn, hoping she hadn’t been spotted, and high-tailed it to the other end of the store, where she hid in the household section and pretended to examine the toilet cleaning products.

  ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ a voice hissed in her ear.

  Daisy jumped. ‘Melissa,’ she said, flatly.

  ‘You bitch!’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Daisy had no idea why the other woman was calling her names. Melissa still had a job and a nice little promotion to boot. By rights, if anyone should be name calling, it should be Daisy.

  ‘Homewrecker!’ Melissa shouted.

  ‘Who me?’ Whose home was Daisy supposed to have wrecked?

  ‘I saw you with him.’

  ‘With who?’ Did Melissa mean Noah?

  ‘Aaron’s brother. Don’t try to deny it, you were all over him.’

  ‘Aaron who?’ Daisy didn’t know anyone by the name of Aaron. Did she? Oh, hang on, was Noah’s brother called Aaron? She didn’t think he’d mentioned his name… She’d have to ask him. Wait, no she couldn’t ask him anything ever again, because they weren’t together anymore.

  ‘His wife knows, thanks to you,’ Melissa cried.

  ‘Whose wife?’ Daisy blinked, trying to work out what Melissa was on about.

  ‘You know perfectly well who.’ Melissa made no attempt to keep her voice down, and Daisy simply wanted to die of embarrassment.

  ‘No, really I don’t,’ Daisy insisted.

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘It’s the truth!’

  ‘I could lose my job because of this.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Who told you? Was it Joyce?’ Melissa demanded.

  ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to Joyce since I left Caring Cards,’ Daisy protested, having absolutely no idea what she was being accused of. ‘What was Joyce supposed to have told me?’

  ‘About me and Aaron. Don’t play dumb. I know it was you, I saw you talking to Aaron’s brother.’

  ‘Look, Melissa, I don’t know what you’re talking about or what you think I’ve done—’

  ‘Are you calling Art a liar?’

  Art…? Art…? Who…? Ah! Art – the nice guy from New Year’s Eve. She hadn’t given him a second thought, until now.

  A curious crowd of shoppers had gathered around them to watch the unfolding drama. Daisy spotted Zoe amongst them, and she was holding up her mobile and miming “police” at her. Daisy shook her head. She could cope with the likes of Melissa by herself.

  Now everything was starting to make sense. Art and Aaron must be brothers. Well, well, well, it’s a small world, she thought. Worcester wasn’t a particularly large city, as cities go – it was more like an oversized town, and the chances of bumping into an acquaintance whenever you stepped outside your front door was quite high.

  ‘Are you saying that Art is Mr Dearborn’s brother?’ Daisy was pretty certain he was, but she had to check.

  ‘As if you don’t already know,’ Melissa spat.

  ‘He never mentioned his surname,’ Daisy said.

  ‘You had your tongue down his throat and he practically admitted he got you a job in his bank.’

  Oh, yes, that. ‘It was one kiss, and there was no job.’

  ‘Like his brother, is he? Says anything to get into your knickers.’ Bitterness saturated every one of Melissa’s words.

  ‘Art only said what he did because he knew you’d helped to get me sacked.’

  ‘How did he know that, unless you told him?’

  ‘Yes, I told him,’ she admitted, ‘but only because he wanted to know why Sara was threatening to knock your brains out. I had no idea who he was.’

  ‘Who’s Sara?’ Melissa frowned, then waved a hand in the air. ‘Never mind, I still want to know how you knew. Thanks to you, Aaron has been forced to leave the company and his wife is out for my blood. I hope you’re happy!’

  Strangely enough, Daisy wasn’t. She was shocked and surprised, but not happy. Though Melissa had got her comeuppance and Mr Dearborn had hopefully learned not to mix business with pleasure and to keep it in his trousers when he was at work, it was a pity that Daisy and the unknown Mrs Dearborn had been the hapless victims of their sordid little affair.

  ‘No, I’m not happy,’ Daisy said to her former colleague, ‘but you’ve brought all this on yourself. If you hadn’t been so eager to get promoted at any cost, then this wouldn’t have happened. And for your information, Joyce didn’t tell me. You did.’

  ‘I never!’ Melissa paled and Daisy bet the other woman was frantically going through every conversation she’d ever had with Daisy, wondering if she’d let anything slip.

  ‘I heard you talking to your lover the day the pair of you got me sacked,’ Daisy said. ‘I was in the toilets.’

  Melissa’s already pale, pinched face turned the colour of “oh, shit!”.

  ‘And by the way,’ Daisy added. ‘I’m not a meek lamb. I got myself a solicitor. Thanks to you and Aaron Dearborn, Caring Cards has awarded me a substantial sum in compensation for unfair dismissal.’ And with that, Daisy rammed Melissa’s trolley out of the way and stalked past, her head held high. A cheer went up from the watching crowd.

  But all Daisy could think about was Noah.

  Chapter 36

  The bed was too small and the mattress was too lumpy. Daisy turned over, wriggling to try to get more comfortable. The sheets were scratchy too, and the duvet just didn’t cover her properly, and her pillow was nastily damp from the tears which trickled from the corner of her eyes in a steady stream.

  And she wished that annoying noise would stop. It was coming from her mother’s room, and sounded like something was tapping the window – a bird, or… eek! A vampire! “Let me in”, that’s what that boy vampire had
said in Salem’s Lot when he hovered outside the window. The film had given her nightmares for weeks.

  She lay rigid in her uncomfortable single bed, listening for the next tap.

  There it was again.

  Was someone trying to break in?

  Oh, God, that was it! Burglars.

  If she didn’t get up and make sure, they could all be murdered in their beds. The sound of her mother blissfully snoring travelled across the landing as Daisy crept out of her room, and she wondered how the woman could sleep through such a racket. Her nan hadn’t stirred, either.

  The noise came again, and Daisy almost shrieked.

  Against her better judgement, she padded down the stairs, freezing when she got to the last step, and wondered if she could risk peeping through the living room curtains. If a burglar saw movement it might scare him off. On the other hand, it may encourage him to stop arsing around and get on with breaking in.

  She sidled across the hall and into the living room as silently as she could, easing the curtain aside.

  At first, she couldn’t see anything, then a movement caught her eye.

  A shape shifted in the darkness, curiously hunched and bent in on itself, then it straightened, and she thought it was a man. One of its arms went back and catapulted forward, and immediately after there came the sound of something solid hitting glass, not hard enough to break it but hard enough to make that disconcerting tapping noise.

  Then a voice hissed, ‘Daisy!’

  Bloody hell, whoever this was, he was coming after her!

  ‘Daisy,’ it said again, louder.

  This time she recognised the voice and her heart constricted, missing a beat.

  She hurried to the front door and unlocked it. ‘Noah?’

  ‘About time! I’ve been trying to wake you up for hours. You sleep like the dead.’

  ‘That’s not my bedroom window,’ Daisy said, stepping into the little front garden, and looking up.

  ‘It isn’t? That explains it.’

  ‘It’s my mother’s room, and you’re lucky you didn’t wake her up.’ She tried to make out his expression in the orange-yellow light of the streetlamp. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, hope lifting her treacherous heart.

  ‘I had to see you.’ He came closer, but halted before he reached her.

  ‘At two-thirty in the morning?’ she asked. Her mouth was dry and her insides churned unpleasantly.

  His shrugged.

  ‘You could have rung,’ she said.

  ‘Your phone was off.’

  Her phone certainly wasn’t off. It was on her bedside table where she always left it at night, and she distinctly remembered putting it there after that awful phone call from Noah when he’d told her he was moving to Brighton. It felt like ages ago, and that she had been estranged from him for days, and not just a few hours. If this was what the rest of her life was going to be like, she certainly wasn’t looking forward to it.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  No, they didn’t. Talking would only make things worse, drag it out. A clean break was much better. She shook her head.

  ‘Please, Daisy, I don’t want it to end like this.’

  Daisy didn’t want it to end at all, but she didn’t have much choice, did she? ‘How do you want it to end?’ she asked, bitterly.

  ‘I don’t want it to end at all,’ he replied, confusing her even further.

  ‘You don’t? But what about—’

  ‘Kate? You’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion, my love.’

  ‘How do you know what conclusion I jumped to?’

  ‘Zoe told me. Look, can I come in? I’ve been out here ages, and I’m bloody freezing!’

  ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Over there. Why?’

  ‘There’s no way I’m going to risk waking Mum or Nan. We can sit in your car and you can turn the heater on.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go to the drive-through. I could murder a coffee.’

  ‘I’d better get changed.’ Daisy raced upstairs, pulling her pyjamas off even before she got to her room. Grabbing the closest things to hand (yesterday’s jeans and fleece) she hastily dressed and checked the bedside table for her mobile. She’d better take it with her, because knowing her luck, her mother or her nan would be bound to need her for something. They never had woken her in the middle of the night before, but Sod’s Law dictated that the one night she wasn’t soundly asleep in bed, was the one night when she would be called upon. Her phone wasn’t where she normally left it.

  Daisy had a quick scout round for it, then shrugged. She’d have to go without it, and hope that the house wouldn’t be visited by aliens, or burnt down, or be engulfed in a gigantic sinkhole (she’d read about these kinds of things). Skittering back down the stairs, the only thought in her head was, he’d called me “my love”.

  Had it been a slip of the tongue or had he meant it? If he’d meant it, where did that leave her?

  He was waiting by the car as she slipped out of the door, closing it softly behind her, and as she buckled her seatbelt, there were only two things on her mind. The first one was easy. ‘What do you mean “Zoe told you”?’ she asked.

  ‘She called me. I thought it was you, at first.’

  ‘How does she know your number?’

  ‘She rang me from your phone.’ That explained what had happened to her mobile, Daisy guessed. The sly little minx had stolen it. Daisy wondered how she’d ever thought Zoe was insipid and stupid. The woman was more cunning than a weasel, and just as sneaky. It remained to be seen whether Daisy would forgive her – it depended on what happened in the next hour or so.

  McDonalds was quiet at that time of the night – morning. The late customers had been and gone, and the early ones hadn’t gotten out of bed yet.

  ‘Can we go inside?’ Noah suggested. ‘I’ve been sat in that car half the night.’ He arched his back and tried to stretch out his legs.

  Daisy would have preferred to remain in the car in case she failed to hold the tears back but Noah had already opened his door. When the overhead light came on, and she saw how tired and drained he looked, she agreed.

  ‘Double espresso,’ he ordered, and Daisy thought he needed the caffeine desperately.

  ‘When was the last time you slept?’ she asked.

  Noah rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘Not last night, the night before.’

  No wonder he looked exhausted, and Daisy had an inkling she didn’t look much better herself.

  ‘Do you have to work today?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thank goodness.’

  Daisy did, and she resented him keeping her from her bed, conveniently forgetting that she’d been totally unable to sleep. ‘Make it quick, because I do have work in the morning, so say what you’ve come to say, and get it over with.’

  ‘There’s no need to pretend, Zoe told me how you feel.’

  The witch! After everything Daisy had done, her sister-in-law had betrayed her. Never again would she confide in her. Zoe would be lucky if Daisy told her what the time was if she asked.

  ‘Wonderful,’ was Daisy’s sarcastic reply.

  ‘Actually, it is,’ Noah said, and Daisy rounded on him.

  ‘Makes you feel good to break a girl’s heart, does it?’

  ‘No, of course not, I—’

  ‘Look, I know Connor has to take priority, I understand, honestly I do, but it’s over. There’s no point in explaining how you and Kate have decided to make a go of things for your son’s sake.’

  To her surprise and dismay, Noah laughed. Daisy’s hand gripped her cappuccino harder, and she resisted the urge to lob it at him.

  ‘Kate is marrying Ian,’ Noah said. ‘Zoe told me—’

  ‘I don’t care what she told you. You’re still in love with your ex, so—’ Daisy said, talking over Noah, who was saying, ‘—you thought I still loved Kate. I don’t. I love you.’

  Daisy froze. ‘You what?’

  ‘I love you,
you silly goose. Why do you think I drove all the way from Brighton in the middle of the night to talk to you? I mean, I was going to anyway, after you hung up on me, but when Zoe said you were breaking your heart because you thought I was getting back together with Kate, then I had to come and explain to you in person.’

  ‘But you’re moving to Brighton,’ she said, her heart pattering so hard and fast, she was worried it might explode.

  ‘I thought about it, for about half a day, when Connor made me feel as guilty as hell for not being there for him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told you my son was a great kid, didn’t I?’ (Daisy hadn’t exactly seen the “great” side of him, only the stroppy teenager side). ‘He saw how upset I was, but before that, on the way back to Brighton, he asked about you.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘He’d never seen me with anyone else before and he was curious. In fact, I’d never talked to him about any woman before, and I didn’t want him to think I did this sort of thing all the time, and that it had been sheer bad luck that he’d caught me getting physical. I explained that it was still early on in our relationship, but that I thought I was falling in love with you.’

  ‘You are?’

  Noah nodded. ‘Once Connor had calmed down a bit – it seems like he’s getting teased at school, and a few of the other boys have been telling him weird and wonderful, and some not-so-wonderful, stories about their own step-fathers, and he’d got a bit scared. Anyway, I met Ian, and the four of us sat down and had a good long talk about how his mum marrying Ian would affect him, and that I’ll always be his dad, no matter what, and after that he was much happier.’

  ‘Was this before or after you decided to move to Brighton?’

  ‘Before.’

  Which meant, Noah still intended to move. Daisy saw no point in continuing the discussion – unless he was going to ask her to go with him? The thought made her giddy. Would she go?’

  ‘I said Connor is a great kid, because he is. He loved the idea of me being closer. He loved the idea of being able to pop in on the way home from school, and to see me every weekend if he wanted.’

  Daisy didn’t take her eyes off Noah. His face was filled with an odd mix of pride, love, and sadness.