She forced herself not to stiffen at the reminder of why she shouldn't trust a good time guy like Nick. But she didn't have to trust him to enjoy what he offered. She'd been twenty-eight going on fifty-eight way too long.
Her smile stayed glued in place as they moved their heads close for the shots. The publicity. That’s all it was about.
But maybe she could let herself relax and enjoy this, without making a big deal of it. Enjoying Nick's company didn’t mean her feelings had to get involved.
Photos done, Nick tucked his phone back in his pocket. “Let’s get moving. You won’t want to be late back from lunch, and Santa needs to be in his board shorts by two. Ready for all the shoppers this morning’s publicity will bring in.”
The engine purred into life as the driver obeyed Nick's unspoken command.
Everyone on the busy streets turned to watch them cruise by, two lunatics in an open convertible in the middle of winter.
Cara laughed. “I can't decide whether to hide, or wave like the Queen.”
“Wave, definitely. It will get us more attention.” He gave a flourishing twirl of his hand to the tourists pointing cameras their way.
She did too, though it made her giggle.
It felt good to laugh again.
“I hope you’re not too cold. We’re nearly there,” Nick said.
“I’m fine.”
She meant it. She felt surprisingly fine.
They pulled up outside Covent Garden, transformed into a fantasy Bavarian Christmas market for the season.
Rows of tiny wooden stalls covered with glimmering fairy lights and boughs of evergreens. Another huge tree. Buskers. A vintage carousel, playing hurdy-gurdy music.
She used to love merry-go-rounds. Maybe they could ride….
Nick opened the car door for her. Somehow, she alighted gracefully, knees together, back straight, in the correct Miss Manners method. First time for everything.
She gave the waiting photographer her best queenly wave and a wide smile.
Nick slipped a warm arm around her shoulder. Her cheeks heated, betraying the warmth that flooded her at his touch.
“Shoot away, Mac,” he said with a grin at the tall dark-haired man behind the camera.
Of course, all for the photos. She mustn’t read anything more into it.
Photos done, Nick spoke to the chauffeur, who drove off.
Cara hated to guess how much the car had cost. Nick probably had plenty of money and could afford it, but what if he didn't? He claimed to have been a millionaire in his teens, but he hadn't been in a hit film for years. She had no idea how well his soap role paid.
What if like Dad, Nick wanted to have fun and give everyone a good time, regardless of the cost?
“Why the frown, Cara? This place looks great. Mom suggested I bring you here.”
That jolted her back to the conversation. “You told your mother about our dates?”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “Sure. Instagram isn’t exactly a secret photo site.” His lazy smile fluttered her tummy. “My dad doesn’t read the gossips but my Mom and sisters can’t get through the day without their TMZ.”
“TMZ?”
“It’s a celebrity gossip site. So, haven’t you told your family?”
“I have no family.” After all these years, the corrosive grief still scratched at her throat.
“I’m sorry.” His eyes held genuine apology. “I’m very lucky to have all mine. They want to meet you when they come out.”
“All of them?” Alarm made her voice thready. “What did you say?”
“I told them the truth. That we’re doing the dates to get the store publicity, but I wanted to do them anyway.” He smiled. “Believe it or not, I like you, Cara.”
Panic pounded in her ears. She didn’t want Nick to like her. Things were complicated enough as it was.
And meeting his family? That sounded… serious.
Nick wouldn’t like her once he found out the truth about Mum and Dad. Better not to let him get close in the first place.
“I’m very busy. I doubt I’ll have time to see them.”
She wasn’t lying. After phoning the homeless shelter to check on the old man, she had plans for more volunteer work, on top of her regular slot at the suicide helpline.
The raised eyebrow look he gave her suggested he guessed she’d been deliberately evasive, but chose not to press the point.
Still, changing the subject seemed wise. “So, how is this place in the song?” she asked, pinning on a smile.
Nick grinned. “It’s not. The car is the thing from the song. It had to take us somewhere. You can have your lunch here. Do some Christmas shopping, too. I will be.”
He looked excited as a kid at the prospect, as he headed toward the rows of brightly decorated stalls.
“I’ll just tag along with you. No shopping. The only presents I buy are small things for the girls in the office, and I get those at the pound store.”
Nick tilted his head to one side in a question. “The pound store?”
“Everything costs one pound.” Defensiveness crept into her voice. Avoiding his eyes, she ducked her head. “I know that sounds horribly cheap, but I can’t spend more.”
“I suppose letting me buy your gifts for them this year is out of the question? Look at these.” He picked up a gorgeous rainbow coloured hat, knitted in thick wool.
She shook her head, hard. The hats would be way out of her price range, and she wasn’t being anyone’s charity case. Nick had already spent far too much on the dare.
Her tummy rumbled, and she grinned. Food gave the ideal escape from questions about her finances. “Can we have lunch first? I skipped breakfast again. Turns out you were right about the muesli bars in my desk. They were stale.”
Nick laughed.
They threaded their way through the stalls, full of wooden toys, more hand knitted woollies, sweets, and pretty trinkets.
“I used to imagine Santa's elves got the presents somewhere like this.” Nick said.
“You really were a true believer, weren't you? I never believed Santa existed. I always knew Dad bought the presents.”
She forced thoughts of Dad and his extravagance out of her mind. Today was about having fun, not reliving the past.
“But I thought you said you stopped believing when you were seventeen?”
“I stopped believing in God and Christmas then. Not Santa.” She injected as much I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it as possible into her voice.
He took the hint, though she could tell from his expression he wanted to ask.
“What would you like for lunch? Those smell good.” He pointed to a stall where enormous sausages sizzled over leaping flames, with a mouth-watering aroma.
Cara nodded. “Yes please, but I’ll pay for myself.”
“No. My idea, I pay.” He smiled.
She talked firmly to herself to make sure she didn’t melt in the warmth of that smile. “I pay for myself, Nick.”
“Hey, come on Cara. I’m Santa, remember. You can't argue with Santa now, can you?”
Her lips twisted. “I guess not. Hard to argue with a non-existent marketing ploy.”
He nodded touche, and handed her a huge sausage in a bun, sneakily paying while she added mustard and ketchup.
“You can pay me back another time.”
It wasn’t worth arguing the point. She took a bite of her lunch instead. The sausage tasted as good as it smelled.
They laughed and chatted about everything and nothing. Took a ride on the steam carousel, side by side on the bright painted horses. Listened to a concert quality string quartet. Oohed and ahhed at a troupe of acrobats, performing suspended from a hot air balloon. Nick bought an armful of gifts.
People turned and stared at him, as if they were trying to place him, but no-one approached him.
Cara didn’t know how she’d cope with fame. Being recognised and photographed everywhere she went. The price of being with a celebrity, but she valued h
er privacy.
Then it hit her. The dare made her public property too. Every date, every picture published, put her in the spotlight as well as Nick.
Would the press find out, dig into her past, drag everything into the open again?
Nausea burned bitter in her mouth. She threw the rest of her lunch into the nearest bin. No way could she eat another bite.
Her plan had been to do the dare for Pettett and Mayfield’s.
But more was at risk than a bruised heart when Nick left. If she kept going with the dare, even if they saved the store, she risked the loss of the new life she’d worked so hard to build.
No-one would trust or respect her if the truth became known.
~~+~~
Nick enjoyed playing Saint Nick for Cara way more than he'd expected.
Unlike most of the kids and adults who approached him in his Ground Floor booth where he played Santa-with-a-surfboard, Cara asked for nothing. The opposite, she resisted letting him spend on her. Getting her to even accept a cheap lunch had been a challenge.
He chatted and smiled and signed autographs and had his photo taken with people, but the whole time, Cara filled his mind.
Her moods mystified him. Intrigued him, sure, but confused him too. She acted tough, but deep down, she cared. She’d even followed up on the homeless guy, made sure he was safe in a hostel. The store staff might grumble about her and call her Ms Scrooge, but he saw how they cared for her, and appreciated how hard she worked for them.
But every time it seemed he was winning her over, she changed again.
He’d thought growing up with two sisters made him a little less thick about women than most men, but Cara was a whole different ball game. She took the mystery of feminine moods to a level it would take the wisdom of Solomon to figure out.
At Covent Garden yesterday, it seemed like she'd finally entered into the spirit of the dare. When she'd allowed herself to have fun, she became adorable. Then something spooked her. She'd shut up tighter than a clam and hardly spoken during the ride back to the office.
Why, remained a mystery.
Why she fascinated him so much remained a mystery, too.
All he knew was a certainty deep in his soul that the Lord wanted him here in London, spending time with Cara, coming up with these crazy schemes to try to see that rare beautiful smile of hers.
Each outing raised the stakes, made him more determined to make the next one even more special. He wanted to wow Cara into forgetting whatever had hurt her so much that she’d turned away from God. More important than seeing her smile, would be knowing she found her faith.
She stuck with the dare for the store, he stuck with it for her.
It gave him pleasure to make her happy. God intended people to be joyful. No need to dig deeper for a reason.
Their next date wasn’t until tomorrow night, but he planned to see her again before then, as soon as his session ended.
At last, he could switch off playing Matt, his ‘California Dreaming’ character. He shed the role as easily as changing from Matt's board shorts and T-shirt into his own sweater and jeans.
He guessed where Cara would be. In the front window with Maggie, doing another display. They struggled with some huge blue panels.
“Gallagher, get in here and make yourself useful.” Cara was clearly back in snark mode. “Please?” she added belatedly.
He jumped into the window and took the panel from her. Too late, he found it was fiberglass not metal, and far lighter than he expected. He applied too much force and the panel flew up, straight at Cara's face.
Thankfully, it missed.
She jumped back and scowled. “Careful.”
He lifted his shoulders in apology and smiled. “I’ll work harder on my aim next time.”
Cara said nothing, but her lips twitched as she shook her head.
Maggie looked up with a snicker. “At least, do us a favour and stop getting photographed with vehicles when you’re doing the dates. I had no end of trouble locating this.”
He grinned back. Maggie had been one of his favourite people since their ‘Joey Christmas’ days, more like an older sister than a friend.
“Maybe you ought to try planning ahead, Magpie. Listen to the song. The music’s on an endless loop here, you must have heard it half a dozen times already. The next one is another vehicle. But I'll take pity and tell you what sort in advance. It won’t happen till Saturday.”
His regret at the delay surprised him.
“Nothing sooner?” Maggie asked.
He shook his head. “I can’t get what I want arranged sooner. And tonight we have the staff Christmas party. Everyone's told me how wonderful they are.”
“Don't believe them about the party,” Cara put in sharply. “It's our British sense of humour. The party will be dire. And maybe I'll be permitted to know what you've got planned for the next date, too?”
“Nope. Secret. You have your secrets, I have my secrets. But don’t worry, all secrets are discovered in good time.”
Cara grimaced and tensed, shaking her head. “Your secrets, yes, or we won’t have much of a dare. My secrets, no.”
He eyed her, trying to read her response, then let it go. Nothing could be hidden from God. If He wanted Cara’s secrets revealed, they’d surely come to light.
“Where do you want this?” he asked. “I'll be your grunt, just tell me what to do.”
Cara visibly pulled herself back to the task at hand. “Put it over here, as far in this corner as you can get it. Right Maggie?”
The pair worked him like a navvy, but in a couple of hours they created an amazing display. The blue panels assembled into the side of a long low convertible, carrying a couple of mannequins who smiled and waved, a huge stack of wrapped gifts in the back seat, and a Christmas tree in the boot.
“It looks good,” he said. “And what we’re doing is working. I saw way more customers this afternoon. We might make it out of the gossip pages and into the news with the next date, who knows.” He smiled.
For Cara’s sake, he wanted this to work. She still seemed preoccupied, hardly speaking apart from discussing the display.
Maggie made up for it with plenty of cheerful chatter.
Cara sighed. “I hope it’s working. We really need it to.”
“It’s working.” He reassured her, though the truth was, he had no idea if what they were doing would be enough.
Her raised eyebrow glance suggested she knew his words were more wishful thinking than fact.
She turned and hugged Maggie. “The window displays are fabulous, and they’re all due to you. I wish I could put you on the payroll. You've earned it.”
Maggie laughed. “Then I could come to the 'dire' staff party too, hey?” She gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “No thanks. One of the joys of being self-employed is never having to go to an office party. This has paid off for me too. Already I’ve had three referrals .”
She pointed at the hand-lettered card at the bottom of the display, advising she'd provided any items not available in the store.
“I hope so,” Cara said. “I hope we all do well out of this.”
Her voice sounded a little more positive, though when she turned back to him, her face wore that shuttered look again and she crossed her arms over her chest.
Defending those secrets of hers again, for sure. Well, he'd make things easier for her.
“I'm off to my apartment now. I'll text you, Magpie. See you at the party, Cara.”
Her expression told him exactly how much she looked forward to that.
Not at all.
“Don't say I didn't warn you.” She shook her head and pursed her lips. “If you’re determined to come, my advice is don't drink the punch. It’s meant to be non-alcoholic, but it always gets spiked with something. And stay out of the photocopier room, unless you’ve brought your own supply of eye bleach.”
Dire or not, Nick couldn’t wait.
It meant seeing Cara again. Her prickl
y and contradictory challenge had become the delight of his life, a puzzle he was determined to solve.
Chapter 11
The bowl of innocuous fruit juice punch at the staff Christmas party didn’t stay non-alcoholic for long.
The traditional cut glass punch bowl used at every staff party since the store’s founding in 1923, had probably been spiked every year since then too. No matter how hard Cara tried to police it, someone always managed to pour vodka and who knew what else into it.
Because more than one someone usually thought it would be fun to spike the punch, it ended up lethally strong.
She’d made the mistake of drinking some the first year she’d been at Pettett and Mayfield’s. Throwing up in the bathroom and suffering the first and only hangover of her life was enough to have her vow never to drink alcohol again.
If the dare worked and they still had a Christmas party next year, she’d insist they hired an off-site venue. Frugality was one thing, but pushing back the desks of the biggest office to make a party room took doing things on a budget too far.
At least with an off-site party the photocopier would be safe.
She looked at the clock and sighed in relief. Not long now and they could turn off the pounding music, tip the remains of the punch down the sink, and shepherd everyone in the direction of home. The trial-by-party would be over and she could escape.
Tonight had been even harder work than usual, with the added distraction of Nick.
By timing her movements around the room just right, so far she’d avoided him. Even so, all her awareness centred on him, way across the room, as he steered an under-age warehouse staffer away from the punch and toward a far safer can of cola.
The man was too perfect.
It wasn’t enough for him to be drop dead gorgeous, and blessed with a golden life, he had to be a good person too. Nick taking care of the younger male employees made her job way easier.
She couldn’t get away from him.
As if Nick felt her watching him, he looked straight at her, and smiled.
For a moment, their gaze held. Her head whirled as if she’d gulped down a cup of the punch, and her heart turned cartwheels.
Love In Store Books 1-3: Collection of three sweet and clean Christian romances with a London setting: The Wedding List, Believe in Me, & A Model Bride Page 23