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

by Autumn Macarthur

  She pushed back from the table a little, putting distance between them, and a curtain seemed to come down, shuttering her eyes. He didn’t like the feeling of being shut out again, when it seemed Cara had finally begun to open up.

  Why would his compliment cause such a dismissive reaction?

  He’d never figure her out.

  She forced a smile and changed the subject. “So, our publicity is working. Sales figures are on the up. Everyone might get to keep their jobs after all.”

  Nick got the sense she’d put him in his place, made sure he knew she was only here for the store. “Great.”

  It was great.

  But Cara closing him out again felt anything but great. He stared out at the river.

  The boat chugged slowly along, under bridges blazing with lights. The muddy Thames looked like a river of dreams. But this date was anything but dreamy.

  More like one of those nights where you toss and turn replaying everything and wondering if you should have spoken differently.

  The meal was delicious, but Cara ate little, and said even less. She stared at the river while pushing food around her plate. Clearly, something bothered her. After Bronnie served dessert, saying with a completely unnecessary wink she'd leave them alone now, he took the bull by the horns.

  “Out with it. What's wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything's fine.” She straightened in the chair and pretended a smile. “Why do you ask?”

  “You'd never make a good poker player.”

  She jumped up, chair clattering on the polished deck, and burst into speech.

  “Nick, I can’t do this any more. It’s already made a difference to the store. I just have to hope it’s enough.”

  Unaccustomed loss knifed through him at the thought of their dates ending. He wanted to reach out and hold the hands she clenched so tightly on the table in front of her.

  “Why?” he asked gently. “We can improve sales even more if we keep going. We can make sure all the jobs are safe. I have more dates planned. The whole rest of the song.”

  “Forget about the dare. I can’t let you do this. You’re spending too much money.” Passion choked her voice.

  “Is that all?” He’d worried something serious was bothering her.

  “You’ll have to change your plans. You’re determined to win the dare, but at what cost? You’re spending way too much on this. On me.” The words poured from her as she gestured around them. “The car, now a private boat? It’s too much.”

  She twanged with tension like an over-tightened guitar string.

  Nick smiled.

  Wrong reaction, of course. Judging by her tense frown and narrowed eyes, it made her angrier.

  But he couldn’t help smiling. Cara was so different from any other woman he'd dated. No-one had ever scolded him for spending money on them. Everyone else assumed he was rich and expected more, not less.

  “Don't worry. I can afford it.”

  She threw him a glance, acid enough to strip paint.

  “I've heard that one before. I don’t like people who run up debt having a good time.”

  “I don’t have a penny of debt.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “The soap pays well, and I get royalties every time 'Joey Christmas' airs. Any idea how many channels rerun it each Christmas?”

  She silently shrugged.

  “A lot more than you'd imagine. It’s dubbed into Russian and Chinese and twenty other languages besides. If I never acted again, it makes me enough to live on comfortably.”

  An expression he couldn’t quite read crossed her face, but she said nothing.

  “I’m being careful. I know money doesn’t last forever. You've heard of six degrees of separation?”

  She nodded.

  “I know a lot of people who know a lot of people who know a lot of people. Call it a perk of being an actor. The convertible belongs to an old friend of Maggie’s, and she provided his chauffeur outfit. Didn’t you wonder how she had the exact same one to use in the window display?” He waved his hands around the boat. “Our hosts tonight are my second cousin and his wife, happy to get free publicity for their dinner cruise business.”

  He reached out across the table, and touched the tips of his fingers to the centre of her chest, lightly and quickly.

  His whole being buzzed with the contact.

  “Cara, you've shown me there's feeling in there. I'm not going to believe your ice maiden routine. It’s not just the money, is it? Tell me the real reason.”

  “It is the real reason.”

  She didn’t meet his eyes, and her hands twisted together. Apart from that convulsive movement, she sat stiffly, tense and motionless. Looking up at him, she forced a wobbly smile.

  Seeing her upset yet trying to hide it gripped his heart in a vise and squeezed. He’d never felt another person’s pain so intensely. He’d never felt pain of his own so intensely.

  Cara had dug herself deep under his skin. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was falling in love with her.

  He didn’t like the vulnerability that came with that feeling.

  He didn’t like it one bit.

  But he’d still do whatever he could to help her.

  He covered her clenched hands with his. “I know you wouldn’t lie to me, but it’s not the whole reason. You clammed up the second I mentioned your parents.”

  The struggle between speaking and not speaking played out on her face. Speaking won.

  “Nick, this is scary,” she whispered, so soft he had to lean across the small table to hear. So close a tendril of her hair tickled his cheek.

  “What are you scared of, Cara?” Emotion roughened his voice.

  So she was a drama queen. Some drama was real. Life wasn’t all acting.

  “Scared the publicity won’t just get people interested in the store, but in me. I don’t know what might happen if journalists start digging.” Her voice was a thread.

  He focused on the connection between them, on the firm gentle pressure of his hand on hers, waiting for her to continue.

  Eventually, she raised her head and met his gaze. Tears glittered in her eyes, though she didn’t allow them to fall. Her fingers trembled, then curled around his.

  Nick infused as much comfort and warmth as he could into that touch, and kept his mouth shut, waiting for her to speak.

  “I used to love Christmas,” she murmured. “Dad made it spectacular. Flights to Lapland. Trees so big they wouldn’t fit in the room. Far too much food, catered so Mum didn’t have to cook. And the presents! Whatever I wanted, I got. I was Dad’s Little Princess. Spoiled rotten.”

  Her eyes were dreamy, reliving happy memories. Then her smile twisted. She pulled her hands away from his, jumped up and marched across the tiny deck, as far away from him as she could get.

  “We found out later, all paid for on maxed out credit cards. The year I turned seventeen, the credit ran out. Dad disappeared. We called the hospitals. Called the police. Worried ourselves silly. We never saw or heard from him again.”

  Nick’s shoulders tensed.

  “It got worse. Bailiffs knocking on the door. Phone calls from the bank, threatening foreclosure. A delegation from his employees, wanting to know why they hadn’t been paid. And visits from debt collectors. The sort with tattoos on their knuckles and baseball bats in their cars.”

  Her voice stayed matter of fact. She could have been reciting times tables. But it must have been terrifying for a teenage girl and her mother.

  “Cara, I wish I’d known you then. I could have helped.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think anything could have helped. We found out quickly who our friends were. Once news got out, no-one wanted to know us. The guy I’d been dating sent me a text to call it off.” She looked up with a wry attempt at a smile. “Maybe everyone thought it was catching and they’d lose their Mercedes like we had.”

  His fists clenched. He’d like to wring that guy’s neck. No wonder Cara was so wary and untrust
ing.

  “That stinks. But it doesn’t mean we have to stop the dates. You can’t help what your dad did. I saw on the news this morning, some English celebrity declaring bankruptcy for the fourth time. People won’t think worse of you for what your dad did.”

  “People did at the time. You don’t know how nasty they were.” Her voice dropped, and she sagged against the boat’s railings, wrapping her arms around herself. “It was more than just bankruptcy. Nothing about him was real, it was all for show and when the show was over, he vanished. He caused so much misery for so many people. And the police came looking for him, too.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, and the vulnerability in them seared him, tightening his chest.

  The breath she took was almost a sob. “I want to know where he is, know if he’s okay. But what if it causes even more trouble? We don’t have a statute of limitations in this country. If the publicity draws attention to him, he could be arrested. He could be sent to jail.”

  He stepped closer, longing to comfort her, but her tense closed off posture warned him not to touch her. “You don’t know where he went?”

  She shook her head. “The police thought he might have left the country on a false passport, but they didn’t really know. Someone said they’d seen him running a bar in Spain. Someone else, years later, thought they’d seen him sleeping rough in London.”

  Nick dragged in a heavy breath. “So that’s why you helped the homeless man?”

  She nodded.

  “I imagined my dad sitting there, and everyone ignoring him. I couldn’t walk by.”

  “You were kind.”

  Her lashes came down, covering her eyes. She’d told him this much, but he sensed she still hid more secrets from him. Her lack of trust kicked him in the gut.

  “I’m not the wonderful person you want to believe I am.”

  He shook his head.

  No, she wasn’t wonderful. She was stubborn, difficult, and the biggest challenge he’d faced. Yet something in her called to him, the way no other woman had.

  She straightened and paced the deck. “We have to end the dare. No more dates. I can’t take the chance. The store should be safe for now.”

  Standing at the rail, she wrapped her arms across her chest, her hands clutching her shoulders.

  He’d help, if only she’d let him.

  No hope of that. She’d sealed herself up tighter than Fort Knox.

  Frustration at her stubbornness tightened his muscles and gnawed in his belly.

  But he’d still do what he could. Micki had challenged him, then God threw him into this situation. It was clear he had a lesson to learn and Cara was part of it.

  “Do you want to go home now?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll get Michael to put in at the next dock and we’ll find you a cab. It will be all right, Cara.”

  He prayed that was true.

  She shook her head and the despair in her eyes rocked him. Turning her back on him, she stood stiff and unmoving at the rail.

  An unaccustomed sense of loss at her rejection ached in him. His only rejections so far had come from losing auditions. Painful though some of those had been, that didn’t compare to losing a parent.

  He’d been so blessed.

  Knowing that didn’t stop Cara’s rejection hurting him. His legs felt heavy as he dragged himself to the cabin door, and opened it.

  Michael and Bronnie stood at the helm, arms around each other. Their togetherness put a lump in his throat.

  Cara didn’t trust him enough to accept his help, and that wasn't about to change.

  She was just someone he’d tried and failed to teach to enjoy Christmas again.

  He’d kept his end of the deal. But he couldn’t make her change.

  Only God could do that.

  ~~+~~

  The only good thing about Cara’s weekend was that nothing bad about her had been reported.

  Yet.

  The Sunday paper was plastered with details and pictures of their dinner on the boat, but thankfully the romance was still the focus, not her personal life. A centre spread about Nick in the glossy weekly entertainment section mentioned he could be seen at the store every day this week. That was the sort of publicity they wanted.

  She’d distracted herself on Sunday by scrubbing every surface of her tiny flat, and showing up for an additional admin session at the suicide helpline. The holiday season was especially swamped and it was a welcome surprise to the other volunteers.

  Monday morning came much too quick.

  In her office, she hurried to check the gossip pages of Metro.

  Same pictures as the Sunday paper, no additional news from nosey journalists. Her head thumped at the picture of Nick hugging her on the pier before they’d boarded the canal boat. It looked so much like an intimate embrace, like he’d been just about to kiss her. It had felt like that at the time too.

  Just the memory set her heart racing.

  The article quoted Nick’s agent saying it was just a publicity stunt for the store, part of the Christmas act for Pettett and Mayfield’s. That Nick would be back in L.A. by the New Year. They had her name this time, but mercifully nothing more.

  Nick must have called his agent and told him to make that statement, to try to draw away media interest from her. Thoughtful of him. And he’d sent a text yesterday, to check she was okay.

  Time after time he confounded her expectations.

  Maybe her expectations were set too low.

  Maybe all men weren’t conmen like her Dad. Or cowards like the boyfriend who’d left her after it all went wrong, when she needed support the most.

  How had she ever thought Nick would be self-centred and difficult? Sure, he’d challenged her, pushed her into the dare, but he was every bit the ideal boyfriend she imagined at eleven. Kind, considerate, putting her first.

  She loosed a heavy sigh.

  He was just as much hers then as he was now. Imaginary.

  She’d never had a chance with Nick. He’d been kind when she’d told him about Dad, sure, but he didn’t know the half of it, and she hoped he’d never find out.

  If only things had been different. She could have let herself relax and enjoy his company, treat the dare the way he wanted her to. A bit of fun.

  But things weren’t different, and she couldn’t. Now was the time to stop the dates, before anyone decided to try to make an even better story by digging up the truth about her.

  Dad’s fraud and theft.

  Mum’s death.

  Everything she’d done and hadn’t done that caused it all.

  She couldn’t bear being talked about and judged and blamed like that again. The questions. The gossip that stopped when she came in the room. The sideways glances.

  And she couldn’t risk Dad being found and put on trial.

  She ought to be glad she’d ended the dare.

  So why did she feel such an ache at knowing she’d never find out what Nick had planned for the rest of the dates?

  No point even thinking about it.

  She opened the weekend sales figures instead.

  Sales were up.

  Way up.

  First her jaw dropped. Then her hand pressed her chest. Then she smiled.

  She even felt like thanking God.

  For once, her Monday morning number crunching produced good news. The total takings for the week made her stare. They hadn’t had a week this good since … well, ever. Not since she’d been with Pettett and Mayfield, anyway.

  Sales would surely improve even more this week, after Sunday’s photo spread. As Jaz said the day Nick arrived, any woman in the Home Counties with a pulse who saw those photos would want to come in and see him in the flesh.

  It might not be enough to turn the store’s fortunes around permanently, but it would certainly keep them going into the New Year.

  For the first time in a long while, she walked into the management meeting with a smile. Not only were the jobs safe for now. With fig
ures like this to back her up, she could end the dates with a clear conscience.

  Unfortunately, Mrs Pettett didn’t agree.

  “Yes, yes, last week’s sales are all well and good, but what do you have planned for this week, girl? Surely you’re not stopping after just one week, when it’s working so well?”

  Cara’s joy turned bitter at Mrs Pettett’s disdainful stare.

  She steeled herself to reply. She’d done enough, even if she didn’t follow Nick’s plan till the end.

  “We don’t need any more dates. They’ve done their job. The momentum and word of mouth will keep sales high from now until Christmas. And this will help even more.”

  She pulled the Sunday magazine pages out of her clippings folder and pushed them across the boardroom table, hoping Mrs Pettett’s pacemaker was up to the job.

  Her own pulse rate certainly accelerated every time she saw the photos.

  The still image from the soap, showing Nick emerging bare-chested from the surf. Mac’s photo of him looking gorgeous in his Santa hat in his ground floor department.

  The older woman’s eyes widened. “These will certainly help.”

  Cara relaxed in her seat.

  Mrs Pettett slipped the photos back into the folder with a smug smile. “I did right getting Catherine’s grandson, didn’t I?” Then her brow furrowed. “But with ten days left until Christmas, it’s far too soon to stop the dates. Sales are good, but why stop now when they can be even better?”

  Every department head around the table looked at Cara expectantly.

  “Well?” Mrs Pettett’s pink lipsticked mouth turned downwards and she began to tap her lacquered finger nails on the table.

  A sure sign of an outburst on its way, unless Cara headed it off, fast.

  Her stomach quivered as she rushed to answer.

  “Nick and I agreed after the Saturday date that it should be the last one.”

  Mrs Pettett shook her head, scowling.

  “That’s simply not good enough, Cara. I expected that you, of all people, would be willing to go the extra mile for the store. If redundancies need to be made, believe me, your unwillingness to help will count against you.”