“Nothing will take away the guilt. The knowledge I failed her. She was right. It was my fault. My fault Dad left and my fault she died. I could have stopped her. Even Jesus can’t fix that.”
He stood and went to her, holding out his hands.
Cara pulled back, raising both her hands like shields in front of her.
If she wouldn’t accept the comfort of his touch, all he could offer were words and prayers. “Nothing is too big for God to forgive. Even this.”
She shook her head. Pain contorted her face, squeezing her eyes shut and twisting her lips.
Nick sighed. How could he help her? How could he reach her?
“Cara, it wasn't your fault. None of it. Your Dad made the choices he made for his own reasons. Not because you asked for a pony or a car. You didn’t know about his finances. You didn’t make him steal the money. He could have just said no.” A rueful smile slanted his lips. “My parents said it to me often enough when I was a teen, and it was money I’d earned from the movie.”
Cara gave a dutiful attempt at a smile that racked him. But she shook her head and said nothing.
“I don’t see how you can blame yourself for your Mom’s death, either. I don’t know enough about suicide, but people don’t take their life because of just one argument.”
Her lips set in a stubborn line, as if she didn’t want to hear the truth. “The hospital kept asking me whether we’d argued. They seemed to think that was the reason.”
“No, Cara. No. It might have felt like that at the time, but that’s not the truth.”
Tears choked his voice at the thought of how much pain her mother must have been in, and for Cara blaming herself all this time.
“It must have been me. Don’t you see, if it wasn’t the argument, then it’s even worse.” Her hands clenched on the chair back. “I knew she was unhappy. And I never cared enough to change my plans to spend more time with her. I was too selfish to set aside my wants to care for hers. It was my fault.”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe that. She made a terrible choice, but it was her own choice. You didn’t make her take those pills.”
Cara pleated the hem of her sweater with her fingers, and didn’t look up.
Lord, give me the words.
“But even if somehow you could have done more, God still loves you. Remember, whatever happened then and whatever happens now, God still loves you and forgives you and understands.”
He dragged in a breath and gave her the only gift he had left to give, the words he’d never said to another woman. “And I love you, Cara.”
She might never accept it, but it felt important to have spoken his truth. He wanted her to know. Maybe sometime in the future, long after he’d gone home, she’d remember, and believe.
She backed away from him, hands raised, eyes wide.
“No. You don’t love me, you can’t. It’s just the glamour of a London Christmas you love.” She covered her face with her hands. “You've given me a wonderful couple of weeks. Everything we've done has been beyond fabulous. But nothing will make me believe I am deserving. My heart died with Mum’s.”
She lifted a hand and pounded her small fist on her chest. “See, all dead.”
He took a hold of her hand to stop her hitting herself. It stayed fisted and unrelenting in his clasp. “But you’re not dead. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen the living feeling woman you hide. It’s time you stopped punishing yourself.”
A sea of pain shadowed her eyes. “I can’t.”
“You can, Cara. I believe you can.”
She pulled her hand out of his. “Please, don’t try. You’ll only make it worse.”
“Why won’t you let go and let yourself live again? You weren’t to blame. You were only seventeen. Still a child. You’d lost both your parents. Did the hospital offer you grief counselling?”
She paced the room again, biting her lip and shaking her head.
“They did, but I couldn’t go. The bank had taken the house by then. Belinda’s Mum let me stay a few days, but it was obvious I had to get a job and move out as soon as I could. I didn’t have time to talk about it. I had to look after myself. Then I had to somehow try and make up for what happened. Work became my life. Talking about it wouldn’t help, wouldn’t change what happened.”
She smiled up at him, heartbreaking and sweet. “Losing someone you love is too high a price to pay.”
Her gaze dropped to her watch, and she dragged in a shuddering breath. When she raised her face, her eyes were dull and shuttered, her expression as closed and businesslike as if they’d discussed nothing more serious than the weather.
“It’s ten thirty, I need to get started on my work. Don’t you need to get to St Pancras Station to meet your family when their train gets in?”
He shook his head. She wouldn’t get rid of him that easily. After hearing the truth, he couldn’t leave her alone to deal with it. Thinking about it wrung him dry.
“I called them from the car, on the way to collect you. They’re staying in Paris another day, and I booked the driver to bring them straight out here tomorrow.”
“Good, I’m glad this won’t affect them too much.” Her polite mask was superglued back in place. She didn’t want his help.
Her rejection drained the energy from him like pulling the plug from a bathtub, leaving him empty and cold. But she deserved one last try to convince her.
“Cara, don’t do this. Don’t hide from me. And don’t hide from God. Jesus raised Lazurus from the dead, and He can give you life again too. He can take all your guilt, and let you start fresh, if only you’ll let Him.”
She turned away from him, reaching into her huge handbag, pulling out her laptop, and setting it on the desk.
“Cara.…” he began.
She raised a hand to stop him. “It’s not that easy. Please, just go now. You’ll forget about me when you’re back home living your normal life.” Pain twisted the mask of her face, but was quickly controlled. “And I’ll manage to forget you too, once you’re gone. I’ll be fine. Just like I was fine before you came along.”
No point persisting. He’d failed. He hadn’t reached her. She’d rejected him and she’d rejected God.
Why couldn’t I help her, Lord?
He knew the answer without waiting for a reply. Everything he’d offered hadn’t been enough, because he had no substance to give her.
Just like all those auditions for the meaty film roles that eluded him. The directors dismissed him the same way, saying he couldn’t give them the depth they needed. Micki had thrown the accusation at him like a dagger when they’d argued about her shock engagement.
Cara obviously saw the same thing.
He was a lightweight. He didn’t measure up.
The best he could offer wasn’t enough for the serious directors, or more importantly, for Cara. Just like those auditions, he had no choice but to swallow it and walk away.
He lifted heavy arms and pressed his fingers hard over his eyes.
“Goodbye, Cara,” he said, trudging to the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow to check you’re okay.”
She nodded but didn’t look up.
He opened the door and stepped into the hall.
The quiet clunk of the door closing against the frame felt irrevocable, signalling the end of the dare, and the end of his hopes for something more with Cara.
Once again, he hadn’t made it to the final cut. Who he was, just wasn’t enough.
He walked down the stairs and out the front door of the inn, leaving the only woman he’d ever truly loved behind. Each step tore another piece of him away, leaving him ragged and bleeding inside.
From the car park, Nick looked up at her window.
Unlike last night, she wasn’t there. Cara had already closed him out of her life.
Defeat ached in his chest, hollow and barren.
It was time for Mr Unattached to pay the price of love.
Chapter 19
The moment
Nick closed the door behind him, with a final, horrible click, Cara slumped over the desk.
Had she just made the second biggest mistake of her life, telling him to go?
The biggest, of course, was not staying home that Christmas Eve.
But this mistake wouldn't cost anyone their life. It just meant she'd be miserable. Meant she had to acknowledge her grief. Meant she had to feel the huge hard knot of pain tightening in her chest.
She couldn't hide behind her cynical front anymore. Nick had exposed her emotions so thoroughly they'd never fit back in that closet again.
And he’d said he loved her.
She wanted to cling to the thought, let it warm her like a blazing fire, but she knew he couldn’t mean it. He only felt sorry for her, responsible for stirring up her pain. That wasn’t the same as love.
He couldn’t possibly love her.
She tried to find solace in work, emailing orders to her staff, but everything at the store seemed to be under control.
Pacing the room restlessly, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
She stood at the window and stared out across the village square at the Christmas tree, and the church steeple. Tomorrow night, families would gather there for the midnight Christmas service.
No doubt, Nick and his family would be among them.
Her family used to go to church, too. Christmases had been so happy then. Carols. Family meals. Laughter. Love. They'd had some good times.
What made their Christmases special was being at the centre of a family.
Dad had thrown that away when he left them. Mum had thrown that away when she’d swallowed all those pills.
The old familiar voice of guilt kicked in again, reminding her of all the reasons she’d had to tell Nick to go. It was all her fault.
Nick tried to justify and comfort her in saying it wasn’t, but it was.
If she hadn't asked Dad for a car for Christmas .... If she'd stayed home that Christmas Eve .... If she’d knocked on Mum’s bedroom door when she came home .…
Suddenly, she knew who Satan was. Everything that wasn’t love.
Evil whispered to her every day, in her guilt and her pain and her lost faith and her belief she couldn’t be forgiven.
Love said the opposite. God said the opposite.
Like the father of the Prodigal Son, God said, “Come, my precious child, come home. I forgive you, no matter what you’ve done. I’ll always forgive you.”
Just like Mum and Dad, she’d made the wrong choice.
For the first time since Mum died, she talked back to the guilt. Nick wasn’t just saying things to make her feel better. He was right. She may have felt grown up, but she was only a child. Her parents were the adults.
Seventeen was too young to be responsible for the decisions of adults. Face it, no-one could truly be responsible for the decision of someone else. Unless there was a gun held to their head, people always had a choice.
Mum could have reached out for help, talked to someone. Their pastor. A friend. Her doctor. The suicide helpline. Instead, she'd planned, prepared, collected all those tablets.
Cara would always regret what happened, regret that their last words were angry ones, but her mother’s choice wasn’t her fault.
Neither was Dad leaving.
He could have sat her down and explained there was no money, she wouldn’t be getting a car, they'd be having a frugal Christmas that year. He could have faced up to his responsibilities. Instead, he’d run away.
Dad had it wrong. Christmas wasn't about stuff, or even experiences. Christmas was about love.
Loving and giving. Not getting.
Nick knew that.
And now she’d messed up again.
He’d tried to help her. Tried harder than anyone in her life ever had, and she’d sent him away.
She had no idea if she could make things right. No idea if anything could make it right. He was leaving in a few days. If she tried to phone him, what could she say?
She let loose a huge sigh, and with it a huge weight of hopelessness and guilt.
God, if you’re there, if You care at all, show me the way.
Her eyes went to the TV in the corner. She picked up the remote and flicked through to the kids' films. Found 'Joey Christmas'. Laughed again as for the first time in eleven years she watched a much younger Nick play Joey. The boy who wanted nothing else but to be Santa when he grew up, to give everyone what they wanted and bring his warring parents back together.
He was so well cast in the role.
She'd never known a more genuinely giving person. No strings, no agenda, just giving for the joy of it.
How wrong she’d been, to think he was superficial and like her father.
Nick knew how to live. Nick knew how to love, too.
By the end of the film, the knot in her chest had loosened. Tears dripped onto her cheeks, as she stopped fighting them. Tears for her father. Tears for her mother. Tears for the seventeen year old Cara, struggling to cope with things no-one should be forced to endure.
Tears for the opportunity she'd refused with Nick.
So it might have only lasted a few days or a few months. Nothing on this earth lasted forever. Grief was always the price of love, whether after six days or sixty years.
The price was never too high.
Guilt exacted an equally painful price. Guilt had stopped her feeling, had stopped her living, had separated her from God.
Her parents had given up their chances to choose differently, but she could still choose. She could choose to accept God’s love. She could choose to stop punishing herself for their choices.
She remembered a Bible verse she’d learned in Sunday School when she was very young.
‘Come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ She’d won a bookmark for memorising the verse. It showed a poor donkey, so cruelly loaded with firewood it could hardly walk.
She’d felt sorry for that donkey, never guessing she’d become just like it. She’d been so loaded down with guilt she hadn’t been able to live or love or experience joy.
Like that donkey, she’d been carrying a burden, far too heavy to bear, for far too long. And she really was weary.
So weary.
Finally she realised. She didn’t need to work hard and be good enough to earn forgiveness. She just needed to ask for it. That was what grace meant. God’s gift, freely given. The real meaning of Christmas.
Take my burden, Jesus. I surrender it to You. Take my guilt. Take my hurt. Take from me anything that is not love. Forgive me. Please forgive me.
And the burden lifted. It was as easy and as complicated as that. She asked, and Jesus answered. He did the heavy lifting.
Joy flowered in her heart.
Cara ran to her bag and grabbed the art materials she’d bought at the weekend.
A story was forming in her mind. A story about a girl who'd lost everything, and the department store Santa who restored her faith in life and love and God and Christmas.
At the desk, she pushed her laptop to the side, opened a new sketch book, and began to draw. The light faded outside, and she turned the lamps on, then went back to her task, adding colours to her drawings.
She worked until it was done. The rough for the entire storybook.
Santa looked just like a much older Nick. The girl looked just like her aged ten, dark pigtails sticking out at different angles and a scattering of freckles on her nose.
In the end, the girl believed again. She got the Christmas she needed, not the Christmas she wanted. She got not toys and games, but the gift of a baby in a manger, the gift of love and forgiveness forever, no matter how bad she believed she’d been.
Grown up Cara got that gift too.
She stood, stretched her cramped legs and back, and looked at the clock.
It was after eight p.m. She'd sat hunched over the desk all day, without eating. But it was worth it.
The book was for N
ick.
Even if he didn't want to see her again after this morning, she wanted to give it to him.
He'd given her so much. He'd changed her life with his silly dare. He’d brought her back to the Lord. He’d taught her to love again.
This was her way of thanking him for inspiring her.
She went to the window to pull the curtains. Outside, the village wore a fresh white coat of snow, spotless and new. A group of carollers dressed in Santa costumes and holding candles sang outside the church.
It was all that Christmas should be. Clean and holy and light.
And that gave her an idea.
Picking up the phone, she called room service. To ask for a sandwich, and something that might leave the inn manager a bit regretful that he said ‘anything you need’.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. The last day of the dare. And she’d figured out how to avoid the reporters and get into Pettett and Mayfield’s.
She smiled, knowing exactly what she needed to do.
~~+~~
Leaning against the apartment door he’d shut behind him, Nick let loose a long tired breath.
Somehow, he’d gotten through the rest of the day after leaving Cara.
Through his session at Pettett and Mayfield’s. Through a friend’s Christmas party, attended out of duty, and left early. Through talking to the reporters, still hanging around outside his apartment in hope of adding to the juicy story.
But through it all, he’d thought of Cara.
He must be a better actor than he’d thought.
None of the customers who’d flocked to his California Dreaming stand in the store to have photos taken and autographs signed gave any indication they noticed anything wrong with him. People at the party responded to him the same way they usually did. The reporters laughed at his Mr Unattached act and his flippant jokes, though his voice sounded fake and brittle to his ear.
That’s all he was, fake and brittle. No more substance than the sugar glass they used on set when someone needed to smash a window or a bottle.
The directors saw it. Cara saw it. His Dad saw it.
Not that Dad, the man he’d looked up to his entire life, would ever admit that to him. But Nick had always known he’d been a disappointment.
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 32