12 Men for Christmas

by Phillipa Ashley

  A cry of frustration escaped her lips. The situation would have been funny if it hadn’t been so gut-wrenchingly humiliating. The knife twisted again. This must have been Kate’s home before Will had turned her out. She must have spent weekends here at least—and if she had stayed here, what had she left behind?

  Her eyes took in the chest of drawers under the window, the bedside cupboard where he kept his supply of condoms, and the huge oak wardrobe against the wall. Walking over to it, she unlatched the heavy door. Nothing doing. Just a few suits and shirts and jackets. Some smart shoes on the bottom of the wardrobe—all size twelve at least.

  Emma slammed the door shut.

  In the corner of the room, she noticed a door to a walk-in closet. Pulling it open, she searched for a light switch. There wasn’t one, so she set to hunting in the semidarkness for walking boots, flip-flops, slippers, anything a jilted bride might have kept here and forgotten.

  Emma was almost sobbing now. The taxi was due in ten minutes, and all she’d unearthed were fins and a set of crampons. All were now littering his bedroom floor in her frantic quest to find something to put on her feet. Grabbing at a pair of sneakers that looked promising in the gloom, she flung them at the wall in disgust as she realized they were his.

  In desperation, she searched the top shelf of the cupboard. A shopping bag with foreign symbols on it caught her eye, and she snatched it down. There, inside, still in the polyethylene wrapper, was a pair of exquisite beaded sandals. Emma concluded they must have been a gift from one of his business trips or a forgotten souvenir from an exotic holiday.

  One of them at least had great taste, and she suspected it was Will. If Kate had any real discernment, she wouldn’t have been with a pig like him…

  Past caring now, she ripped open the bag and put them on. They were a little too small, but she was pathetically grateful for small mercies this morning. It dawned on her that this was the ultimate humiliation; now she was literally in Kate’s shoes, but anything was better than having to explain why she was barefoot to the taxi driver.

  Now all she had to do was get out of his house.

  Clutching her bag, her feet slipping over the heels of the stolen sandals, Emma gently turned the key in the lock and slowly inched the door open. It creaked slightly, and she held her breath, dreading the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, his voice asking her if she was ready to leave, embarrassed, scared…

  There were no footsteps on the stairs.

  She nudged the door wider and crept onto the landing, listening for him. Was he still in the kitchen or in some other part of the house? There was only silence, so taking her chance, she slipped softly down the oak staircase and into the hall.

  As she crept across the tiles, she saw the kitchen door was ajar, but she still couldn’t hear anyone moving about. Her pashmina was still draped on the leather chair by the front door, so she snatched it up before twisting the handle. The door opened out onto the gravel drive he’d carried her over twelve hours before, laughing and happy, up to his bed.

  Outside, Will’s black four-by-four stood on the drive.

  Emma slipped past and crept around the side of the house, where the gravel drive curved away up a gentle slope to wrought-iron entrance gates set between two stone pillars. The dull throb of a diesel engine broke the silence as the taxi reversed between the entrance posts. Hitching up the skirt of her silk dress, she hurried toward it.

  * * *

  Will stood outside on the jetty, gulping in fresh air. He knew he couldn’t stay out here any longer; he had to go to her.

  Her words had rocked him.

  I don’t care what you did to Kate or why you did it, because you didn’t ask me to stay.

  She’d said she wanted him, despite what he might have done to Kate. No matter what she thought about him, what she’d heard, she still cared about him—just as he was, with all his faults. All she wanted was to know that he wanted her.

  It seemed so little to ask and yet so much.

  He couldn’t let her go like this. Whatever happened, she deserved an explanation. Though the thought of telling her the truth, of baring his soul, went against every instinct. Will did not wash his dirty linen in public. He kept his private life private, his most intimate secrets firmly under lock and key, exactly where they should be.

  But it had to happen, and deep down, he knew that sooner or later, someone would try to get close, pierce his armor. He’d kept himself safe for two years, but Emma had gotten so very, very close.

  Will raked his hand through his hair and groaned. She was going. She was testing him. Not even an idiot like him could mistake that. But so soon?

  And he did not ask people to stay. He did not beg women to stay.

  Not now. Not ever again.

  He’d known all along what Emma must think. She was bound to have heard the rumors in the village. Someone they both knew, a colleague maybe, anyone, in fact, within a ten-mile radius could have told Emma what he’d done to Kate. They’d be ready and willing, he thought bitterly, to give their own version of what had happened two years before. He was surprised that they hadn’t embroidered it to the extent of him leaving her at the altar.

  Then again, he had only himself to blame. In Emma’s eyes, he’d lived up to his reputation—and how. Seduced her, rejected her—twice—kept her dangling on the end of his personal rope. Then the worst part: he’d lulled her into a false sense of security until she had felt safe with him.

  Only to let her down.

  He shaded his eyes with his hand and stared across the lake toward the opposite shore and her flat. He couldn’t let her go like this. He had to go up to his room and tell her the truth. Swallow his pride and find the courage to tell her about Kate and him. Make her understand what had happened, how he had felt, what it had done to him. There would be no going back, he knew that. If he went up there now and opened himself up, he would have to ask her to stay.

  Will shivered. Even though the sun was still warm on the wooden jetty, a cooling breeze skittered across the lake and raised the goose bumps on his forearms. Then he heard it. Distorted, distant, but clear: a diesel engine idling. He twisted around to see a taxi parked at the top of his drive. Its driver was climbing out and opening the rear door.

  And she was climbing in.

  “Emma!”

  She looked back at him as he broke into a run to catch up with her.

  “Wait! Don’t go—not like this!”

  She was in the car now as the driver revved the engine and started to pull away. As he saw her look back through the window, he was shouting at her, running hard to catch her.

  It was too late. He’d blown it again.

  * * *

  There had been no need to pay the taxi driver in chocolate or alcohol. When they’d reached the flat, Emma had found real money in the purse of her work bag. No need to explain to the driver what had happened. Seeing her evening clothes and red eyes, the man had obviously put two and two together. Even if he’d made five, it wouldn’t have added up to the disaster that had happened this morning.

  She’d fallen for it. The picnic, the yacht, the sunny Sunday morning coziness. The mind-blowing, tender sex. Will had pulled out all the stops, and without so much as a whimper of resistance, she’d fallen for it.

  In fact, she’d asked for it. Actually asked him to take her home to bed and asked to be hurt. Maybe the seduction had lasted a bit longer than average for him, but he’d managed it. And now?

  She was turning into a serial victim. She must be giving off hurt me—I’m a sure thing signals. She’d let Jeremy do it, and now she’d let Will do the same. She’d thought they were so different, but underneath it all, they were the same.

  She needed to talk to someone—needed comfort. Jan maybe. Suzanne. Her mum. Anyone. She reached in her evening bag for her phone and found it missing. She sighed. Well, th
ere you are, she thought. Now she needed new shoes, a new phone—and a new attitude toward men. A get any closer, you rat bag, and I’ll shoot you attitude.

  As soon as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her instinct to keep people at arm’s length. No, it was her way to trust people, to give them the benefit of the doubt. She liked people. That was why she’d wanted the tourist board job, why she’d volunteered to help the mountain rescue.

  She was just way too soft and gullible.

  * * *

  God almighty, what had happened here?

  Will stared in disbelief at the mess that was his bedroom. He needed his car keys and his pager, and he’d found chaos. Just what had she been doing? At first, he thought she’d just gone mad and trashed his room. God knew he deserved it.

  Then he saw the paper bag with the writing and he knew.

  She’d taken Kate’s shoes. Of course, Emma needed shoes; she’d left hers behind on the yacht.

  Picking up the bag, he swept the clothes off the duvet, cleared a space, and sat down, crumpling the bag up in his hands. Two years it had been, he thought in surprise, since he’d seen that bag—those sandals. He’d bought them for Kate en route to New Zealand, but in the rush of the wedding preparations, he hadn’t gotten around to giving them to her. Then, of course, he hadn’t gotten around to giving them to her at all.

  The day was becoming more distant now. The once painfully perfect memory of it was beginning to blur at the edges. Even though he’d tried so many times to hear their conversation again, looking for a clue or a reason, that day was fading.

  He knew this, though: he’d been laying out his morning suit on the bed and checking that he had the rings to give to Max when it had happened. In fact, he’d thought it was Max when he heard the bell ring downstairs. It had hit him as soon as he’d opened the door. It was unlucky for a groom to see his bride on their wedding day; even he, without a superstitious bone in his body, knew that.

  Kate had only said four words to him before everything fell into place in one awful moment: “I’m so sorry, Will.”

  He remembered how he’d had to hold on to the door to steady himself as she’d tried to explain why she was leaving him. Why, at that moment of all moments, she was walking out on him when his life with her had stretched out in front of him, shining and happy and new. She’d done it then, she said, before it was too late for all of them.

  “Do you still love me?” he’d asked her as she tried to tell him why she’d shattered his world.

  “I’m—I’m very fond of you…”

  She could have used any obscenity other than fond, a word he still couldn’t bear to hear. Then he’d begged. Demanded. Shouted. But nothing would change her mind. Nothing he had could.

  When Max and his mother arrived, they’d found the front door wide open and a note saying he’d called off the wedding. He’d found a place few people knew. A dark and inaccessible place where he’d licked his wounds. When he got home that evening, he was a different person. One who was cautious now, to the point of obsession, about ever letting anyone get close to him again—until Emma had breached his defenses.

  And as he’d predicted, it was all ending in misery again.

  Will drew his phone from his pocket and dialed, wondering if she would answer when his name came up on the screen. The ringing made him jump. It was coming from under a pile of his clothes.

  Emma’s ringtone. Emma’s phone.

  He tracked it down to the floor by the bedside table.

  She’d left it behind in her haste to escape him. Escape him… Hell, he’d really screwed her up, hadn’t he! He threw it back down on the carpet and let it lie with all the other debris of his life.

  Stuff the phone anyway—he needed to see her and talk to her right now. Taking the stairs two at a time, he thudded through the hall and out to the Range Rover. He was going to Emma, and he was going to tell her everything.

  * * *

  In the corner of Emma’s bedroom, the laptop was whirring softly. She flopped down into the chair and tapped the mouse, watching the screen flower into life. She needed human contact, a friendly face, even across cyberspace, to remind her someone still cared about her. Wearily, she clicked on a message received in the early hours of the morning. Steven and Gina. Both over the moon as they told her to expect another niece or nephew by Christmas.

  Her answer to her brother’s email was the best piece of spin she’d ever produced. She sounded happy and positive, and her delight in the baby-to-be was genuine—that hadn’t needed to be faked. But the story she told him about her own weekend was a complete fabrication.

  As for the job offer, well, that was surely a no-brainer now. Leaving Bannerdale had never seemed so tempting and so unutterably awful. Hitting Reply, she started to compose her thanks to Rachel Brockhouse. This offer was too good to miss, impossible to miss, in fact. There was nothing for her here now. It was time to go back to reality and start over. She’d done it before, and she could do it again.

  Then why did it have to be so very, very hard?

  * * *

  That bloody stupid pager. This bloody stupid job. For the first and only time in his life, Will found himself resenting being called out on a rescue. Not even on the wettest, coldest, most awful night had he ever felt that he wanted to ignore a cry for help and tell them to find somebody else because just this once, he needed to look after himself.

  He’d actually had the keys in the ignition when the buzzing had started. The noise that meant he wouldn’t be going to Emma. Couldn’t go. Not yet. He’d had the whole of yesterday, the whole of last night off duty at his own request. Plenty of time to impress her, seduce her, to hurt her and reject her. But there was no time now to go to her and tell her the truth.

  He looked at the screen and groaned. As always, it said only one word: Rescue. Sitting with the engine running, he called into the base. The phone crackled into life, Suzanne’s calm voice unmistakable.

  “Will?”

  “Yeah. What and where?” he barked.

  “Two climbers stranded on a crag on Ravenhowe Crag. A young lad and an older girl, late teens by the sound of it.”

  “Exact location?”

  After a brief pause, Suzanne gave him the reference.

  “I’m closer than you. I’m on my way now,” he replied curtly.

  He heard the doubt in her voice and felt angrier than ever. “We’ll meet you there.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Will, is everything all right?”

  “Why the hell shouldn’t it be?”

  There was a long silence, then Bob’s voice, steady and calm, more like the one he used with casualties than team members. Bloody annoying, in fact.

  “Will, it’s me, mate. We’ll be right behind you. Wait for us on—”

  “Yeah, right.” He flicked off the phone, cutting off Bob in midsentence.

  Too fucking right they’d be behind him, a good twenty minutes behind him. Ghyllside Cottage was way closer to Ravenhowe Crag than the base, and it was a busy Sunday afternoon. Plus, he knew a back route he could take in the four-wheel drive, while the base was the wrong end of the village center.

  As he roared up the drive, sending the gravel flying, he put through a call to Max and Francine. Getting their voicemail, he left a garbled message apologizing for ruining their lunch and blaming the climbers. My God, he thought, the day was turning into a complete disaster…

  His shortcut cost him a side mirror by the time he reached the stony pull-in at the bottom of the incident site. A brush with a dry stone wall had flipped back the mirror and shattered the glass. Fuck that. He could easily get it fixed when all this was over.

  And now he was here: Ravenhowe Crag. A safe enough climb for an experienced climber on a good day, but not a novice’s route and definitely not in these conditions. The sun had gone
in, and mist was swirling around the fells, obscuring the tops. It looked like summer was going into hiding again. Will tried to thrust his personal problems aside and focus on the young climbers.

  They must be terrified. A teenage girl and lad, Suzanne had said. Stuck on the cliffside, too scared or inexperienced to find their way down as the weather had closed in. People had no idea how fast things could change up here. From bright and sunny to cold and wet, from a dream to a nightmare.

  He felt no resentment now, only a sense of urgency and a need to get the job over and done with, for this was one thing he was good at. A problem that he could solve through straightforward sweat and toil and physical skill. Nowhere near as risky as trying to get Emma to trust him again.

  He jumped down from the car and glanced up at the fell tops. His T-shirt was by no means warm enough, even down here. The temperature had dropped several degrees already as the clouds had come out, obscuring the sun. Several hundred feet up, it would be cold and damp and pretty unpleasant. So very different, he thought, to a few hours ago, when he’d woken with Emma’s warm body next to him in bed.

  The place she should wake up every morning. He knew now, how much he needed to say it to her: Wake up with me, Emma, every day. I love you.

  He pulled his jacket from the back of the car and grabbed a rucksack, ropes, first aid, and drinks. He slung the rucksack onto his shoulder and fastened up his coat. The team was right behind.

  They wouldn’t be long. They knew exactly where he’d be.

  * * *

  Emma sat back in the chair in her bedroom and sucked in a long breath. Her shoulders felt stiff with tension, and her head was starting to throb. How could composing a simple email be so hard? She should be turning cartwheels at the opportunity that had dropped in her lap. Not that she hadn’t earned the chance at this ticket back to London. She deserved this invitation back to civilization, with its buzzing streets, decent coffee, and a taxi on every street corner—that was where she really belonged.

  Stretching her arms above her head, she read back the note she’d written. It was full of typos.