Christmas at His Command

by Helen Brooks

  It was driving Marigold mad.

  It was useless to tell herself that he was acting this way because she had insisted upon it, that she’d laid down very definite rules and boundaries because of her conflicting emotions where Flynn was concerned, and that this was the best, the very best way to proceed.

  Every time he took her hand or pulled her against him, every time he kissed her goodnight or sat with his arm round her or stroked her hair, she waited for him to make the next move. And he didn’t. He just didn’t!

  Most nights, and especially following the evenings when she saw him, Marigold tossed and turned for hours before she could fall asleep, her mind racing and her body burning. She tried to convince herself her restlessness was due to all the changes occurring in her life, and there were plenty of those.

  Emma had agreed to the sale of the cottage as soon as she had returned to the office in January. Apparently she had had a dreadful time there; being unable to light the fires without filling the cottage with smoke, struggling with the ancient stove and blocking the sink were just a few of the mishaps she’d suffered.

  The final straw had occurred when a mouse had decided to investigate the bedroom one night, Emma had reported, and then added insult to injury by choosing one of Emma’s sheepskin slippers for a nest.

  In view of the isolation of the cottage and not least Emma’s new-year decision to travel round Europe for a while with one of her friends, purportedly to recover from her broken heart at Oliver’s exit from her life, the asking price for the small house was very reasonable. A sizable bequest by Marigold’s maternal grandparents some years ago which she had resisted touching until now meant she could afford a fifty-per-cent deposit on the cottage, and after she had shopped around a little she found a bank who were prepared to put up the rest. The deposit meant her mortgage repayments were gratifyingly low, and, with Emma including all the furniture and household effects right down to her grandmother’s dustpan and brush, her immediate outgoings would be negligible.

  Marigold had given notice she would be vacating the flat at the end of March, which was when she intended to move to Shropshire, and had printed myriad copies of her CV with an accompanying letter explaining she intended to freelance in her new location, and sent them to every contact she’d ever made. To date she’d had several promising replies which could lead to work in the near future but, apart from the partners at her present firm promising they would continue to leave the new designs for the greeting cards in her capable hands, nothing concrete.

  And then, at the beginning of March, several events happened within the space of twenty-four hours and with a speed which left Marigold breathless.

  At ten o’clock on a blustery March morning the cottage finally became hers; at eleven o’clock she was contacted by a small firm on the borders of Shropshire who had been given her name by their parent company in London. Would she be interested in a new project they were considering regarding a range of English countryside calendars, cards, diaries, notelets, et cetera?

  Indeed she would, Marigold answered enthusiastically.

  They would market the proposed venture very much on the lines of a ‘local country artist’ thrust, which was why she had been approached. They understood she was moving to Shropshire shortly?

  At the end of March, Marigold confirmed, her heart beating excitedly.

  Her CV stated Miss Flower had already had the experience of setting up a new section within her present firm. If their scheme was successful—and they had every reason to think it would be, as their parent company was intending to back them to the hilt—would Miss Flower be prepared to think about spearheading the development of this work?

  Miss Flower would be only too delighted!

  At three in the afternoon of the same day the telephone on her desk rang for the umpteenth time. Marigold picked it up, a lilt borne of the happenings of the morning in her voice as she said brightly, ‘Marigold Flower speaking.’

  There was a brief pause before a male voice said quietly, ‘Marigold? It’s Dean. I…I wondered how you were?’

  ‘Dean?’ If the person at the other end of the line had been the queen of England she couldn’t have been more taken aback.

  ‘Don’t put down the phone.’

  His voice was urgent, and Marigold wrinkled her brow before she said, ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  Dean must have taken her honest reply as some form of encouragement, because he said with intensity, ‘I’ve missed you. Hell, I’ve missed you more than words can say. I was such a fool, Marigold. Can you ever forgive me?’

  She held the telephone away from her ear for a moment, staring at the receiver blankly. And then she said, ‘It happened and I found it hard at the time, but it’s in the past now, Dean.’

  ‘But do you forgive me?’

  Did she? Marigold considered for a second and realised she’d barely spared a thought for Dean and Tamara in the last two months. ‘I’ve moved on,’ she said steadily, ‘so that must mean I forgive you.’

  ‘I’m not with Tamara any more. She drove me mad half the time. Always wanting attention and never satisfied with anything. She wasn’t like you, Marigold.’

  Two spoilt brats with egos to match. No, she could imagine things might not have gone too well.

  ‘I know I hurt you but there’s never been anyone like you, you have to believe that,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve always been my anchor, the one person I could count on.’

  She had to stop this. She didn’t want to be anyone’s anchor, she wanted far more than that, and she realised with absolute clarity that Dean would never be able to give of himself. Dean was what mattered to Dean. ‘Dean, if things had been right between us you wouldn’t have gone with Tamara in the first place,’ she said steadily. ‘It was just as well we found that out before we got married.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not it at all.’ He sounded desperate and she was surprised to realise she felt sorry for him. It was like listening to a child, a selfish child who had broken his toy in a tantrum and was now demanding that it be put back together. But the toy had been an engagement, a commitment to get married. Flynn had said she could die waiting for Dean to grow up and he had been absolutely right. She had done her stint of babysitting him.

  ‘It was your decision to go off with Tamara,’ Marigold said firmly, hating the conversation with its distasteful connotations. ‘And frankly I think it was the best thing for both of us. You obviously weren’t ready for marriage and it would have been a disaster. There’ll be someone for you in the future, Dean, but it won’t be me. Goodbye.’

  She put down the phone on his voice, her heart thudding fit to burst. It rang again almost immediately but she didn’t pick it up, letting the answer machine click on. ‘Marigold? Pick up. Please, Marigold, pick up.’ A few seconds’ silence followed, and then his voice came again, a petulant note creeping in as he said, ‘I know you’re there. Look, if you want me to grovel I will, but you know we’re meant to be together. You love me, you always have done. I need you.’ A few more moments of silence and then the receiver was replaced at the other end.

  Marigold became aware she was holding her breath and let it out in a big sigh. Six months, and he expected he could pick up where he’d left off all that time ago at the drop of a hat. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.

  She sat staring at her paper-strewn desk, her mind racing on. He hadn’t once asked her if she was with anyone—that clearly hadn’t crossed his mind! It was incredible, but he thought she had sat at home just waiting for his call since they had finished! He didn’t know her at all, but then she hadn’t known him either. Which was scary.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d thought along these lines and the faintly panicky, disturbed feeling which always accompanied such reflections brought her nibbling at her lower lip. There were people who got it right and stayed together all their lives—her parents were a prime example—but there were plenty who got it terribly wrong, as she would have done if
she’d married Dean. How on earth did you know if something was going to last or not?

  She took a sip of the coffee Emma had brought everyone a few minutes before the call from Dean had come through, and grimaced. Somehow Emma managed to make perfectly nice coffee taste like dishwater! The thought of the other girl led her mind on to the cottage and then Flynn, and she knew her previous deliberations had nothing at all to do with Dean and everything to do with Flynn. She was in too deep. She liked him too much. This getting to know each other as friends hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  She stood up restlessly, walking across to the big plate-glass window and looking down into the busy London street beneath. Dean had hidden his real self from her and she hadn’t had the experience or where-withal to recognise the signs of his deceit. But compared to Flynn, Dean was like a little boy, so how on earth could she ever know where Flynn was coming from? She had made one big, big mistake with Dean; she didn’t need to make another. Even without the spectre of Celine forever hovering in the background, Flynn Moreau was way, way out of her league.

  All the excitement regarding the cottage and the wonderful offer of work faded, and she had the ridiculous urge to burst into tears. Instead she turned away from the view, marching back to her desk and attacking her mountain of paperwork with resolute grimness. No more thinking; no more ifs and buts. She had work to do.

  She left the office later than usual, and almost got blown away by the wind as she stepped onto the pavement outside the building. There was a storm brewing, a bad one, she thought as she raised her eyes to an angry sky.

  She did some shopping on the way home to the flat, struggling into the street of three-storey terraced houses with her arms feeling as if they were being pulled out of their sockets. She had just put the bags on the doorstep, delving into her handbag for the front-door key as the wind howled and the darkness surged all around her, when a hand on her shoulder nearly caused her to jump out of her skin.

  ‘Sorry, did I make you jump?’

  ‘Dean!’ She’d swung round and knocked one of the bags full of groceries flying, and as they scrabbled about retrieving the food she said tightly, ‘What on earth are you doing here? I thought we’d said all that needed to be said this afternoon.’

  ‘I had to come.’ He straightened with the bag of shopping clasped in his arms, and as she stared at him Marigold wondered why it was she had never noticed how weak his mouth looked. He was good-looking, in a boyish, charming manner, but almost… What was the word? she asked herself silently. Foppish. That was it. He was almost too well-dressed, too well-groomed. And she’d planned to marry this man.

  ‘Dean, there’s no point to this.’ She held out her hand for the bag but he ignored it. ‘Please, just go.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’ He moved closer, causing her to step backwards until she was pressed against the front door. ‘You can’t. We’re meant to be together.’

  The hell they were! The words sounded so like something Flynn would have said that Marigold blinked, as though she’d heard his voice. ‘It’s taken you long enough to find that out. It was the end of August we split, wasn’t it?’

  He stared at her, taken aback by her tone. He had clearly expected her to fall into his arms in grateful surrender after he’d made the big gesture of coming to her, Marigold thought grimly. She was relieved to find she didn’t feel a shred of emotion at seeing him again beyond mild irritation. Hearing his voice so unexpectedly this afternoon had been a shock and it had upset her a little, raking up all the trauma. Now, faced with Dean himself, she knew he meant nothing to her any more.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, Dee.’ His pet name for her was annoying but that was all. ‘I promise.’

  He was still amazingly sure of himself, although Marigold thought she had detected just the slightest edge of uncertainty behind the arrogance, which made it all the more surprising when he suddenly lunged forwards, his free arm grabbing her as his mouth descended on hers.

  For a moment Marigold was too startled to react, but then out of the corner of her eye she was aware of a vehicle pulling up on the road below them. She knew who was inside. Even before her eyes met ones of silver ice, she knew it had to be Flynn. It was fate, kismet.

  She pushed Dean away, her voice sharp as she said, ‘Don’t! Don’t touch me.’

  ‘But Dee…’ And then, as he saw her eyes were focused on something beyond him, Dean swung round, the shopping bag still in his hand. And then he saw the stony, cold face looking at them.

  Marigold saw the metallic gaze take in what appeared to all intents and purposes a cosy shopping trip, and with the kiss on the step she half expected Flynn to order the driver to pull away.

  Instead the door swung open and Flynn unfolded himself from the rear of the taxi cab, his height and breadth swamping Dean’s slim five feet nine. ‘Hello, Marigold.’

  If one hadn’t been looking into his dark, angry face, Flynn’s voice could have appeared perfectly normal, Marigold thought a touch hysterically.

  ‘I just stopped by for a quick visit,’ he continued with the softness of silk over steel, ‘but I can see you’re otherwise engaged.’

  In spite of the fact that Marigold was aware how bad it looked, she found she bitterly resented Flynn’s assumption that she had been a willing participant in the kiss. And it was the knowledge of her own contrariness which made her voice brittle as she replied, ‘Dean was just leaving, as it happens.’

  ‘Really?’ Flynn acknowledged the other man for the first time, his eyes scathing as they flicked over Dean, and in spite of the awfulness of it all Marigold knew a moment’s amusement at the scandalised expression on her ex-fiancé’s face. Dean had just had a salutary lesson in the fact that he was replaceable, and she hoped it might prove a warning to him in his dealings with the opposite sex in the future. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ Flynn said with distant chilliness, before his gaze returned to Marigold.

  There was no further attempt at persuasion. Dean thrust the bag at her, his face like thunder, before he disappeared off down the street without a backward glance.

  ‘That was Dean,’ Marigold said weakly. She suddenly had the nasty feeling she had a tiger by the tail.

  ‘So you said.’ It was acidic.

  ‘I didn’t know he was going to be here. He phoned me this afternoon and then just turned up on the doorstep. I didn’t…I mean I didn’t want…’ She stopped abruptly.

  ‘Are you trying to say you didn’t ask him here or invite him to kiss you?’ Flynn asked evenly.

  ‘Yes.’ Which was stupid really because in view of the way she felt it would have been the easy option to let Flynn assume there was something between her and Dean, and thereby finish this ‘friendship’. Flynn was not a man who understood the concept of sharing!

  ‘Good.’ He walked up to her, oblivious to the taxi driver, who was watching developments with interest. ‘I’m pleased.’

  ‘You believe me?’ she asked weakly, astonished.

  ‘Of course I believe you.’ He smiled, a wry twist of his stern mouth. ‘Didn’t you expect me to?’

  ‘I…’ Her voice trailed away. She didn’t know what she’d expected. ‘I—’

  ‘OK, I can draw my own conclusions.’ He kissed her swiftly, lifting her chin with warm, firm fingers before adding, his voice very dry, ‘I can see there is still some progress to be made.’

  ‘What?’

  But he was walking towards the taxi driver, bending down as he asked the fare and paying the man with what was obviously a handsome tip from the way Marigold heard the other man thank Flynn.

  She watched him, her feelings so turbulent she hardly knew herself. She cared about this man and he was going to break her heart if she didn’t finish this affair now, tonight. He had invaded her life with deadly intent, and even now she asked herself, why? He could have any woman he wanted—apart from the one who held his heart, Celine—so why bother with her? Was it because she’d made it plain she wanted nothing to do
with him in the beginning, or just the way they had struck sparks off each other, mentally as well as physically? Right from the first time she had seen him it had been a love–hate relationship.

  Her thought process hiccuped and died, leaving her in a state of suspended animation as she stared at the big figure in front of her. And then, as reason returned in a hot flood, she told herself, You don’t! You do not love Flynn Moreau.

  But it was too late. The truth she had been subconsciously denying for weeks was out in the open. Marigold wasn’t aware of the blank despair which had turned her eyes navy blue, she only knew she mustn’t betray herself by word or gesture.

  ‘He’s upset you.’ Flynn was in front of her again, his handsome face unsmiling as he took in her drawn countenance. ‘What’s he been saying?’

  ‘Who? What?’ Marigold made an enormous effort and pulled herself together. ‘No, it’s fine, really. He…he just told me he and Tamara have broken up. He wanted…’

  ‘I think I know what he wanted,’ Flynn said drily. ‘And you told him to go paddle his own canoe, right?’

  ‘My phraseology was a little different, but basically, yes.’

  ‘You won’t regret it.’

  No, she wouldn’t. Not with Dean. ‘Flynn…’ It was too soft, too trembling and feminine. She had to appear more in control. Marigold took a deep breath and her voice was firmer when she said, ‘Flynn, we have to talk. About us, I mean.’

  ‘There’s an us?’ One eyebrow quirked and his mouth lifted at the corners in a sexy smile. ‘And I didn’t know!’

  ‘Please, Flynn.’

  Something in her voice stilled the smile. His head tilted, eyes surveying her searchingly before he said, ‘Inside. It’s too cold and windy out here to deal with life and death issues.’

  Once in the flat Flynn deposited the shopping he’d insisted on carrying in on the kitchen worktop, before walking through to the sitting room, where Marigold had just lit the fire.