Escape for Christmas: A Novella (The Escape Series Book 2)

by Ruth Saberton

  “I kind of miss the sticky floor and the fag ends,” Rob said wistfully as he guided Gemma through the laughing groups of second-homers who were hogging all the tables by the window. His hand rested on the small of her back and he was taking great care that nobody pushed or shoved her. The awkward boy had certainly grown into a real gentleman, Gemma decided – and one who was sweetly oblivious to how many women threw admiring glances in his direction. Not that she blamed them. Although Rob was dressed casually in charcoal cords and a sea-green shirt that echoed the colour of his eyes, his tall, strong body and air of being totally comfortable in his own skin gave him a powerful presence. Gemma was used to people staring when she was out and about with Cal, but this was something else again.

  “Please tell me they kept the Pac-Man table?” she said hopefully. As teenagers it had been a rite of passage to drink scrumpy and play Pac-Man. Gemma couldn’t count how many nights she and her friends had spent bent over the machine, steering a yellow blob towards cherries while eking out one drink and praying that their parents didn’t come in and freak.

  Rob smiled at her indulgently. “You’ve been away even longer than me, haven’t you? I think that was claimed by a museum years ago. Sorry, Gemma, I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to me – but I promise my conversational skills have improved since the school bus.”

  It was on the tip of Gemma’s tongue to point out that Rob’s conversational skills weren’t the only things that had improved, but luckily she stopped herself just in time. Once Rob had bought them both some mulled wine and they were seated beside the river, toasting nicely in the warmth of a patio heater, she turned the conversation round to people they knew and old school memories. This was far safer ground than the fact that he’d turned into the sort of guy you looked at twice (and then glanced at again, to make sure your eyes hadn’t being playing tricks on you).

  “So what took you to Australia?” she asked. “That seems like quite a step for a Cornish boy.”

  “Yeah, it was a bit further than crossing the Tamar,” Rob agreed. He swirled his drink thoughtfully. “I think I just needed to get away from being here and always being the same guy. I was pretty shy at school, and when my uncle offered to have me come out to work for him it seemed too good an opportunity to turn down.”

  “So you stayed for fourteen years?” Gemma said, a bit enviously. It made getting as far as London seem a bit lame.

  “Yes and no. I travelled too. I did the backpacker thing: Thailand, the Far East, all the usual stuff. Then I had a surfy phase and lived in Sydney for a while.” His eyes twinkled in the flickering light from the hurricane lamp on their table. “It was brilliant, you know, and I loved every minute. It did me the world of good too. The Aussies I met in the outback were a hard-working bunch, and I had to toughen up pretty quickly if I was going to survive. It felt as though everything out there pretty much wanted to kill me or eat me. Including the women!”

  Several of the women in The Schooner looked as though they’d like to eat Rob alive too, Gemma thought with a smile. There were quite a few envious looks being thrown her way; that was for sure! She sucked in her stomach – her old black dress was stretchy, thank goodness – and tucked her hair behind her ears. There. She could still just about pull it off, even if the dress was a tad tight. That was Cal’s fault: she’d been comfort eating ever since his earlier phone call.

  What was Cal doing now? It was early evening, so maybe he was just finishing up in the bakery? Or perhaps he was having drinks in the Hall with Lady D? Or maybe, and this felt as though somebody was dragging barbed wire through her insides, he was exchanging tender Christmas kisses with Aoife?

  This thought made Gemma feel very angry indeed. How dare he? Well, two could play at that game.

  “Where did you go after Sydney and the Far East?” she asked Rob, leaning forward a little to give him a good view of her cleavage. Actually, this didn’t take much effort; recently her boobs seemed to have been taking on a life of their own. The hopeless washing machine at the Lion Lodge kept shrinking all her bras.

  “Then I went to New Zealand,” Rob continued. Full marks that his eyes hadn’t drifted south, Gemma thought. Ripping her thoughts back to the present she tuned into what he was telling her about life amongst the Kiwis. He had a way of talking to you that made you feel as though you were the most fascinating person on the planet – not like Cal, who was constantly taking calls, speaking to the crew or signing autographs. Cal was great fun and wherever he went he was generally the centre of attention, which sometimes made Gemma feel a bit like a member of his entourage rather than the woman he loved.

  Or rather, the woman he used to love.

  “So that was where I had my tattoo done,” Rob was saying with a rueful grin. “It seemed like a great idea at the time – I guess I was doing the whole Maori thing – but my mum flipped when she saw it.”

  “It can’t be that bad, surely?” Gemma said. Cal had “Made in Ireland” and the Irish flag inked on his bum, which always made her laugh, and the Dangers’ emblem was on his back. Still, he wasn’t quite at Beckham’s level of tattoos yet – although he was always on about getting her name written on his arm. She should have taken him up on it, Gemma thought wryly; maybe he could have had “Gemma’s” inked on his willy?

  In answer to her question, Rob stood up and slowly began to unbutton his shirt. Gemma gulped and heads swivelled because it was like watching a virtual reality female fantasy. In a minute he’d crook his finger and half the women in the pub would get up and follow him!

  Shirt undone, Rob shrugged it from his shoulders and suddenly Gemma realised what he was doing. The midnight-black tattoo was a Maori design and covered most of the right side of his chest, coiling over his shoulder and winding its way down that strong arm. It was tribal, tracing the sinews and the strength beneath the golden skin, and very, very sexy. Gemma’s mouth was dry. Cal’s flag seemed a bit half-hearted now.

  “Oh!” she said. “Did it hurt?”

  Did it hurt? What on earth was the matter with her? A gorgeous man had just stripped off and shown her his amazing body and all she could think of to say was did it hurt? Cal had said that “Made in Ireland” had caused him to faint, but then he was a footballer and everybody knew they were total pussies when it came to pain.

  But Rob just laughed. “Yeah, it hurt like hell! I would have cried like a baby, only the guy doing it would have never let me forget.” He pulled the shirt back on and there was a collective sigh of disappointment from the nearby women. “So that’s me and the potted history of my last decade or so.”

  This was where Gemma was supposed to reciprocate with tales of what she’d been up to, but all that was all pretty well documented. As she sipped her drink, not really enjoying it that much, she told Rob a bit about the business and the show.

  “I must confess I have seen it,” he said, looking shyly at her from under those thick lashes (totally wasted on a guy). “Oh look, who am I kidding? I’ve seen all of the last series on Netflix.”

  “You’re out of date then. I’ll have to get Seaside Rock to send you a disc of the latest one,” Gemma said, but Rob shook his head and then reached out and took her hand in his. It was large and work roughened and looked odd when she was so used to seeing Cal’s hand with its pastry-crusted nails and speckling of cinnamon freckles.

  “I was only watching it because of you,” Rob said softly. The lamplight softened his face as he reached across and with his other hand gently traced the curve of her cheek. “I even came to the book signing in Truro the other week. You didn’t recognise me and it was so busy I never had time to introduce myself.”

  She stared at him. Was Rob the fit guy Angel had been struck by? Duh. Of course he was.

  “You came to my signing? Why would you do that?”

  He smiled bashfully. “Because I couldn’t resist seeing you again. Gemma, I had the biggest crush on you at school. You must have realised?”

  “You hardly spoke
to me in five years!”

  “I was tongue-tied every time I looked at you,” Rob confessed. “I’m blushing now and I’m thirty. Gemma, I used to have all these conversations planned out in my head and then the minute I saw you they’d all just evaporate. Totally pathetic, I know, but I idolised you.”

  Now it was Gemma’s turn to be tongue-tied. She’d had no idea of any of this.

  “Do you remember the Year-Eleven Prom?” Rob asked.

  Gemma nodded. She’d lived on Slimfast for days beforehand so that she could squeeze the zip up on her dress; she’d actually become quite addicted to the strawberry flavour. She’d been violently sick after drinking too many alcopops on an empty stomach, and somewhere along the line she’d snogged Brett James, whose dad ran the local garage. Brett had been a dreadful kisser, like a washing machine on spin cycle, but then again she probably hadn’t been too great herself after all the throwing up. Poor old Brett. Had Rob even been there?

  “I spent weeks plucking up the courage to ask you out,” he said quietly. “But I bottled that as usual. I was going to ask you to dance but then I saw you kissing that guy from the garage – he runs it now, by the way, and he’s got about five kids – so I went home.”

  Gemma stared at him, horrified.

  “That was when I decided that I wasn’t going back to sixth form,” he said, finishing his drink and smiling at her. “I didn’t want to be that pathetic loser any more. I wanted to be a new person and have a fresh start. As it turned out, that was the best decision I could have made because it led to my travels and all the things that happened afterwards.”

  “Rob, I am so sorry,” Gemma said, squeezing his fingers. “I can honestly say I had no idea you felt like that.”

  He squeezed back and then let her hand go. “Of course you didn’t! How could you when I didn’t speak? Anyway, that was a long time ago. I was just trying to explain why I was so peculiar when we were kids. I’m better now, I promise.”

  He certainly was. Gemma couldn’t remember what she’d ever seen in Brett James. Mentally kicking her sixteen-year-old self for her bad taste in men, she let Rob gently steer the conversation back to safer waters: people they knew in common, and less awkward memories of school. By the time her brothers joined them – both pretty merry, and Kev rocking a tinsel halo and bauble earrings – the tense atmosphere of earlier had vanished and everyone was truly in the Christmas spirit. Even Kirsty didn’t seem half as annoying after a few sips of mulled wine.

  “Just the one, sis?” Dave raised an eyebrow when he noticed that she was still nursing the same glass Rob had bought her at the start of the evening. “What a lightweight.”

  Gemma was a bit surprised herself; normally she could drink mulled wine as though it was Ribena. This evening, however, she just wasn’t enjoying the taste. It was a bit metallic and weird. She guessed that after everything that had happened with Cal she wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate.

  Rob glanced at his watch and pulled a face. “Sorry to be a party pooper, folks, but the cows don’t know it’s Christmas and I’ve got an early start in the morning.”

  It was almost last orders anyway, even though the locals were bound to stay for a lock-in. Gemma didn’t expect to see her brothers back before Santa had been.

  “I’ll come too,” she said, stifling a yawn. Goodness, she was so tired. “I’m nearly thirty now and I need my beauty sleep.”

  “Never,” Rob said softly. There was a look in his emerald eyes that made the breath catch in Gemma’s throat. He picked up her coat and helped her on with it – which made a change from Cal watching her get in a knot – and together they walked through the pub and out into the darkness. The lights were on in the church on the other side of the river, and the strains of “Once in Royal David’s City” drifted on the breeze while the stars shone as brightly above the valley as they had in Bethlehem on that very first Christmas Eve. It was Midnight Mass and everyone from Kenniston would be going to the chapel to sing carols and hear the nine lessons. Gemma loved the tiny chapel with its old pews worn smooth by years of being sat on by Elliott bottoms – and Midnight Mass, always the official start of her birthday, was one of her favourite events of the year.

  Last year she and Cal had risen at first light to go to Kenniston and get stuck into cooking the Christmas dinner. Cal had mixed Buck’s Fizz for her birthday and hidden a beautiful Swarovski heart pendant in a mince pie. Gemma had nearly broken a tooth finding it, but the pain had been worthwhile because it had been such a wonderful thing for him to do. Cal had a romantic streak a mile wide and loved planning surprises and grand gestures, from midnight picnics to treasure hunts. Or rather, he used to love doing these things. Gemma couldn’t remember the last time Cal had done something romantic. Sharing the hot-water bottle was about it recently. Realising how much things had changed made her feel desperately sad. Perhaps the lack of sweet notes and romance was the biggest indication of all that he didn’t want her anymore.

  Gemma wondered what Cal was doing now. Was he at church? Would he have a drink up at the big house before walking home and going to bed? And was Cal going to bed alone? Or was Aoife keeping him company?

  Arrah! She had to stop thinking like this! It was going to drive her crazy.

  As Rob drove back to the farm in his sexy black Discovery, all tinted windows and black leather seats, Gemma tried to ignore the churning misery in her stomach and focused on chatting as though she hadn’t a care in the world. This wasn’t hard at all because Rob was very easy to talk to and great company. As he pulled up outside the farm he was telling her such a sweet story about how he’d warmed a little lamb up on the heated leather seat; Gemma managed to make the right responses, despite her mind being elsewhere.

  Just stop thinking about Cal, she told herself furiously. There was a seriously gorgeous man here who’d had a childhood crush on her and was a perfect gentleman. He even had a sprig of mistletoe in his hand, which he was laughingly telling her he’d pinched from the big bunch in the pub.

  “You never know when it may come in handy,” he said with a smile, and those green eyes danced. “We lonely farmers have to make our own luck!”

  This was it. Fate herself couldn’t have made it any more obvious if she’d been yelling “Snog him!” with a megaphone.

  “Same for farmers’ daughters,” Gemma replied. “Happy Christmas, Rob.”

  Before she could chicken out, she reached across and brushed her lips against his. His mouth was warm and everything a man’s should be. There was a little quiver in the pit of her stomach, which felt very much like desire. Encouraged by this, she was about to lean across for another kiss when Rob ducked his head and kissed her softly on the cheek instead.

  “Gemma, it’s not me you want,” he said gently. “It wasn’t when we were sixteen and it isn’t now.”

  She stared at him, mortified. “Rob, I–”

  Rob brushed a curl away from her face. “It’s not that I don’t want to – God knows, I’ve been thinking of nothing else all evening – but I’m not a fool, Gemma. I know when a woman is in love with somebody else. You love Cal. It’s as plain as day. He’s the one you want to be with.”

  It had to be one of the greatest ironies of all time, thought Gemma, that here she was with one of the most beautiful men on the planet – a man who ticked all of her boxes and had told her that he’d been crazy about her for years – and he was turning her down because she was still in love with Cal. The same Cal who was probably with his gorgeous ex-girlfriend at this very minute, not sparing Gemma a second thought.

  She stared at Rob and then exhaled slowly because he was right, wasn’t he? She did love Cal and he was the one she wanted. He didn’t have Rob’s film-star looks or amazing body – but none of that mattered, because he was just Cal. She loved his crazy curly hair, daft sense of humour, bad taste in sports gear and squidgy tummy. She loved him. She totally and utterly loved Callum South.

  What a bloody mess. It was like arriving at Cadbury
World and realising you’d gone off chocolate!

  “But it’s over with Cal,” she whispered, and the pain of hearing it aloud was indescribable. What on earth was she doing here? She should have been with Cal for Christmas, working through everything and trying to sort things out. What they had was wonderful and worth fighting for. She must have been mad to step back and let Aoife have him.

  “I’ve missed my chance, I know that,” said Rob quietly, “but there’s still a chance for you and Cal if you really want to take it. I can see how you feel about him. Besides, don’t you think the guy deserves to know that he’s going to be a dad?”

  “What?” There was a buzzing in Gemma’s ears and the car seemed to be spinning around. “What? What did you just say?”

  Rob looked puzzled. “I’m a bloke, but not an idiot. You’re distracted, you’re not drinking and you look exhausted. You’re pregnant, aren’t you? Come on, Gemma. I’ve seen enough pregnant cows in my time to know. Not that you’re anything like a cow!” he added hastily.

  Gemma was suddenly far too busy doing some basic maths to be insulted by this comparison. Rob might not be an idiot but she certainly was.