The Unexpected Holiday Gift

by Sophie Pembroke

  His throat grew tighter as he remembered that long-ago Christmas, and another screw-up. One that no one ever mentioned, especially not as a joke. One that he never needed to be reminded of anyway.

  He had a clear visual every time he saw the scars on Heather’s arms. He knew just how badly he’d failed his family in the past.

  And now he’d done it again.

  What could he do now?

  * * *

  Clara made sure the master bedroom door was closed behind her before she let her shaky legs give way. The fire she’d lit in the grate earlier burned bright and merry but she couldn’t stop shivering. She couldn’t think of anything except Ivy, stuck in a strange hotel with her aunt Merry, waiting for her mum to arrive for hot chocolate and Christmas presents.

  Except Clara wasn’t going to be there.

  Damn Jacob and his stupid perfect Christmas. How had she let herself get dragged into this in the first place? A ridiculous desire to prove to her ex-husband that she was better off without him, she supposed. To prove it to herself too.

  If only she’d stayed in London with Ivy, where she belonged, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

  And she’d told him. She’d told him everything—although how much he’d taken in, what with the shock and the snow and everything, she wasn’t sure. They’d have to talk again later, she supposed.

  If they really were snowed in for the duration, they’d have plenty of time for that conversation.

  She made a sound that was half sob, half laugh as she realised there was another, more pressing, conversation she needed to have first.

  Clara fumbled with her phone, holding it up towards the window and praying for reception. There it was. Just a single bar, but hopefully enough for her to reach Merry.

  She dialled, held her breath and waited.

  ‘Clara? Where are you? I’ve been trying to call all morning, ever since the snow started, but I couldn’t even get through to your voicemail.’ Merry sounded frantic. Clara didn’t blame her.

  ‘I’m so sorry. Reception here is terrible. And I was so busy getting things ready...I didn’t notice the snow.’ If she had, she’d have called a taxi and headed straight out of the castle before the roads became impassable. ‘Is Ivy okay?’

  ‘Wondering where you are. Clara, are you even going to be able to get back in this? The roads look bad.’

  Clara’s heart hurt at the idea of her little girl watching out of the window of the hotel, waiting for her to come home. This was exactly what she never wanted Ivy to feel—as if she’d been abandoned for a better option. That there was something else that mattered more than her. Because there really wasn’t, not in Clara’s world.

  ‘They look worse from this end,’ she admitted, her throat tight. ‘We can’t even dig Jacob’s car out, Merry. And the road...’ She stared out of the window at a vast blanket of white. ‘I can’t even see where it should be.’ Somewhere in the distance, beyond all the falling flakes, was the Golden Thistle. Clara wished more than anything in the world that she could be there now.

  ‘Hang on,’ Merry said. Clara heard her murmuring something, presumably to Ivy, then the sound of a door closing. ‘What are you going to do? It’s Christmas Eve!’

  ‘I know!’ Clara rubbed a hand across her forehead and tried to blink away the sudden burn behind her eyes. ‘I wanted to walk but I don’t fancy my chances. And Jacob’s family can’t even get here. He was talking about trying to find a helicopter or something but...I think I’m stuck here. And Merry...that’s not the worst of it.’

  Her best friend must have sensed that Clara was on the edge because suddenly the note of panic was gone from Merry’s voice and she became all business again. They had a rule at Perfect London: only one of them could fall apart at any given time. And it was definitely Clara’s turn.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said briskly. ‘Tell me everything, and I’ll fix it.’

  Clara let out a full-blown sob. ‘Oh, Merry, I’m so sorry. But I have to tell you something. Something I should have told you years ago.’

  ‘That Ivy is Jacob’s daughter?’ Merry guessed, calm as anything.

  Holding the phone away from her ear, Clara stared at it for a moment. Then she put it back. ‘How...how did you know?’

  ‘It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, Clara. Not when you’ve seen the two of them. She’s very like him.’ Merry gave a low chuckle. ‘Besides, you never were the one-night stand type. So I always wondered... Did you tell him?’

  ‘Yeah. It went...badly.’

  ‘Then he’s an idiot,’ Merry said simply. ‘Ivy is the coolest kid in the world. He should be so lucky as to have her as a daughter.’ Clara relaxed, just an inch. Maybe Ivy didn’t need a father at all. Not when she had an Aunt Merry.

  As long as Aunt Merry forgave Mummy for lying to her, of course.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Clara asked in a tiny voice.

  Merry paused before answering, and Clara’s heart waited to beat until she spoke. ‘I understand why you wanted to keep it a secret, I think. I hope you know that you could have trusted me with it but...I guess we all have our secrets, don’t we? So no, not mad. But I do want a full retelling of everything, with wine, the moment we get you out of there.’

  ‘If we get me out of here,’ Clara muttered, but she couldn’t help a small, relieved smile spreading across her face. Despite everything, she still had Merry. Her best friend still wanted to be exactly that.

  ‘Okay, let’s fix that first,’ Merry said, businesslike once again. ‘How stuck is stuck? And what do you want me to tell Ivy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The words came out practically as a wail.

  ‘Let me check the weather forecast. Hang on.’ Clara heard the tapping of laptop keys in the background. ‘Okay, it’s deep and treacherous right now, but there’s no more snow due overnight. Snowploughs will be out as soon as it stops, then we can look at getting you out of there. So tomorrow morning, if we’re really lucky. The next day if we’re not.’

  ‘But tomorrow is Christmas,’ Clara whispered. Oh, poor Ivy. How was she ever going to explain this to her?

  ‘Not this year it isn’t,’ Merry said firmly. ‘This year, Santa is snowed in up at the North Pole too, and will be coming tomorrow night. Then we’ll celebrate Christmas once you’re back here.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure Father Christmas can’t get snowed in,’ Clara said dubiously.

  ‘Well, as long as your daughter doesn’t know that, we should be okay,’ Merry replied. ‘Look, I’ll fix it, okay? You’ve fixed things for me often enough—our own business, as a case in point. Let me fix this for you.’

  She sounded so sure, so determined, that Clara almost began to feel a little better. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to talk to the staff here, and the other guests,’ Merry explained. ‘I reckon they’ll all buy in to postponing Christmas until Santa—and you—can get here.’

  ‘But it’s their Christmas too,’ Clara protested. ‘Some of them were only staying until Boxing Day night. We can’t ruin it for them just because I screwed up.’

  ‘You didn’t screw up—you were doing your job. Besides, we can have a practice Christmas tomorrow. As long as Ivy believes that the real deal is the next day, it doesn’t matter anyway.’

  ‘Do you really think you can pull it off?’ If Merry managed it, then Clara would still have Christmas with her daughter. It might not be perfect, but it would be pretty wonderful all the same.

  For the first time ever, Clara cared a whole lot less about perfect. She just wanted to be with Ivy for Christmas. Whatever day they decided that was.

  ‘I can do it,’ Merry promised her. ‘Just leave it with me. Now, do you want to speak to Ivy?’

  ‘Please. And Merry...’

  ‘She can’t know about Jac
ob. I know.’

  Clara waited until she heard her daughter’s high-pitched voice coming closer, feeling her heart tighten with every second.

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. Everything okay there?’ Clara tried her best to sound light-hearted. She knew from past experience that Ivy would pick up on any slight tension in her voice.

  ‘It’s brilliant here. Auntie Merry and I went shopping and we bought you—’ Clara heard a shushing noise from the background ‘—something I’m not allowed to tell you about yet. And then we went for hot chocolates.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful. I wish I could be there.’

  ‘Are you coming home soon?’ Ivy asked. ‘It’s really, really snowy out there.’

  ‘I know. And I’m afraid the snow is very deep where I am too. It’s half way up the door!’ She made it a joke, even though it meant that no taxi would drive to the castle in this, and she had no means of escape. The most important thing was that Ivy continued to believe this was all one big, fun adventure.

  Ivy let loose a peal of laughter. ‘How are you going to get home?’

  ‘Well, it looks like I might have to wait for the snowploughs to clear the roads.’ Now came the tricky bit.

  ‘Will you be home before Santa comes?’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, dropping her voice to a secretive whisper, ‘I just heard—Father Christmas is snowed in too!’

  ‘Nooo...’ Ivy breathed, amazed.

  ‘Yes. So he’s postponing Christmas! I can’t remember the last time that happened!’ Because it never had. But Ivy didn’t know that yet.

  ‘Does that mean he won’t be bringing my presents?’ Ivy asked, obviously anxious.

  ‘Of course he will! You’ve been such a good girl this year, he wouldn’t not bring you presents. It just means that he might have to come tomorrow night instead of tonight. And I’m sure I’ll be back by then.’ If she and Jacob hadn’t killed each other before Boxing Day.

  ‘What are we going to do tomorrow then?’ Ivy sounded confused but hadn’t expressed any disbelief yet. Clara took that as a good sign.

  ‘Have a practice Christmas, of course!’ She injected as much fun as she could into the words. ‘You and Auntie Merry can practise opening a few presents, eating Christmas dinner, pulling crackers, wearing the hats and telling the jokes...all the usual things. Then, when I get home, we can do it all again for real, once Santa has been!’

  ‘So I get two Christmases this year?’

  Clara let out a small sigh of relief at the excitement in her daughter’s voice. ‘Exactly!’

  ‘Brilliant!’ There was a clunk, the familiar sound of Ivy dropping the phone as she got bored and wandered off. In the distance, Clara heard her excited chatter. ‘Auntie Merry! I get two Christmases this year! Did you know? Santa’s stuck too!’

  Clara waited, listening to the plans for the Christmas she was missing, and wiped a rogue tear from her cheek. She didn’t have time to break down now, not with Jacob here.

  Although, until those snowploughs made it up here, she had nothing but time.

  Eventually, Merry came back on the line. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Seems to be.’ Clara sniffed. ‘Tell her I love her, yeah? And you’ll be okay tucking her in? You know she likes to sleep with—’

  ‘Blue Ted,’ Merry finished for her. ‘I know. I’ve babysat for her a hundred times. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know you will. I just wish I was there.’

  ‘And you will be. Really soon,’ Merry said soothingly. ‘Now get off the line so I can phone whoever is in charge of snowploughs around here and work out how to postpone Christmas.’

  ‘Thank you, Merry.’

  ‘For you, anything. Go and make your ex-husband and the father of your child miserable. That should cheer you up.’

  Clara gave a watery chuckle. Merry had all of the best ideas.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JACOB STARED AT THE bottle of brandy. It stared back. Well, probably it didn’t but he’d drunk a good quarter of it now so it felt as if it might.

  ‘So...your latest solution to the snow issue is getting drunk?’ Clara’s voice from the doorway made him spin round—too fast, as it turned out. It took a good thirty seconds for the rest of the room to catch up.

  ‘I called Heather,’ he informed her. ‘Before the brandy.’

  ‘Are they all okay?’ Sitting down across the table from him, she poured herself a small measure into a clean tumbler. She’d never been a big drinker, he remembered. Apparently being snowbound in a castle with him was driving her to it.

  ‘Fine. They’re actually in a hotel in Inverness at the moment. They’re hoping to travel up tomorrow morning, meet us here if the snow has cleared enough.’ So his father would be spending his last Christmas driving on treacherous Scottish roads, trying to save his only son from his own stupidity. Just the way he wanted it, Jacob was sure.

  Time for another brandy.

  Clara moved the bottle out of his reach as he moved across the table to grab it. ‘You’re a terrible drinker, Jacob. You’re plastered after about two pints.’

  ‘I might have changed.’ As he said the words, he thought of all the ways he had changed, or might have changed since she’d left. Drinking wasn’t one of them but she didn’t know that.

  ‘Apparently not.’ The certainty in her voice told him she wasn’t just talking about alcohol. ‘But anyway. Here’s to a perfect Christmas.’ Clara raised her glass and took a long swallow. ‘Somehow I don’t think you’re going to be giving me a top recommendation after this.’

  ‘I don’t blame you for the snow, Clara,’ he said. For many other things, sure. But not the snow.

  ‘But I bet you’re blaming yourself, aren’t you?’ Her eyes were too knowing, and she saw too deep. He glanced away the moment her gaze met his. How did she always manage to do that? Pick up on his biggest insecurity and dig right in to it?

  ‘I was the one who wanted Christmas in the Highlands. The part of Britain voted most likely to get snow at Christmas.’ It was his fault. His failure.

  ‘And I was the one who brought you to a castle on top of a hill,’ Clara countered. ‘Place least likely to get its roads gritted, or cleared by the snowploughs first.’

  ‘It’s what I asked for.’

  ‘What if I told you I had an ulterior motive for bringing you here?’ Clara asked.

  Suddenly, Jacob’s mind filled with exotic scenarios. Had she brought him here purposefully to punish him? Or, more likely, to tell him about his daughter... ‘What ulterior motive?’

  ‘I’d booked this place for another client.’ Clara took another sip of brandy, her eyes warily peering over the rim of the glass, watching to see how he’d react. ‘They pulled out and left me liable for the reservation fee, thanks to a contract screw-up. Holding your Christmas here meant I wasn’t out of pocket after all.’

  ‘I see.’ It wasn’t what he’d expected but part of him had to admire her business sense. ‘So it really is your fault that we’re snowed in and stranded in a castle at the top of a hill.’

  ‘Hey, you asked for a white Christmas.’

  Jacob couldn’t help it; the laughter burst out of him before he could think. Somehow, tossing the blame for their predicament back and forth had defused some of the awful tension that had been growing between them since they’d arrived. After a moment Clara joined in, giggling into her brandy. Jacob marvelled at her. For once, she looked just like the Clara he remembered. The woman who, he knew now, had fought back against a childhood that could have left her bitter and cruel and instead had chosen to find joy in the world. He’d been scared that being married to him had taken that away from her.

  He’d always thought her capacity for joy the most beautiful thing about her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’
she said once she’d calmed down again. ‘Believe me, I really never intended for this to happen.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you,’ Jacob said with a half-smile. ‘After all, you’ve made it very clear you’d rather be anywhere else than here with me.’

  ‘Not anywhere.’ She gave him an odd look, one he couldn’t quite interpret. ‘I just...I’m supposed to be elsewhere tonight. That’s all.’

  ‘With Ivy.’ It was the child-sized elephant in the room.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She must be...four now?’ Even simple mental arithmetic was proving tricky. ‘Is she okay? With Merry?’

  Clara raised her eyebrows. ‘Suddenly concerned for the child you didn’t know existed an hour ago? The one you made it rather clear you don’t want in your life?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ His reaction might have strongly hinted at it but he hadn’t actually said the words. ‘And you’re worried about her. I’m just worried about you.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Clara sighed. ‘Ivy’s having the best slumber party ever with one of her favourite people in the world and, thanks to a story about Santa getting snowed in, is potentially having two Christmases this year, if we don’t get out of here in time. She might be missing me but she’s fine.’

  She was a good deal better than Clara was, by the sound of things.

  Jacob reached across, took the bottle of brandy and poured a small measure into both of their glasses. ‘Since we’re stuck here...we should talk about it. Her, I mean.’ Clara pulled a face. ‘We’re never going to get a better opportunity than this,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I know. And you deserve to know everything. I realised this week...it wasn’t just that we didn’t talk when we were married. We didn’t let each other in enough to see the real people behind the lust.’ She waved her glass in the air as she spoke. ‘We thought we had this epic connection, this unprecedented love. But we never really knew the true heart of each other. We never opened up enough for that.’

  Jacob stared down at the honey-coloured liquid in his glass. She was right, much as he hated to admit it. He’d wanted to believe that he could be a success as a husband, that he could be what she needed, so he’d only let her see the parts of him that fitted his vision of what that meant—working hard, taking responsibility, earning status, being a success. Everything his father had always done.