A Novel Christmas

by Lynsey M. Stewart

  ‘What about Meghan? What did she say?’

  He drew his mouth in and tipped his head. ‘She told me she did it because she was lonely.’

  ‘Lonely?’ I repeated. ‘You were running this place together. How could she be lonely?’

  ‘I was busy. Preoccupied. Like you, I guess. My mind was always on the business.’

  ‘Wasn’t he just as busy as you?’ I asked.

  ‘Busy fucking her it seems.’ I hid my face in my hands at his words. Those awful words and this horrible mess of a situation. I thought about it all and watched him pace, avoiding the bed like one false move would cause it to explode.

  ‘How old was he?’ I asked.

  ‘In his early fifties. He was younger than Mum. A silver fox apparently…’

  ‘Meghan said that?’ I gasped.

  ‘Yep. Somewhere around her, “He paid more attention to me than you did,” speech.’

  ‘But Drew…have you seen yourself?’ He chuckled at that, stroking his stubble, his shoulders lightly shaking. ‘I’m not kidding. You’re romance-novel hot.’

  ‘Good to know. Thanks.’

  Our light laughter quickly died down as the reality of the situation started to sink in.

  ‘I think I understand now,’ I said, finally making sense of everything, ‘why you’re so cautious.’

  ‘There was a reason I brought you here, Cal.’

  ‘I get it,’ I replied.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘You’ve been monumentally hurt. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through, how you felt. It’s understandable that you have this…fear in you.’

  ‘I really like you, Cal, but at the same time, I don’t want to lead you on,’ he said, a tinge of apprehension in his voice. ‘If I’ve given you the wrong impression that I’m open for something to happen between us, I shouldn’t have.’ He couldn’t look at me, had his eyes trained on the floor.

  I ignored the parts of his speech that were said to prepare me for a fall and went in with both feet, full Cal style. ‘You can’t be like this forever, you’re denying yourself—’

  ‘I’m not denying. I’m protecting. There’s a difference,’ he said shaking his head.

  ‘You’re not protecting. You’re hiding. You’ve lived here alone since Meghan left.’

  ‘I have Archie. I’m fine,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Archie’s beautiful, but he isn’t human.’

  ‘Cal—’ It was a warning. Don’t say any more.

  But I was a writer, and the words now came easily, they flowed, spilled out and caused major kerfuffles, and I didn’t care anymore.

  ‘You’re hiding!’ I shouted. ‘Tucked in the embrace of Karensa, an idyllic wedding venue, a romantic fairy tale that doesn’t exist anymore. There are minimal guests, no interaction with people, with women. Your pick of the crop out here are toothless farmer’s daughters or…Brian!’

  ‘Until you,’ he said, glaring with a heat so intense I almost lost a layer of clothing. ‘You’re fucking confusing me!’ He looked relieved after his outburst, like he was desperate for me to know how conflicted he was.

  ‘Me?’

  He stepped forward and faltered as he reached me. ‘Yes. You. The loveliest woman I’ve ever met. The kindest, most infuriating woman who drives me fucking crazy because I can’t do anything about this jumble of thoughts and feelings you’ve stirred up.’ He paced and circled until I was dizzy. ‘I never thought I’d be in a position to fall again. To have another woman, to fantasise about building a life here, one I’d enjoy and worship. But you, Cal. You’ve opened up those vulnerabilities and I go from feeling exhilarated to completely fucking petrified in the space of seconds.’

  ‘Don’t be scared. Romance is my expertise,’ I laughed through the cusp of a sob, trying to lift the tension but failing spectacularly.

  ‘But this isn’t a romance novel that you can orchestrate. You can’t write a scene or create words to make this a perfect story with a happily ever after.’ He put his hands on his head and closed his eyes. ‘I wish I could shake off this feeling—throw it away, put it in a box forever—but I can’t. I know there’s anger inside of me because of what happened, but there’s also sadness, that I’ve been left with the need to build walls and close myself in.’

  ‘Don’t build walls,’ I replied. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘Please don’t be hopeful,’ he said, dropping his eyes to the floor. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m being truthful.’

  ‘You’re not,’ I replied. ‘I know you feel more.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘At least you know now.’

  ‘What do I know?’ I asked, afraid of the answer.

  ‘Why I don’t believe in romance.’

  His words hit me like a knife to flesh. Romance was my thing; an epic love story made my world go around. When I wasn’t writing one, I would be reading one. Sometimes, when I wasn’t actively writing, I was reading five or six books a week. Those six words should never be composed together to form a sentence. It was sacrilege. Blasphemy to my genre. But above all, it was heartbreakingly sad.

  He sat down on a chair in the corner of the room, his wedding suit jacket still draped across the back. He looked so broken, so tortured that I couldn’t help but rush to kneel at his side, push my own disappointment aside and wrap my arms around his body. I felt his deep sigh against me, his hand resting on the back of my neck and there we stayed as I stroked his head, pulling his hair through my fingers, whispering how sorry I was, trying to comfort him, tell him that everything was going to be fine, because I wasn’t sure that anyone else had.

  Chapter 16

  Cal

  I moved the boxes containing the order of the service to the recycling bin and tidied up the bedroom, stripping the bed, closing the drawers and putting everything away in cupboards, including the stunningly untouched wedding dress. I needed to busy myself, distract my mind from the conversations of the evening and the realisation that Drew wanted to be nothing more than friends because he didn’t believe a happily ever after existed for him.

  I couldn’t get on board with that. My mind and body were screaming at me to challenge him, the romance writer in me was horrified, but I wasn’t sure how I could help him change his mind.

  Drew was still sitting in the same chair, staring into space, sighing occasionally and rubbing his hands across his forehead. He looked unruly and deep in thought. His hair was all over the place, his eyes tired like he needed to sleep for a week. I left him there and went downstairs, dumping the dead flowers from the vases into bins, dragging the enormous walls of crispy flowers to join the larger bins outside. As I was putting the glasses away, I heard the door upstairs and watched as Drew walked down the staircase, one thud at a time.

  ‘I’ve just been tidying. You don’t need to see any of this,’ I said, hiding the deflated balloons behind the bar until I knew it was safe to get rid of them.

  ‘Thanks, Cal. I can’t tell you how much you’re helping me.’ He bashed a chair with his hand and a plume of dust wafted into the air.

  ‘I could do some cleaning while I’m here.’

  ‘You’ve done enough. Thanks for hiding the evidence,’ he replied, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly as he sat down.

  ‘I’ve been thinking while you’ve been upstairs.’

  ‘Never good,’ he mumbled as I ignored him.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ He leant back, nodded once and closed his eyes. ‘Why did you leave it like this? Everything untouched, just as it was left.’

  His eyes remained closed, but his fingers twitched. ‘At first, I couldn’t face it. As more time passed by I couldn’t see the point. It was a crime scene. I didn’t want anything to do with the place. I busied myself with the cottages and ignored this completely. I allowed Gerry to use the front barn for the author retreat in the spring, but apart from that, I haven’t been back here since that day.’ I dropped myself down on the chair opposite and watched as he sat forward, both
hands running through his hair leaving peaks where his fingers had been. ‘I knew Meghan was struggling. The isolation was too much. She was unhappy and I didn’t do a thing to help her. I should have done more.’

  ‘Let’s not do that,’ I replied. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘I was obsessed with making this work. Not making us work.’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t want to,’ I said.

  He glanced at me like I’d found his secret. ‘You should be a detective.’

  ‘I’m good aren’t I?’ I replied as he chuckled.

  His laughter always seemed to warm me despite the chill of a winter’s day.

  ‘I started to have some doubts about where things were going,’ he replied. ‘Nothing huge. Just a feeling that wouldn’t go away.’

  ‘You settled. Like the character in my book,’ I said, remembering his words.

  ‘Like you,’ he corrected. ‘Didn’t you settle?’

  ‘When I was young, yeah, but not now. That’s probably why I’m still single. Can’t find a catch,’ I smiled.

  ‘They’re missing out,’ he replied, catching my eyes again. I didn’t know what to do with that statement. It seemed the wrong time and place to start talking about our imaginary relationship when the aftermath of his wedding nightmare surrounded us. Grabbing the untouched guestbook, I stood up and put it away in a cardboard box that I’d found behind the bar. The writer in me couldn’t help but wonder about the shards of story Drew wasn’t willingly talking about. There was an elephant in the room, and ignoring it wasn’t going to be as easy as covering it with a dust sheet or packing it away in a cardboard box.

  I perched down on the side of his chair and took a breath. ‘Did you have doubts about your relationship with Meghan before you moved here?’

  ‘No. We were in love.’ That stung harder than I thought it would.

  ‘The doubts only started when you came here?’ He nodded. ‘I think there were bigger complications.’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

  ‘She was an essential part of the business. Perhaps you were scared about what would happen to Karensa if she left?’

  ‘I can’t say that thought hadn’t crossed my mind,’ he replied.

  I was impressed with his honesty.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

  ‘For what?’ he asked, taken aback.

  ‘Being so honest.’

  I looked around the room as I held him. Karensa made a beautiful wedding venue. Perfect really. But for Drew, it was tainted. The dream he envisaged, built and developed was destroyed through two people and one bad choice. I imagined him on that day, devastated and lost, the images of Meghan and his mum’s partner spliced between the decadent flowers and ivory balloons.

  ‘What did you tell your guests?’ I asked.

  ‘I called them together in the atrium like I was making the bloody groom’s speech. Told them she’d left and the wedding was off. Yeah, that wasn’t fun. I still had friends who were staying here with nowhere else to go. The food had been prepared. I had no choice but to go ahead with the meal. I had to wait on them, bring them fucking breakfast the next day as I tried to hide my heart trailing behind me in a bloody heap. Excruciating. Humiliating,’ he grimaced.

  ‘Oh, Drew.’

  ‘It was a shit show all round. Still is,’ he said, getting up and wafting a cobweb from the light on the wall.

  ‘So yours was the last wedding?’

  He had always been reluctant to talk about when the last wedding had been held here. Now, it made sense.

  ‘Yeah. October last year. We had to wait until the wedding season was over to ensure we were both free,’ he replied, looking around like it was the first time he had really looked. ‘It’s like my version of Great Expectations in here. Miss Havisham’s wedding dress is hanging on the back of the door.’

  ‘Was,’ I replied. ‘It’s stored away in the cupboard now.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll find it,’ he quipped.

  ‘Personally, I love the book.’

  ‘Better than A Christmas Carol?’ he asked.

  ‘Not as light.’

  We laughed lightly, and as I noticed a card addressed to Meg and Drew, I swept it to the floor with a brush of my fingertips. His eyes followed the paper and he frowned.

  ‘Fuck me. What a mess. You must think I’m mad.’

  ‘No. I think you’ve been hurt.’

  ‘But leaving all this,’ he replied, circling the room.

  I shrugged. ‘Slightly worrying, but…’

  He smiled shyly.

  ‘How do you like the colour scheme we went with? Is it weddingy enough? Too blingy? Maybe the flowers need a little pick-me-up.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Use humour to hide how you’re really feeling.’

  ‘It’s never let me down before.’

  ‘Think of it like this. If your story was a book idea, you would be pitching it as rom-com, but your novel would bomb because you’re not marketing in the right genre,’ I replied.

  He put his feet up on the coffee table and chuckled. ‘I’d pitch it as horror. It would be a bestseller.’

  ‘Doing it again!’ He pushed the table with his feet and started brushing the rug underneath, coughing from the dust that flew up as he did. I knelt down in front of him to get his attention, to make him listen. When he wouldn’t look at me, I held his face in my hands and brought him back. ‘Pitch it as an angsty romance, not a rom-com. All you need to do is find the right words.’

  ‘I thought romance had to have a happily ever after.’

  ‘Perhaps your story isn’t finished,’ I replied, smiling as his eyes roamed my face. He had a look of admiration that was so tender and pure like he was staring in wonderment at something fanciful and ornate. Precious.

  ‘Rom-coms are lighter to read,’ he replied. ‘Easier to digest.’

  ‘You don’t always have to turn to humour,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you need to be true to your story. Tell it honestly.’

  As his thumbs stroked my cheeks and he leant in closer to drop his forehead to mine, I let go of another perfect-kiss moment, one that would undoubtedly please the page turners and keep readers rooting for the characters. I let it go because we weren’t in the pages of a romance novel, this was reality and I knew Drew wasn’t ready for that perfect kiss—maybe he never would be. Instead, I could capture this almost love story in the words of my book, and when I was sitting at my shabby chic desk, writing the final chapters, I could let myself wonder if we could ever be something more than just friends.

  Chapter 17

  Cal

  ‘Mum, I can’t see you. Hold it up higher.’

  ‘This better?’ she said, now showing me her forehead.

  ‘No. Down a bit. Is the sea choppy or have you had something to drink?’ She laughed and it sounded so far away that I thought my heart was going to stop. It was two weeks until Christmas Day and I was beginning to feel the pangs of missing home. Mum and Dad would be away until New Year’s Day and the reality of facing a very different Christmas to the previous thirty-four was beginning to make me a weepy mess. To make matters worse, there was a distinct lack of Christmas around Karensa. I glanced at the tiny tree Drew had put on my desk. It was browning in places—lack of water would do that—and the little paper ornaments were wrinkling at the edges. Very different from my mum’s usual decadent tree and outdoor, musical light display.

  ‘Dad’s just zip wired down the ship’s bow to the stern. He’s a bit windswept, to say the least,’ Mum chuckled.

  ‘Oh, God. Tell him to be careful!’

  ‘He’s having a whale of a time, Cal. I think he’s found his inner youth,’ she replied before lifting her sunglasses and putting them on top of her head. ‘Let me get a better look at you. You look tired. How are you sleeping?’

  ‘Really well. Must be the freezing sea air. How’s your warm Bah
amas air?’

  ‘Jealousy doesn’t suit you!’ she said. ‘What about the writing? Have those bracing Cornish views inspired you yet?’

  ‘I’ve started my book,’ I replied, smiling smugly.

  ‘I’m so pleased! That’s wonderful. Tell me all about it.’

  ‘I haven’t finalised all the details but basically, he’s a recluse living in the mountains or an island in…Cornwall. He was jilted at the altar and no longer believes in love. It’s going to be atmospheric and moody. There will be cabins and log fires and he’ll be shirtless and brooding as he’s chopping trees. Then, an author…erm…a journalist is on some kind of assignment and she’s been sent there to research…wood.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Is this a rom-com, Cal? Is it going to be one of those with a pun in the title? Come and View my Wood: Book 1 in the Mount My Mountain Man Series.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I shook my head as she wiggled her eyebrows. ‘No, it’s a serious love story. Friends to lovers. Lots of slow burn and angst.’

  ‘Love a slow burn. Sounds good. Can’t wait to read it,’ Mum said as a drink full of chunks of fruit and probably a lot of alcohol came into view. ‘Now tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  Mum always had a way of knowing when something was wrong. She could sniff out my tears from the other side of the moon, never mind the Bahamas.

  ‘That outline you skimmed through about the recluse living in Cornwall and the author—I mean journalist—who falls for him as he’s shirtless and brooding.’

  ‘Yep.’ Here it comes.

  ‘Inspired by anything in particular?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the arty black-and-white photos of shirtless woodcutters Melissa keeps posting in your reader group? Or even the little jokes about you having your own to watch every morning?’ Oh, fuck. I hadn’t checked the group for a day or two. I’d been too lost in writing and didn’t want to interrupt the flow with social media distractions. ‘What’s his name?’ Mum asked.