A Christmas Chance, page 3
Steph was downstairs on the sofa, and the bedroom door was shut, but even so, Cara didn’t want to risk her overhearing any part of this conversation.
Their evening had been short. As soon as they’d finished the soup, Cara had cleaned the dishes. She and Steph had then had a minimalist conversation about how they would share the bathroom—times were agreed that kept them very much apart—and Cara had immediately headed upstairs to the bedroom.
“I know, I do have caller ID.” The smirk in Sabrina’s tone was obvious. “Listen, I’m actually on my way into a meeting and—”
“There’s someone else here in the cottage,” Cara blurted out.
“What do you mean, there’s someone else there?” Sabrina’s voice instantly morphed into outraged protective best friend mode.
Warmth spread through Cara’s chest. Quickly she filled Sabrina in on the afternoon’s events.
“But it’s okay. Honestly. It’s inconvenient, for sure, but she’s not a danger to me or anything like that.” Cara crossed her fingers as she spoke; this Steph woman hadn’t exactly been threatening, but her irritation had made Cara twitchy.
Maybe I shouldn’t have put that shovel back outside, she thought, as she snuggled farther under the huge, thick comforter.
The bedroom of the cottage was small, the big iron-framed bed dominating the space. There was no fireplace, only a small electric heater which Cara had switched on the minute she’d entered the room an hour earlier. But the layers of sheets and comforter made for a snug igloo on this cold night.
At least Steph could keep the fire going through the night, even if she didn’t have a bed to sleep in.
Cara’s mind instantly threw her an image of what it would be like if the gorgeous woman was stretched out in the bed beside her, and she just as swiftly pushed that thought aside.
“Have you got a photo of her? Take one and send it to me. Then at least I’ll have something to show the police if she does end up burying you in the yard.”
Cara gasped. “How am I supposed to sleep now?”
“Is the bedroom door locked?”
“You are really not helping. Why did I call you?” She glanced across at the door; it was locked, she’d made certain of that before climbing into the bed.
“Because you know I would fight tooth and nail for justice for your murder.” Sabrina chuckled wickedly.
Cara gazed up at the ceiling, her brain working a mile a minute. “The woman is Emily’s sister. Her name’s Steph. I doubt she’s a serial killer.”
“She says she’s Emily’s sister.” Sabrina sounded genuinely concerned.
“I think she is, Sabs. I mean, she called Emily a few times while we ate earlier. She had her phone on the table and I could see that the number being called was the one I have on record for contacting Emily. So…”
Sabrina made a sound like an exasperated growl. “Okay, okay, I suppose that sounds legitimate.”
“Do you think I should leave when the weather clears? Find a hotel somewhere?”
“No! She should leave. I mean, not right now—she doesn’t need to be thrown out into the storm. But you booked that cabin for your solo time away to decompress before you start the new job.” Sabrina tutted. “I can’t believe this Emily chick fucked this up like this. I assume you still haven’t heard from her?”
Cara squirmed. “Well, um, no, not exactly. I mean, like I said, Steph tried. Numerous times.”
“You haven’t tried her yourself?” Sabrina’s already strident voice went up a notch.
“No,” Cara said quietly.
Sabrina’s sigh was audible. Cara pictured her pinching the bridge of her nose, which she did frequently when Cara’s meek side exasperated her.
“Tomorrow morning,” Sabrina said, controlled, measured. “I want you to go downstairs and tell this Steph to get out. Make it absolutely clear that she is in the wrong and needs to vacate immediately.”
Cringing, Cara said, “Well, I mean, I think she’s going to leave anyway. I don’t think I need to even ask. I was thinking I would write an email to Emily in the morning. A strongly worded email.”
Sabrina snorted. “An email? A fucking email? Cara, I love you to pieces but oh my fucking God! Fuck that shit. Call her up and tear her a new one for putting you in this situation!”
Cara knew she wouldn’t be doing any such thing. And Sabrina knew it too, she was sure. When it came to things like this, Cara would always avoid that kind of confrontation.
It astonished everyone, given how accomplished she was at work. But that’s what everyone failed to realise—at work she made damn sure she never ended up in a position where she had to meet with someone face-to-face to sort out an issue, or even to make a phone call.
If she was put in a situation where she didn’t have time to think and had to deal with people’s reactions on the fly, she crumpled. Her words deserted her and she turned into a stammering, incoherent mess.
So she planned meticulously and carried out regular—some would say too regular—checkins with her team and sub-contractors. Her events nearly always ran like clockwork, and if there were problems, her strongly worded emails usually sorted the issue.
“Look,” Sabrina said after a long silence. “I need to get to this meeting. It’s my last one of the day and then I intend to go home to drink a large glass of wine. Please stay safe. Message me regularly to tell me you’re okay. Okay?”
“I will.” Cara tried to ignore the clutching in her belly at the thought of being left alone. “I think I’m going to try to get some sleep. It was a long day of travel yesterday and the jet lag is still kicking my butt.”
“Okay, sounds good. Love ya.”
“Love you, too.”
Cara twitched awake, wondering what the buzzing noise was that had interrupted her sleep. She knew she hadn’t set an alarm.
She rolled over and checked her phone. It was gone nine in the morning, which astonished her. Quickly doing the math, she realised she’d slept for about eleven hours.
Her bladder made it clear that it had been more than eleven hours since it had been emptied, and she threw back the covers.
Rubbing at her eyes, she concentrated on the buzzing noise. It had gotten louder? Or closer to the cottage?
She yawned, hauled herself out of the bed and drew back the curtains.
What she saw outside made her squeak. Her gut clenched, and a little bit of pee may have escaped.
She grabbed her phone.
A sleepy Sabrina answered with a, “Whas happenin’?”
“She has a chainsaw!” Cara rushed the words out, her gaze glued to the sight of Steph standing a few yards off the cottage’s terrace with a large buzzing saw in her hands.
“She…?” Sabrina tutted. “For fuck’s sake, you woke me at four in the morning for this? You told me the cottage has a real fire. She’s probably just chopping more wood.”
“We have enough! She and I had that exact same conversation yesterday.” Cara watched as Steph took a couple of steps closer, her eyes distant, her mouth fixed in a grin.
“Oh my God, she’s…she’s smiling like a maniac and coming closer!” Cara screeched.
four
Steph smiled as she eyed the stump of wood before her, the saw running smoothly in her hands. She’d already marked out her start points on the rough sketch she’d pencilled on the surface, but was giving the piece one last look over before she made the first cut.
She’d woken way too early. Trying to fit her five foot ten frame onto a two-seater sofa had been an exercise in futility not even Houdini could have mastered. Her body had ached all over as she unwound herself from a semi-foetal position, and she’d immediately headed to the bathroom for a hot shower to loosen everything up. No sounds came from the bedroom, and she’d found herself being as quiet as possible in deference to the sleeping Cara.
Her consideration for the stranger one narrow hallway across from her had surprised even herself.
It had nothing to do with the almond-shaped eyes, the cute nose, those soft, rosy lips…
Snap out of it, she’d scolded herself as she towelled off, and she’d immediately dressed and made her way downstairs for coffee.
And after that and some scrambled eggs with toast, the urge to carve had gripped her, and she’d rushed to add warm layers before heading out to the workshop. She’d needed to break a pathway through the thick snow on the ground—they’d easily had the forty centimetres that had been forecast. From the looks of the heavy grey sky above, there was more on the way, too.
She’d unlocked the workshop, gathered everything she needed, then headed back towards the cottage. There was an old stump in the middle of the snow-buried lawn, one she’d been meaning to make something of ever since she’d taken up chainsaw sculpting two years ago. Emily had given her carte blanche to make of it what she could. After the training she’d undertaken and learning as much as she could over the last year or so, improving her art in leaps and bounds, she was finally ready to give the piece its new life.
After an hour or so spent clearing an area of snow around it and stripping the bark off, the wood was ready for its first cut—a moment that always filled her with excitement.
The biting air nipped at her cheeks and the tip of her nose as she focused on the wood and the machine in her hands.
Except, what was that she could see out of the corner of her eye?
She steadied the saw and took a quick glance up in the direction of the movement.
Cara. At the bedroom window, her eyes wide, mouth open, a mobile phone clutched in her hand.
Steph blinked. Was the woman sick? Had she had some bad news?
Reluctantly, but knowing she’d never relax unless she dealt with whatever this was first, she switched off the saw and laid it on the ground.
She pushed back her ear defenders, and shouted, “Are you okay?”
Cara’s gaze flitted from Steph’s face to the saw beside her. Then she fumbled at the window locks until she could heave the sash upwards.
“What…what are you doing? What are you going to do with that?” Cara asked in a loud voice that contained the unmistakable edge of fear.
“With…?” Steph followed Cara’s gaze back to the saw. “My saw?”
“Y-yes.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Steph called, only now realising that Cara was still in her sleepwear, her hair adorably mussed.
Wait. Adorably?
Stop it.
“That is the least of my worries!” Cara yelled.
“What?” Steph’s head was spinning. She definitely hadn’t had enough caffeine for this exchange. “What are you talking about?”
“What. Are. You. Doing. With. The. Saw?” Cara ground out the words but still at a volume that travelled easily across the snow-covered ground between them.
“Uh, sculpting? It’s going to be a red squirrel.”
“Sculpting?”
Steph’s shoulders stiffened and her hands clenched at her sides. The incredulity in Cara’s tone… She’d had enough of that shit from Tiana, and she definitely wasn’t going to take it from this stranger. And another bloody American at that. “Yeah. It’s what I do.”
Cara laughed, an explosive bellow that made Steph grind her teeth.
How fucking dare she?
“What the fuck is your—?”
“I…I thought…” Laugh. “I thought…” Another laugh. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
Wait. What??
“I thought you were coming up here to saw me into little pieces.” Cara clapped a hand over her mouth, as if that would stop her next guffaw from escaping. Then she released it again to say, “Sabrina said there was every chance you’d murder me in my sleep. But I never pictured it happening with a chainsaw!”
Her cackling now was hysterical, and Steph, after a moment of watching Cara clutch at her sides, her face reddening by the second, couldn’t help it when her lips twitched.
A few seconds later, the situation as it must have looked from Cara’s eyes fully sank in.
And then Steph lost it.
Completely.
She laughed so hard she actually fell over, and cold snow instantly found a pathway down inside the collar of her heavy plaid jacket.
Cara’s continuing laughter tumbled over hers in the cold air, and it was beautiful. A throaty laugh, deeper than she might have imagined from the slender woman.
Gradually the pair of them stemmed the flow, and Steph sat up, hands behind her on the ground holding her up, and looked up at Cara.
“Thanks,” she said, making sure her voice carried. “I needed that.”
And it was true. After all the shit with Tiana the last few weeks, it felt like she hadn’t even properly smiled in ages.
Her face hurt. But in a good way.
“I’m sorry,” Cara called down, contritely.
Steph waved off the apology. “Don’t worry. I can see how it must have looked.” She paused then, unable to resist, said, “Besides, a saw would make too much mess in my gran’s old cottage. If I’m going to kill you, I’ll wait until you’re outside. Much easier to clear up afterwards.”
Cara stared at her, then shook her head. “I think you’re joking. But you know what, just for insurance purposes…” She held up her phone and Steph could guess what she was doing.
“Do you want me to smile or look like a serial killer?”
“Oh, ha ha.” Cara then held the phone up to her ear and said something.
Steph blinked. She hadn’t realised Cara had been connected to someone on the other end this whole time.
Then Cara seemed to end the call and tossed the phone somewhere behind her. “There. Now Sabrina knows exactly what you look like. Your cunning plan is foiled before it’s even gotten started.” She looked extremely proud of herself. “Now, it’s freezing in here so I’m going to go…” She waved vaguely in the direction of the bathroom.
Steph nodded and hauled herself to her feet, brushing the snow off her body and retrieving the ear defenders, which had slipped off as she’d collapsed in mirth.
When she looked back up, the bedroom window was closed and Cara was gone.
She was pretty annoyed that she felt a pang of disappointment at that.
Steph switched off the kitchen radio when the eleven o’clock news ended and ran her hand over her face in frustration. As she’d suspected, more snow was forecast for later in the day. She picked up her phone and called the garage.
“Oh, hello, Steph,” the owner, Gareth, said. He’d been her gran’s mechanic for as long as Steph could remember. “You’ll be wanting an update on when we can get your van?”
“Yeah. I know the weather forecast isn’t the best, but—”
“Not to worry. Looks like there might be a window of opportunity on the twenty-first, maybe the twenty-second. Don’t fret, I’ve got you down on my list. As soon as they clear the A9, I’ll be down.”
“Thanks, Gareth. I really appreciate it.”
She ended the call and put her phone down on the kitchen table.
So that confirmed it. She was stuck here. And that felt so wrong to say, given she loved this cottage and all the memories it held.
There was no sound from the cottage’s other occupant. When Steph had come inside after a couple of hours of carving and shaping, fingers frozen despite her gloves, Cara was upstairs. There was evidence she’d been down, making herself breakfast and coffee, but she’d clearly retreated straight back to the bedroom once she’d eaten.
Maybe she was sleeping again.
Or maybe she’d locked herself in the room with the contents of the fridge so that she’d never have to deal with her potential murderer again.
Steph opened the fridge and peeked inside, just in case.
Nothing missing.
She snorted.
What the fuck was she doing? This was her family’s cottage. Yes, Emily had fucked up royally, but Steph shouldn’t have to feel as if she wasn’t welcome here. Who the hell did this Cara think she was?
She yelped as her mobile rang, its vibration making it jump on the table.
Emily!
“About fucking time,” Steph snarled as she answered.
“Well, hello to you too.” Emily sounded completely unfazed, which only riled Steph up further.
“What the fuck, Em?”
Emily’s exasperated sigh was loud. “Yes, yes, all right. Somehow we got our wires crossed.” She yawned. “Sorry, the jet lag has killed me. It’s six in the morning here. I can’t get my sleep pattern right.”
“Oh, you poor thing.” Steph stood up, needing to pace. “At least you’re not sharing a house with a complete fucking stranger!”
Emily tutted. “Don’t yell. I have no idea how this happened. You asked me if the cottage was free for Christmas and I said no. I distinctly remember saying no.”
Steph growled. “I didn’t ask you if it was free. I asked if you were using it over Christmas. You said no to that. Given what you were doing at the time, it’s not exactly a surprise that you didn’t hear my question correctly, is it?”
“Oh.” Emily giggled. “Oh, yes.”
“Em!”
“Right. Sorry.” Emily didn’t sound contrite in the least. “But in my defence, Shane is extremely good at what he does.”
Steph pinched the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, Em, I could have gone my whole life without hearing what I heard on that call that night.” She walked to the kitchen window and gazed out at the snowy wonderland. “Look, the problem is, the van broke down as I got here, and Gareth can’t pick it up for a few days. The A9’s closed, so I can’t even get a taxi to get away from here. And I really didn’t want to,” she said quietly, emotion clogging her throat. “I needed this place to ground me again. I needed all the memories and everything to make me feel better.”
“I get that. Sort of. I mean, you know me, I don’t do the whole love thing so I don’t understand why you’re upset that you and Tiana broke up. You said she was a gold digger. Why would you cry over losing her?”
“Because…because I’m thirty-six and single again! Because unlike you, I do want the whole love thing. And, at first, I thought she might finally be the one.”
