Escape for Christmas

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

‘Sophie?’

At the familiar deep voice, she turned to see Brody walking towards her with a glass of fizz in either hand. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Are you OK?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I needed a breath of fresh air.’ She fanned herself.

‘It’s too hot inside, isn’t it?’ he said with a lopsided grin that sent her hormones into overdrive. ‘Mum kept going on about keeping the place warm, but she hadn’t factored in fifty people all creating their own hot air!’

‘They’re enjoying themselves,’ Sophie said. ‘It is allowed.’

He laughed and she realised that, in seeking her out, Brody had made the decision for her: she would stay. Her skin tingled with excitement. Was it possible that this Christmas could be a fresh start when she cast away the bad memories of the past?

‘I’m sorry I haven’t had much time to spend with you. I should have realised how hectic it would be as host. Doh!’

‘It’s OK,’ she replied, finding Brody’s awkwardness endearing. ‘Harold came out to find me.’

‘He’s a better host than I am. Aren’t you, mate?’

Sophie patted the dog’s head, silently thanking Harold for keeping her in the stable yard just long enough for Brody to find her. A few minutes later and she might have been on her way back to the guest house.

‘Um, I brought you a fresh glass of fizz. It’s well chilled because I kept it in the outhouse. Don’t tell anybody, but it’s also real champagne from my secret stash. I’m giving you the good stuff.’

He held out the glass and Sophie took it, feeling the condensation against her fingers. ‘Thank you.’

‘Why don’t we go and drink these somewhere quieter?’ he suggested.

‘Is that allowed?’ Sophie joked, while privately admitting she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do.

‘Probably not, but I’m past the point of caring. Everyone can get along fine without me. Most of them are stuffing their faces with sausage rolls and getting plastered on the free booze. I doubt they’ll notice I’m gone.’

Sophie thought they definitely would notice, but Brody was already on his way to the stable block.

‘Come on, I think we should check on the real VIP guests.’

Momentarily puzzled, Sophie followed him towards the stable block, where all became clear when Brody switched on the lights. They heard snorting and found Gabriel and the sheep peering over the top of a low door in his stall.

‘Hi, Gabe!’ Brody stroked the donkey’s face and he made snuffling noises. ‘Are you pissed off to be in here while everyone’s partying? Or are you glad to be out of it?’

‘Glad to be out of it,’ Sophie answered for him.

‘Come and say hello,’ Brody said to her. ‘If you want to. Gabe’s a gentleman. The sheep might be a bit harder to win over.

Sophie had never said hello to a donkey before and was slightly wary, but she wasn’t going to miss out on the chance.

‘I’m still too warm. Running around and being nice to people is hard work,’ he said, pulling off his thick overshirt.

Sophie took a sip of her champagne, noticing that the T-shirt Brody was wearing underneath showed off his toned arms and biceps. Clearly there were some advantages to manhandling livestock for a living.

Together they fed apples and carrots to the donkey. ‘Early Christmas treats.’

‘I’m sure Gabriel deserves it.’

Brody stroked Gabe’s muzzle. ‘I did keep trying to get to you and see if you were OK. I saw you pinned down by Brian from the Traders’ Association, and then Uncle Trevor was making a beeline for you.’

‘I was OK. I just needed some fresh air.’

‘Phew! That’s a relief, as I thought for a moment you’d bailed out early.’

For a second Sophie was ready with a fib, and yet there was an intensity to the way Brody looked at her that made her think he could see into her soul. Even if that was fanciful, she was sure he was far too good a judge of people not to know when someone was lying. Perhaps it was time to be honest.

‘OK, I can’t deny it, I might have been thinking about going home, when Harold intercepted me.’

‘It would have been alright if you had bailed out.’

‘Oh?’ she said, disappointed.

‘It would have been fine, if that’s what you really needed to do, but I’d have missed you. A lot, actually.’ He whistled. ‘Well done, Harold.’ He patted the dog, who trotted over. ‘Extra helping of turkey for you on Christmas Day. Only a small one, mind, as we can’t have you turning into a patient, can we?’

Sophie laughed and took another sip of her fizz, sensing the flame of optimism flicker into life again. ‘Thanks again for asking me. I’m glad I came. Tonight, and to the Lakes.’

‘You’ve done really well, if you don’t mind me saying so. Upping sticks to a new area and starting a brand-new business among a load of dour northerners. That’s an achievement.’

‘You haven’t been dour. Everyone – almost everyone – has been incredibly welcoming.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘And I might have seemed confident, but underneath I was a lot more nervous about embarking on a new venture than I may have looked. I thought running a guest house would help me make new friends.’

‘Joking apart, though, you’re a long way from home here.’

‘Well … maybe that’s because I wanted to be a long way from the past.’

‘Oh?’ Brody sat on a bale of hay, as if signalling that he was ready to listen.

It felt rude not to repay his attention and, besides, Sophie was in a mood for sharing. They were finally becoming something a little more than neighbours: friends and perhaps, one day, even closer than that?

She sat down next to him. ‘I chose Sunnyside for all kinds of reasons. I won’t say I was running away, because it was my decision to buy the guest house, although I was keen to make a completely new start after Ben and I split up.’ She surprised herself by how good it felt to finally open up a little.

‘Ben?’

‘My ex. We, er – he decided to have an affair with my now ex-best friend, Naomi.’

Brody whistled. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘Yeah. I used to run a year-round Christmas shop in Stratford-upon-Avon.’

His eyes widened in amazement.

‘Hard to believe, I’m sure, now that I’m helping people get away from all the clichés,’ Sophie said.

‘You are full of surprises. I knew you were in retail, but I thought you had a general gift shop?’

‘That’s what everyone assumed, so I didn’t go out of my way to correct them,’ Sophie said with a sigh, realising that even though she hadn’t lied, perhaps she hadn’t been quick enough to admit the truth. ‘What no one up here knows, apart from Vee, is that I caught Ben and Naomi together in the stockroom on Christmas Eve. They weren’t playing “Santa”, I can tell you. More like “Hide the Carrot” …’ Sophie surprised herself by the way she could joke about it now. It was gallows humour, though.

Brody’s glass wobbled and some fizz splashed out. ‘My God!’

‘Please can you be discreet about this? I haven’t told anyone but Vee about Ben’s affair. I probably shouldn’t be telling you now. It’s hardly appropriate at your party.’

‘No, you should. That’s shitty, it’s awful.’

‘It was a pretty dire time for me, I’ll admit. So I came up here to make a completely new start, because I lost more than Ben when we split up. In the melee between running the shop and being a couple, I managed to lose touch with some of my old mates from university and from my jobs before I went self-employed.’

Sophie regretted prioritising work and Ben, and losing contact with some of her hobbies and friends, letting them drip away slowly without her even realising it.

‘I’d been too busy for stuff like Zumba and regular nights out with the girls. I didn’t realise quite how demanding the relationship had become until it was almost too late …’ She heaved a sigh. Even Lyra had once hinted that Ben could be needy, though she didn’t phrase it like that. ‘I’ve started to put that right. I’ve had three friends to stay already, as well as my family,’ Sophie said, happy that she’d managed to rebuild some of those relationships.

‘Finding your ex and a close friend together must have made life very complicated,’ Brody said. ‘Most of my mates have four legs, apart from Carl. Though he is the most loyal friend I’ve ever had, and one thing’s for sure: I’m never going to find him writhing on the floor with … a girlfriend. Relationships are always complicated, that’s for sure.’

Sophie laughed. ‘I’ve worked that one out.’ She also noted his use of ‘a girlfriend’. She didn’t know why, but she was sure Brody had hesitated a tiny bit before he used the words. Maybe she was being paranoid. She wondered if he was going to elaborate, but he didn’t, so she continued. ‘Our social life revolved around drinks and dinner at mutual friends’ houses or in the pub. The trouble is that “mutual” meant our friends either took sides or wanted to stay mates with Ben as well as me.’

‘That must have made for some awkward conversations,’ Brody observed. Harold licked sticky fizz from his fingers. ‘Harold, don’t be a lush.’

Sophie laughed, partly at Harold’s antics and because she was desperate to cover quite how hurt she’d been that most of Ben’s mates – the couples as well as the men – had decided to switch loyalties to Ben and Naomi. Her own friends had stuck by her, particularly Lyra, and this had made it doubly hard to move so far away.

Brody shook his head. ‘People can be weird. Why do you think I prefer animals? Present company excepted, of course.’

He smiled again, and Sophie warmed further to the empathy in his eyes. She was sure she wasn’t imagining it and it wasn’t just the fizz, but it felt like there was a definite spark between them: somehow she felt Brody must have gone through heartache himself. How else could he be single at thirty-five?

‘I could have walled myself up with the cats,’ she said, trying to keep everything light, despite feeling the hurt afresh as she told Brody, ‘I could have coped with losing his connections if Ben hadn’t gone off with one of my best mates. Because Naomi and I had mutual friends who also wanted to keep seeing us both.’

‘Ouch,’ Brody sympathised. ‘That sounds like adding insult to injury.’

‘It was painful, that’s for sure. My own friends were shocked and sympathetic to start with, but then most of them carried on as if nothing had happened. Of course they had to arrange different times to see us, which was difficult when they were all busy. Anyway,’ she went on, twirling her almost-empty glass in her fingers, ‘I tried to understand their point of view, but it was just too hard. I felt too raw to be reasonable.’

‘Why should you have to be reasonable? I’d have been so pissed off,’ Brody declared.

‘Oh, I was. Raging and hurt, but you have to get over it. I didn’t feel like I belonged to my old life any more, so I decided to start a new one. I’d always had a yearning to run a guest house, but Ben wasn’t keen. Now I had nothing to stop me – and so here I am.’

‘I think you’re brilliant. So does Harold.’

The Labrador nudged Sophie’s leg to show her he agreed.

‘It took real balls,’ Brody said. ‘Sorry. You know what I mean.’

She giggled. ‘It’s OK. It was mad in a way, really impulsive, and my parents and brother and his wife were so worried about me. They wanted me to wait and see how I felt, but it was too late. I sold the shop, saw Sunnyside and burned all my bridges. By spring, I knew it was the right decision to come here. You’re the only person I’ve told, apart from Vee.’

‘Well, I’m honoured you trusted me, and it goes without saying that this stays between us. As you can probably tell, I’m not one for village gossip – the main people I hang out with all day having fur and four legs.’

Sophie thought for a moment and then decided. ‘Same. Though I’ve probably ruined the party mood with my personal woes.’

‘You haven’t ruined my evening. Far from it.’

Brody was giving her that look again. It made Sophie glow, as if she was sitting in front of the fire in the farmhouse. And how had she not noticed what a gorgeous voice he had? That Cumbrian accent was both soft and rugged, like the moss growing on the felltop rocks.

Wow, this fizz was strong … or could it be that, in sharing her past with him, this was the moment when she’d truly arrived in Bannerdale: the emotional moment as well as the physical?

Sophie took a large sip of her drink. Emboldened by Brody’s reaction, and possibly too many glasses of champagne, she said, ‘You should really reciprocate, you know? Share some of your secrets too.’

‘My secrets?’ He laughed, yet Sophie detected a hint of wariness behind the amusement. ‘I’m not sure I have any that you’d want to know.’ He shrugged.

‘But you do have some?’ she pressed.

‘You seem to forget, I’m a boring country vet.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Again that wistful smile emerged, the one that revealed a glimmer of longing for some distant horizon. Sophie wasn’t sure she was in the picture he was imagining, yet Brody put his empty glass on the hay bale and looked at her so intensely that a shiver ran down her spine.

The animals snuffled innocently in their stalls; the stable had an earthy comfort that felt like a safe space. She felt safe, and Brody knew everything about her now. She had nothing to lose.

‘I’m not sure I should be doing this …’ he said.

Sophie moved a little closer to him. ‘Doing what? Talking to me? Listening? Telling me about yourself? We’ve lived next door to each other for the best part of the year. You can trust me.’

‘I know that. If I trusted anyone, it would be you, but …’

‘But what?’ Sophie felt confused. Maybe she’d misread the signs, but she thought they had a special connection. She was longing to kiss Brody. Willing it.

For a few magical heartbeats she was certain he was going to lean in and kiss her. Instinctively she closed her eyes, anticipating the warmth of his lips on hers, ready to sink into a moment she’d been thinking about more and more since the lantern parade. The moment when she kissed a lovely, empathetic and divinely sexy man at a Christmas party.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’

Sophie opened her eyes to find that Brody had shuffled away from her, and now he couldn’t even meet her eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled again.

‘ Brody! Where are you? ’

The shout was like a gunshot going off. ‘Fuck, it’s Mum!’ He leapt up so quickly that he knocked Sophie’s arm and her glass slipped from her grasp and shattered on the cobbles. Harold’s barks echoed around the stable.

‘Harold. Come here! He’ll cut his pads,’ Brody said.

Sophie crouched down, her heart hammering. ‘I’ll clear it up.’

‘No!’ he replied sharply, then more softly, ‘No, I’ll do it. You might hurt yourself.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sophie insisted, feeling like she’d been dumped in a tub of cold water. Surely Brody hadn’t been too scared of his mother finding them together … If so, then he definitely wasn’t the man she’d thought he was.

‘Brody! Are you in there?’ The voice was closer.

Before either of them could reply, Louise stepped out of the shadows into the stable, her sequin jumpsuit shimmering in the light.

When she saw Sophie, her jaw dropped momentarily.

‘Oh. It’s you,’ she said tightly. ‘I wondered where you’d both got to.’ She dragged her gaze from Sophie to her son. ‘Brody, there was a phone call for you.’

Brody pulled Harold tighter to him. ‘Phone?’ he said, as if he’d never heard of such a device. ‘No one has called me, Mother. I’ve got my mobile here with me.’

‘On the house phone.’ Louise glared at them both. ‘It was Tegan. She was in a taxi on her way from Windermere station.’

Now Brody’s mouth gaped open. ‘Tegan’s at Windermere ?’ he said.

‘She was,’ Louise replied. ‘She’s now waiting for you in the drawing room.’

‘Jesus Christ …’ He ran a hand through his hair.

Louise’s eyes narrowed in confusion, then she said smoothly, ‘I expect she just wanted to surprise you, so I said I’d come and find you. I thought you’d be over the moon to see your fiancée. I’ll see you back at the house.’

Sophie felt as if she’d been knocked to the floor by an invisible force; like in one of those dreams where you’re paralysed and are helpless to stop a truck bowling towards you, or you’re falling slowly but inevitably to Earth.

Disbelief, shock, numbness: all these feelings had landed on her at once. Almost exactly the same feelings that had crushed her when she’d caught Ben and Naomi together. And Brody was the last person she thought would make her feel like this.

‘I – I didn’t know you w-were engaged.’ The words sputtered out.

Brody couldn’t even look at her. ‘Not many people do,’ he murmured.

‘And that makes it better ?’

‘No. I’m sorry for inviting you here. To the house. To the stable.’

‘No. It’s me who should be sorry, for letting things get this far. I would never, ever be part of cheating on a woman – on anyone in fact. I know how it feels!’

‘Nor me. It’s why I couldn’t – can’t – be anything more than your friend. I am so sorry, Sophie.’

This time, when Brody shoved both hands despairingly through his hair, Sophie didn’t find it charming any longer. Every gesture, every self-deprecating look or comment was just one more thread in the web of deceit he’d spun her. She was such a fool for falling for it. Doubly foolish, after the last time, when she swore she wouldn’t be so naive again.