Snow Going Back

Chapter 39

THIRTY-NINE

‘Here you go,’ Kate said, handing Lance a glass of wine across the table. ‘Sorry for the wait. I just had to sort out some last-minute bits.’

She’d also run upstairs and silently cursed behind her closed door before walking back down with a serene smile. She felt awful for Sam. Aside from their near moment being totally quashed by Lance’s arrival, he was just trying to enjoy his last Christmas in his home while Cora’s memory was still fresh and around him. The man was grieving and trying to understand their earlier half-managed conversation, and then, of all people, Lance shows up. Possibly the last person in the world Sam wanted to be forced to entertain right now.

Lance, she knew from the set of his cool smile and the way he’d been studying the other man with his courtroom tactics, had already taken against Sam. And it was natural, she supposed, to some degree. His future wife had been living here for months with this other man he didn’t know anything about. Of course he’d feel guarded.

‘So, Sam,’ Lance said, with a cool, lofty smile, ‘tell me, what is it you do?’ He helped himself to some potatoes, then exaggeratedly stared at Sam’s checked flannel shirt. ‘Are you in trade ?’

Sam held his gaze levelly for a moment, but Kate saw him tense at Lance’s subtle condescending tone. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I am.’ He reached for the parsnips.

‘Oh, fantastic,’ Lance replied with a slight laugh. ‘That’s great. Katherine, could you pass the salt?’

Kate hid a frown at the use of her full name. Why was he being so weirdly formal? He didn’t even call her Katherine in front of her mother. She passed him the salt with a tight smile.

‘Thank you. Is there a lot of work for you around here, Sam?’ Lance continued with exaggerated politeness. ‘Is it domestic work you do or commercial? Skilled or…?’ He let the question hang.

Sam’s face twitched as he forced a smile back, and Kate frowned, annoyed at them both. Lance was acting like a facetious snob, and Sam was playing the game he’d played when she’d first arrived, giving nothing away and letting Lance mislead himself. Well, it might be a game he enjoyed, but she certainly didn’t. She butted in ahead of him before he could answer, taking on Lance’s challenge herself as she served them both slices of turkey.

‘Actually, Sam’s selling himself short,’ she told him. ‘He has a successful business specialising in the design and build of affordable, sustainable eco houses and eco solutions.’ She smiled and turned Lance’s attention back towards Sam with a flourish before walking back out to the kitchen for the gravy. She took a moment around the corner to roll her eyes. This was the worst Christmas dinner ever .

‘Oh, how interesting.’ She heard the wind leave Lance’s sails as he discovered there was nothing about Sam’s business he could look down on without sounding like a complete idiot and cheered up slightly. ‘One-off sort of stuff or bigger sites?’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said, sounding resentful that he’d been outed for exactly who he was. ‘Both, but mainly bigger sites. I’ve got a couple going at the moment, so…’ He trailed off.

‘Great, great,’ Lance said glumly. ‘So when you say solutions , what do you mean exactly?’

‘You know, like energy sources and facilities, a few of the appliances. I use solar panels, ground-source heat pumps, things like that. Put in filtered wells. Dishwashers here and there.’

‘You can make sustainable dishwashers ?’ Lance asked, devastatingly impressed. ‘Did you design them yourself?’

‘After a fashion,’ Sam admitted reluctantly. ‘And yeah, I designed them.’

Kate grinned at how disappointed they both sounded, now she’d scuppered their passive-aggressive attempts to rub each other up the wrong way. Picking up the jug, she walked back into the room and sat down with a bright smile.

‘Gravy anyone?’

Over the course of the meal, Kate continued to direct the awkward conversation as best she could, but things became increasingly strained.

‘So you’re a lawyer, too, Lance?’ Sam asked, eventually slipping out from under Kate’s constant prompts towards his line of work. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and put it down on his empty plate.

‘I am, Sam, yes,’ Lance replied, leaning back and twisting the stem of his wine glass.

Sam nodded, obviously trying to be polite for Kate’s sake. ‘And do you do the same sort of thing as Kate? Is that how you two met?’

The arrogant smile returned to Lance’s face. ‘Er, no actually. Katherine works in corporate law; I work in criminal defence. The fun side of lawyering,’ he joked. ‘A lot more court, a lot less desk.’ He raised his eyebrows and lifted the glass of wine. ‘Darling, have you got anything a bit stronger? I must admit, this isn’t really cutting it today.’

‘No,’ she said, feeling annoyed. ‘And for the record, Sam , my side of lawyering is quite fun, too .’ She pursed her lips.

‘Oh, you know I’m only messing around,’ he said jovially. ‘But you must admit, it’s definitely sexier solving high-drama murders in court than it is checking off clauses in a contract.’

She raised her eyebrows, feeling needled at the way he was putting her career down, even if it was just messing around . She felt tempted to bite back for once, rather than ignore it the way she’d grown used to doing, but for Sam’s sake, she didn’t. This was his home, his first Christmas without Cora. Lance’s presence was already unfair on him, all things considered – he didn’t need her making it worse by starting an argument.

Seeing her annoyance at Lance’s putdown, Sam cleared his throat and spoke up. ‘You get some court action, too, though, don’t you, Kate?’ Lance laughed, and Sam frowned at his rudeness. ‘Well, you’ve got that one in January coming up, at least.’

Sam was just trying to stick up for her, she knew, but Kate closed her eyes as Lance turned to her with a flash of dark annoyance.

‘Where?’ he asked. ‘ Here ?’ He waited, his frown deepening by the second.

She sighed. ‘I was only served papers the night before last and I didn’t want to ruin your Christmas, so I was going to wait and tell you tomorrow.’

‘You have got to be kidding me!’ He sighed loudly.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Sam said awkwardly. ‘I didn’t realise. I apologise.’

‘Of course you didn’t.’ Lance stared coldly at him before he broke out a tight smile and let out a little laugh. ‘It’s fine,’ he said, looking back to Kate. ‘It’s fine. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. We’d better just hope we’re not on our honeymoon .’

Kate saw him watch for Sam’s reaction to his words, the slight squeeze of his eyes the tell-tale sign, and she saw Sam show his hand, looking down and away at Lance’s talk of the wedding. Lance noted this with interest and moved smoothly on, and Kate sighed internally.

‘Where do you want to go, anyway, Katherine?’ he pressed. ‘Your choice, darling, anywhere you want.’

‘I can’t think about that right now,’ she answered shortly. ‘We’ll talk later.’

There was an awkward silence, then Sam stood up, slapping his hands on his thighs.

‘ Alright . We’ve sat here long enough, I think. Lance, are you a whisky man? I think I have some in the back of the cupboard.’

‘ Now you’re talking,’ he replied.

‘Great.’ Sam walked out of the dining room and through to the kitchen, Lance following shortly after.

Finally alone, Kate looked around sadly at what remained of their Christmas dinner and took a deep sip of her wine. She looked over to one of the pictures of Cora and William, the guilt weighing heavily on her chest. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘This is not the Christmas Sam should be having this year.’

She stood up and walked to the kitchen, realising she shouldn’t leave them alone for too long.

‘ Smugglers’ Notch ,’ Lance read. ‘Local, you say?’ He put the bottle down and smelled the amber liquid he was swirling around in the glass before sipping it.

‘Yeah, not too far south of here, actually,’ Sam confirmed. ‘This is one of their special reserves.’

‘It’s good ,’ Lance said with grudging approval. ‘Katherine, come try it. I think you’ll like this one.’

‘Oh, you like whisky, Kate?’ Sam asked, looking surprised.

Lance smiled. ‘She loves whisky.’

‘Nice,’ Sam commented, shooting her a smile. ‘I didn’t know that about you.’

‘Well, why would you, old boy?’ Lance said with a cruel laugh. ‘You don’t actually know her at all.’

So that was why he was calling her Katherine. It suddenly clicked. Lance was trying to create some sort of distance between the Kate Sam thought he knew and his Katherine from London. Except that version of her wasn’t real. It was just another one of Lance’s courtroom manipulation tactics to make people see things from a heavily altered alternate perspective.

Kate had reached for his glass, but she paused at his scathing words and this realisation, and Lance took the opportunity to wrap his arm around her. He pulled her to his side, leaning over to kiss her deeply on the lips. Kate tensed, not in a position to pull away as Lance had her in a tight grip, but not happy at being used to prove a point like this at all. When Lance finally let go, she shot him a sharp frown, but he simply turned back to Sam with a smile.

‘Can you believe in just one week I’ll be marrying this incredible woman, Sam?’ he asked in a bright tone. ‘She’ll be Mrs Kate Cheyney by the first of January. Then comes the rest of the fun. Starting our home, our family .’ He raised and dropped his eyebrows suggestively. ‘What a great adventure we’re on the cusp of, eh, Katherine?’

She stared at him with a cold expression, too furious with his games to answer. If she hadn’t been desperately clinging on to the attempt to keep this Christmas Day a civilised affair out of respect for Sam and his home, she’d have let rip with what she really thought. Her cheeks burned with anger, and as she looked over to Sam, she tried to convey a silent apology, but he looked away with a nod and a forced smile.

He lifted his whisky glass in a toast. ‘Well, here’s to you , Kate.’ He looked back at her for a moment, his expression disappointed. ‘One week from now you’ll be going from Hunter to Chains . Congratulations .’

‘It’s Cheyney ,’ Lance said, the double meaning behind the change totally lost on him.

‘Cheyney, so sorry,’ Sam said. He downed the rest of the liquid in the glass and put it down on the counter beside his wooden carving. ‘I gotta head off. Got some things to sort out, so I’ll just grab a couple of bits and leave you guys to it.’

‘ What ?’ Kate stepped away from Lance, removing his hand with hers firmly. ‘Sam, no . It’s Christmas Day . You need to be here .’ She frowned and started after him as he jogged up the stairs, but Lance grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

‘Leave the man to do his thing ,’ he insisted with a painfully forced laugh, trying to secure her again under his arm. ‘I’m sure he has people to see in his own life. His own friends and family.’

Kate rounded on him with a glare. ‘Just stop it ,’ she demanded. ‘What’s got into you?’ She twisted round as Sam jogged back down, the backpack he usually took to work slung over his shoulder. ‘Sam, wait …’

‘Can’t, sorry. I’ll catch you later, Kate,’ he called as he walked out the front door.

It closed behind him as she tried to pull herself out of Lance’s grasp, but he didn’t immediately let go. ‘Kate, stop . Come on – turn around,’ he said.

‘Lance, seriously ,’ she said, raising her voice now as her temper began to turn molten. ‘Get off of me !’

She yanked her arm out of his hand and ran through the hall to the front door, but by the time she got it open, Sam’s truck was already off the drive and setting off down the road. She looked around for her boots, then made a sound of frustration as she realised they were upstairs. She put her closed fist to her head and the other hand on her hip as she watched him drive away, knowing she had no chance of catching him now. She could have run for her boots, but her car was still halfway down the hill, as she’d never bothered to buy chains.

She shut the front door, leaned her forehead against it and closed her eyes. ‘I should have bought those bloody chains,’ she muttered.

Lance walked through and stood behind her. ‘Kate, I think we need to have a talk.’

Kate ignored him as guilt flooded through her. It had been her job to make sure Sam was OK today. To make sure he got through without feeling alone or getting bogged down in the darker circles of grief. But she’d failed . More than that, she’d ended up making his day worse .

‘If I’d just got the stupid chains, I’d have caught him. Ugh , I’m such an idiot ,’ she muttered, banging her forehead against the door a few times in quiet frustration.

‘What on earth are you talking about now ?’ Lance asked, tutting impatiently. ‘Can you turn around, please? I’m serious – we need to have a discussion.’

Kate opened her eyes and narrowed them with a look of disbelief before turning round to shoot that look towards him. ‘ No , I’m not an idiot,’ she said, striding towards him with a pointed finger. ‘ You are.’

‘Excuse me?’ Lance asked, annoyance flashing across his face. ‘What a thing to say to me!’

Kate shook her head. ‘ No . This is where I’d usually just take it . The chains were under my control so therefore the fault must be that, not you , right? That’s what I usually do. But it was you.’

‘Kate, nothing you’re saying is making any sense to me right now,’ Lance told her.

He was suddenly calling her Kate again, now that Sam was gone, she noted. She shook her head. ‘What are you even doing here?’ she asked. ‘Why aren’t you at home with your mum? It’s Christmas Day .’

‘Because I was trying to spend it with you . My future wife.’ Lance held her gaze accusingly, and she shook her head.

‘No, that’s not it. I was set to fly home the day after tomorrow. You wanted to come out here and stamp your territory,’ she accused.

Lance exhaled and pushed up his glasses. ‘Well, what if I did ?’ he asked. ‘Is that really so awful? You’ve been gone nearly two months , shacked up with some guy I don’t know – who’s apparently the Hulk’s younger cousin . Can you really blame me for wanting to check up on you and puff my chest out a little? Especially as it seems maybe I did have something to worry about. Because instead of focusing on me , the fiancé who just travelled for eighteen hours to surprise you on Christmas Day, there you are running off to chase the latest Magic Mike recruit. I mean, seriously, Kate, the sheer size of the guy!’ Lance blew air out through his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Tell me you’d feel happy about me all cosied up with the female version of that.’

Kate exhaled and sighed unhappily. ‘Lance, if you were stuck on a job living with the all-time hottest Page Three girl for two months, I would still trust you without doubt,’ she told him sadly.

She walked past him to the lounge and sat down in one of the armchairs, rubbing one cold hand over the other slowly and looking down at her engagement ring as a heaviness settled over her like a blanket. Lance took the seat opposite her. He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him.

‘ No , I’m going to talk. Lance, you came here because you didn’t trust me. And I’ve had chances to cheat on you, you know, if I wanted to,’ she said truthfully. ‘But I never have and never would, because I’m not that kind of person, and that’s something I thought you knew.’

Lance had the grace to look ashamed, and he nodded. ‘I do,’ he said, his voice heavy. ‘I do know that. And I do trust you.’

Kate shook her head. ‘What was worse though was the way you came in here and treated Sam. This is his home. And he lost his aunt, the woman who raised him as her own son, just a few weeks ago,’ she told him. ‘She was the only family he had, so today was his first Christmas alone . His first Christmas without a family .’ She shook her head. ‘You were callous and rude and unkind, and it’s just not OK. I get that me being here hasn’t been easy for you, but Sam’s been through a lot worse, and I honestly can’t believe how badly you just treated him.’

Lance shrugged. ‘OK, fine. I’m sorry . You’re right, it was rude, but I saw how the guy was looking at you, and it got my back up.’

‘Yes, well, it really doesn’t matter now.’ She sighed tiredly.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Lance asked with a frown.

Kate studied him for a moment. ‘Lance, why did you ask me to marry you?’ she asked.

He frowned. ‘What sort of question is that?’

‘A simple one,’ she replied. ‘We don’t even live together – what prompted the sudden proposal?’

Lance sighed, looking stressed. ‘Alright. It was at Rick and Amy’s wedding, when your mother started making all those comments. Thing is, Kate’ – he spread his hands outwards – ‘she made sense . I want a family. I want the nice house and the children. And you’re thirty-five . You know, you act all startled about these things, but you’re a woman . You have a time limit. I’m sorry, but it’s true . So I thought about it and, yes, it needs to be now . And we’ll look back and thank ourselves, down the line, that we did.’

‘I have a time limit?’ Kate let out an incredulous laugh. ‘Lance, do you realise you’ve not once actually asked me what I want?’

‘Of course I have,’ he said dismissively.

‘When?’ Kate waited as the cogs behind Lance’s eyes began to whirr.

After a while his eyebrows flicked up in brief surprise. ‘I guess I didn’t, did I?’ Kate shook her head. ‘Well, what do you want?’ he asked. ‘We can make a plan to make it work for both of us. I love you, Kate. Obviously, I want to make you happy.’

Kate sighed, and she looked away sadly. ‘You have made me happy,’ she told him. ‘For a while I think we made each other happy. And I don’t doubt that you do love me, Lance, but we need to start being honest with ourselves. We aren’t right for each other. Not really. You and I want completely different things.’

‘No.’ Lance shook his head. His eyes darted around her face, and fear coloured his frown as he saw what was there. ‘Come on, Kate – don’t do this to me. To us.’

‘Lance, to make a marriage work, you both have to want it, but I don’t .’ She winced. ‘I don’t want to marry you, and I’m sorry that hurts you, but I can’t change how I feel. Believe me, I’ve tried. The thought of a big family home and kids terrifies me.’ She shrugged. ‘And maybe some therapist will figure out why one day,’ she said with a weak grimace. ‘But either way, that’s just not what I want.’

‘You’ll look back on this with regret, Kate. Throwing away what we have,’ he argued. ‘Come on – this isn’t you. This is just cold feet, a blip, but we can work through it. I know you can see how foolish it would be to walk away from what we have here. Just take a second and look at this practically. We get each other. We’re on the same path, the same level and we get on wonderfully when we’re actually on the same continent. We are the perfect match. Come on – snap out of this. ’

When she didn’t answer, he moved off the chair onto his knees and grasped one of her hands between both of his in her lap. ‘Kate, these last couple of months have been hard, I know. It’s all moved fast, and you’ve been out here, away from me, away from your home and family and friends. And that must have been so hard for you. It’s certainly been hard on us . But just think back to how you felt when we first got engaged. Remember the real us, before this distance and the stress muddled things up. That’s all this is . Just come home and marry me. I promise you, in a couple of months, you’ll look back on this and be glad that sense took over.’

Kate looked down into his bright hazel eyes with a sad smile. For a moment, she wondered if she really was being a fool. But then the words from Cora’s diary stirred in her memory, and her resolve strengthened.

She squeezed his hand. ‘Lance, if we settle for each other now, we’ll both miss out on finding the greatest adventure of our lives.’

This was the end now. She knew it with the strangest certainty, and she knew that Lance knew it, too. She gently pulled her hand away and took off her ring, placing it on the coffee table.

‘Kate, don’t ,’ he begged, his low voice breaking pitifully. ‘We can work through this. I’ll – I’ll…’ He trailed off and hung his head with a defeated sob.

Kate felt her own eyes well up, and a tear fell down her cheek. She’d never wanted to hurt Lance. She’d never wanted to hurt anyone. But she couldn’t keep holding them all up at the expense of herself.

‘You’re going to find someone amazing, Lance,’ she told him gently, meaning every word. ‘And while I’m sorry it couldn’t be me, when you do, I’ll be happier for you than you’ll ever know. Because I want you to find that happiness.’

Lance looked up at her, tears still running down his face and his heart breaking in front of her eyes.

‘ Christ , Kate. I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said shakily.

Kate nodded sadly, but she didn’t reply. Because she already knew and had come to terms with the sad knowledge that this was the right decision for them both.