The Magic of Christmas Read online

  When she was finally snuggled against Jack in the back of the limousine with the privacy partition up, she thanked him for arranging Sadie’s visit.

  His lips pressed against her temple. ‘You deserve your shot at success, sweetheart.’

  ‘But, what about my cleaning business?’ Her uncertainty lent an edge to her voice that he may misinterpret as ingratitude so she hastened to explain. ‘Not only do I need a regular income, but I employ twelve ladies, and our customers depend on us.’

  ‘According to my staff who consulted with you, the only thing holding you back from expansion is your concern you wouldn’t be able to manage more clients and staff than you have now.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She shifted a little uncomfortably. ‘I told you I’m capable of reading now, but that I’m still fairly slow. I don’t think I could take on any more office work, and I’m reluctant to hand things over to a manager as they suggested. I’ve already been down that road and been burned.’

  He pulled his body away from her and turned so he could look directly at her. ‘What if I became a silent partner and made sure you had a manager you could trust?’

  It didn’t compute. Jack was prepared to commit himself to her in a business arrangement that would be ongoing but wasn’t prepared to voice a commitment to a personal relationship with her?

  Although she didn’t want to ask—although she’d been hoping that one day would simply roll into the next and the next for the rest of their lives, she couldn’t stop herself from blurting, ‘How would that be in the situation of a break-up?’

  Jack’s hand lifted and his fingers tugged at the neck of his shirt as though it’d suddenly become too tight.

  Grace waited for him to speak, wanting him to deny they’d break-up—wanting him to have reached an epiphany that everything between them was so perfect, that all the rubbish he’d spouted about never being in a relationship would be turned on its head.

  ‘If you think you’d be uncomfortable dealing with me, you wouldn’t have to. The manager would stay on and report to both of us separately.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But I’m hoping we’ll be able to part amicably, Grace.’

  An amicable parting.

  Any parting would be akin to separating her heart from the rest of her body—ripping it out of her chest cavity and stomping all over it. Would it be better to stay friends with him and continue to see him when she’d be aching for more, or would it be better to cut all ties when the day came?

  And when would this happen?

  Did he already have a time frame in mind?

  Day by day, Grace.

  Damn! She had to stop racing ahead and panicking. While they were still together there was still hope. She still had time to make this work between them. If she grasped the opportunities Sadie McGovern offered her, that didn’t have to bring her relationship with Jack to a close, did it?

  Was it wrong to want both a future with Jack and a chance to perform?

  She tried to mask her inner turmoil and keep things light hearted. ‘You’ve done so much for me, Jack. I’m just trying to visualise you with a wand and a pair of wings. What’s the male equivalent of a fairy godmother?’

  He groaned. ‘Please don’t do it to me. My legs are far too hairy to wear a tutu and I’m not shaving them for anybody.’

  Grace laughed and then sent him a flirtatious look. ‘I wouldn’t want you to. I rather enjoy feeling those hair-roughened legs against mine.’

  He looked at his watch quickly. ‘Traffic’s bad tonight but another twenty minutes and you should be able to do just that. Although—’ he indicated to the privacy partition, ‘—nobody would be any the wiser if we didn’t wait to get back to my place.’

  It was tempting, but her mind was still too unsettled to give in to the dictates of her body.

  ‘Jack.’ She couldn’t help herself. She had to ask. ‘Why do you say you don’t want an enduring relationship?’

  Well, that killed the mood.

  His sexy, teasing expression vanished and was replaced with a still very handsome but sombre one.

  ‘There has to be friendship in an enduring relationship and I don’t make for a good friend.’

  Oh you talk rot! she wanted to rant at him. Instead, she kept her voice level. ‘That’s not true. You’ve been an incredibly good friend to me.’

  ‘But eventually I’d let you down.’ Sad acceptance tinged his tone and she realised he truly believed it.

  Her chin jutted forward. ‘You might believe that but I don’t.’

  ‘It’s true.’ He turned away from her to gaze out of the limousine window, but she doubted he registered any of the passing view. ‘I’ve only ever had one friend and I let her down.’

  ‘How?’ Grace mentally girded herself for his response because the passing street lights lit the dim interior of the limousine and exposed the pain in his expression. The angst she saw there was surely as bad as if he was being stretched on a medieval torture rack.

  ‘She almost died because of me.’

  ‘No!’ Her denial was instant. His assertion was impossible to reconcile. ‘Tell me, Jack.’

  His tone started out flat and detached but quickly became laced with self-loathing. ‘I should’ve been there for her and I wasn’t. I was too bloody scared to go to a building filled with Christmas trees and a fake Santa.’

  Her brain screamed, What happened?

  Instead of asking him, she placed her hand on his thigh and remained silent, waiting for him to continue when he was ready. It was one of the most heart-wrenching moments she’d ever experienced, watching this strong, powerful man become overcome with grief and battle to control it.

  His gaze fell to her hand on his thigh and the limousine drove on a couple of blocks before he spoke again.

  ‘Lizzie moved to the same school the year we both turned eleven. I was relatively new too, because I’d just shifted families and schools again.’ His gaze met hers fleetingly then he looked away. ‘I always kept to myself. I didn’t seek friends because I knew the chances were that I’d be uprooted to another school within months of arriving.

  ‘I’m tall now and I’ve filled out thanks to Amadeo’s insistence on a proper diet and loads of rugby training, but in my primary school years I was short for my age and skinny. I was bullied.’

  She could relate to that form of hell. ‘I was bullied because of my learning difficulties. Kids can be so horribly cruel.’

  He nodded. ‘I was always in trouble in class for not conforming, and not completing work. I was a pretty sullen, belligerent kid and I didn’t have any friends until Lizzie arrived.’

  ‘What connected you?’

  ‘She was bullied from the first day she came to school and I stood up for her.’

  They’d both been outcasts. Grace understood how that could bind kids together. She’d had a fleeting friendship with one girl until the girl realised she could be in the cool set if she joined them in picking on Grace. ‘It sounds like a horrible group of kids.’

  ‘One in particular.’

  ‘There’s always a ringleader. Why did they bully Lizzie?’

  ‘She was born with congenital hip dislocation where the ball and socket joint of the hips didn’t properly form. Her legs were slightly different lengths and turned outwards at birth.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Despite a number of surgical procedures to correct the problem, none were particularly successful so her gait was awkward. There was a lot of name-calling, but towards the end of the first day, one boy, Aaron, actually pushed her so she lost her balance and fell down the stairs.’

  ‘How cruel! Poor Lizzie.’

  ‘Aaron was the ringleader. He coerced the rest of the kids to back-up his story and tell the school principal I’d been the one to push her. I was suspended.’

  Outrage pounded through her veins. ‘Didn’t anybody have the courage to come forward? Didn’t Lizzie know who’d pushed her?’

  ‘She told them, but Aaron’s father was a teacher at the school a
nd Aaron’s older brother, Peter, was the most feared teenage gang leader in the neighbourhood.’ He moved one hand in a helpless gesture. ‘Between the threat of Aaron’s gang and his brother Peter’s gang exerting pressure on the peer group to lie—and the high probability that they’d be in trouble with his father if they told the truth—the so-called witnesses stuck to their story. It didn’t help that I’d already been labelled as having an attitude problem. The principal believed Lizzie mustn’t have seen who pushed her. I was left to carry the blame.’

  ‘That was the very first day Lizzie was at the school?’

  ‘Yes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘After my two-week suspension, she sought me out in the school yard. She and her mother had made me some blueberry muffins and she told me she wanted to be my friend. She was really so sweet—such a gentle soul. I was more than a little in love with her—as much as a kid that age can be, and we were fairly inseparable.’

  His whole demeanour softened when he remembered Lizzie.

  ‘Her friendship changed me dramatically. Overnight, I started to comply within the foster family and at school because I didn’t want to be sent to another family and end up at another school. I wanted to go to school every day and spend time with Lizzie. I laughed with her and it shocked me. The sound was so strange—the sheer action of laughing was so foreign to me and I realised I couldn’t remember ever having laughed until I met her.’ He smiled sadly. ‘We could tell each other anything, and we did.’

  ‘I’m glad you had her friendship.’

  ‘She totally changed me. The pain and discomfort Lizzie went through every single day in trying to take a step made me realise I had no right to be angry with the world. Her lower back ached because her movement put so much pressure on joints and ligaments that shouldn’t have been under pressure. In the year and a bit we were friends, I applied myself and started doing really well at school.’ He choked up and had to raise a hand to wipe at his eyes.

  Tears stung Grace’s eyes too. Jack’s heartache was a tangible thing and it clawed at her chest making her want to sob in agony. ‘What happened, Jack?’

  ‘It was early December.’ He drew in a shuddering breath and his hands clenched into tight fists. ‘Lizzie loved Christmas and she wanted me to go to the shopping centre. She’d saved her pocket money for months and wanted to buy me something special and show me the really big tree with all the silver balls.’ His head dropped forward and he closed his eyes. ‘As I’ve told you, I hated Christmas and the thought of going to a centre filled with Christmas decorations filled me with dread.’

  Grace nodded even though he wasn’t looking at her, and she caressed his thigh with her hand in a gesture meant to comfort.

  ‘Lizzie was so excited and she desperately wanted me to go. I couldn’t disappoint her. I agreed to meet her a few blocks away from the centre. I thought if I met her there and we got talking, maybe it would be easier for me to go into the actual centre. But, when the time came to meet her, I stalled.’ A tremor ran through him. ‘I remember being physically ill before leaving my foster home, and feeling nauseous all the way there despite having nothing left in my stomach.’

  ‘But you went.’

  ‘I went, but I was half an hour late arriving.’

  ‘Was she still waiting for you?’

  ‘She wasn’t where we said we’d meet. I thought she’d gone to the centre without me and I felt so disappointed in myself that I hadn’t been a reliable friend for her—that I’d let her down. I knew I had to go and find her and make things right.’

  Grace’s heart started to pound a little faster. ‘Did you find her?’

  ‘Not in the centre.’

  Looking at him in confusion she waited for him to go on, but the dullness of his words and bleakness of his expression warned her something really bad was coming.

  A tear splashed down onto the back of her hand. At first she thought it was one of hers, then she saw through her blurred vision that it was Jack’s. Should she tell him not to go on—not to relive all this pain?

  She thought back to the tragedy of the murder of her own parents and knew it was only when she’d been able to talk about her despair that she’d been able to get through it.

  ‘Go on, Jack,’ she encouraged quietly.

  ‘One of Aaron’s friends was there where Lizzie should’ve been. He told me I was late and that I had to go with him to where Lizzie was waiting for me.’ His voice was thick with unshed tears. ‘I’ve never been so scared in my life. I could tell by his smug expression that something wasn’t right. I felt like he was playing with me the way a cat plays with a mouse but I followed him because I was scared for Lizzie.’

  His remembered fear transferred to Grace and she felt cold fingers of trepidation dancing up and down her spine and making the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end.

  ‘He took me to Lizzie.’ Anger coloured his tone now. ‘Aaron’s gang had her behind a building and his older brother, Peter, was on top of her. Her top was ripped and her chest was exposed. Peter was making fun of her, telling her she had no breasts, that when she did develop some they’d probably be malformed like the rest of her.’ A muscle worked in Jack’s cheek and she realised from the tight set of his jaw that he was clamping his teeth down hard as he struggled with the memory. ‘Aaron and his friends were making cruel comments and Lizzie was crying. I was enraged. I knew he’d hurt her and it broke my heart to see her crying.

  ‘My rage gave me the strength to pull free of the boys who were holding me back. I attacked Peter and he told the rest of his gang to let him deal with me. I stood no chance. I think it was only a matter of minutes before he knocked me unconscious, but before I lost consciousness I saw Lizzie get to her feet. She tried to jump on Peter’s back. He pushed her off him and she fell backwards, hitting her head. There was blood all over the pavement flowing from a gash on the side of her head. I saw her eyes roll back in her head—eyes that’d once been so full of fun and strength and laughter. I didn’t even bother to struggle against Peter then because I believed Lizzie was dead.’ His voice broke.

  Grace continued to cry silently. The way he’d spoken about Lizzie, Grace felt as devastated as if she, too, had lost her best friend. She couldn’t begin to fathom the distress Jack had endured. ‘Did she die?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, but she had a bleed to the brain and was in intensive care then rehab for quite a while.’ His jaw clenched for a moment before he said, ‘I knew I’d let her down. I should’ve been there on time and maybe we could’ve at least avoided the gang or made a run for it together.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Jack.’ But she could understand why he blamed himself. Hadn’t she assumed responsibility for the death of her parents because she’d known they were on their way to buy her a piano? ‘It wasn’t your fault any more than it was my fault that my parents died,’ she told him more firmly, trying to break through the wall of anguish that enveloped him. ‘Peter and his gang of bullies were responsible for Lizzie’s injuries, not you, just the same way the gunman was responsible for the death of my parents. Please tell me those boys received some type of punishment.’

  He nodded and sat up a little straighter. ‘I regained consciousness in a hospital bed. The authorities received an anonymous call saying that I’d killed Lizzie. The caller said he’d tried to stop me, had beaten me up in defence, panicked and run away. They found Lizzie and me lying in the gutter unconscious and I’d been beaten to a pulp. Thank God there was that boy in the group who panicked and made the call, otherwise Lizzie mightn’t have got help in time.’

  ‘Lizzie told them the truth?’

  ‘Eventually when she could give a statement.’ He made a gesture of dismissal with his hand. ‘The police didn’t buy the version of events from the caller. They tried to interview me in hospital but I was in such a bad way psychologically, I’d retreated into myself and wouldn’t utter a word. Nothing mattered because I was still afraid I might lose her and I lay in the hospital bed w
ishing I was dead.’

  ‘What happened to Peter and Aaron?’

  ‘Peter was fifteen and a minor so his name was never made public. He went to a juvenile detention centre where he committed several more acts of violence. Eventually, he ended up in prison and was murdered in some dispute he got into with another prisoner.’

  Her hands were clenched and she raised them up in front of her, hardly daring to ask but wanting to know. ‘Please tell me he didn’t rape her.’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  That much was a relief, but Grace was still sickened by what’d happened. ‘What happened to Aaron and the other boys in the gang?’

  ‘The other boys were put under child safety orders and child curfew—the same punishment I’d been handed out when I’d set fire to the Christmas tree.

  ‘It turned out Aaron had gone to Peter weeks before and claimed that I was getting him into trouble at school—which was rubbish. When Aaron overheard Lizzie telling me where she’d meet me and not to be late, he told Peter and asked if Peter could rough me up. I think Peter went way beyond what Aaron intended—as I said, we were only eleven at the time. I heard Aaron suffered from depression and ended up dying of a drug overdose before he turned twenty.’

  ‘Their father?’

  ‘Resigned from the school after a lot of parental pressure was brought to bear. I’m not certain what happened to him after that.’

  It was a horrible chain of events and Grace determinedly shut her mind to all but Jack’s emotional trauma. ‘You didn’t keep in touch with Lizzie?’

  ‘I moved again. The foster family didn’t want me in their home after I’d been in the fight.’

  Her lips flattened in anger. ‘They should never have been foster parents.’

  She reached up and wiped his cheeks with her hands. ‘From the moment you and Lizzie made plans to meet and Aaron involved his brother, things weren’t going to end well.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her as she continued to wipe the moisture from his cheeks. ‘Apart from eventually making a statement to the police, I’ve never told anybody about what happened that afternoon. Not even Amadeo.’