He’d considered leaving town a thousand times in the past few days, and only Eliza’s pleading for him to be patient had kept him in the bay at all. Needing something to keep himself from going mad, or from storming down into the town to camp outside Libby’s door and beg her to give him another chance, Owen threw himself into the final decoration and renovation works on Sally’s cottage. Jack and Eliza were busy with preparations for their first Christmas together, and he hated being the spectre at their otherwise happy feast. When he couldn’t stand to be cooped up inside, he took Bastian for long walks over the windswept hills and cliffs surrounding the bay. The Labrador seemed ecstatic at all the attention, and Jack expressed his thanks on more than one occasion for keeping the big dog out from under everyone’s feet.
Jack, Eliza and Sally had gone off to Truro in the family Land Rover after lunch for another endless round of Christmas shopping, leaving Owen and the dog to fend for themselves. Not being able to bear being cooped up inside, he clipped on Bastian’s lead, shrugged on a thick jacket and headed for yet another walk.
Still feeling a little hollowed out, but better for some fresh air, Owen let himself in through the front door of the farmhouse. Laughter and chatter echoed down the stone corridor from the kitchen, loud enough, he hoped, to cover his entrance. Not in the mood for conversation, he’d made it a couple of treads upstairs when a voice piping high with excitement froze him mid-step. ‘Owen! There you are, you’ve been gone ages!’
Plastering a smile to his lips, Owen turned to stare down at Noah who was practically vibrating with excitement. ‘Hey, Noah. Sorry, I went for a walk and lost track of time. What’s all the ruckus?’
Noah clapped his hands together as he did a little dance on the spot. ‘Uncle Jack says we can decorate the tree tonight. We were going to start straight after tea, but I wanted to wait for you. Come on!’
Unable to think of a way to refuse without bruising this sweet little boy’s ego, Owen took his outstretched hand and allowed Noah to tug him towards the sitting room. Chairs scraped back on the kitchen tiles and Eliza, Jack and his mum followed them into the main family room. A huge pine tree dominated the corner between the window and the Inglenook fireplace, the top branches almost touching the ceiling. ‘That’s a tree and a half,’ Owen said, unable to keep the admiration out of his voice.
‘You’re telling me,’ Jack responded with a cuff to his shoulder. ‘Imagine how much fun I had wrestling the bloody thing into place without you here to help me.’
‘Sorry, I lost track of time…’
Jack waved his excuse off with a casual gesture. ‘Don’t sweat it, mate. You’ve got a lot on your plate, I was only teasing.’ Leaning closer, he lowered his voice to make sure he couldn’t be overheard. ‘Look, I know Noah’s keen to have you involved, but don’t feel like you have to stay.’
The sympathy in his gaze told Owen some of the bleakness inside him had leached out onto his features. He glanced across at Noah who was kneeling before the tree in a jumble of bright tinsel and felt a glimmer of something good stirring. Perhaps an evening of innocent fun might be just the distraction he needed. ‘Thanks, but I’m good,’ he said quietly to Jack before raising his voice. ‘I’ve never decorated a Christmas tree before, Noah, so you’ll have to tell me what to do.’
Eyes like saucers, Noah stared up at him. ‘Not ever? Not even once?’
Owen shook his head. ‘Nope. We weren’t big on Christmas when I was a kid.’
‘Oh, that’s very sad.’ Noah patted the rug beside him. ‘You can sit here with me.’
Ten minutes later, Owen was almost wishing he’d snuck upstairs after all. The string of lights in his lap were even more tangled than when he’d first taken them from the cardboard box of decorations—though how that was even possible, he had no idea.
‘Here, I’ll swap you.’ He looked up to see Eliza extending a bottle of beer in his direction.
‘Thank you, God,’ he muttered to her laughter. Checking behind him to make sure none of the five hundred baubles Noah had tipped from the box was at risk of getting smashed, Owen scooted back until his shoulders rested against the edge of the sofa. Plonking down next to him, Eliza crossed her legs then tugged the tangled mass from his lap into hers.
He watched for a few moments as her clever, nimble fingers tugged and teased the first section of lights into a neat, straight row. ‘How do you do that?’
With a glint in her eye, she grinned at him. ‘Magic.’ She pointed to a section of the wire. ‘Hold it there so that bit doesn’t get snarled up again.’
Her bossy tone amused him no end. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She flashed him a quick look then bent her head back to her task.
Sally switched on the television and scrolled through the music stations until she found one playing non-stop Christmas videos. Grabbing Noah by the hand she boogied on the spot to ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’.
‘You’ve been hiding those moves from us, Mum,’ Jack said with a grin as he attempted to herd the baubles into a neat pile before they fell victim to some very enthusiastic jiving.
‘You don’t know the half of it!’
The little glimmer inside Owen continued to grow as he watched their antics and a strong sense of rightness settled in his heart. He didn’t need the Blackmores and all their darkness and unhappy secrets, he needed this. To be surrounded by good friends who might one day become more to him than that. He’d have to find a way to heal the rift between him and Libby to do so, and he still wasn’t sure he could forgive her.
As though reading his thoughts, Eliza gave his elbow a nudge. ‘Have you seen her?’
He shook his head. ‘Didn’t seem to be much point.’
Shoving the tangle of lights aside, Eliza curled her knees up under her chin and his heart lurched at the familiarity of the pose. ‘I know she hurt you, but you should try and see things from her point of view.’
Biting his lip against the urge to demand why it shouldn’t be Libby trying to see things from his side, he settled for a grunt which was clearly enough of a cue for Eliza to continue. ‘Libby’s never had anything of her own—not really. Though she’ll tell you until she’s blue in the face it was her choice to stay in the bay, there was never any way she was going to leave her dad. They grew so close after her mum died, and I know the thought of leaving him alone was impossible for her to comprehend, so she convinced herself that everything was of her choosing.
‘I don’t think she’d ever allowed herself ambitions of her own, not that she was willing to admit, at least, and then she saw Beth making a go of things with the emporium and I think it stirred up a need in her. The teashop would be her thing, a way to prove to herself, and everybody else, that there was more about her than mad hair and an ability to sling chips into hot fat six nights a week.’
‘She’s much more than that.’ Owen was unable to hold back the protestation from spilling forth.
Eliza patted his knee. ‘I know that, and you know that, but Libby’s always allowed other people to define her by the image she projects. If she looks like a misfit, and acts like a misfit then nobody can see the little girl inside still lost and broken after all these years. With this new dream of hers, she was taking her first steps out from beneath the shadows of the past…’
Realisation dawned. ‘And I took it from her, just like she said. She let me see behind the mask, and I betrayed her trust by lying to her from the start. I thought if I gave her everything she wanted, she’d see I was in it for the long haul, but instead I ruined it because now she thinks I think she couldn’t manage to get it for herself.’ Owen’s head dropped back against the sofa cushion. ‘I’ve been such a bloody fool.’