LITMIR.BIZ

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you would let me down, she thought. ‘That’s not what you told me,’ she spat back. ‘I’m heading off today with my father to collect one so you can take that one back. I don’t want a tree or anything from you.’

      Charlie didn’t flinch. ‘I know you’re upset with me—’

      ‘And does that surprise you?’ she cut in angrily.

      Charlie looked down at his snow-covered boots for a moment before he raised his gaze back to her. ‘Not at all. I deserve your anger. I behaved terribly. And I want to make it up to you. Bringing you the tree is just the start...’

      ‘But how did it get here?’ she interrupted. She hadn’t heard his motorbike and there was no delivery van visible outside.

      ‘I brought it here.’

      Juliet stepped onto the freezing cold tiles of the front porch.

      ‘How?’

      Charlie paused for a moment before he turned and looked over his shoulder. ‘On the roof of the car. I tied it to the roof rack.’

      ‘But you don’t drive. You haven’t driven since the accident. I don’t understand.’

      Charlie, momentarily and in deep thought, closed his eyes. When he opened them seconds later he spoke. ‘I had to drive. They couldn’t deliver the tree.’

      Juliet said nothing.

      ‘I borrowed the car from the Christmas tree farm owner.’

      ‘How long since you’ve driven?’

      Charlie looked into Juliet’s eyes in silence for a moment. ‘I haven’t climbed into a car...since the accident. Not to drive or be a passenger. This is the first time in two years I’ve been behind the wheel. I had no choice but to drive because I couldn’t let Bea down.’

      ‘Thank you for the tree. I’ll get my father to help me in with it later,’ she said as she stepped back inside and began to close the door.

      Without warning, Charlie’s boot stopped it closing. ‘There’s more. We need to talk.’

      Juliet shook her head. ‘No, Charlie, we’ve said everything there is to say. I know how you feel. I know you like living alone. I get it. I don’t agree but I accept that it’s your choice and not mine. So let’s leave it at that. But thank you very much for the tree. Bea will love it.’

      ‘Please, Juliet. Give me five minutes. This is not just about Bea. I won’t ever let you down again, if you’ll let me make it up to you.’

      She looked at his handsome face, his stunning eyes that were pleading with her, but she couldn’t let him stay. She needed space to heal and listening to his reasons, his justification for being so cold, would not help her to shut him out for ever. He needed to leave before she could not control her need to stroke the stubble on his chin with her fingers, before she reached up to kiss his tender lips with hers the way she had that night.

      ‘I’m busy, Charlie.’ Her voice was cold but her heart was still warm and she wished it were otherwise.

      ‘It’s nine in the morning and I know you don’t start until one today.’ He moved his foot free. She could shut the door but he hoped with all of his heart she wouldn’t. ‘Please don’t close the door on us. Not without hearing me out.’

      ‘Why, Charlie? We’ve said everything there is to say. You want to spend your life living in regret. Living something you can’t change. You can’t bring your wife back and I don’t want to talk about it any more. I can’t compete with the woman you lost. I’m alive and I wanted to be there for you but you threw me away. I have my pride and I have my daughter. And you can have your lonely existence.’

      ‘I never threw you away. I wanted you to walk away before I hurt you.’

      ‘Perhaps you should have thought about that before you invited me to stay the night,’ she argued. ‘You like being alone and I was just for one night. But that’s not who I am. I want something more, something you can’t offer. So just stay in your glorious house by yourself. It’s how you like it.’

      ‘It’s not. But it took you coming into my life to make me realise that.’

      Juliet frowned and began to shiver. The cold morning air had finally cut through her thick dressing gown and pyjamas and she felt chilled to the bone.

      ‘Can we go inside?’ he asked, aware that she was not coping in the cold.

      ‘No,’ she replied flatly. ‘Everyone’s sleeping and I don’t want them to know about what happened between us. It’s over and done and they do not need to be any the wiser that their daughter made another mistake.’

      ‘It wasn’t a mistake.’

      ‘I disagree. I think me sleeping with you was a mammoth mistake. You were almost morose when we woke. I could see you didn’t want me there with you.’

      ‘I asked you to stay. I wanted you next to me.’

      ‘Yes, maybe you did that night, but in your heart you knew it would be over when the sun came up.’ Juliet began to shake from the bitter cold...and her breaking heart. ‘I just wish you’d never invited me over in the first place. I wish I’d never stayed.’

      ‘So you regret making love to me? Do you think falling into my bed and into my arms was the biggest mistake you could have made? Because I don’t. It’s just taken me time to work it out in my head. And my heart.’

      Juliet was angry but she couldn’t lie. She didn’t regret making love to Charlie. All she regretted was allowing herself to fall in love with him. ‘I don’t understand your question. Why are you wanting to torture me? I haven’t wanted to sleep with anyone in more than four years and then I make this huge error in judgement and believe that you’re different, that perhaps you’re looking for something more, but I was wrong.’

      ‘You weren’t wrong.’ He pulled off his heavy jacket and gently placed it on her shoulders.

      ‘You’ll freeze,’ she said, attempting to give it back as he stood in a jumper and shirt. The air was misty and damp, the ground outside covered with a fresh layer of snow.

      His strong hands remained resting lightly on her shoulders as he refused to take back the jacket. ‘I’m warm-blooded enough to survive while you hear me out.’

      Juliet hated the fact that she couldn’t argue that fact. Charlie had been warm-blooded enough the night they’d spent together to keep her fire burning into the early hours. She also hated that while his coat was heavy it felt good to have it wrapped around her. His scent, the warmth of the lambswool lining that he had heated only moments before. It felt as if it were all she would ever need but she knew it wasn’t hers to keep. Because he wasn’t hers to keep.

      ‘Just let me say a few things and then if you want me to go, I will.’

      ‘Just go now—’

      ‘I can’t and I won’t. Not without telling you how I feel. How I’ve felt since I first laid eyes on you.’

      ‘When you told me off for being a bad mother.’

      ‘I didn’t say those words—’

      ‘But you thought it,’ she interrupted, trying to remind herself, as much as him, why they shouldn’t be together.

      ‘I admit, I’ve been judging everyone but mostly myself for as long as I can remember...’

      ‘Since the accident?’

      ‘Yes. I’ve been confused and carrying guilt with me for so long that I felt lost without it. I was driven to punish myself since that day.’ His voice was low and sombre.

      ‘But it wasn’t your fault.’

      ‘You and everyone in this town have said that so many times,’ he stated. ‘But it was how

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