Page 62 of All We Want for Christmas
She’d always been a plaything to be discarded once he found a suitable person to carry on the dynasty – and an ordinary peasant like herself was never going to be it.
She never told him her ‘news’ because, a few days after their conversation, she realised she wasn’t pregnant after all. She’d lost the baby. It didn’t matter that the miscarriage had been very early – only a few weeks: she was still devastated. She’d gone home and in the depths of despair and told her mother what had happened. Her mother, naturally horrified, and angry with Rob, had blamed him for causing Lara so much worry and stress that she’d miscarried.
Lara would never know, but the shock couldn’t have helped, and when she returned to work, she resigned.
She was thirty-four. She did want a family one day. It was just that ‘one day’ now seemed further in the distance than it ever had – and she had begun to fear that the one day would never come, not with a partner she loved.
She’d only known Flynn for six weeks but she’d started to believe that they might have a future too. Was it just her? Was she someone who jumped to conclusions or misjudged situations? She’d never wanted to be the cliché and yet now she felt she had been – twice.
Flynn had done the running. Flynn had wanted them to get together despite her misgivings, but he hadn’t forced her. She’d made the decision, and she genuinely believed that he had had no idea about Molly. She understood that it was a huge shock to him and firmly believed that he needed to put his new family first and take time to come to terms with this huge change in his life.
So, why did all these rational explanations fail to lessen her feelings of disappointment that clung to her like freezing fog?
Then again, she thought, conscious of the now-imperfect chalice nestled in its blue satin case, maybe she was just plain unlucky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The following morning, Flynn had a few hours off and so handled the total implosion of his life in the only way he knew how: he took off on his bike.
Twisty roads took a lot more skill and concentration but, most of all, you forgot everything else except your ride. He felt like he was going a lot faster and it was more exhilarating than a long straight road.
He wasn’t a fair-weather biker, although only a fool deliberately sought out ice and snow. Black ice was the worst nightmare. If you were already banked over and hit a patch, you were off. But even if today wasn’t a clear, relatively mild day, he might still have risked it just to get away from the castle and the maelstrom of thoughts inside his head.
He rode up the west coast towards Keswick, the mountains and lakes whizzing by. He stuck to the speed limit and didn’t take any risks, but he knew damn well he was riding at the limit of his abilities.
Eventually, he pulled up at a roadside café at the top of Bassenthwaite Lake for a coffee and comfort stop.
The keen wind whipped up whitecaps on the lake and chilled his face. Flynn allowed himself the time to dwell onthe damage he’d inflicted on the person he’d begun to care deeply about: Lara.
What was she going through? Was she really as OK and as understanding as she’d led him to believe? Or was that all part of an act to make him feel better?
Suspecting the truth, Flynn didn’t dare to delve any deeper. He had started to come to terms with his new family, getting to know them – and persuading Molly to let her mother and grandmother know that he was now part of their lives.
He couldn’t see them being any happier about the new reality than Lara. Probably less so. He also wasn’t sure how he was going to react when he met them: if he’d only known about Molly sooner, he could have built a relationship with his child, watched her grow up, and played the role that fathers were meant to play. It wasn’t as if he’d abandoned Imogen or Molly.
Flynn put his helmet back on and closed the visor, keen to shut out the world for another hour or so while he headed back to Ravendale.
His route back was slower but every bit as challenging: over the Whinlatter Pass and across to the western coast road.
The sun was low over the coast, tingeing the mountains pink.
Signs along the road had read:
Ravendale Winter Spectacular
Celebrate the Season of Magic and Joy
At this Unmissable Family Festival of Light and Sound
Once that word – family – had been almost invisible to him. Despite working at so many family attractions, he’d never really thought about what it meant. Now he did: fear, panic, duty – along with a sense of purpose and responsibility that eclipsed all of these things.
He slowed the bike on the bend and thought for a moment about continuing past Ravendale’s gates and heading south to Cornwall, or east on the trip he’d always planned: the trip that would have meant he’d never have met Lara or known about Molly or Esme.
It was impossible. Now he knew about them, he could never run away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lara’s answer to stress was, as ever, to immerse herself in work, which wasn’t difficult now it was the week before Christmas.
