Page 84 of The Cosy Travelling Christmas Shop

‘It’s two hundred miles away.’

‘Oh.’ So that was it. She looked up at the ceiling of the cab, willing herself not to cry.

They sat in silence for several long, awkward seconds.

‘What does this mean for us?’ she asked eventually, the tears she had tried so hard to hold back, trickling down her cheeks – because she knew the answer to her question. It was obvious from the expression on his face and the way he was behaving. He was ending it, and her heart was breaking.

‘There can’t be any us,’ he said quietly.

Seren shook her head, refusing to believe what he was telling her. ‘It’s not too far,’ she said. ‘I can drive to you, you can drive to me, we could meet halfway. Please don’t throw what we have away. At least give it a chance.Please.’ She hated to beg, but he was tearing her apart and she couldn’t bear the pain.

‘It won’t work,’ he insisted. ‘It’s too far.’

‘It isn’t. We canmakeit work.’

‘No, we can’t.’ He turned his face away, staring at nothing on the opposite side of the street.

Seren was openly sobbing, tears dripping onto her coat, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I thought we had something special?Look at me. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t feel it, because I know you did.’

He slowly moved his head, his expression blank, his eyes hooded, and an awful thought occurred to her.

‘You didn’t feel anything for me at all, did you? God, I’ve been such a fool.’ Her chin wobbled and she screwed up her face.

He’d obviously been out for one thing and one thing only – and she’d given it to him the night they’d been stranded by the snow. She let out a cry of despair and sniffed loudly, swiping at the tears on her face, as she fought to control herself. ‘Take me home, please.’

Wordlessly Daniel put the truck in gear and turned it around.

Seren endured the short drive in silence, and when the vehicle came to a stop outside her house, she didn’t look at him or say anything. She simply got out and stumbled onto the pavement.

The whine of the truck’s window going down made her hesitate, but only for a second. Nothing he could say would annul the hurt he’d caused her, or make her feel better. It was clear he hadn’t felt the same way about her as she had about him.

‘Seren, I—’

‘Don’t. Just don’t,’ she called over her shoulder, and when she heard him drive away she made her slow, aching way up the front path and fell into the arms of the only man she could trust.

‘I’ve been such a fool,’ Seren said later the same evening. ‘I never should have spent the night with him.’

Her dad flinched.

‘Sorry, I know I shouldn’t discuss my love life with you, but that’s the truth of it.’ She blew her nose noisily, and Patrick nudged the box of tissues closer to her.

She was sitting on one side of the sofa, clutching a cushion to her chest for comfort, and her dad was sitting on the other, the front of his shirt still bearing the splodges of mascara from where she’d sobbed into his chest.

‘If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have fallen so deeply, or be so hurt,’ she added.

‘I want to give him a damn good talking to,’ Patrick said, his face tight. ‘How dare he mess you about like this.’

Seren let out a shaky breath. ‘It won’t do any good, Dad, but thank you for the offer. What hurts more than anything is not knowing if he already knew about this job before we spent the night together.’

Patrick slapped his palm on the arm of the sofa. ‘The little git. I could do time for him, I really could. I hate seeing you so upset.’

She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I’m not too keen on it, either.’ Blowing out her cheeks, she shook her head. ‘What an awful weekend: first I get the sack – don’t try to be nice about it, Dad, because we both know the hearing is only a formality – and then my boyfriend dumps me. What did I do to deserve this?’

‘Come here.’ Her dad shuffled closer and held out his arms, and she sank into them, the familiar solidity and sense of love and safety she always felt when her dad gave her a cuddle enveloping her. His support meant everything, and she didn’t know what she’d do without it. Even if he couldn’t make her feel better or take away the pain of Daniel’s rejection, at least he was there for her, to provide hugs and a shoulder to cry on.

‘It will be OK, you know,’ he said, after she withdrew to wipe her eyes and blow her poor, sore nose yet again. ‘You’ll move on from this and one day it’ll be a distant memory. When you’ve got a fleet of travelling gift shops to your name and you’re happily married to the love of your life, you won’t give this a second thought.’

Bless him, he was trying so hard to make her feel better, to give her hope for the future, but she couldn’t shake the awful suspicion that the travelling shop business was a damp squib, and that she had already met the love of her life. Met him, loved him and lost him.

For once she wasn’t looking forward to Christmas.

All in all, Seren thought, the next few days were going to be the worst of her life and she just wished she could go to sleep this evening and not wake up until all the festive madness was over.

Bah flipping humbug.

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