Christmas Eve Wedding

‘My parents might want that, but it certainly isn’t what I want, or what I ever intend to do. And if you misinterpreted a conversation you overheard, that’s hardly my fault. If marrying a farmer’s daughter is so important to you, why didn’t you say so?’

‘Because I believed that what is important to me was equally important to you,’ Caid told her bitingly. ‘I thought that you were the kind of woman strong enough to find her fulfilment in—’

‘Her husband and her children? Staying home baking cakes whilst her big strong husband rides his acres and rules his home?’ Jaz interrupted him scathingly. ‘My God. If your father was anything like you, no wonder your mother left him! You aren’t just old-fashioned, Caid, you’re criminally guilty of wanting to deny my sex its human rights! We are living in a new world now. Modern couples share their responsibilities—to each other and to their children—and—’

‘Do they? Well, my mother certainly didn’t do much sharing when she was travelling all over the world buying “beautiful” things,’ he underlined cynically. ‘She left my dad to bring me up as best he could. And as for her leaving him—believe me, he felt he was well rid of her. And so did I.’

Caid started to shake his head, his eyes dark with a pain that Jaz misinterpreted as anger.

‘My mother was like—’

‘Like me?’ She jumped in, hot-cheeked. ‘Do you feel you’d be well rid of me, Caid?’

Broodingly Caid looked at her. Right now he ached to take her in his arms and punish her for the pain she was causing them both, by kissing her until she admitted that all she wanted was him and their love, that nothing else mattered. But if he did he knew he would be committing himself to a life of misery. After all, a leopardess never changed her spots—look at his mother!

The look he was giving her said more than any amount of words, Jaz decided with a painful sharp twisting of her heart that made it feel as though it was being pulled apart.

‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘Because I certainly think that I will be well rid of you!!’

She could feel the burning acid sting of unshed tears. As angry with herself for her weakness as she was with Caid for being the cause of it, she blinked them away determinedly.

‘I’m a woman with needs and ambitions of my own, Caid, not some…some docile brood mare you can corral and keep snugly at home.’

‘You—’ Infuriated, Caid took a stride towards her.

Immediately Jaz panicked. If he touched her now, held her…kissed her…

‘Don’t come any closer,’ she warned him, her eyes glittering with emotion. ‘And don’t even think about trying to touch me, Caid. I don’t want to be touched by you ever again!’

Without giving him any chance to retaliate she turned on her heel and fled, almost running the length of the house and not stopping until she was halfway down the street, when the heat of the New Orleans late afternoon forced her to do so.

It was over. Over. And it should never have happened in the first place. Would never have happened if she had for one minute realised, recognised, just what kind of man Caid was.

She had been out of her depth, Jaz acknowledged miserably, in more ways than one.

The only consolation was that, thanks to Caid’s practicality and insistence on protecting her, there was no chance there would be any repercussions from their affair. And for that she was profoundly thankful! Wasn’t she?

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU want me to go to England and find out what’s happening?’ Caid stared at his mother in angry disbelief. ‘Oh, no…no way. No way at all!’ he told her, shaking his head.

‘Caid, please. I know how you feel about the stores, and I know I’m to blame for that but you are my son, and who else can I turn to if I can’t rely on you? And besides,’ she continued coaxingly, ‘it would hardly be in your own financial interests for the stores to start losing money—especially not right now, when you’ve invested so much in modernising the ranch and buying more land.’

‘All right, Mother, I understand what you’re saying.’ Caid stopped her grimly. ‘But I fail to see why a couple of personnel leaving the Cheltenham store should be such a problem.’

‘Caid, they’re going to work for our competitors.’

‘So we recruit better and more loyal employees,’ Caid responded wryly. ‘Which departments are we talking about anyway?’ he asked, as casually as he could. So far as he was concerned, he told himself, if one of the people who had left was Jaz then so much the better!

It was over four months since Jaz had walked out on him after their fight. Over four months? It was four months, three weeks, five days and, by his last reckoning, seven and a half hours—not that he was keeping count for any other reason than to remind himself how fortunate he’d been to discover how unsuited they were before he had become any more involved.

Any more involved? How much more involved was it possible for him to have been? Hell, he’d been as deep in love as it was possible for a man to be!

Irascibly, Caid started to frown. He was growing a mite tired of being forced to listen to the mocking taunts of his unwanted inner voice. An inner voice, moreover, that knew nothing whatsoever about the realities of the situation!

So what if it was true that there had been occasions when he had found himself perilously close to reaching for the phone and punching in the English store’s number? At least he had been strong enough to stop himself. After all, there was no real point in him speaking to Jaz, was there? Other than to torment and torture himself—and he was doing one hell of a good job of that without hearing the sound of her voice.

His frown deepened. By now surely he should be thinking about her less, missing and wanting her less—especially late at night…

‘Caid…come back…You’re miles away…’

His mother’s voice cut into his private thoughts, mercifully rescuing him from having to acknowledge just what was on his mind late at night when he should have been sleeping.

‘The employees who have left are both key people, Caid: loyal personnel who had worked for the store for a long time. I’m concerned that their decision to leave will reflect badly on us and on our ability to keep good staff. Not to mention our status as a premier store. The retail world is very small, and it only needs a whisper of gossip to start a rumour that we are in danger of losing our status as market leader…’ She gave him a worried look. ‘I don’t need to tell you what that is likely to do to our stock.’

‘So two people leave.’ Caid shrugged. He knew his mother, and the last thing he needed right now was to have his time hijacked on behalf of her precious stores.

‘Two have left so far, but there could be more. Jaz might be next, and we really can’t afford to lose her, Caid. She has a unique talent—a talent I very much want. Not just for the Cheltenham store but for all our stores. It’s in my mind to appoint Jaz as our head window and in-store designer once she has gained more experience. I’d like to have her spend time working at each of the individual stores first. Caid, we mustn’t lose her, but I’m very much afraid we are going to do so. If it wasn’t for this stupid embargo the doctors have put on me flying I’d go to Cheltenham myself!’

Caid watched as his mother moved restlessly around the room. It had come as just as much of a shock to him as it had to his mother to learn that a routine health check-up had revealed a potentially life threatening series of small blood clots were developing in her lower leg. The scare had brought home to him the fact that despite everything she was still his mother, Caid recognised grimly. The clots had been medically dispersed with drugs, but his mother had been given strict instructions that she was on no account to fly until her doctor was sure she was clear of any threat of the clots returning.

When she saw that he was watching her she told him emotionally, ‘You say that you’ve forgiven me for…for your childhood, Caid, but sometimes, I wonder…I feel…’ When she stopped and bit her lip, looking away from him, Caid suppressed a small sigh.

‘What are you trying to say?’ he asked her cynically. ‘That you want me to prove I’ve forgiven you once more by going to Cheltenham?’

‘Oh, Caid, it would mean so much to me if you would,’ she breathed.

‘I don’t—’ Caid began, but immediately she interrupted.

‘Please, Caid,’ she begged urgently. ‘There isn’t anyone else I can trust. Not when I suspect that the root cause of the problem over there is the fact that your uncle Donny has appointed his own stepson as chief executive of the store,’ she told him darkly. ‘I mean, what right does Donny have to make that kind of decision? Just because he’s the eldest that doesn’t mean he can overrule everyone else. And as for that dreadful stepson of his…Jerry knows nothing whatsoever about the specialised nature of our business—’

‘I thought he was running a chain of supermarkets—’ Caid interrupted.

The constant and relentless internecine war of attrition waged between his mother and her male siblings was a familiar ongoing saga, and one he normally paid scant attention to.

‘Yes, he was. But honestly, Caid—supermarkets! There just isn’t any comparison between them and stores like ours. Of course, Donny has done it to appease that appalling new wife of his…Why on earth he marries them, I don’t know. She’s his fifth. And as for Jerry…There’s no way he would have ever got his appointment past the board if I hadn’t been in hospital! There’s nothing Donny would like better than to get me completely off the board, but he’ll never be able to do that…’

‘Mother, aren’t you letting your imagination rather run away with you?’ Caid intervened. ‘After all, it is as much in Uncle Donny’s interest as it is in yours to have the business thrive. And if Jerry is as bad as you are implying—’

‘As bad! Caid, he’s worse, believe me. And as for Donny! Well, certainly you’d think with four ex-wives to support he’d be going down on his knees to thank me for everything that I’ve done for the stores. But all he wants is to score off me. He’s always been like that…right from when I was born…they all were. You can’t imagine how I used to long to have a sister instead of five brothers…You’d think after all I learned about the male sex from them I’d have had more sense than to get married myself. You were lucky to be an only child, Caid—’

She stopped abruptly when she saw his expression. ‘Caid, please,’ she begged him, returning to her request. ‘We can’t afford to have this happen. We desperately need Jaz’s skill. Do you know that her window displays for the Christmas season are so innovative that people go to the store just to see them? She has a talent that is really unique, Caid. When I think about how lucky we are to have her…We mustn’t lose her. I’ve got such plans for her…’

‘Mother—’ Caid began resolutely.

‘Caid, don’t turn me down.’

Grimly he watched as his mother’s eyes filled with tears. He had never seen her cry…never.