A New York Love Story (23 page)

Liberty's guilty expression stopped her.

“About our evening together…” Liberty began, looking very embarrassed, “I have a serious problem to solve with my parents and I need to leave tonight for Chicago. My flight leaves in three hours, so I really can't come to the theatre with you… I'm so sorry. You can't imagine how mortified I am.”

Clover felt some tenderness, seeing her friend in such an uncomfortable state. Liberty Allen was always very organized and under control. She never had to change her plans.

“Really? Are you, my surrogate mom, going to abandon me on Christmas Eve?” she joked, collapsing into a chair. “I won't ever forgive you!”

“Please, don't make me feel even worse than I feel already. I know I had promised, but…” Liberty bit her lip.

“I'm teasing you, Lib! Relax and don't worry, I won't die of solitude. I have survived many Christmas Eves by myself…” Clover gave her a half a smile. “I will go home, order Chinese takeout and will wait for midnight to open your gifts.”

Zoe came over to Liberty, looking at her with a disapproving expression. “Can't your parents wait for just one more day? Leaving Clover alone this very evening is cruel!”

“Stop it!” Liberty whispered, shooting her a dirty look.

“Clover, honey, do you want to join me and my family? I get always so bored at these reunions, you know. They are all old people and they always torment me because I'm not married yet. I don't want to hear over and over again that at my age they already had two children each!” Zoe rolled her eyes at the very thought, then she looked at Clover with attentive and sweet eyes. “Come with me, Clo. We can get drunk, while my grandma is cooking her delicious dishes. Then we can run away, when she falls asleep in her chair…”

Clover shook her head with determination. “No, no… thank you! I'm not so desperate as to crash some intimate family dinner… but thanks again,” she stood up. “Well, I think I will head home now.”

Liberty gave a quick glance at her watch, before exchanging a knowing look with Eric and Zoe. “Why don't we have a toast before closing? Since we are all spending Christmas separately we should take a moment just for the four of us…”

While Zoe was looking for the glasses, Eric opened a bottle of champagne, a gift from one of their customers. They toasted and kissed several times, but the atmosphere was somehow tense and heavy. Eventually, an awkward silence fell over the room.

Clover gulped down her glass in one swallow, then she put it on the table with a little too much energy. Feeling her friends' anxious gazes, she asked, “What's going on?”

“Are you sure you're feeling well?” Zoe asked in a worried tone.

“Listen guys, please stop with your funeral faces!” she huffed. “I have had better moments in my life, it's true. But I'm not going to commit suicide or become an alcoholic,” she looked at the three solemn faces in front of her, and added, “We all knew from the beginning that it wouldn't last. It wasn't a surprise for anybody. Cade went back to his life and I to mine. End of story. I had a very good time, although I'm paying now for every single moment of joy I had. But it will pass soon. You know me. My dramas never last too long.”

“Listen Clover, if later you feel extremely…
sad
, please call us. We'll figure something out.” Liberty said apprehensively.

“No need. I will be ok!” Clover put on her woolly hat and headed to the door. “Merry Christmas guys! See you in two days…”

“Call me tomorrow!” Zoe said, walking with her to the door.

“Actually, call us even in the middle of the night, if you need to let off steam!” Eric smiled at her.

Clover laughed softly. “And I thought I didn't have anybody who cared about me! I was wrong, I have you… and you guys are more than enough!” She teased them, leaving.

Once she got out, she could finally stop pretending to smile. She pulled up her jacket collar and began to walk slowly towards the taxi stand. She was trying not to cry until she got safely home.

Liberty, Zoe and Eric watched as their friend walked away in the snow without a word. Only when they saw her disappear, did they go back into the store.

“This had better be worth it!” Liberty took her cell and dialled a number that she had quickly written on a post-it, “Otherwise, I swear, I will kill him…”

“Did you notice her eyes? They were so sad,” Zoe sighed. “For a second I almost hoped that she would accept my invitation. The idea of leaving her at a time like this is unbearable to me.”

“You just wanted an ally to face your family reunion…” Eric mumbled.

“It's not true! I care about Clover so much! I don't want to see her suffer…”

“Zoe, you've risked messing up the whole plan with your invitation. What would you have done if she had accepted?”

“I knew that she wouldn't accept… she's so proud. She prefers being by herself to feeling like a third wheel in the midst of a big close family like mine. It would have reminded her of her own family who are now probably celebrating without her. If I had people like that in my life, I don't know what I would do…”

“You seem to forget that in less than one hour she might well be with
someone
and not sad at all.” Eric tried to be positive, but added. “However, I'm still not sure it was a good idea to go along with
his
plan.”

“Of course! For you no man ever deserves a second chance!”

“And for you, on the contrary, they all deserve a second, a third – even several chances!”

“She just left.” Liberty's voice on the phone interrupted their argument. “She said she was going straight home, but she may change her mind, I can't predict it. And yet, on the other hand, you deserve to wait in the snow for a long time!” She listened to a brief answer and said, with a half-smile, “Good luck, then.”

“What did he say?” Zoe asked curiously.

“That freezing under the snow is the thing that scares him the least at the moment.” Liberty shrugged. “Well, we did our part. Now we can only wait and hope all goes well. Let's go home.”

Zoe nodded and grabbing her coat, with a naughty smile asked Eric, “Do you have plans for tonight? My family reunion will be deadly boring without a friend.”

*

The taxi was moving slowly in the snow, but inside it was warm and the driver friendly. On a different occasion Clover would enjoy the situation and would chat to this nice man, but this evening she wasn't in the mood to enjoy being sociable.

Despite her everyday efforts to look positive and cheerful, she couldn't find one single reason to smile sincerely. It wasn't the first time she had spent Christmas Eve by herself, but usually she was able to invent something fun to help with her loneliness. But in the last two weeks her melancholy side had taken over… blame it on Cade Harrison!

She had known from the beginning that it couldn't work between them. Yet, even if her rational side was convinced of it, her heart still had a different opinion.

Silly, romantic human muscle!
She thought.

She needed to do something to change herself, to stop being so naïve. Hope, daydreams, Christmas magic… they were all wonderful things, but completely insubstantial. She had to become more realistic. Every year she hoped for something that never happened. Yet she couldn't give up her optimism. How many more shattered illusions could her heart still endure?

She thought of Cade's beautiful face, illuminated by his deep, blue eyes. After he left, her heart had broken into a million pieces. Further illusions? Not any more.

The notes of
Christmas – Baby, Please Come Home
,
coming from the radio, made her sigh. The sensual voice of Michael Bublè seemed to echo all her thoughts. Christmas, the snow, the lights and the music, all lost their magic without that special loved one. Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn't want to cry in front of the taxi driver. Actually, she didn't want to cry at all…

Walking slowly along the path, towards her gate, she thought,
is it possible to fall in love in such a short time?
Given how intense her emotions had been with Cade and how painful the abandonment felt, her answer was
yes
. Her days with him had been unique. Moments that had suddenly given a deep meaning to all her past hopes and daydreams. She thought that it was exactly what she had waited for her whole life. For the first time she had felt a sense of fulfilment.

Now she knew what love was. Just to be brushed by it had filled her with joy. It would be hard to find hope, enthusiasm and optimism again, but she couldn't give up. She had another year before next Christmas. Maybe by that time she would be ready for a new wish.

“It was wonderful while it lasted,” she told herself, lifting up her face to the snowflakes. She would keep these memories, as something precious and rare. After all, Christmas too is brief, lasting only a few days, but we don't love it any the less for that.

She looked at the soft lights around her windows and pushed the gate, too deep in thought to realize it was already open. She had almost arrived at her front steps, when a figure suddenly appeared in front of her. She jumped with fright and immediately thought he was a burglar. She had just read in the paper that robberies were very common during the Christmas holidays, and she was a woman living alone.

“Go away or I'll call the police!” she shouted. Then suddenly her anger made her reckless. Blindly swinging her purse at the figure, trying to deliver some heavy blows, she cursed, “Damn it! It's Christmas! Don't you have anything better to do? As if it wasn't already hard enough to go back to an empty house. You could have saved yourself some bruises, you won't find anything valuable in my house!”

“I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. There's
you
.”

Two strong, warm hands held her wrists to stop her. But it wasn't necessary, since that deep and slightly amused voice had already calmed her down.

“I knew I took a risk coming back here. But I sure as hell didn't expect to be attacked!”

With her heart racing, Clover tried to distinguish his features in the dark.

“Cade?”

He moved closer to the light in the window so she could see him, “Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was waiting for you.”

Incredulous and emotional, Clover stared at him, then she mumbled, “I had plans to be out for dinner tonight. You were risking being out here in the cold for hours… maybe all night!” Then she saw the amusement in his eyes and suddenly understood. “Liberty!” She exclaimed. “You made a deal with her… right? I will kill her!”

“It hasn't been easy to convince her. Believe me.”

“Convince her of what?”

“To leave you alone on Christmas Eve, so you would come home…”

“To find you on my door step scaring me to death!” Clover moved back. Yes, she was incredibly happy to have him in front of her. It seemed as though her immense desire had somehow made him materialize in her garden. But at the same time, she was also deeply confused. She didn't want any more illusions.

Cautiously, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“For many reasons, but I don't know how to begin…”

Clover crossed her arms, “Begin with the most important.”

“I love you.”

She remained completely still, open mouthed.

“I wanted to tell you this last, but if I have to follow things in a certain order of importance…”

“Do
you
… love
me
? Are you sure?” She stuttered, feeling a roar in her ears.

“I would like to say
yes
. But honestly I've never felt like this before, so I don't know what I
should
feel… I trust my instincts.”

“You've never felt like this…
like this
, how do you mean?”

Cade bent to pick up something on the ground, and then, all of a sudden, everything lit up! Every tree, fence, and walls all around shone with thousands of tiny colored lights.

“Like this!” Cade's voice was breaking with emotion. “You light my life up, Clover O'Brian.”

Clover was without words. She kept looking around, amazed, all those lights reflecting in her big eyes. She felt a lump in her throat.

“I hope this gives you some idea of how I feel… When my mother suggested that I
do
something – something concrete
to show my feelings for you, Christmas lights were the first thing that came to my mind. I know that you don't trust my words.”

Clover bit her lip. “I'm sorry for what I said that day. I was out of my mind… I couldn't think straight.”

“I couldn't think straight either, when I tried to diffuse the gossip from that stupid article. It was just an attempt to protect you. Believe me.” Cade took her chin in his hands to look into her eyes. “Everything was so new and exciting between us. I just wanted to enjoy our feelings without anyone getting in our way. You told me you hated this part of my life, and I tried to keep the paparazzi away from you. I didn't want to diminish you and what was happening between us.”

“It doesn't matter any more…”

“It
does
matter. I should have reassured you immediately, but when you got so angry, you turned into a wildcat! It's hard to stop you. Your words hurt me more than you can imagine. I was confused and I didn't react quickly enough.”

“I didn't believe a single word of what I said.”

Cade caressed her face, looking at her with an intense, deep gaze. “Also when you said that it couldn't work between us?”

Clover hesitated and Cade came closer to her. “I believe it
will
work. I have had a full, eventful life, but I've never felt so real and complete since I met you. I want to have you by my side all the time. I know that my life is difficult and chaotic, but I will do everything possible to make things easy for you.”