Page 46 of A Merry Little Christmas
‘Caleb?’
‘You two haven’t had a falling out or anything, have you?’
‘Um . . . no. No, not at all. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just he’s been a bit weird lately. I mean, he usually makes a big fuss of Will’s birthday, arranging to take him out somewhere special, just the two of them. But this year, I think he almost forgot the date. Will was already in bed by the time Caleb turned up with a card and a present, and he only stayed for five minutes. It was like he was desperate to be away again. And then he cancelled the plans we’d made for the following day.’
‘Really?’
So my birthday wasn’t the only one he almost forgot, then . . .
‘I thought he looked awful as well.’
‘He’s working really hard on his next housing project, I know that for sure,’ I told her, thinking of finding him in the site office on Saturday night with Amanda.
Ever since then, I’d been unable to shake the feeling that I’d walked in on something... intruded on something important going on between them. But something stopped me telling Penny this. I didn’t want her to draw the wrong conclusion and imagine that Amanda had anything to do with her brother behaving out of character recently. She might think it was a guilty conscience...
Wasit a guilty conscience? My heart gave a sickening lurch in my chest at the very thought.
But I dismissed it almost immediately.
If there was anything romantic going on between Caleb and Amanda, he would have done the decent thing and ended our relationship first.
Caleb was far too honourable a guy to do the dirty on me.
So it wasn’t that. I was almost sure of it.
‘You’re right,’ Penny was saying. ‘He’s a workaholic, my brother. He’s probably just been overdoing it.’
‘I think so. We had dinner together on Saturday but he looked... well, exhausted... so we ended up calling it a night quite early and Caleb went home to sleep.’
‘I’ll give him a call and invite him over for dinner.’ She gave a despairing laugh. ‘Evenhehas to find the time to eat occasionally.’
‘Good idea.’
‘How about the pair of you come over?’
‘Erm... no. Thanks, Penny. But it might be best if you have a chat just the two of you. Maybe you can find out what’s going on with him?’And find out if it’s anything to do with his feelings for me...
She chuckled. ‘Okay. And I’ll report back. It sounds as if you’re a bit in the dark about what’s going on for him as well.’
‘I am a bit,’ I confessed.
‘Well, don’t worry. He’s probably just too wrapped up in his next project.’
We ended the call and I sank down on the sofa, thinking about our surprising chat.
I hadn’t realised Penny was also thinking Caleb’s behaviour a little ‘off’ lately. But she was right. He was probably giving all his focus to his next project.
As long as his next project wasn’t Amanda...
*****
I had the nightmare again that night.
This time I was standing on the flat roof of a dilapidated old warehouse in the middle of nowhere. It was dark and a savagewind kept pushing me nearer the edge, and then to my horror, the whole building began to crumble around me.
I called out for help but I knew it was useless.
