Christmas Eve Wedding. PENNY JORDAN

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.

      ‘This means so much to me…’

      ‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ Caid responded dryly, and yet he knew that despite his own feelings he would give in. After all, as his mother had just pointed out, he couldn’t afford to see the value of his trust fund stock in the business go down—not now, when he had so much tied up in his ranch. And that, of course, was the only reason he was going, he reminded himself firmly.

      

      ‘Jaz, I’d like to have a word with you, please.’

      Jaz’s heart sank as she saw the store’s new chief executive bearing down on her. Since returning from New Orleans things had been far from easy for her. She knew that she had been fully justified in everything she’d said to Caid, and that there