by Rosie Blake
Clara laughed as she realised it was the Danish flag. ‘I couldn’t,’ she said, hugging the bear to her.
‘Course you can. We can’t thank you enough really. And all you’ve done for the pub, too. You know we’ve been asked to have a wedding there in the summer, and Clive says there’s talk on the parish council of the Christmas market returning next year. You’ve saved our village, Clara, it’s no mean feat.’
Clara found herself glowing inside, happy that she had given something to the village, knowing she would always love the place.
‘And that’s why…’ Gavin looked at Louisa. ‘Have you told her?’
‘No,’ Louisa sniffed, ‘I haven’t been able to get a word in edgeways with you rabbiting on.’
Gavin grinned at her. ‘Apologies, Your Majesty, do go ahead.’
Clara suddenly saw Roz hovering in the corner of the room and frowned. What was she doing loitering here? Louisa had started to speak and Clara found herself zoning out as she heard the first few words. ‘I was selling it to Roz… a good offer… but then…’
She felt a wave of nausea hit her. No wonder Roz was here, surveying her new territory, planning to tear out the old, redesign the place.
‘… she’s seriously peeved I’ve found a new buyer —’
‘A new…’ Clara interrupted, head spinning with it all. So Roz wasn’t buying the shop. A new buyer had snapped it up.
‘He’s in the back, actually, checking up on his investment…’
Clara frowned, feeling her insides grow cold. All the effort she’d put in, the room bursting with excited children, and Louisa had really sold it, was leaving the place. She wondered if the new owner would even run it as a toyshop.
‘I’m moving into the pub.’ Louisa couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice. ‘But we were wondering if you might want to discuss a possible partnership with him…’
Clara couldn’t think, had to get out of there, get out of the village before her heart broke again. Louisa was moving in with Gavin, leaving the shop, letting this new owner run amok. How could she? She had seemed so happy to see it crammed with people.
‘… he’s keen to discuss his future plans with you…’
She felt tears building at the back of her eyes as they steered her towards the door of the workshop, her legs wanting to run in the other direction. She didn’t want to meet the new owner, wasn’t interested in his plans for the place. He probably wanted to smash it down, build luxury apartments, turn it into something entirely different.
‘Really, I…’ She was twisting away, desperate to get of there.
Louisa and Gavin weren’t letting her leave, though, and she found herself in the doorway of the back room. The table was scattered with paints, children sitting on the stools, brushes in hand, squinting in concentration at their toys, sunlight streaming through the windows as they worked. She couldn’t believe that all this was going to end, that the room would once again be turned into a dusty storeroom, neglected, full of broken furniture.
The new owner had his back to her, was bending over one of the children at the table, a great rumble of laughter bursting out of him as the little boy looked up and dabbed him on the nose with his paintbrush.
Then Clara felt all the breath leave her body as he stood up and she took in his profile: the straight nose, the dark brown hair, the long eyelashes. He was dressed in black jeans and a russet-coloured jumper and now he turned towards her, the smile lighting up his face as he caught her staring at him.
They stood for an age just looking at each other.
‘But I don’t understand…’ Clara whispered, turning to Louisa and Gavin, but they had already melted away, back into the shop.
Joe stepped across to her, drawing her into the corner of the room, both her hands in his.
‘Hey,’ he said.
Clara found that the words had frozen somewhere inside her. She had so many questions, looking over his shoulder suddenly as if she’d made a terrible mistake, as if she’d assumed something impossible and a small, balding new owner was in fact in the room, Joe merely overseeing the sale. But there were only children and mothers, and now she found herself biting her lip, daring to hope.
‘I’ve bought it,’ Joe said, ‘for a steal.’ He grinned. ‘Some old lady let me have it off her way too cheap.’ He sounded nervous, his words tripping over each other.
‘But I…’
‘She wants to retire, she wants to travel – well, mostly she wants to snog Gavin’s face off…’ He shuddered at that, and Clara couldn’t help smiling. ‘It makes sense, the shop’s doing brilliantly, and, um, I was hoping you might agree to stay on to run it. It only works because of you; you’ve made it this way.’ He looked back at the room, at the children crammed round the table.
Clara felt her heart sink again. So that was it. A business transaction, was that all this was? She would run the shop and Joe would return to London, to the City, to his pills and his serial dating and his busy life.
‘Where will you…’ She didn’t want to know, found her mouth snapping shut.
Joe let go of her hands, and she felt the shock of it, curling her fists together.
‘I’ve left my job,’ he said slowly. ‘It was killing me and they’ve given me a generous redundancy package. I thought perhaps we might make some plans together. Lauren’s agreed to help if we decide we want to go somewhere else, travel, or…’
She didn’t hear any more, his words spinning round her head as she started to take in the enormity of what he was saying. He had left London, he was back here for good, he was asking whether she would make plans with him. She felt her whole body lighten as she looked at him, his eyes so serious, trained on her.
‘Wow,’ she said, unable to say much else.
‘Is wow a yes? Because if it is, I got you this,’ he said, holding out a small box.
Clara found she couldn’t think. Everything was moving too quickly. How could you be so miserable one moment and so happy the next? Her hands shook as she took the box from him, opening it slowly, and then, with an enormous grin, felt her body relax with the relief of it all. It was true, he was really here to stay, and she could stay too.
She drew out a scented candle in a glass jar. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ she laughed.
‘It’s for the flat,’ Joe said, smiling. ‘Our flat,’ he finished. Then, reaching down, he cupped his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. And Clara knew she’d finally found home.
First of all I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read The Hygge Holiday. I imagine the cool rose-gold foil on the front lured you in but I hope you enjoyed the book once you started reading. If you did enjoy it and have yet to do your good deed for the day – you’re in luck! It would be AMAZING if you could review the book on Amazon or Goodreads. It’s easy to do and doesn’t have to be long and gushing, its very existence is enough to make a difference. I do read all reviews and appreciate the time it’s taken you to leave one. If a review is too much please feel free to just tell everyone you’ve ever met both online and in real life how much you loved the book. Or if you have the cash and want to make a big show of things feel free to rent one of those aeroplane banners. These are just IDEAS; it’s really up to you how you run with things.
If you want to get in touch/become Best Friends Forever/tell me stuff that I didn’t know about people that have appeared in the first three seasons of Love Island then please do feel free to track me down online. Follow me on Twitter (@RosieBBooks) particularly if you like useless trivia, book recommendations and photos of kittens in mugs and stuff. I’m on Instagram too (@RosieBBooks) if you like pictures of babies, rivers or the sky. I am also on Facebook as Rosie Blake and my website is www.rosieblake.co.uk. Really, there is no excuse not to get in touch.
Thank you once again, in all sincerity; it really is humbling to have your book read when there are so many amazing books out there. I hope to keep writing them for many, many years.
Rosie x
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Acknowledgements
This was such a joyful book to write and I had plenty of help along the way. To Paddy Burrowes an enormous thank you for an extensive session on tales from Canary Wharf and cool City jargon. To Fabio Priori for his banking knowledge. To Isabelle Broom for explaining to me how Tinder works. To Will Round for explaining time zones to me. To Luc Golding for originally telling someone to ‘punch my willy’.
To Maddie West, my amazing editor, who has made this whole process fun rather than work. I am so glad to be working with you at Little, Brown. Thank you to the rest of the team for working so tirelessly on this book. In particular to Thalia Proctor, Desk Editor, Jane Selley for her copy edit and Cath Burke for her warm welcome to the company and her excitement. To the Rights Team for wanting to get it into the mitts of other editors and spread the love of hygge. To Hannah Wood for the absurdly gorgeous cover.
As ever I want to thank the team at Darley Anderson too. To Clare Wallace, my fab agent, for all that you do. To Kristina for making emails about tax forms actually fun to read and to Mary, Emma and Sheila in the Rights Department for continually talking up my writing. I am always grateful to be represented by such an excellent literary agency.
To my writing buddies I just want to give you all a big, squishy hug – thank you. A special high-five to Kirsty Greenwood for saying nice things about my writing when I’m wobbling. To the book blogging community: you guys absolutely rock. Thank you so much for endlessly sharing posts and reviews about my books, getting in touch and making me giggle on Twitter and generally being awesome.
To Aleksandra and Lauren who looked after Barnaby while I was writing about all things hygge. Thank you for being so loving. To my parents for always getting excited about any book news. Lastly I have to say a huge thank you to Ben for ‘allowing’ me to steal his workshop and turn it into the world’s loveliest writing shed. I’m sorry. If it makes you feel better I’ve really shot myself in the foot as this year is our fifth wedding anniversary and that means it’s ‘wood’. I assume I’m getting a shop-bought spoon. I love you.
This book had to be dedicated to Barnaby for making each day such a crazy joy. Despite your regular diva outbursts you really are the most wonderful child. We love you so much and are so grateful we get to be your parents.