Gorgeous Reads for Christmas (Choc Lit)

by Sue Moorcroft

  She was just draining another glass of wine when his voice made her jump. ‘I’d better claim a dance before you fall over.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not even wobbly. It’s you that’s been at the bar all night.’ Damn. Now she’d given away the fact that she’d noticed.

  Jake pushed back his hair, only the hard brightness of his eyes betraying any alcohol in his system. ‘Kel insisted I exhibit my good manners by dancing with the hostess and I needed a few drinks before I could face it.’

  She opened her mouth to issue a stinging retort – if she could just think of one – but he’d already taken her hand and was tugging her onto the dance floor.

  Rather than draw attention by yanking away from him, Darcie accepted the warmth of his hands at her waist and rested hers lightly on his shoulders. After they’d swayed together for a minute in stiff silence, she decided conversation could hardly be less comfortable. ‘How’s Germany?’

  ‘Great, I loved to be near the mountains. But I’ve just left that job.’

  Darcie glanced into his face. ‘Kelly didn’t tell me.’

  He grimaced. ‘I’ve only just told her, this evening. I was sacked. Woman trouble.’

  Oh. She swallowed. Well, what had she expected? It had been two years since they spent the night together and when he’d tried to reach out to her in the aftermath of the terrible car crash that had stolen her parents from her, she’d shut him out. He was an exciting, incredible-looking man, ergo he would have women. He was also a brooding, arsey, contrary ratbag, ergo he would have woman trouble.

  ‘To be honest, I got in a public swearing match with the owner’s wife.’ He moved his hand into the small of her back, pulling her closer to avoid a collision with another couple.

  She jumped, trying to ignore the heat that shimmered through her as their bodies touched. His eyes were colourless in the low light, like a werewolf’s. ‘Wow. Didn’t she like you?’

  He grinned, humourlessly. ‘She liked me way too much. I didn’t think an affair with her would be good for my career. Turns out not having an affair had the same effect.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell your boss?’

  He shook his head. ‘Too messy. I like him, Josef, and the end result would probably have been the same because however things worked out between them, he wouldn’t have wanted me around.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Getting another job would be good. I received almost weekly headhunting offers when I was the erratic, charming, occasionally rude Englishman direktor of SpaGrimmlausch. But once I’d committed the cardinal sin of offending Josef’s wife, I was as welcome as water at a bier fest. And, obviously, there are people going after jobs in leisure management who can produce a reference, something that’s sadly lacking in my life. So I’m surfing Kelly’s sofa, as Mum and Dad retired to Cornwall and bought a one-bedroomed apartment, so there’s no more room there than at Kel’s.’

  A burst of laughter, and a couple tangoed enthusiastically by, cheek against cheek. Jake swung her out of the way again, thighs touching, hips brushing. Then he relaxed his hold and she tried hard to convince herself it didn’t affect her.

  After a couple of beats, his voice dropped. ‘I was sorry to hear about your parents. It must have been hideous for you and your brother.’

  The familiar lump leapt to her throat. ‘Thank you.’

  His eyes were level with hers, even though she was six foot two in her stilettos. ‘Kelly says you’ve been wonderful with your little brother. He seems like a nice kid – Kelly brought him over for a bit of a chat, earlier. But …’

  ‘But?’ she prompted.

  He took a deep breath and Darcie felt his collarbones lifting through the fabric of his shirt. ‘What the fuck happened with Dean? You decided you “cared too much” about him to end the relationship—’

  She froze. ‘That wasn’t all I was trying to say. It’s all you listened to—’

  ‘Yet Kelly says he left right after the accident.’

  Thrusting both hands against his chest, Darcie propelled herself backward, treading all over some blameless couple behind. ‘Yes. He dumped me. Does that make you feel better?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant!’ Jake made a grab for her, but she was too quick, gone in a rustle of fabric and a flick of hair. He hissed under his breath, ‘Fuck!’

  And, great, now his sister was glaring ferociously at him from the encircling arms of a guy he recognised from her year at school. She hoisted both eyebrows in an unspoken, What have you been up to?

  He shrugged. Nothing.

  She flicked her gaze pointedly in the direction of Darcie’s retreating back, and then back at him. It looked like something.

  He shook his head slightly. It was nothing. He’d just made Darcie think he was being a bit of a shit. Nothing new there, then.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey, Casey.’ Leaning on the lamppost in the car park on the edge of Blossom End, Ross had watched the small figure approach whilst he pretended to fiddle with his phone. It wasn’t properly dark yet, but the lamp was already on, a sulky orange in the drizzly evening. He was content to hang around like this now Casey had explained, in clipped and ashamed sentences, that the reason he couldn’t call for her at her house was that it was the one you could see from the road – with the knee-high grass and the rubbish in the front garden. She’d asked him to wait out of sight of it.

  He turned and fell into step beside her and reached casually for her hand. ‘Haven’t seen you for a couple of days, since my sister’s party.’

  She pushed her hands into her pocket. ‘Hiding out in my room. Dad’s found where we’re living and he’s hanging around.’ She cast a furtive look behind her.

  ‘Crap.’ Ross picked up the pace, down the hill, leaving Blossom End safely behind. They stopped at the corner shop at the junction of Queen’s Road and King’s Road, a popular place to hang out, and bought apple-flavoured chewing gum. When Ross made to stroll on up the hill, Casey halted. ‘I can’t stay out long. I want to get back before Mum goes to bed, in case Dad’s lurking.’

  Ross tried not to sigh as his insides sank in disappointment. ‘Don’t you get pissed off in your room, on your own?’

  Casey folded her stick of gum in three before popping it into her mouth. ‘I talk to Unsad Zag.’ She laughed. When she laughed it transformed her face, curved her normally sulky mouth into prettiness, lighting her eyes.

  Ross grinned. ‘Who’s Unsad Zag?’

  There was a big blocky bench beside a patch of grass near the shop, and they settled on it. Casey sectioned off a piece at the front of her hair and began to plait it. ‘You just want to laugh at me,’ she pouted, peeping through the hair.

  ‘Not.’ But he did laugh. ‘Go on. Tell me.’

  She tucked the plait behind her ear and began on another section. ‘Unsad Zag is a gnome. He’s my friend, and no one else can see him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  She frowned. ‘Because he’s my Unsad Zag. He’s got a blue hat and a grey curly beard. And a big nose with a fat end.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘When I was little, some neighbours used to have a plastic garden gnome like that, I could see him through my bedroom window. A family lived in the house. The kids always looked happy and sometimes they played with the gnome. I used to watch them, making up stories about how the gnome knew I was sad and needed him more than the happy children. And, one day, I saw him in my room. ‘’Ullo, m’duck,’ he said, ‘Ent you allowed out to play?’ And that was how I got Unsad Zag.’

  Ross began on his second stick of green gum. He was aware that a girl of Casey’s age still depending on made-up stories to comfort herself was a bad thing. ‘So he became your imaginary friend?’

  Casey turned on him, with tickling thin fingers digging right under his ribs to double him up. ‘Unsad Zag is not imaginary! He’s invisible!’

  ‘Geddoff, geddoff!’ Ross yelled with helpless laughter. Did he want her
to get off? She was touching him. She was being playful like most of the other girls he knew, instead of quiet and troubled.

  ‘Then say Unsad Zag’s not imaginary.’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘Say it properly.’

  ‘Geddoff! Unsad Zag is not imaginary.’

  ‘He’s invisible.’

  ‘OK, he’s invisible.’

  Casey took her tickling fingers back, and slid a little away. She began on a third plait. ‘Unsad Zag sometimes seems like the only friend I’ve got.’

  ‘He’s not.’ Ross slid after her, his jeans scraping softly on the well-worn wood of the bench. He placed his arm gently around her shoulders. She jumped up. ‘Ross, I—!’

  ‘I was just being friendly.’ He folded his arms, awkwardly.

  ‘I just can’t be … be like that with anybody. Because of my dad, I don’t like people too close. He tried to be … inappropriate with me.’

  Ross felt his face heat up with mortification. ‘I didn’t know. Sorry.’ Now her standoffishness made sense. He licked suddenly dry lips. ‘What …?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘I don’t like talking about it. I better go back.’

  ‘I’ll walk up the hill with you.’ He got up and fell into step beside her, casting around for another subject. ‘Ben’s lost his phone. He had it on Saturday night, it must’ve fallen out of his pocket. His parents are going to go apeshit if he has to tell them.’

  Casey pulled a face. ‘That sucks.’ They crossed the junction and began back up King’s Road. ‘I’ve got a mate who does reconditioned phones, if he’s interested. iPhone, wasn’t it? I’ll get him a price if he wants. ’Course, it’s no good if his oldies wrote the serial number down, they’ll know it’s a different phone. You’d better find out.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Ross, absently, his mind on what Casey had just told him and whether it was OK or not to let his arm brush hers as they walked. ‘I’ll ask.’

  Chapter Four

  Darcie spent some of her most contented hours at work in her space at Wellbourne Workshops, on the edge of town. Owned and administered by a trust, the art deco ex-factory building was popular with the kind of visitors who liked watching lumps of clay turn into pots, or glass and lead morph miraculously into lampshades, and visiting the gallery shop.

  Now, Wednesday afternoon, Darcie had gone into Kit’s workshop to the kiln they shared – they never fired at the same time because of the different temperatures needed for clay and for glass, but sharing divided costs.

  Darcie watched Kit slide the last of her unfired mugs delicately onto the trolley or ‘car’ that shuttled in and out of the kiln, careful not to squash any of the little clay noses that would become part of a variety of expressive faces painted on for glazing. The permanent clay sludge on Kit’s clothes declared her a potter, just like the sugar-like glass dust that shredded what Darcie wore told of her own craft. One final check from the front of the car to make sure that all vulnerable handles were safely tucked away, a last moment adjustment to a ceramic shelf support, and Kit said, ‘Ready?’

  ‘Heave!’ Darcie added her strength to Kit’s and, with a groan and a squeak of wheels on rails, the car eased into the chamber. Darcie straightened up. ‘Hometime coffee in my workshop before we leave?’ As she had the corner unit, Darcie’s was the largest space at the Wellbourne and was the unofficial coffee break stop.

  Kit beamed, her glasses glinting in the late afternoon sunshine slanting through the window as she set the kiln’s timer so that the pots would fire overnight. ‘You get the kettle on and I’ll get the others. Chrissy will be closing the shop any time now.’

  The artisans all loved colourful, bubbly, round and wobbly Chrissy for the huge energy she threw into selling the craft work to the visitors, providing the artisans with the major part of their income. Since Kelly’s Uncle Bobbie had decided, after thirty years, that marriage wasn’t for him, Chrissy had been a bit less bubbly and a lot less organised, but that hadn’t lessened anybody’s love for her. The gallery shop being open seven days a week in spring and late into the summer, Mondays and Tuesdays were covered by a thin dreamy sixty-something called Fiona, perfectly nice, but not Chrissy. Darcie found herself choosing her days off to coincide with Chrissy’s. Auntie Chrissy was the spirit of the place.

  Back in her own workshop with the acrid smell of solder in the air, Darcie hummed as she filled the kettle and set out mugs. She loved her friends joining her in her space – Kit, Auntie Chrissy, Wendy, who made fabulous wickerwork, and Stu, a modeller who was finding commercial success with clay tiles of the façades of local landmark buildings. They each spent long hours in their own areas and it was nice to have a bit of companionship, sometimes.

  Stu inhaled loudly as he strode in. ‘Mm, coffee smells good, Darcie.’

  Wendy was just behind him. ‘I’ve got biccies.’

  Chrissy popped through the door in time to pass the steaming mugs around whilst the others settled themselves on the stools, chairs and one old car seat that comprised the seating. ‘So did you enjoy your party? My head’s still aching.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Darcie hoped that her beaming smile looked more natural and convincing than it felt.

  Kit helped Wendy open the biscuits. ‘Me and Dennis haven’t danced so much in years.’ She craned to peer through the doorway, open to let in some of the fresh May air. ‘Who’s this drawing up in the yard?’ she said, thickly, through half a custard cream. Visitors parked in the main car park; they were supposed to leave the area in front of the workshops clear.

  ‘It's Jake,’ said Auntie Chrissy.

  Darcie was already sighing. If anyone was going to break the rules it was going to be the man now levering himself from his left-hand drive BMW Z4. ‘What does he want?’

  Auntie Chrissy sent her a reproachful look. ‘I asked him to come up and see me. Woohoo, Jake, we’re in here!’

  ‘Right. Of course.’ In the shock of seeing him so unexpectedly, Darcie had momentarily forgotten that Chrissy was Jake's aunt just as much as she was Kelly’s.

  Jake crossed the yard with long strides, hair blowing back from his face, and jumped lightly up the steps into the workshop. Inside, he paused, his eyes taking everyone in, then settling on Darcie. ‘Hi.’ He eyed her warily, as if any sudden movement might cause her to shatter. She almost wished she could, without warning, like an overheated piece of glass – BANG! And Jake would dance back with tiny shards of Darcie stinging and burning his skin.

  But as she was made of flesh and bone and not really the kind to wish bodily pain on anyone, she just said, ‘Coffee?’ And got up to make it whilst Auntie Chrissy made sure that Jake knew everyone and found him a seat on the old saw stool that Darcie inherited from the woodworker who’d rented this workshop before her.

  Jake looked completely at ease as he chatted to everyone, taking over her coffee break, Darcie thought, resentfully. Her pleasure in the end-of-day ritual of hometime coffee break fizzled away like spit on a fire as Wendy, Kit and Stu smiled and chatted and generally welcomed Jake into their midst. His air of ease made Darcie’s shoulders bunch and, not feeling equipped to pretend that he didn't affect her, that she didn’t want him to smile and glitter at her, too, she developed a sudden strong urge to remove herself from his presence. ‘I'll have to make it a quick cuppa, today,' she decided on the spur of the moment, glancing at her watch regretfully, as if she had somewhere important to go.

  ‘OK,’ said Stu, who tried never to be any trouble to anyone, gulping his drink.

  Wendy looked puzzled and took another biscuit to dunk. ‘But you haven’t even begun your coffee, Darcie.’

  Darcie flushed. ‘I've only just remembered that I have to—’ She stopped, trying frantically to think of something that sounded suitably urgent.

  But Auntie Chrissy came to her rescue. ‘We can move up to the shop,’ she suggested. ‘I want a little chat with Jake, anyway. That’s why I invited him up here.’

  Hurrying everyone away meant tha
t Darcie arrived home early. Ross and Casey were camped out in the sitting room playing Wii games on the TV, feet up on the coffee table. Ross had discarded his trainers but Casey was wearing black ankle boots ornamented with several buckles.

  Darcie allowed her irritation to transfer from Jake to Casey. ‘Do you think you could take your boots off, Casey, if you’re going to put your feet on the furniture?’

  Slowly, Casey bent her legs and began to draw them towards her. Another moment and her feet were safely on the floor. But there had been a telltale squeak, and Darcie was left staring at a deep scratch in the surface of the oak table that Mum had kept polished and pristine for years. She glanced at Casey’s shuttered face, waiting for the apology, prepared to be forgiving even though she felt an echo of the scratch on her heart, because she knew that Ross’s friends usually meant no harm and were just not quite used to keeping control of the strange new body that went with puberty. But Casey just kept her gaze on the TV and continued to manipulate the Wii controller as a car roared along a race track on the screen.

  ‘You’ve scratched the table,’ Darcie pointed out, evenly, heat rising at the back of her neck at this incredible rudeness.

  And Casey threw her Wii controller on the floor. ‘This is such bullshit!’ she yelled as she leapt to her booted feet. And, to Ross, ‘See. She hates me.’ Snatching up her jacket, she barged past Darcie, out into the hall and through the front door. Slam.

  Shocked, Darcie looked at Ross. But he threw down his controller, too – though onto the more forgiving surface of the sofa – and began to jam his feet into his trainers. ‘Did you have to?’ he snapped, not looking at Darcie.

  ‘What did I do?’ Darcie reeled as Ross brushed past her, too.

  He swung on her, as tall as Darcie, now, and already broader. ‘She doesn’t have a nice home and she's not used to nice things, right? This is somewhere that she felt safe, for once, and now you’ve gone and fucked it up.’