by Eve Devon
‘We’ll set up a code and a secret handshake,’ Emma joked alongside her, delighted to discover where Kate got some of her sense of humour from. ‘Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I ate a mince pie this good.’
To be honest, she wasn’t sure she’d had one since she’d left the UK, and as the rich fruit flavours burst on her tongue and the sweet buttery pastry melted in her mouth, the vault containing Christmases past burst wide open.
Suddenly she was six years old again. Valiantly trying to stay awake on Christmas Eve and waking in the early hours with the feel of a pillow case filled with treats, against her feet, signalling that Father Christmas had been. With excitement she’d feel her way past the small wrapped toys, and the dreadfully squishy Satsuma, hunting for her favourite present, a book. Tearing off the wrapping she’d clamber out of bed, read the title by the dull hallway light and rush into her parents’ bedroom to climb in between them and fall asleep, happily clutching it to her chest.
As the carousel of Christmas memories sped up there were more books but it was harder to steep herself in the stories with her parents hurling recriminations at each other until her father would inevitably decide to go for a drive.
Feeling a little sick, Emma quickly tugged on the reindeer reins, jumped off the carousel and fled the vault, slamming the door shut behind her. Picking up her clipboard she concentrated on putting another tick in a column.
‘Well,’ she said, forcing a smile for Sheila. ‘These are definitely going on the menu. As is the triple layer chocolate-fudge cake. Also, the Tiffin brownies and, oh, I don’t suppose you could do mini Yule-logs with white frosting to look like snow?’
‘I think I could do that.’ Sheila jotted the request in the notebook beside her. ‘What if I dust them with a pistachio crumb in the shape of a holly leaf and add a couple of cranberries for the berries?’
‘That sounds yummy. They’d need to be small enough to fit on these cake stands,’ Emma said, pointing to the pretty mismatched ones she’d laid out, so that Sheila could get an idea of what would go into each festive afternoon tea. ‘Is that going to be possible? I don’t want to make your life too fiddly.’
‘Oh, I can handle a little fiddly.’
Emma heard the determination in Kate’s mother’s voice and looked up from where she’d been adding notes to her order sheet. ‘Do you not get busy at the B&B at Christmas?’ she asked.
‘Not during the lead-up. That’s why I’m so happy to be doing this.’ Sheila fussed with the napkin she’d laid across her lap. ‘It’s a strange time of year,’ she confessed.
‘Because of Bea?’ Emma couldn’t believe she’d come right out and said that and reached a hand out in automatic apology. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Somersby. I shouldn’t have mentioned anything.’
‘Actually it’s fine. Everyone always tiptoes around it, not wanting to make it harder on me, I know.’
‘I remember Kate only ever made flying visits back to you at this time of year. I guess that made it even harder?’
‘I’m ashamed to say at the time I hardly even noticed. After Bea died I could never really get myself into a place to celebrate. This year, I’m feeling so much better and so thankful and well, Oscar and Melody should be allowed to celebrate with Juliet and Kate will want to celebrate with Daniel of course,’ she rushed out. ‘Their relationships are so new and I don’t want to intrude.’
‘Of course,’ Emma said, feeling awkward. She wasn’t sure it was her place to reassure Kate’s mother that Kate and Daniel, and Oscar, Juliet and Melody were bound to include her in their Christmas plans. She hated thinking the first year she was ready to celebrate since her daughter’s death, Sheila was worried about intruding on her other daughter’s or her son-in-law’s plans. Was Sheila subtly asking Emma to get involved? If she could help then perhaps she should mention something to Kate? It wasn’t like she couldn’t speak to the feeling of being on your own at Christmas.
‘I get the odd guest at Christmas but between you and me,’ Sheila said leaning forward in her chair conspiratorially, ‘there’s this phenomenon in Whispers Wood where even the largest of houses tend to magically shrink at this time of year.’
Emma leaned forward too. ‘Between you and me it’s not only in Whispers Wood where there’s suddenly “No Room at the Inn”. Perhaps the greatest gift family can give each other at Christmas is space. Everything seems to work better when no one is under each other’s feet.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Sheila said but Emma could see the tinge of sadness in her posture and decided it wasn’t meddling if she could help her not to feel alone. ‘How about you? What’s Christmas usually like for you?’
Emma sat back in her chair. ‘Usually my mother and I spend Christmas Eve at a spa and then we open our gifts to each other.’
‘So she spends Christmas day on her own – I mean – you both spend the day apart?’
‘No. My mother never spends the day alone. She always spends it,’ Emma held her hands together to form a heart and added in a thick French accent because somehow, to her, it sounded less judgey, ‘avec l’amour du jour.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s perfect really. She gets to do what makes her happy and so do I.’
‘And what makes you happy?’
‘Being in my apartment where it’s usually quiet because my flatmates have gone home to their families,’ Emma confided, bringing up the memory she’d created and filed under “How Not to Feel Alone at Christmas”. She’d spent a good few Christmases honing her skills so that now she always associated spending that particular day of the year on her own with happy thoughts. ‘I’ve usually stuffed myself silly at Thanksgiving, so I lay off a huge lunch and enjoy a few little treats. Nothing as nice as these though,’ she added, looking again at the finger sandwiches and baked goods Sheila had brought along to the afternoon tea tasting session. ‘Then I sit in my favourite chair and read. It’s bliss. Truly the best Christmas present I could give myself.’ Infinitely better than being invited to spend the day with people who were all coupled-up, or get herself a Tinder date and discover the guy didn’t want to be out with her, so much as he didn’t want to spend the holiday alone.
Sheila looked as if that was the saddest thing she’d ever heard. ‘It sounds lonely. Do you and your mother not get along?’
‘We do,’ Emma laughed a little self-consciously. There was absolutely no need to mention the bitter disappointment followed by the endless links to auditions for panto season, when Lydia Danes had discovered her daughter was coming back to the UK. Or the strange relief Emma had felt in ignoring them. ‘But I guess the pressure on Christmas being perfect can bring out the worst in everyone, so we switched to going big on Thanksgiving when we moved to the States.’
Now Emma realised with a start that Thanksgiving wasn’t far away. A pang of home-sickness hit and she felt caught. Her loyalty divided between two different celebrations. Maybe if she asked everyone over for a meal on Thanksgiving? It might be a nice way of fitting in. Not that she should really be let loose cooking and only if she could get the cottage to warm up, that was. As the hurdles started mounting up, she lost her confidence. Who’d want to have a Thanksgiving celebration so close to The Clock House opening up? Everyone would surely have their own plans.
To prove to Sheila she didn’t have some weird penchant for being on her own at Christmas, she found herself admitting, ‘Anyway, this year is all change. I expect to be at my Dad’s on Christmas Day, spending it with him and his family.’ Nervous as she was about that, and worried she’d be crying out for down-time and solitude after having worked so many hours at The Clock House by the time the big day came around, she was also looking forward to breaking with tradition.
It was all part of her new adventure. And, anyway, she and her Dad would get better at chatting on the phone with each other so that by the time they actually met up it would be less stilted.
She was nearly sure of it.
Eager not to le
t her mood flatten she changed the subject. ‘I also have another favour to ask.’ Standing up, she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, unfolded it and slid it across the table to Sheila Somersby. In a careful whisper, she asked, ‘Is there any way you could make these out of gingerbread?’
Sheila took the piece of paper and unfolded it. ‘Oh, how lovely,’ she said, looking up at Emma with a soft expression on her face.
‘And could you not tell anyone about it? I want to create little scenes and put them under the glass domes so that they look like giant—’
‘Snow globes,’ Sheila said on a delighted sigh.
‘Exactly. Do you think you’d have time to get them done by opening night?’
‘Yes. I think I could do that.’
‘Wonderful. I thought it would help Christmasify the theme, I’m glad you like the idea.’
‘I do and Kate will love it.’
‘Love what?’ Kate said wandering into the room.
‘It’s a surprise,’ Emma and Sheila answered together and Emma was pleased to see how happy Kate looked that her mother might willingly be in on a surprise for her daughter.
Chapter 13
The Holly (wood), and The Knightley
Emma
By the end of the week an exhausted Emma gave Big Kev a wave and a smile as she exited the corner shop. The bell above the door made that tinkling sound that made her think of sleigh-bells and reminded her The Holidays were coming. Her smile grew wider.
She hoped she’d done the right thing asking Big Kev how he was going to be spending Christmas. She was fairly sure mentioning Sheila in the same conversation had been the right thing to do as well because if they were both going to be in the same vicinity, then she couldn’t see why they shouldn’t spend some, or all, of the day together.
No one should have to spend the day alone if they didn’t want to.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to have a little down-time this evening. She’d been working flat out, getting to grips with the new equipment, and setting up contracts with suppliers. She and Kate had worked out a set of opening hours that complied with their licence and complimented when the spa, salon and co-working spaces were open.
All that was left to do was agree on which style of Christmas decorations to put up and they’d be ready for the grand opening.
Of course first she had to get through hosting her first ever Whispers Wood village meeting, but she was kind of looking forward to the experience.
Tonight though, she had crumpets, a tin of luxury hot chocolate and a pint of milk, packed away in her bag and she was going home to Wren Cottage to curl up and read.
After she’d gone to war with the heating and won, that was.
It was either finally work out what she was doing wrong, or work out a way of enticing Catty McCatface onto her lap to keep her warm.
Of the two she thought she knew which she was in with a shot of achieving.
With a glance up at the clock on The Clock House, she saw that it wasn’t quite six-thirty in the evening and already the sky was inkjet black behind the fast-moving wisps of cloud. Soon that cloud would unveil a few sparkly stars and getting to look up at them would more than make up for the cold.
She’d developed a routine of standing in the garden of Wren Cottage each night, wrapped in coat and gloves and hat as she lifted her face to the sky to gaze up at those stars.
Not wishing on them exactly…
More, choosing to think about all the ways they were better than a Hollywood star with her name underneath.
Was she awful for continuing to self-check her decision to take a break from acting? And is that what she was doing, then, or was this all a big lead-up to her finally getting comfortable with being able to use the word ‘former’ in front of the word ‘actress’ when asked what she did for a living?
She hadn’t been able to make a living from acting, so could she even call herself an actress, or was it enough to know that because she’d lived, breathed, and slept that life, she was. And if she genuinely thought she was, why wasn’t she out in the world, acting?
She sighed.
She couldn’t be happier in Whispers Wood but was that because she wasn’t getting turned down, passed over, and rejected at every turn?
As the end of her scarf fell across her shoulder she shoved it back, and at the sound of footsteps close behind her, instinctively picked up her pace, moving so that she was under the glow emitted by the lampposts.
The lamplights had been fitted with white LED bulbs. That titbit had come straight from Crispin Harlow himself and how she could have coped one moment longer without that information she didn’t know! Feeling safer, she walked along the edge of the village green towards the woods. Crispin had come into The Clock House yesterday to introduce himself and give her a few pointers for setting up the room for the village meeting he’d called for later in the week.
The number one topic to be discussed was to be the Whispers Wood annual tree-lighting ceremony. Apparently there was going to be carols on the green beforehand and Kate had mentioned The Clock House providing a drinks stand.
Emma couldn’t wait for a proper taste of the village community all coming together.
She wondered if Jake would be there.
Not that it should matter either way.
Although wouldn’t it look a bit strange if the owner of the largest estate in the village didn’t attend?
She supposed it was possible he’d have left Whispers Wood by then anyway and then she was calling herself all sorts of idiot because she’d been doing so, so well not bouncing up and down with questions about him. In fact she hadn’t been thinking about him at all.
Well, hardly, at any rate.
If she wanted to get the best out of her time here she really didn’t need to be thinking about a certain brooding bachelor. All she should be doing was thinking about how to ensure she did a good job running Cocktails & Chai.
The sound of heavy footsteps was right behind her now and without pausing to think, she reached into her bag and whirling around, commanded the invader of her personal space to, ‘Back off if you want to keep your dignity because I’m trained in krav maga.’
‘Whoa – backing off.’
Emma blinked up at the very person she’d just been congratulating herself for not thinking about.
‘Jeez, you nearly gave me a heart-attack,’ she accused, absolutely sure that the super-bright white light of the lamplight was capturing the heat suffusing her face beautifully.
‘I see that,’ Jake said, lowering his gaze to what she was holding in her hand, ‘and if it makes you feel any better I’m completely certain you could have taken me down with that packet of crumpets.’
Emma looked at the now slightly squashed crumpets she’d been brandishing like a can of mace, and lowered her arm back to her side.
‘Sorry,’ she said, a bit glum because maybe the tin or the pint would have wiped the smile off his face. ‘You shouldn’t creep up on people, though.’
‘It really wasn’t my intention to scare you. I’m sorry. Just as a note though, this is Whispers Wood, not Hollywood,’ his grin got fuller and his voice gentled, ‘Hollywood.’
Impossible man.
Being all nice to her, slowing her world down to it just being the two of them under the lamplight, and giving her time to get her heart-rate back to somewhere in the normal range. Not that her heart appeared to be listening to either of them the way it continued to skip about.
Emma cleared her throat. ‘Yes well, I’m not used to this walking everywhere thing that you all do. In LA everyone drives everywhere.’
‘I really thought you’d heard me call out to you.’
She had. She’d just thought she was imagining that gorgeous voice of his.
‘You heading back to Wren Cottage?’ he asked, as she put the packet of crumpets back in her bag.
She nodded. ‘You heading back to Knightley Hall?’
‘Yep.’
>
Neither of them moved and she scrabbled around for something to say that wasn’t, ‘What was up with the way you left The Clock House the other day?’ So of course what came out was, ‘You’ve shaved off your beard.’
He grinned. ‘Nothing gets past you, does it, Detective Danes.’
She guessed not. Which was why she was able to make the observation that without the facial hair, his lips looked even more … she bit down hard on her lip because she wanted to say sensuous. But if she did that would mean admitting how easy she found it to focus on that mouth of his.
And focusing on Jake Knightley?
Exactly. So was not the point of being in Whispers Wood.
‘Aren’t you cold without it?’ she asked, annoyed with herself for not letting it go. ‘You must feel so naked.’ Quickly she lowered her chin until her mouth was cut off by her thick woolly scarf because even to her own ears her voice had sounded disproportionately loud and accusatory. How had they gone from assault with a deadly crumpet to talking about nakedness?
Actually let’s make it a little more mortifying and admit that it was only her talking about nakedness. Not him. Which then made her will him to start talking about nakedness so that it wasn’t only her.
‘Actually I do feel a bit naked without it,’ he admitted.
‘Well, thank God. I’d hate to be the only one in this place that feels the cold.’
His gaze tracked over her ridiculous scarf and he laughed and the deep, rich earthy tone, did something very peculiar to her knees, in that they sort of giggled, making her feel unsteady on her feet.
‘So you’ve been thinking about me naked, Hollywood?’
She had only one way to go with that and so she went there really fast. ‘Oh, completely,’ she said, nodding her head vigorously so that her scarf loosened. ‘Utterly. Yep. Barely been able to think about anything else. Consumes my every waking moment.’ She stepped forward as if to let him in on a secret. ‘So tiring … bordering on boring.’
‘All right. I get it. If you must know I thought going for slightly shorter hair and no beard would make me look less—’