by Eve Devon
‘Planned activity?’ Kate whispered to Daniel, shocked. ‘Planned activity is only one step away from, “let’s all turn to our left and tell the person sitting next to us a little about ourselves”. I started my own business so I didn’t have to go on work courses with icebreakers.’
‘Icebreakers aren’t that bad,’ Daniel whispered back. ‘It’ll be a great way for the staff to get to know each other.’
Kate shuddered. ‘I once went on a course where I got slapped on the back with a sticker that said “Fork” and I had to “find my other half and strike up a conversation”. I spent the entire allotted time racing around trying to find my “knife” only to discover afterwards that I had supposed to have been looking for a “spoon”.’ She stopped talking, acutely aware that she’d started babbling. She was babbling because she was nervous. Any moment now she thought he was going to ask her why she was nervous and she was going to respond with, ‘Moving in together … how about we do that … huh?’
And he was going to respond by…
‘I can see that you’ve been scarred for life,’ Daniel said, biting back a smile.
She breathed out. ‘So what crappy icebreakers did you have to do, then?’
‘Well being that I was in accountancy and not media, we had terribly sensible icebreaker games, like “turn to your right and tell the person next to you a bit about yourself”.’
Kate grinned and poked out her tongue at him before turning her head to listen to Emma.
‘Tonight,’ Emma declared, her voice dropping seductively, ‘is all about date-night, not work-night. I’m talking speed-dating with a difference, and the difference is that you’ll stick with your partner for the evening. No work-talk. At all.’
Kate frowned. No work talk. Like, at all? ‘But what will we talk about?’ she asked. ‘We’ve already covered icebreakers.’
‘I’m sure we’ll think of something,’ Daniel said, looking confident.
Kate swallowed. Now that she couldn’t talk about work, the only thing on her mind was the one subject she’d vowed not to introduce into conversation until she’d figured out what his response was going to be.
‘To help you,’ Emma continued, ‘on each table, you’ll notice a small wrapped present and an egg-timer. The egg-timers are going to be used when we open to help people judge the right amount of time to brew their tea, but for tonight, I think you should use them with your present. So, dive in, and have fun getting to know each other and remember, no work-talk allowed.’
Kate took a sip of her Winter Wonderland cocktail and looked around the room to see that everyone was entering into the spirit and opening the boxes on the tables. Determined not to spoil Emma’s efforts, and because it was going to save her from talking about moving in together, she tapped the lid of the box. ‘I think you should do the honours and open it.’
‘Okay, here goes.’ Reaching out he took the box and undid the Cristmas wrapping paper and bow and peered inside. ‘Ha. Cute idea.’
Kate craned her neck. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a stack of cards with the words “Christmas Quiz” stamped on them. The label says we each get to ask a question and the other has to answer before the egg-timer runs out.’
‘Oh, that actually doesn’t sound too bad.’ She watched as Daniel took the stack of cards out and put them in the centre of the table next to the pretty hourglass encased in its wooden cage. With a quick look around she saw that others had started asking their questions.
‘Ladies, first,’ Daniel said, indicating she should ask the first question.
She took the first card off the stack, turned it over, read the question, and smiled. ‘How many milk-maids are a-milking in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas?’
‘Easy,’ Daniel said, bringing his bottle of beer to his lips and taking a chug. ‘Five.’
Kate made the sound of the X-factor buzzer. ‘Nope, that’s gold rings.’
‘That’s silly – why would you want five gold rings? Surely you’d only want one?’
Kate felt her drink go down the wrong way. ‘One?’ she spluttered.
Daniel looked at her like she’d lost the plot. ‘Of course, one. One wedding ring.’
‘Partridge,’ she squeaked out. Here she was vacillating between asking him to move in with her and not asking him to move in with her. And here he was, calmly talking about wedding rings!
‘Partridge?’ Daniel repeated like a parrot. ‘I thought that was two. In a pair of trees.’
‘Oh my God,’ Kate shook her head at him, feeling on much more solid ground talking partridges and trees. ‘It’s a pear tree.’
‘Oh, yeah, partridge in a pear tree.’ Daniel grinned at her like he might have known that all along and she felt herself grin back.
This was fun and Emma was a genius for setting up the evening like this.
Kate made a promise to herself that she and Daniel would introduce date night once a week, regardless of how busy both their schedules were.
Everything was going to be fine if she just allowed herself to be in the moment with him and stop worrying. It really had been way too long since they’d kicked back and enjoyed each other’s company. She wasn’t about to spoil it with deep and meaningful questions that once asked, couldn’t be taken back.
Daniel picked up the second question. ‘Name all thirty-six reindeers.’
‘Call yourself an accountant, there were only eight. Or maybe nine if you count Rudolph, but he was a bit of a late entry because he only appeared in the twentieth century.’
Daniel leaned forward and stared into her eyes. ‘Given that Melody is the one in your family with the voracious reading habit, I know you haven’t swallowed a Christmas lexicon. There’s only one other possible explanation … You’re secretly Mrs Claus.’
‘You can find out when you unwrap me, later,’ she replied with a coy smile.
He grinned. ‘Yes! All my Christmases have come at once!’ Signalling to Emma to bring them both another round, he asked Kate, ‘So can you name them all?’
‘Sure. Rudolph.’ To play for time she took the last sip of her cocktail.
‘Time’s running out,’ Daniel laughed indicating the egg-timer.
‘Rudolph,’ she said.
‘You already said that one.’
‘Okay, you want a name?’
‘I want all eight/nine.’
Kate smiled and leaned forward so that Daniel’s attention was drawn to her neckline. ‘Rudolph, Donner, Kebab, Blitzen, Shmitzen, Dobby, Bobbly, Twilight Sparkle, and Pikachu.’
Daniel threw back his head and laughed. ‘Erm, I’m pretty sure Pikachu was not a reindeer.’
‘So I got one wrong? Do I have to do a forfeit?’
‘Maybe later.’
‘I’m going to hold you to that.’
Reaching forward, Daniel took hold of her hand and linked their fingers together. ‘This is really great, isn’t it? Want to do it again next week?’
You see, she thought. They were so on the same page. The little devil on her shoulder whispered in her ear that if they were on the same page as this, then maybe … To cut off any more whispering, she said, ‘What? Harden our Christmas trivia skills and take on the pub quiz teams of the world?’
‘You make it sound so romantic,’ he said, ‘so yes! And as well as that, do you want to do this again next week, as in, you and me, no work talk, just date talk?’
Her fingers tightened around his. ‘How about we do this all the weeks?’
‘You had me at “Fork”,’ he said, his voice curling around her insides.
‘If Emma hadn’t gone to so much trouble, I’d have been asking you to get your coat because you’d pulled,’ Kate said.
‘And even though I usually play coy on a first date,’ Daniel grinned, ‘I might have got my coat and followed you all the way home.’
Home.
Together…
It had such a comforting sound to it.
But since when had comfort be
come the new adventure?
She glanced at the man sitting opposite her and had her answer.
Kate put her hand under the table and pressed it down hard on top of her knee to stop her foot from tapping away and the action helped strengthen her resolve.
She didn’t ever want him to think she was rushing life – rushing him and what they had now.
‘So how long do you think we have to stay for?’ she asked.
‘I think we have to stay until the last of the staff depart.’
Kate pouted. ‘It’s so hard being the responsible one.’
Daniel winced. ‘Hard is not the right word to be using right now.’
‘Oops. Let’s cool this down then and go back to playing by the rules.’ Reaching out she picked up the next card. ‘Favourite place to spend Christmas?’
‘That’s easy. Anywhere with you.’
Kate’s heart got too big for her chest. ‘How do you know? We haven’t spent a Christmas together, yet?’
‘Don’t you feel it?’ he asked, his blue eyes piercing hers. ‘Don’t you feel what we’re building here?’
Slowly, she nodded her head.
‘You know I’m not talking just about this place, right?’
Slowly, she nodded again.
Maybe the shock of Bea’s death – the shock of losing half her identity had finally passed. Juliet had allowed her a way of finding her way back to Bea, but it was Daniel who had led her to find herself.
She didn’t need to know how he was going to respond to asking him to move in together.
She already knew the answer in her heart.
Ever since she’d come back to Whispers Wood, she’d been trying very hard not to depend on Bea sending her signs of what to do and she thought that she’d found a better balance. She was learning to find her own way and make her own decisions. Daniel showed her that she could be that brave every day.
So she would ask him to move in with her.
But not here in The Clock House.
She’d ask him on Christmas Day.
In the place they’d first started sharing secrets all those months ago.
Over the garden wall between Mistletoe Cottage and Myrtle Cottage.
Chapter 21
Bar Hygge, Bah Humbug!
Jake
Jake’s punishment for arriving twenty minutes late to the soft-opening of Cocktails & Chai, in his opinion, in no way matched his crime. Although, rest assured, he thought, being forced to sit opposite Gloria Pavey on a tiny table for two, with a bloody scented Christmas candle between them and an egg-timer – and, no, he absolutely did not get what the egg-timer was for, was going to be nothing compared to the punishment he was going to mete out to Little Miss Match-Making Mixologist.
‘I’m doing a small soft-opening and you’re invited’, she’d said, all easy-peasy, informal, he remembered, unravelling his scarf and hanging it over the back of the chair she’d frog-marched him to before offering a full smile and retreating to the relative safety of the bar.
‘It’s for your friends,’ she’d said, all plaintive.
‘Please, Jake,’ she’d begged, all husky.
Duped.
That was the word that came to mind.
Not for the first bloody time, either, was it, he thought, as memories of Alice flashed through his head. He reached for his bottle of beer wishing he’d asked for a Boilermaker, because getting drunk seemed like the only sensible answer to the way his evening was unfolding.
‘What’s your favourite part of the lead up to Christmas?’ Gloria asked him.
‘What?’
‘Oh, hang-on, I’m supposed to turn over the egg-timer.’
Jake watched mystified as her hand, with so many rings on, he wondered if it was a fashion statement or improvised knuckle-duster, reached out to flip over the egg-timer.
‘I ask you these questions,’ she explained, ‘and you have to answer before the time runs out. It’s like speed-dating only you stay with the same person. Quite a clever idea, right?’
‘Not really.’ Was there a man in the world who wanted to perform to an egg-timer?
When it became clear he wasn’t into playing the game, Gloria elected to answer the question herself. ‘My favourite part in the lead up to Christmas is buying gifts for Persephone’s stocking and then working out new places I can hide them. As she gets older I’m having to get more and more imaginative.’
He just stared over the top of her head to where Emma was determinedly avoiding him.
‘And … you’re back in the room,’ Gloria said, clicking her fingers under his nose and this time Jake finally caught the note of desperation in her voice.
He looked into her eyes and saw that she was busy pretending not to notice how quickly they’d become the centre of attention in the room.
This wasn’t her fault he tried reminding himself, as he eased out the trapped breath in his lungs. Not all of it, anyway.
‘Sorry,’ he said, feeling bad that while his gut twisted and clawed, Gloria was doing her best to follow the rules Emma had set out for her little soiree. ‘You were saying about hiding Persephone’s presents? I have to say, I’m amazed she still believes in Father Christmas.’
Gloria tore her attention from Kate’s openly curious gaze and blinked a couple of times before bringing out the wide smile he was more familiar with. ‘Of course she doesn’t, Jake. But some pretence is worth keeping up, isn’t it? For the sake of family peace?’
Jake kept his expression carefully blank. When it came to keeping the peace, most families kept secrets. Whether from the world or from each other, he was willing to bet Whispers Wood wasn’t different to anywhere else.
Luckily Gloria seemed to sense that a Christmas quiz wasn’t designed to expose them and went back to a lighter footing as she added, ‘Sometimes it gets to Christmas Eve and I can’t remember all my hiding places. I’ve had to start writing them down. Although as a side note I wouldn’t recommend hiding chocolate money in the airing cupboard next to the hot water tank. The laundry smelled really nice but the melted chocolate left a dreadful mess. Also I’ve learned to wrap her gifts as I go now so I don’t have to stay up wrapping them the night before.’
‘Clever,’ he offered. Looking around at the other tables he saw Sheila and Big Kev, deep in conversation. Kate and Daniel laughing over their drinks. Juliet and Oscar gazing into each other’s eyes. The beauty therapists Kate had hired had pushed their table together with the two hair stylists Juliet had hired and looked to be having a whale of a time asking each other questions while enjoying a bottle of wine.
‘Of course this year is the first year that Persephone is spending Christmas Day with her father.’
Jake would have had to be a complete bastard not to hear the naked emotion in Gloria’s statement. ‘That’s got to be tough,’ he paused, and then had to ask, ‘You’re not going to be on your own for the day, are you?’ The thought of the trouble she could get herself into if she spent Christmas on her own, feeling all wronged and maligned, sat uneasily in his chest.
‘Are you worried about me, Jakey?’
‘Absolutely not.’ Christ, could this evening be any more awkward? He couldn’t wait to think about all the different ways he was going to get Hollywood back for this. ‘What I mean is, you’re a strong woman, Gloria.’ He looked her squarely in the eyes. ‘I can’t imagine you wanting Persephone to worry about you being on your own.’
To his relief she nodded sensibly. ‘You’re right. There are some things a child should never have to worry about. No need for you to worry either, I’m not going to be alone, I’m actually spending the day with her grandparents.’
‘Good. Good.’
‘Worry isn’t usually the first emotion I evoke in people. Well, not worry for my safety, anyway,’ she added with a small smile, ‘so, thank you. And I can see I’ve made you uncomfortable again, so let’s move right along … What is your favourite part of the lead up to Christmas?’
‘Oh-
oh, it looks as if time’s run out,’ he said, staring at the egg-timer.
‘Next question then,’ Gloria said, picking the next one off the pile and turning it over. ‘And this time you have to answer. Ready?’
No, he thought. ‘Yes,’ he nodded grimly.
Gloria laughed. ‘You don’t have to look so tortured. Right, here we go: Who was the last person you kissed under the mistletoe?’
‘Give me that,’ he said grabbing the card to look at it. ‘Good grief, is every Christmas about bloody questions?’
‘Don’t you mean, is every bloody question about Christmas?’
‘This is insane.’
‘Not into Christmas themed party games, then,’ Gloria tsked.
‘Not into any game-playing,’ he bit out.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Nobody’s forcing you to sit here, Jake.’
Of course they were.
One was called Hollywood and one was called Pride and he was damned if he was going to give either the satisfaction of walking out.
Jake swung his gaze to the bar area and just managed to catch Emma looking back at him before she looked guiltily away.
Forcing himself to sit back in his seat, he picked up the beer he’d ordered and drank it straight down. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry, Gloria. Look, how about I pop to the bar and get us another drink. I promise by the time I come back I’ll have sent Scrooge home and popped my civil hat on.’
‘But it’s so hot in here.’ Her gaze narrowed but he detected a softening around the edges of her mouth. ‘Do you think you can wear it for the duration?’
‘I promise to try.’ As he got up he hesitated and looking down at her, quietly said, ‘As long as you realise this – you and me – what I’m trying to say is that nothing’s going to happen, okay?’
A delighted trickle of laughter fell out of Gloria’s mouth, and Jake was very aware that several people turned to look in their direction.