‘Well, we made it,’ Oliver said. Why did he always have to state the obvious? They could all see they’d made it. They were on the bloody boat. Funny to think that when they’d met, back at university, he’d been the one to open her eyes to all sorts of things, with his unusual way of seeing the world. The way he spotted things around them that other people would have missed. But these days … ‘We’re on the ferry.’
More deep breaths, Daisy. Peace and joy for the season would be a lot easier if the M25 hadn’t been such a nightmare. Of course, it always was, and she’d known, somewhere at the back of her mind, that it would be worse today, so close to Christmas. She’d even realised, a few weeks ago, that they’d need to allow extra time for the journey because of it. But somewhere during the preparations for their trip that information had got lost in a fog of present wrapping, the scramble to write cards for all the people she’d forgotten, and the late night piecing together of a shepherd’s outfit for Jay’s Nativity play the following day.
Peace and joy had been in sadly short supply at number 11 Maple Drive for the last month.
‘Can I have my phone back now?’ Bella asked from the back seat – the first thing she’d said since losing at Twenty Questions forty minutes earlier.
‘No.’ Daisy didn’t even think before she answered, and regretted it when the inevitable follow-up question came.
‘Why not?’
Yes, Daisy. Why? Why on earth are you making this even more difficult on yourself?
She sighed. Because she wanted it to be perfect. She wanted her family to enjoy being around each other. Just for once, she wanted the stress and the constant merry-go-round of school and activities and work and nappies and emails and screens to stop. She wanted them to all just have Christmas, the way it used to be, when she was child.
Except in some decrepit chateau in France that her parents had fallen in love with and bought, for some reason. Some reason that probably wasn’t ‘to make Daisy’s life more difficult’ but felt like it, sometimes. Most of the time, actually.
Who really bought a chateau on a whim, anyway? Only her parents. And since they’d only moved in a few weeks ago, they’d be lucky if there were actual beds to sleep in when they got there. God only knew what sort of a state the place was in. This whole Christmas had ‘disaster’ stamped on it from beginning to end. Or it would, if Daisy wasn’t so damned determined to drag it back from the brink of awful towards ‘perfect family Christmas.’ She wouldn’t mind a little help with that, though.
‘Because we’re going to go and have dinner together on the ferry,’ Daisy said, as calmly as she could manage. ‘And it’s going to be lovely.’
Bella gave a heavy, exaggerated sigh. Beside Daisy, Oliver gave a smaller one.
‘What about Claude?’ Jay piped up. ‘Can he come?’
‘Of course he can,’ Oliver answered. ‘He’s part of the family, too. Right?’
‘Right,’ Daisy answered, wondering if the restaurant allowed dogs. That was probably something else she should have checked when planning the trip. In fact, she probably should have booked them a table. She’d thought about it, then forgotten.
Apparently fourteen years of baby brain had rendered her incapable of following a thought from beginning to—
‘Urgh!’ Bella wrinkled up her nose. ‘Do you smell that? Is that Luca or Lara?’
Oliver grimaced. ‘Both, by the stink of it. Where did you pack the change bag, Daze?’
‘The change bag?’ What had she been thinking about? Something to do with dinner, maybe. Well, it was gone now. ‘I thought you packed that?’
‘Did I?’ Oliver looked puzzled. ‘Maybe it’s in the boot with Claude, under the twins’ present.’ The epically large, noisy mistake of a present. Every time they’d gone over a bump the damn thing had started singing ‘Old McDonald’.
Why? Daisy wanted to ask. Why put the one thing we’re most likely to need to get to in the most inaccessible place?
Did husbands get baby brain too? She was starting to think they might.
Oliver showed no signs of hunting down the errant change bag, so Daisy unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the car door to inspect the boot. The on-board shops would probably sell nappies and wipes anyway, right? And they had changes of clothes for the twins in the suitcase, at least. This wasn’t a disaster. Calm. Peace and joy. Those were her watchwords. She wasn’t going to let a little something like a missing change bag derail her festive plans. Even if it did have the twins’ favourite teething rings in. And actually, possibly her purse.
No. It would be fine. It would be in the boot. Oliver was a bit rubbish sometimes, and she might not always be the most on-top-of-everything mum on the block, but between them surely they’d managed to pack a bloody change bag. Right?
Holding her breath, Daisy popped open the boot. She blew out with relief and grinned. One change bag, fully packed, sat right next to Claude’s crate, only half under the Old McDonald monstrosity. See? Not so rubbish. It was all fine.
‘Come on then, Claude,’ she said. ‘I bet you’re busting for a wee, too.’ She moved to unlatch the crate door, and realised it was already open. Daisy rolled her eyes. Typical Claude. Too lazy to even bother escaping when he had the option. Even now she could see through the bars that he was still sleeping!
She reached in to poke him. ‘Time to wake—’ Her finger sank into the soft, plush, close cropped fur and stuffing. She blinked, gulped, and felt heat and blood racing to her head as the world started to pulse in time with her heartbeat. She needed to sit down. Or run. Or down a gin and tonic. Or all three at once, if that were even possible. ‘Up,’ she whispered, as the horrible truth sank in.
That wasn’t Claude. The dog in the crate wasn’t their beloved family pet. It was Jay’s stupid bloody soft toy!
Panic began to spread through her veins. Suddenly, nothing else mattered – not Oliver sulking, not the twins’ stupid present, not Bella’s teenage strops, not Jay whining about his tablet, not even the ridiculous chateau in France they had to trek out to for Christmas. Never mind the bloody change bag. This was a disaster.
They had to get back to Maple Drive, to Claude.
Immediately.
Thirty-three hours and fourteen minutes until Christmas Day. Holly totted up the time left in her head, and ignored the small voice at the back of her brain that added that in that case there were only fifty-seven hours until the whole thing was over for another year, and she could go back to her ordinary life, instead of the excessively jolly, Pinterest worthy, craft and baking haze of caster sugar and spray glue she’d been living in for the last month.
She didn’t want Christmas to be over. Of course she didn’t. She loved Christmas – always had, ever since she was tiny. She hadn’t lost that festive feeling even when she was a sulky teenager, or declared that ‘Christmas isn’t as fun as it used to be’ when she became a cynical twenty-something. Nothing had ever dimmed her love of Christmas in the last twenty-seven years, and she wasn’t about to let Sebastian bloody Reynolds ruin this one, even if it meant she had to make every single cake, biscuit, decoration and gift she had pinned on her ‘Creative Christmas!’ Pinterest board.
Okay, so this wasn’t exactly how she’d expected to spend the first Christmas in her new home, here on Maple Drive. Back in February, when Sebastian proposed, she’d expected to be hosting family and friends for Christmas nibbles and drinks, not to mention her parents and in-laws for the big day lunch itself. She’d imagined her whole house decorated in tasteful red-and-white Scandi style, with hints of silver here and there for a little sparkle. There’d be perfectly coordinated wrapped presents under the tree. She, Sebastian and Perdita would each have their stocking hanging by the fireplace, and there’d be a personally painted family plate on the hearth ready to hold Santa’s mince pie and sherry. Greenery would twine up the bannisters, twinkling with tiny fairy lights. And she and Sebastian would curl up on the sofa to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, or The Muppet’s Chris
tmas Carol, and sip nice wines and eat fancy finger food and be ecstatically happy and, oh yes, married.
Instead, her home looked like an explosion in a kids’ craft room. In a desperate effort to regain her Christmas spirit, even if she was single and alone this December, she’d thrown herself into crafting a homemade Christmas. Sebastian had always hated her hobbies – he far preferred to spend his money on the most expensive, most talked about items, and couldn’t understand why Holly would even want to make things herself. Sometimes, she suspected that Sebastian had never understood her.
Holly smashed the staple gun against the ‘Santa Stop Here!’ sign she was making, so hard that the staple buckled and went pinging across the kitchen. She sighed. She’d have to go and retrieve it before Perdita stabbed her paw on it. Her precious – but admittedly rather entitled – cat would never forgive her.
Perdita had never really liked Sebastian. Turned out, Perdita had a point.
A knock on the door distracted her from her staple retrieval and, brushing glitter from her festively red skirt, Holly headed through to the hall to answer it, pausing only briefly to enjoy the fairy lights in the green garland on the stairs, and the tiny red felt stockings hanging from it in lieu of berries. She didn’t need a husband to have a perfectly decorated Christmas, anyway. It might not be minimalist, or magazine-worthy Scandi style, but her decorations were definitely unique. And all hers.
It was, of course, the postman. Holly couldn’t remember the last time anyone other than her parents and the postman had knocked on her door. And since her parents were currently cruising their way around the Caribbean, that only left one option. And as the postman was kind of hot, in a broad, dark and brooding way, she didn’t mind nearly as much as she might otherwise have done.
‘Another parcel for you, Miss Starr.’ The postman gave her a warm smile, so at odds with the slight shadows Holly always saw in his eyes. Maybe she was imagining them. Sebastian had always said she made up stories, imagined things that weren’t there. Like him being in love with her.
Except he’d proposed. She hadn’t imagined that. He’d just changed his mind, four months later.
‘Thanks.’ She took the parcel from his hands and tried not to blush. Not because he was gorgeous, but because he’d been lugging at least one parcel a day to her front door for over a month now. He probably thought she was ordering them just to give her an excuse to see him. Mind you, she could think of worse reasons. Like, I’m trying to craft the perfect Christmas to avoid thinking about how alone I am. Yeah, she really didn’t want to share that one with the postman. Although if he got a glimpse of more than her hallway, there’d be no hiding it. ‘And please. It’s Holly.’
‘Holly,’ he repeated, and her name didn’t sound spiky and prickly in his mouth. It sounded warm and soft. She liked it that way. ‘I’m Jack.’
Jack. A good, strong, reliable name. And he was very reliable – as a postman. Which suited Holly perfectly. An attractive man she could admire daily as he reliably delivered her craft supplies and Christmas decorations, without her ever needing to risk anything beyond a little doorstep flirting. No disappointment, no heartbreak. Just a gentle flirtation.
Perfect.
‘Hi, Jack.’ Holly even risked a small smile. He’d certainly earned it. Especially after last week’s order of air drying clay. She’d only meant to order five small packets, but somehow ended up with five packs of twenty. They had been heavy.
Of course, now she had no idea what to say next. They’d exchanged names, she’d got her parcel … what next? Did she just shut the door? Say, see you tomorrow? Make a flirty little joke? She’d never been good at this. Oh, good grief, she couldn’t even manage a tiny bit of flirting with the postman. What hope was there for her ever getting back out there on the dating scene? None, that’s what. Maybe she could craft herself a boyfriend out of air drying clay and felt.
‘I like your lights, by the way,’ he said, and she blinked at him in confusion until he waved a hand towards her bedroom window. Right. The icicles. She’d been a little uncertain about putting them up – no one else on Maple Drive seemed to have any – but she’d always had Christmas lights. Lots of them. The icicles felt like a compromise – a tiny, token demonstration of her love of all things festive.
‘Um, thanks.’ Now what? Did she compliment him on his postbag? What would a normal, non-craft crazy loner, do? Holly could do normal, she was almost certain. Look at the icicles!
The awkward moment stretched out between them, as Holly tried to figure out how to break eye contact. Until a sudden crash in the kitchen startled her into spinning around.
‘What on earth …?’ Leaving the door open, Holly dashed towards the kitchen. Maybe Perdita had found that blasted staple already. Except she hadn’t heard a yowl. Perdita had a very distinctive yowl …
‘Careful,’ Jack said sharply, and when she glanced back Holly realised he’d followed her in. His post bag was slung over his back, and his fists were up, as if he were spoiling for a fight. ‘It could be a—’ They reached the kitchen, and stared at the unlikely sight before them. ‘Dog?’ Jack finished.
‘Dog,’ Holly agreed. Not just any dog. A compact, bat-eared dog that was sprawled on her kitchen floor, looking up at her with very sad and sorry eyes. The bulk of his body was white, but those oversized ears, the patches over his eyes and one or two spots over his back were black. ‘He must have wriggled through the cat flap.’
‘Tight squeeze,’ Jack commented, eyeing the dog, then the cat flap. ‘Especially with those shoulders. And that stomach.’
‘And the ears …’ They stood straight up, adding a good couple of inches to the dog’s height, lined in a pale, velvety pink. ‘What sort of dog is he, do you think?’ With his wrinkled face, non-existent tail, and powerful legs, he looked like no dog Holly had ever seen before. Except, now that she thought about it … didn’t the house across the road have some sort of dog? She’d never really paid much attention. She was, after all, a firmly declared cat person. Still, she was sure she’d seen the husband or the daughter walking a smallish dog from her front window, from time to time. She’d just never studied the details. Like the ears …
‘French Bulldog, I think.’ Jack crouched down in front of the creature, who was returning Holly’s stare with equal bafflement. ‘Hang on. He’s wearing a collar. Hey there, boy.’ That last was to the dog, Holly assumed, as Jack reached out, slowly, cautiously, and lifted the tag hanging from the animal’s collar. ‘Claude, apparently. What a name.’
‘Claude,’ Holly repeated. ‘He doesn’t look like a Claude.’
‘He looks like a thug,’ Jack agreed. ‘Except for the ears.’
‘And the eyes.’ Holly frowned a little as she looked closer. ‘His eyes are … gentle. And a bit sad.’ With almost the same shadows she saw in Jack’s actually. The poor creature seemed to vibrate with a sense of misery. Of loneliness.
Holly could sympathise with that. Maybe she could crochet Claude a Christmas hat, or something.
‘Is there an address? Or a phone number?’ she asked, shaking off the strange connection with the dog.
‘The McCawleys, at number 11.’ Jack let the tag fall and stood up. ‘So, just across the road. I think they’re out though. Do you have a number for them?’
Holly shook her head. She didn’t have numbers for any of her neighbours, now she thought about it. Really, they were right there, next door. That was sort of the point of them. Why would she need their phone numbers?
Besides, when she’d moved in with Sebastian, shortly after they’d decided to ‘merge their lives’ as he put it, she’d been too loved up and deep in their new engagement to worry about other people. There’d been decorating to do, and wedding planning, and dreaming about her future and … and she wasn’t thinking about Sebastian. Not at all.
Even if tomorrow was supposed to be her wedding day.
No. Back to the dog.
‘I guess we could put a note through their door?�
�� Holly said. What was the proper etiquette for dealing with house-breaking dogs, anyway?
‘As long as they’re not away over Christmas.’ Jack straightened up and stood, leaving Claude staring up at him pleadingly.
‘Do you think he’s hungry?’ That might explain the oversized eyes. He looked like a creature in a Disney movie. ‘Do French Bulldogs like cat food, do you think? It’s all I have.’
Jack shrugged. ‘It’s worth a try. I get the feeling this guy might eat anything you put in front of him.’
Holly got that idea too, although she couldn’t imagine where from. It wasn’t like she was a dog whisperer, or anything. In her experience, animals had as much a mind of their own as humans. And God knew she’d never had much luck getting her own species to do what she wanted.
Still, she dug out a spare food bowl from Perdita’s cupboard and tipped some dry food into it, laying it on the floor in front of Claude. Then, as an afterthought, she added a bowl of water. When she stepped back she realised that not only was the postman still standing in her kitchen, he was also surveying her kitchen table. Or, at least, what used to be her kitchen table. These days it was more like Christmas Craft Central.
‘You’ve been busy,’ he observed, reaching out to touch a string of red, gold and green bunting lying across the end of the table. The fabric shifted slightly, pulling the strings buried under the rest of the stuff on the table. Holly held her breath, waiting to see if the tower of decorations, the tangle of fairy lights or the cooling racks laden with the pieces of her gingerbread house, waiting to be assembled, would topple over at his touch. Thankfully they didn’t. That was all she needed – to bury the postman in biscuits and sequins in her kitchen. ‘Is this what’s in all the parcels, then? Craft stuff?’
Claude's Christmas Adventure Page 3