From Paris With Love This Christmas

by Jules Wake

  It would have been easy for Siena to say. ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine.’ Accept his apology. But she’d been down that road before. Not this time.

  She caught Jason’s eyes dip to her stomach. Reflexively she rubbed at the faded bruise under her shirt.

  In a voice that sounded considerably cooler than she felt, she said, ‘Make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ She held Will’s gaze, eyes boring into his. Shame filled his.

  ‘I really am sorry. I …’

  She inclined her head. ‘Now sit down and tell us what the problem is and we can think sensibly,’ she emphasised every syllable and gave him a sharp look, ‘about what we can do.’

  He nodded, chastened. Jason still looked furious and she touched his arm to reassure him she was OK. With a questioning look, he laid his flat palm on her stomach.

  The gentle, unexpected touch heated her skin through the cotton of her shirt, the sensation spiralling through her to make her breathless. Something in his stance, a wary unhappiness, made her rise to her toes and plant a gentle kiss on his pugnacious jawline.

  Warmth exploded in the pit of her stomach and she saw his gaze soften.

  ‘Go make beer.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Do paperwork then.’ She gave him a shove.

  It was a measure of Will’s docility that he didn’t make a single comment on the exchange; her repressive gaze might have helped.

  Inside her heart was beating a furious tattoo. Trying to pretend everything was completely normal, she spoke, horrified to realise that her voice squeaked slightly. ‘Right. Are Al and Marcus here?’

  ‘Yes, they’re in the kitchen.’ Will started to get agitated again. ‘We can’t even use the effing gas rings because they won’t work without the electric fans. Bloody health and safety.’

  ‘Go and get them.’ She barked out the order, pleased to see Will obeyed without question.

  Will slunk off to the kitchen and Siena arranged the bar stools into a semi-circle and hopped on the one nearest the bar to wait, rubbing her stomach absently. She felt warm all the way through, especially from the way Jason’s eyes had widened and his breath hissed out when she sneaked that kiss in. She’d had about enough of his backing off. He’d kissed her quite happily that night until she’d told him about Yves and then in Paris, he’d chickened out one time too many.

  Was it too early for a nip of gin? Twisting her mouth, she looked up at the rows of optics. It might calm Will down. That or Valium.

  He returned with the other two, Al wringing his hands and Marcus silent but constantly rubbing at the lines on his forehead, as if trying to figure out what to do. He didn’t know it, but he’d been recruited as her second.

  ‘Sit.’ Siena pointed to the bar stools she’d grouped. All three of them obediently plonked their bottoms down.

  ‘Right,’ she said, making it up as she went along. The demoralised trio in front of her needed to believe that everything was going to be fine. She could do this. They’d hosted a million parties at the Chateau and come up against every type of eventuality with Maman making her impossible demands and leaving it to Siena and Agnes to sort out how to achieve them. It would have been handy to have the calm, unflappable housekeeper here now.

  ‘Al, what food have you got that doesn’t have to be cooked? Or that needs to be used. Presumably we’ll lose everything in the fridges and freezers as soon as we open them.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said gloomily. ‘Although the meat I can leave in the freezer that should be OK. In the fridges we’ve got—’ He reeled off a list.

  ‘OK.’ Siena ticked things off on her fingers. ‘Ploughmans are still on the menu. So we can offer that to lunchtime customers.’ She turned to Will who looked morose as he played with a beer mat. He needed to pull himself together. ‘You need to put a notice on the door explaining to customers we’ve had a power cut and are running a limited menu today. If they’ve got this far through the snow, they’ll probably stay if we can offer something.’

  ‘Yes, but what about the Elmsley wedding?’ Will put his head in his hands. ‘That’s my biggest worry. Sorry Siena, I can’t see how we’re going to get round that.’ His face crumpled as if he might cry any moment. ‘It’s their wedding reception. We can’t cancel that. Fifty people. Coming straight here from the church.’ They all stared out of the window, where they could see the church on the other side of the green. His fingers crawled all over his face, rubbing and worrying. ‘I can’t bear to let them down.’

  ‘We’re not going to cancel.’

  Will shook his head despairingly. ‘Seriously Siena, I don’t think we can do this. I haven’t even got the right tablecloths for the tables because we can’t iron them.’

  ‘Marcus, you need to go to Ikea. Jason can take you in the Land Rover. Buy loads of tea lights. Holders. Strings of lights. Battery operated to make the room look beautiful. Coloured napkins. Not patterned. See if you can buy any jars or small cheap vases that we can wire up and hang from beams. If in doubt, FaceTime me from the store.’

  ‘Isn’t there a whole load of stuff like that upstairs in the old flat?’ suggested Al.

  ‘You’re right. We dumped all those banqueting rolls up there,’ said Marcus. ‘I’ll have a quick shufty before I go to Ikea. Come up with me Siena.’

  ‘Great, that’s all bloody marvellous. But what about the food? They’re expecting a three course meal.’ She was pleased to see the bite of Will’s sarcasm. There was some fight in him somewhere.

  ‘And they’ll get one.’ She turned to Al. ‘What were you—’

  Will’s phone rang and he pulled it from his jeans pocket.

  ‘—planning for the meal?’

  ‘Shit, it’s them,’ Will groaned.

  He stared down at the screen as if it were a bomb he’d been invited to defuse. Siena took it from his frozen fingers.

  ‘Good morning, The Salisbury Arms.’ Deliberately she turned her back on Will. She couldn’t maintain this calm façade and deal with him panicking.

  ‘Hello, yes Mr Elmsley … No, we’ve got everything under control … Absolutely nothing to worry about … We will accommodate you. Yes, slight change to the menu. Still Thai. I promise you will have a wonderful wedding reception. All you have to do is go and get married. Leave everything to us.’

  She handed the phone back to Will, still wide-eyed with panic.

  ‘You could have told him then. Warned him that they might have to make do with Ploughmans.’

  She patted him on the arm. ‘What and spoil their wedding? Right.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘To work. We need Ben and Jason to be our runners. I’ll call them in a minute. You, Will, go lay up the tables in the barn, get the fire going and stockpile plenty of wood so that we can get it warmed up. Al and I are going to do a spot of cooking without gas.’

  ‘It’s cooking with gas,’ Al pointed out.

  ‘Not today it’s not.’ She rolled up her sleeves.

  Ducking her head under a beam, she took the string of lights Marcus handed her. ‘This place is like Aladdin’s cave.’

  ‘It’s full of rubbish. Everything gets dumped up here.’ He picked up a plastic gnome.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Siena took a step back.

  ‘Left over from last year’s Allotment Society Christmas do.’

  ‘So did someone live up here once?’ There was a fully equipped kitchen. ‘The appliances all look new.’

  ‘Me and Al lived up here when we first came out of London. The flat went with the job which was great, but we wanted to put a bit of distance between home and work and it’s a bit quiet.’

  Siena peered out of the dormer window out over the fields. ‘It’s lovely. Shame it’s full of all this junk.

  ‘Ah! Have you seen the time? You need to go.’

  The two of them, clutching their haul of tea lights, vases and candle holders, clattered hastily down the tiny wooden staircase which led back into the bar.

  By eleven, she had the
troops well and truly marshalled. She felt a bit like the fairy godmother in Cinderella, flinging orders at people with the gay abandon of a bibbity bobbity boo.

  Humming, she lined up the ingredients for the Thai beef salad on the stainless steel prep tables. Al performed a sterling service, knives flashing with professional speed.

  Marcus and Jason had returned from their trip to Ikea, a huge relief because even though Will had calmed down a lot, he still wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet. There was still a lot to do. Even Jason and Ben had now been given kitchen porter duties.

  ‘Ben, you’re on carrot duty.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be on carrot duty,’ said Ben with a very straight face.

  ‘Me too, love, me too,’ said Al grinning.

  Siena hid her face, clamping her lips shut to stop a laugh escaping. ‘Peel this lot and hand them over to Al to chop.’

  Jason appeared in the doorway and from the mischievous glint in his eye had caught onto the rapidly lowering tone of the conversation. ‘Al’s getting his chopper out is he?’

  ‘You,’ she gave him a stern look, hard when her heart suddenly decided to do a quick canter at the sight of him rolling up his shirtsleeves to reveal strong, capable forearms. What was the matter with her? She’d seen arms before. ‘Peel cucumbers.’

  ‘Very masterful. And what would you have me do with my cucumbers?’ He waggled his eyebrows and she couldn’t stop the gurgle of laughter that flowed. Who’d have thought that being at work, even on day like this could be so much fun? She hadn’t laughed like this in … ever.

  ‘Pass ’em over here, love,’ piped up Al with a dirty laugh.

  ‘Chop them finely,’ Siena mimed a very decided chop, to winces all round and smirked. ‘After that I need this coriander and mint de-stalked and finely chopped.’

  The four of them worked in perfect tandem, the little production line bolstered by silly jokes and ridiculous innuendo. Her diaphragm ached with the constant laughter despite the looming deadline of one o’clock and the pressure to make this work.

  With Marcus’ arrival, after he’d unloaded all his goodies in the barn, Siena swapped with him to take over in the kitchen.

  ‘Jason, Ben.’ She beckoned a finger. ‘I need you in the barn now.’

  ‘And that’s not a phrase you hear every day,’ murmured Jason in her ear, as he brushed past her in the doorway of the kitchen. The almost brush of his lips sent a skitter down her spine.

  The barn had already started to warm up; Will had got quite a blaze going in the huge fireplace. Apparently it was rarely lit because it threw out so much heat.

  Mercifully he seemed to have got his mojo back and had picked up his pace, whizzing around the tables with Hayley, laying place settings and, aside from the napkins, they were almost done.

  Giving Ben and Jason their orders, Siena left them to it and turned to show Hayley how to turn the jewel-coloured selection of napkins Marcus had bought, into crane-shaped decorations for the tables. Another valuable lesson she’d learned at finishing school, which made each napkin worth a good hundred pounds in her book.

  As she moved from table to table, she couldn’t resist looking up at Jason who’d been charged with climbing ladders to tap nails into the beams to string up the battery operated lights. With each stretch upward he revealed a taut stomach with dark hair arrowing down into his jeans. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t bring herself to leave, so hung around supervising the arrangement of the lanterns hastily made out the jars Marcus had rounded up.

  By twelve thirty, the barn was done. Tea light holders lined every available level surface. In a move which earned him a huge hug, Ben had borrowed the Land Rover to nip home and had come back with three packs of battery operated fairy lights.

  A row of barbecues, which had been requisitioned from everyone Will knew in the village, made up a make-shift kitchen in the courtyard to the left of the barn. Steam rose in great plumes into the cold winter air. Several joints of beef had been gently roasting in two kettle barbecues.

  Chicken kebabs were lined up on trays ready to be cooked on a second string of barbecues.

  Will had also turned into a human being again. Standing beside the row of barbecues with the whole team, wrapped in coats, scarves and hats, assembled with another twenty minutes to go, he apologised. ‘Sorry guys. But there’s a lot riding on this. Elmsley was my Dad’s best friend. He lost his wife not long after Dad passed.’

  Jason and Will exchanged a telling look and Jason clapped him on the back.

  ‘He met Bev on holiday in Thailand eighteen months ago and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Today, I wanted it to be perfect for them.’ He looked at his watch. The now married Elmsleys would be there in fifteen minutes.

  Hence his panic over having to abandon the original menu of a fragrant tom yum prawn soup, Thai green chicken curry and a beef massaman curry to be served with jasmine rice and fried noodles.

  Siena was pretty pleased with the alternative she and Al had come up with, utilising most of the ingredients, which was just as well because the freezers were likely to defrost overnight.

  ‘Siena, you’re amazing,’ said Al, as he stirred a pan of coconut milk on top of one of the barbecues.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that until we’re sure this is going to combine.’ It was a cheat’s satay sauce recipe that she was hoping would work. The coconut milk only need to be warmed and added to crunchy peanut butter and ground chillies.

  ‘Even if it doesn’t, the Thai beef salad is going to be a triumph. The chicken kebabs will be fine on their own and that prawn dish with chilled cucumber is divine.’ He put up both hands and they high-fived each other. ‘We rock.’

  Will wandered by holding a plastic bucket half full of ice. Behind him, Ben carried a crate of champagne. ‘Looking good Siena.’

  ‘They’re here,’ called Hayley who was manning the bar in the pub. At her signal, Ben and Jason moved back inside the barn to start lighting all the tea lights. Marcus and Will had obviously begun to pop corks and pour champagne into flutes.

  ‘You OK?’ she asked Al, whipping off the apron which had been protecting her white shirt all morning.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Best go do my other job.’ She smoothed down her skirt and scooted to the double doors at the front of the barn.

  Jason was coming out, carrying the ladder.

  ‘All done,’ he winked and paused. ‘You’ve got—’ he made a gesture with his finger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stuff on your,’ he wiped her lower lip with his index finger. Was it her imagination or wishful thinking that his touch lingered? ‘I’ll be right back.’ He hoisted the ladder under his arm and whisked away around the corner.

  Will stopped her at the door. ‘Wait a minute. Close your eyes.’

  ‘We haven’t got time for this, they’ll be here any second.’

  ‘Tough, they’ll have wait.’

  She sighed and glared at him and Jason who’d returned and stood watching, his arms folded with a smile on his face.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ said Will.

  Siena immediately looked at Jason. Will’s words evoked that almost kiss in Montmartre. Jason looked back steadily, a brief flicker of something in his expression. So he hadn’t been totally unmoved that night.

  Flanking her, the two men escorted her into the barn.

  ‘Open.’

  ‘Oh,’ she gasped, feeling tears well up. Like a magical starlit world, tiny lights flickered and twinkled throughout the room making her heart swell with the simple romance of the clear white lights. The stately old wooden beams looked golden and the jewel colours of the napkins she’d taught Hayley and Marcus to fold into pretty flowers, made elaborate table decorations which transformed the traditional white settings into something exotic.

  ‘It’s …’

  She turned to examine the trestle tables lining the wall. The huge platters of salads even covered in cling-film, looked beautiful and no one would ev
er know this was a make-shift menu which had been cobbled together using what was to hand.

  ‘It’s fucking amazing, that’s what it is. You’re a bloody genius. I was all set to cancel this morning.’

  ‘Yeah,’ growled Jason making it quite clear he had yet to forgive Will, ‘that makes you an idiot doesn’t it?’

  Will nodded. ‘You’re not wrong there. Siena, you are utterly, utterly brilliant.’ He pulled her towards him and gave her a huge hug followed by a kiss right on the lips.

  She stepped back slightly surprised and saw him wink and incline his head ever so slightly towards Jason, who looked mightily pissed off.

  ‘They’re here.’ Marcus came through the doors, moving straight to the tray of champagne. Jason melted away but not without a proprietary look her way. Will looked smug.

  ‘Oh my!’ The new Mrs Elmsley, clad in a cream shift dress, beamed and turned to the man at her side, who had to be her husband. ‘This is stunning. Just like the beach café in Phuket.’ Tears sparkled in her eyes as the two of them shared a long, telling look.

  Marcus winked at Siena and mouthed, ‘Job done.’

  One by one the guests expressed their astonishment, as they took their glass of champagne.

  ‘Honestly I thought it would be cancelled.’

  ‘Gorgeous isn’t it.’

  ‘So clever!’

  As she stood there, watching the guests sipping their champagne and pointing at the roof, Siena realised she’d never felt prouder.

  Chapter 21

  The downside to going ahead without electricity was that there was no dishwasher, no reviving coffee and no lighting in the kitchen. Rows of tea lights and candles didn’t make washing a hundred and fifty glasses, plates and cutlery any more appealing or romantic.

  Siena looked around at the kitchen. She’d tried to stack everything neatly so that it didn’t look too bad in there, but it was still pretty overwhelming.

  ‘Leave it,’ announced Will carrying through the last tray of plates. ‘We’ll catch up tomorrow when the leccy’s back on. If the environmental health people come in, stuff it. You’ve done enough today.’