‘Hello,’ Willow called to get his attention.
He turned round and flashed her a winning smile. ‘Hello,’ he said, his eyes appraising her. ‘Can I help?’
‘Yes, I’m the one painting the flowers and designs around the doors. I just wondered—’
‘Oh, you’re the artist.’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, it’s just a few simple flowers.’
‘They look great. I hope he’s paying you.’ He jerked a thumb to one of the cottages, presumably where Andrew was busy working.
‘Oh no, I live here in the village, I’m just trying to help.’
‘Well, that’s very kind, but don’t let him take advantage of you,’ Jack said.
Willow frowned. Andrew would be the last person in the world to do that. ‘I was just wondering which houses I could work on, I don’t want to be in your way.’
‘I don’t think you could ever be in my way.’
She resisted rolling her eyes. Jack was smooth and this method of flirting had probably worked very well for him in the past. She waited for him expectantly.
He eventually realised he wasn’t going to get far with her. ‘You can start on those two and when you’ve finished you’ll probably be able to do that one.’
‘Thanks,’ Willow said and moved over to one of the houses he’d pointed at.
She started painting the curly green stem and leaves again but this time she painted bright yellow roses around the door. It looked cheery. She moved on to the next house where there was evidently work going on inside as she could hear lots of drilling and banging taking place. She peered through one of the windows just in time to see Andrew stripping off his t-shirt. God he really was glorious. Seeing his body affected her in ways that seeing Jack’s didn’t. Maybe it was because she had been pinned underneath that body the night before, or maybe it was because it belonged to such a wonderful man.
To her shame, Andrew saw her gawking at him through the window.
She quickly moved away but a few seconds later he came to the door.
‘Are you perving at me again, Willow McKay?’
‘No, I was just looking through the window to see what work was going on.’
He was smirking at her, clearly not believing a word of it.
She shrugged. She might as well be honest. ‘And it came with the added bonus of this marvellous view.’
Andrew laughed. ‘Well, I like to keep the workers happy. I take it you’re here to do some more painting?’
‘I am.’
‘It’s really appreciated, thank you.’
His genuine smile made her feel warm inside in ways that a simple payment for her services could never achieve.
‘It’s OK.’
‘It really helps Happiness to look good from the outside and with our secret project maybe we can help the villagers feel better on the inside. Talking of which…’ He looked around to make sure that nobody was listening. ‘Are you ready for our Secret Society shenanigans tonight?’
‘Yes, I can’t wait. Shall we do Mary and Ginny first before we go to Elsie’s house to do the painting?’
‘That sounds good. We can stop at my house after we’ve done Mary and Ginny to pick up the paint and the ladders. Should we be wearing black with camouflage paint on our faces?’
Willow laughed. ‘Wearing black might not be a bad idea but let’s leave the camouflage paint for now. I think we’ll certainly look suspicious if we’re caught walking around looking like we’ve come fresh from a war zone.’
Andrew looked a bit disappointed that he couldn’t go full-on commando but he soon recovered himself. ‘Do you think we need a secret handshake or a special password for all those that are in the Secret Society?’ he teased.
Willow smiled, she loved his silly sense of humour. ‘I think we’ll have to come up with one.’
‘So shall we meet after dinner?’ he said.
‘Yes.’ And then because he looked like he might be about to invite her to have dinner with him she decided to make up a prior arrangement. ‘I promised my friend Ruby that I’d have pizza with her tonight.’
‘She’s coming here?’
‘No, we’re having dinner together over Skype.’
She immediately felt bad for lying to Andrew but there was no point in turning down a relationship with him in order to find herself if she was going to spend every night with him anyway. She might as well enjoy the other aspects of the relationship if that was the case. She had given herself six months to just be Willow rather than part of a couple but she honestly didn’t think she would last that long. She enjoyed his company so much that it felt like a slippery slope to then spend all her time with him as well. Dinner every night could then easily lead to breakfast every morning and it would only be a matter of time before they decided to fill that gap in between.
‘I was going to say that I have darts tonight down the pub so it will have to be after eight anyway,’ Andrew said.
Oh god, she’d got it all wrong and the way he was looking at her suggested he knew she was lying about her plans too.
‘Why not come round to my house when you’re done with darts and then we can do our Secret Society business together,’ Willow said, knowing that now she would have to have dinner with Ruby just to prove him wrong and would deliberately still be talking to her on Skype when he arrived.
‘Sounds like a plan.’
He held his fists out as if he wanted to bump fists with her. She frowned in confusion but copied the gesture. He bumped it on the top, the bottom and either side and she laughed as she realised he was trying to do a secret handshake.
‘What?’ Andrew said. ‘Does it need a bit more work?’
‘Just a smidgen.’
‘I’ll keep practising,’ Andrew said as he turned to go back inside the house.
‘On your own?’ Willow called after him.
‘I have two hands, don’t I?’
Willow giggled as she imagined him practising the secret handshake by himself. He waved goodbye and closed the door.
God, she really liked this man.
Thirteen
‘This is not a bad idea, you know,’ Ruby said, gesturing to the Chinese she had in front of her, the noodles she was eating dripping with some kind of red sauce. ‘Having dinner together. It’s almost like you’re really here.’
When Willow had told Ruby she needed to have dinner with her that night over Skype, Ruby had leapt at the idea, although she hadn’t followed the instructions to the letter when she turned up with sweet and sour chicken. But Willow had pizza so she didn’t think it mattered that much.
‘It’s lovely to see you. It’s silly, I’ve only been gone a few days and I’m missing you already,’ Willow said.
‘It’s not silly at all, I am rather fabulous,’ Ruby said, tonight sporting a t-shirt with Rudolph on the front with a glittery red nose. Ruby loved Christmas so much, she lived and breathed it all year long.
Willow smiled. ‘Yes you are.’
‘So tell me why we’re doing this?’ Ruby snapped a prawn cracker in half and popped one piece in her mouth.
‘Because I miss you.’
Ruby let out a bark of a laugh. ‘You’re such a lying toad. Want to tell me the real reason?’
Willow sighed. ‘Because I lied to a rather lovely man to avoid dinner plans for tonight and he wasn’t even going to invite me to dinner after all. And now I feel horribly guilty and he’ll be coming round shortly to help me with something and I want him to see I wasn’t lying even though I was.’
Ruby laughed. ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave. If the man was so lovely, why did you not want to have dinner with him?’
‘Because…’ Willow really didn’t want to tell Ruby about the kiss because then she’d make it into a thing and it wasn’t going to be a thing, definitely not. Although she knew she had to tell Ruby some of it. ‘Because I like Andrew.’
‘And?’
‘And I’m not looking for a rela
tionship right now.’
‘Who says it has to be a relationship? Just have some fun. That’s just what you need to get over your relationship with Garry.’
‘I am over it,’ Willow said, with a sigh.
‘Yes, I didn’t mean that,’ Ruby said. ‘I just meant passion and excitement has been missing from your life for the last four years. Why not have a bit of that again? Get out there and enjoy yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything serious.’
‘Andrew is too lovely for that.’
‘So you’re just going to avoid him in a village that’s smaller than my pokey little flat.’
‘I’m not going to avoid him, we’re working together on a project right now. I just think that I don’t need to spend every night with him too. He came round here for dinner last night, and it was… really nice.’ It had been a hell of a lot more than nice. ‘I just think if we end up having dinner together every night then it could so easily turn into something more.’
Ruby shook her head affectionately. ‘Well at least I get to meet him.’
‘Ah god,’ Willow said. She hadn’t thought this through. ‘Don’t say anything.’
Ruby crossed her heart and zipped her lips. ‘I promise.’
‘How’s everything going with you anyway?’ Willow asked, keen to change the subject.
‘Oh, OK I guess,’ Ruby said, with a sigh. ‘I’ve been thinking about you and how you’ve just packed up everything you own and started over somewhere new. I kind of wish I could do that too. Everyone knows everything about me here and that’s not always a good thing.’
Willow thought about Ruby and her past. Although Willow had met her when Ruby was in her early twenties, a few years after she had her heart broken in the worst possible way, Willow knew that, even ten years later, the people of St Octavia would never let Ruby forget it. But Ruby was normally so upbeat, it wasn’t like her to get down. Although her elderly neighbour, Maggie, had died two months before and Willow knew that Ruby had been upset by that. She wondered if that had anything to do with Ruby’s change of mood.
‘Has something happened?’ Willow asked.
‘I don’t know, life just drifts on, doesn’t it. Nothing ever changes unless you make the change yourself. I sit on my little market stand every week and I see the same people come and go. Bill and Connie come into the market hall every Tuesday to get four slices of ham from the deli stand and some of that nice cheesy bread from the bread stall. Thomas comes and looks at the model trains on the next stand every evening after he leaves work. He never buys any of them. Sally and her son Noah come in every Saturday to get a chocolate milkshake with extra sprinkles and I get the impression that’s the only quality time she has with him. I don’t know, I just feel I need a change.’
‘Is this to do with Maggie?’ Willow asked.
Ruby shrugged. ‘Maybe. You know she had the same job her entire life, working in the local chemist since she was sixteen, right up to when she died. I was talking to her a few weeks before she died. It was her seventieth birthday and I asked her about her life and what she had achieved, what she was most proud of – and, beyond having her kids, she couldn’t think of a single thing she had achieved or done that she was proud of. She tried to laugh it off and said people would remember her for being a fantastic chemist and I just thought it was a little sad, that that was the only thing she would be remembered as. My brother is a bloody Paralympian for goodness sake and what have I done with my life? I’ve lived here in St Octavia almost my whole life apart from when I went to university. What will people say about me after I’m gone: “She had great baubles”?’
Willow smiled at the unintentional euphemism. Ruby made her living selling Christmas decorations all year round. She loved it and Willow didn’t think she’d ever give that up.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Go travelling?’
‘I’m not sure I’m the sort of girl who would travel alone. I just feel like I need a change. I need a new routine, new faces.’
‘Well what’s stopping you?’ Willow said. ‘You could do what I did. Hell, you can even come here. Open up a Christmas shop in the village.’
‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘It is. You have no job to give notice to, you hate the flat where you live. Free accommodation and rent for a year. If you hate it after that, you can always move back to St Octavia. At least come and visit and see the place for a few days.’
Ruby smiled slightly as she thought about it.
‘And to be honest, I could really do with your help and expertise,’ Willow said, knowing Ruby couldn’t say no to her little plea.
‘My Christmas skills?’ Ruby asked.
Willow thought about it for a moment and then found herself nodding. ‘Actually yes. Christmas lights, the white ones. We need them in abundance. We have this big open day coming up in a few weeks and it needs to look magical. White lights could help with that. And you’re just the person to know where to hang them.’
She hoped Andrew wouldn’t mind that she had suddenly made this executive decision, but who didn’t love fairy lights?
‘I could do that. I have a ton of that stuff in storage, I could lend them to you for a few weeks. You know what, I will come and visit. If nothing else, I want to meet this lovely man who you’ve fallen in love with in person.’
‘I have not fallen in love with him,’ Willow protested, just as there was a knock on the door. ‘Now shush.’
Ruby sat forward on the edge of her seat eagerly as Willow went to answer the door.
Andrew was standing there, dressed all in black. He looked sexy, like the Milk Tray man.
‘Oh hey, Andrew,’ Willow smiled. ‘I won’t be a moment. I’m just finishing my conversation with Ruby. Come in for a second.’
She stepped back so Andrew could come in and she watched him clock the open laptop with Ruby’s grinning face on the screen. She felt like saying, ‘See, I wasn’t lying after all.’ But she had been and this suddenly felt like a double lie.
‘Ruby, this is Andrew. Andrew, this is my best friend Ruby.’
‘Hi.’ Ruby waved inanely.
Andrew smiled as he bent over to get closer to the camera. ‘Hello.’
‘Are you taking care of my friend?’ Ruby said and Willow rolled her eyes.
‘I’m making sure she is well looked after,’ Andrew said.
‘Right, I think we better go,’ Willow said, before Ruby said something too cringey. ‘Lots to do tonight. I’ll be right with you, Andrew.’
She ushered him back to the door and turned back to the laptop. ‘Bye Ruby.’
‘He’s hot,’ Ruby mouthed.
Willow made a noise in her throat that was a vague agreement.
‘Sleeping with him would definitely put a huge smile on your face,’ Ruby whispered.
‘Bye Rubes.’ Willow slammed down the lid of the laptop and turned back to face Andrew who was looking like he hadn’t heard anything. She gave a little sigh of relief.
‘How was darts?’ Willow said, pulling on her boots.
‘Fine, our team lost, but it was fine. Ruby seems nice, very smart.’
‘She is.’ Willow frowned in confusion. ‘What do you mean, smart?’
‘The things she said.’
Willow flushed. ‘You heard her?’
‘I lip-read, remember?’ Andrew chuckled. ‘She speaks a lot of sense.’
‘Oh shush.’ Willow laughed.
She picked up the gift-wrapped watch and the hand-tied bunch of flowers she had prepared earlier that day. She slipped the watch into a bag so no one would see her holding the box and put two and two together the next day. The flowers were a little harder to hide.
‘These look wonderful,’ Andrew said, gesturing towards the flowers.
‘They looked a lot better in my head but they’ll do.’
They stepped outside together and Willow closed the door behind her.
‘We�
��ll take the coastal path I think, less likely that we’ll be seen that way and Ginny’s house is quite near the bottom of the village so we can do hers first,’ Andrew said.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Willow said.
Andrew flicked on his torch and they set off down the little path. It was completely dark here – although the moon was shining brightly above them, it wasn’t giving off enough light to allow them to see where they were going. The path was slightly uneven in parts and she found herself linking arms with Andrew, but purely for safety reasons. She certainly didn’t want to trip and go flying over the edge of the cliff. He didn’t seem to mind.
‘So can I ask you something?’ Andrew said.
‘Anything,’ Willow said.
‘Did you lie about your plans with Ruby tonight and then feel like you had to go ahead with those plans to prove to me that you weren’t lying?’
Willow felt her cheeks burn red in the darkness. ‘Well when I said ask me anything, I didn’t mean that.’
‘You don’t have to answer,’ Andrew said.
He was being so kind. She had lied to him and he knew it and he was still being lovely.
‘Well I do now, because silence is a guilty omission and if I answer then I can at least try to defend myself.’
‘Please go ahead,’ Andrew said.
‘I thought you were going to invite me to dinner.’
‘OK.’
A rabbit leapt out of a nearby bush and darted up the hill away from them, its white tail flashing in the light of the torch.
‘I enjoyed having you round for dinner last night immensely, you are wonderful company and I’m very happy to do that again. I just thought if dinner was going to become a regular thing, like every night, then…’ she trailed off.
‘Then we could end up testing out your bed springs a lot sooner than our prearranged six-month date,’ Andrew finished for her.
She laughed. ‘Something like that.’
‘I understand. But if I invite you to dinner and you don’t want to come, you can just say no.’
‘I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’
The Little Village of Happiness: A gorgeous uplifting romantic comedy to escape with this summer Page 10