‘Fine.’
Willow stormed off up the hill and Andrew stared after her in shock. What the hell had just happened?
Twenty-Eight
Willow carefully poured the melted wax into ten different containers and then opened up the new box of scents she had bought. These ones were all named after different feelings. She wasn’t sure what a feeling should smell like but she was intrigued enough to to give it a go.
It was raining outside right now, reflecting her mood perfectly. It had been raining ever since she had left Kitty and Ken so she hadn’t seen anyone out in the village to hear about the gossip from last night and what everyone thought of their presents. But she suspected she would find out soon enough. Kitty and Ken had loved the idea of the gift-giving for the open day and now she just had to get the villagers on board. Kitty was going to call a village meeting in the pub that afternoon and Willow was going to talk through the idea with the villagers then. She guessed that most of them would realise she was behind the gifts after that.
She had planned to paint some more of the houses and help Ruby with the lights that day, but the rain had put a stop to that for now. However, it wasn’t meant to last, so she was hopeful she might be able to get a few hours of village work done before the meeting. She’d texted Ruby and told her to come to the shop if she was bored, but her friend had texted to say she was busy doing online stuff for work and would catch up with her later.
Willow picked up the scent called Sadness and poured a few drops into one of the cups. Holding the wick to one side, she gave it a good stir and then leaned over and gave it a sniff. Sadness smelt a bit like honey, which wasn’t a scent she would really associate with that emotion.
There wasn’t any scent in the collection to reflect the other emotions that were churning through her gut: embarrassment for acting like a complete idiot, anger with herself for jumping to the wrong conclusion, regret over all the things she had said.
There had been no sign of Andrew when she’d come out of the castle and Morgan had packed her stuff away to escape from the rain.
Willow picked up the scent marked Happiness. She could do with a healthy dose of that right now. She poured a few drops into a different container and gave it a good stir. It made her smile. It smelt of summer holidays and sunshine and that wonderful coconut smell too.
‘It smells nice in here.’
She looked up at Andrew hovering uncertainly by the door and she let out a breath of relief. He was here. After all the things she’d said, he was here. He was soaking wet though and she grabbed the towel she had used earlier and passed it to him.
‘That scent is Happiness apparently,’ Willow said as he dried his hair and stepped closer. She held the container up for him to take a sniff. ‘All of these scents are different feelings and emotions. What do you think of Happiness?’
He smelt it, his eyes on her the whole time. ‘It smells of you.’
She couldn’t help smiling at that. She picked up another small bottle of scent and tipped it into another container of melted wax. She gave it a stir and then held it up for him to smell. ‘This one is Passion.’
He sniffed it and his eyes darkened slightly. ‘This one definitely smells of you.’
She smirked and quickly grabbed another bottle, adding a few drops to a different container.
He sniffed it. ‘I like that one.’
She swallowed. ‘Does it smell of stupidity?’
‘No, is that what it is?’
‘No, this one is Love.’
He stared at her.
‘Because love makes me do some crazy stupid things, it makes me overreact and it makes me scared and it makes me say things I don’t mean. I’m sorry.’
He stroked his thumb down her cheek. ‘Willow—’
‘I am jealous of what you have with Morgan and I don’t mean sex and multiple orgasms. I mean that you grew up together, she knows what it was like for you growing up as the “deaf kid”. She would have seen her brother struggle with it too. I don’t feel I know that part of your life at all. I want to be there for you, for all of it, the good and the bad. But I do understand that you don’t want to share or relive all of that.’
She didn’t totally understand but she did respect that he might not want to talk about his childhood.
‘I love you,’ Willow went on. ‘I know we’ve known each other for such a short amount of time and I don’t expect you to feel the same way but I do, I love you. I held Garry back from finding happiness for so long, he was miserable with me and I don’t want that for you. I want you to be happy even if you find that happiness with someone else.’
He frowned. He opened his mouth but she quickly spoke.
‘Personally I don’t think you would find happiness with Morgan either. You said sex was empty with her and sex should never be like that. Sex should be magnificent. I’ve had some good sex and some great sex and some pretty crappy sex in my life and I never knew that really it should be magnificent. Not until I came here and you set the bar so impossibly high that I don’t ever want anything less than magnificent from now on. And you should aim for that too. Happiness is the most important thing in a relationship, but a part of that is sexual compatibility.’
She was waffling now.
‘I’m sorry that I thought you had been boasting about us behind my back. I know you wouldn’t do that, I don’t know why I would think that.’
‘Because Morgan deliberately made it sound like that. It sounded bad to my ears and I knew what we had been talking about. I think she has a bit of a twisted sense of humour, she likes winding people up. And you’re right about one thing, Morgan is not someone I could be happy with. Sex should be magnificent, just like it was for me last night. But you’re wrong about something else you said.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I do feel the same way.’
Her heart exploded to life in her chest.
He signed something, pointing to his chest, holding his hands over his heart and then pointing at her.
Her breath was racing like she’d just been for a run. She didn’t know any sign language but even she could work that out.
‘Just to be clear, that means I love you,’ Andrew said.
She let out a heavy wobbly breath and he moved closer, wrapping his large hands round her waist. She looked up at him as he bent his head to kiss her. ‘I love you Willow McKay.’
She reached up and kissed him and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
She pulled back to look at him. ‘You really do?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know how utterly ridiculous this is?’
He laughed. ‘Yes, it’s crazy, but I suppose love does that to you.’
She kissed him again, laughing against his lips as tears ran down her cheeks.
The kiss turned very heated, very quickly, as they grabbed at each other with greedy hands. He lifted her and sat her on the table, standing between her legs as he started kissing her neck, and she suddenly realised that they were in full view of anyone walking past.
‘Wait,’ Willow said as Andrew pulled down the strap of her dress, trailing kisses down her shoulder.
He looked up at her in confusion.
‘Not here. I have a storeroom out the back. It even has a desk.’
‘Works for me,’ Andrew said, lifting her off the table.
She wrapped her legs around him and laughed against his lips as he carried her straight into the storeroom and kicked the door closed behind him. He placed her down on the desk and this time he wasn’t slow as he’d been the night before when he’d made love to her in her bed. This was just a desperate need and it turned her on so much to know she had this effect on him. He made very quick work of her clothes as she struggled to get him out of his. He was kissing and touching everywhere, pausing for just a second to tear open a condom, and then he was inside her, his hands tight on her hips, her legs wrapped around him as he moved against her faster and harder. Th
at feeling started to build inside her already as she clung to his shoulders. He rolled her back gently so she was lying on the desk as he kissed her.
‘I love you,’ Andrew said.
‘I love you too,’ Willow said as her body trembled in his arms. He watched her fall apart and then he kissed her hard, groaning against her lips.
* * *
Willow was just finishing painting some flowers in the corner of a shop sign that was now painted a beautiful shade of royal blue when Ruby came sauntering down the high street towards her, carrying a large bag. The sun was out and Ruby was wearing a bright turquoise dress but she had the biggest smile on her face. It seemed that the effect of Happiness had already cast its spell on her friend.
‘Hey, Rubes, how was your morning?’ Willow said, climbing down the ladder. She felt bad that her friend had been stuck in the hotel room all morning because of the weather, but Ruby didn’t seem too bothered by it.
‘Oh it was fine, I had stuff to do, so it’s been good,’ Ruby said, vaguely.
Willow looked at her friend wondering what she wasn’t saying. She was just about to ask her when Ruby spoke.
‘How was your morning?’
Willow let out a heavy breath. ‘Well, I had a stupid row with Andrew, spoke to Kitty and Ken about my idea that the villagers should make gifts for the open day, had amazing make-up sex with Andrew, made some candles, painted some shopfronts, so it’s been a busy day.’
Ruby laughed. ‘That does sound like a busy morning. What on earth did you row with Andrew about?’
‘Oh, it was nothing really, but mainly it was down to Morgan causing trouble again.’
‘I haven’t even met this woman yet and I don’t like her,’ Ruby said.
‘I don’t particularly like her either,’ Willow said. ‘But I think a large part of that is jealousy that she has all this history with him and not just sexual history. She’s Andrew’s friend and he might want to keep in touch with her once she finishes her work here. If that’s the case I’m going to have to try to be friends with her too.’
‘So you have to play nice?’
Willow thought about it. ‘Nice might be pushing it, but I certainly don’t want to be nasty.’
‘Well fortunately for me, I don’t have any such scruples or restrictions on the way I should behave around her,’ Ruby said.
‘Rubes, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me. Don’t make things worse.’
Ruby clearly thought about it.
‘OK, but if you want her disposed of, I could make that happen, just say the word.’
Willow laughed at the sudden gangster approach to solving the problem. ‘Anyway, did you bring the lights?’
‘I did, well these are some of them, I have two more bags in my car. But we can make a start with these. What kind of effect are you looking for?’
‘I think just strings of lights draped over the top of the high street, kind of zigzagging over the road between the houses and shops. We don’t want it to look Christmassy, more… like a party.’
‘Are you asking me to be subtle with the lights, because I’m not sure I have that skill. You know I’m a throw-everything-at-it kind of girl when it comes to decorations.’
Willow laughed. ‘I’m asking you to rein it in slightly.’
Ruby sighed theatrically. ‘Well, as it’s you, we’ll try to keep it…’ she swallowed as if she was going to say something difficult ‘… low key.’
‘I think low key might be a bit much, but maybe we could stretch to… medium key.’
Ruby visibly brightened and plonked the bag on the floor. ‘Let me show you what I’ve got.’
* * *
Willow sat next to Kitty and Ken in the pub nervously watching all the villagers arrive. Kitty had told her there had only been one village meeting since Kitty and Ken had taken over the castle and that had been purely for the purpose of introducing themselves. The villagers were probably wondering what was going on.
She watched them all, a hum of excited chatter as people talked about the mystery presents that had been delivered the night before.
Andrew came back from the packed bar with drinks for them all.
‘Have you decided what you’re going to say yet?’ he asked, taking a sip of his beer. ‘Are you going to out us as the mystery gift-givers?’
‘No, I don’t think so. There are still quite a few villagers who haven’t received a present yet. It would be a shame to spoil the mystery for them, although most of them have probably guessed by now.’
Ken stood up and tried to do a head count although people were milling about so it was pretty hard to do. He turned back to Kitty. ‘I think everyone is here.’
Kitty stood up and banged her spoon against her coffee mug to get everyone’s attention. The pub went silent as everyone looked over in their direction.
‘Thank you all for coming today.’ Kitty spoke in a clear confident voice. She was obviously someone used to public speaking. ‘I know some of you have been the lucky recipient of a mystery gift. I myself was given the gift of a lovely scarf and I’d like to personally thank whoever left that for me. I know some of you have your suspicions over who the gift-giver is, but I also know that the gifts haven’t just been given by one or two people. Lots of you in the village have embraced this idea and given gifts of your own. Over the last few days, this village has grown into a community, filled with people who care about each other, and it’s been a lovely thing to see.’
There were murmurs of agreement around the pub, people smiling at each other, and, for the first time, Willow could really see that she had achieved what she had set out to do. Even if this spirit only lasted a few weeks, she had brought happiness back to Happiness. She felt a warm glow inside at that thought.
‘I’m sure you are all aware that we have the open day coming up very soon and Willow has had an idea to help the visitors see this wonderful camaraderie and see Happiness as a home. Willow, would you like to say a few words?’
Andrew gave her hand an encouraging squeeze as Willow got to her feet.
‘The gift-giving has been a great success so far and those of you who have given gifts to your friends and neighbours, thank you for embracing the spirit of this.’
‘Is it you?’ Julia blurted out. ‘Are you the gift-giver?’
Willow stalled, not having expected to have questions shouted out at her.
‘Are we all going to get a gift?’ someone at the back of the room shouted.
‘How do we thank our gift-giver if we don’t know who it is?’ someone else called out.
‘What’s the reason behind the gifts?’
‘I, erm… I do know who some of the gift-givers are. And I do know that the gifts were only given with the best intentions. I also know that all of you will get a gift. We had an idea for the open day,’ Willow hurriedly tried to get the conversation back on track. ‘We thought that as you are enjoying the gifts so much that the visitors on the open day would enjoy receiving a Happiness gift too. And we would like you all to get involved. We thought that you might like to make little gifts for our visitors, maybe some knitted things, or wooden toys, plants, sweets, cakes. I will be making little candles to give away on the open day. It doesn’t have to be something big or time-consuming, but we were hoping you might want to contribute twenty or so little gifts each. We thought that the visitors could all be given a voucher as they arrive, which they could exchange for one free Happiness gift of their choosing. We could have tables near the main entrance to the village and people can take their gift before exploring the village and the castle.’ She paused. ‘What do you think?’
There was silence for a few moments and then everyone started shouting out questions and comments all at once. Willow had no idea if they were good comments or not.
Kitty stood back up and quietened everyone down with a wave of her hands.
‘We want to hear your thoughts and ideas, we really do, but can we just start off by taking a quick vote? Th
ere is no point discussing it further if most of you don’t want to do it. Can you raise your hand if you think it’s a good idea and you would like to contribute?’
Willow smiled at Kitty’s no-nonsense, get-straight-to-the-heart-of-the-matter attitude.
There were a few murmurs and whispers and then slowly hands started to rise. Willow quickly started to count, hoping at least for a majority even if it wasn’t unanimous. One, two, three… she stopped as the hands were being lifted faster than she could count until everyone in the village was raising their hand. Every single person.
She couldn’t help smiling at Andrew in relief.
‘That’s fantastic, thank you,’ Kitty said. ‘Let’s start off with the basics first then we can get a bit more specialised in a moment. If we can start taking down some names then my able assistant will start to make a list.’
Ken cheerfully waved his notebook and pen and the villagers laughed.
‘So cakes are always going to be popular – cupcakes would be good rather than big giant slabs of cake. Who would like to make those?’
A few hands shot up and Ken wrote them down.
‘Cookies anyone?’ Kitty prompted and again a few more hands shot up.
‘OK, kids’ toys next, we want all the children to have something too. Any ideas?’
‘I could make some wooden shields and swords for the boys,’ Joseph suggested.
‘And girls,’ Kitty said. ‘We don’t want any gender stereotypes here.’
‘No,’ Joseph cleared his throat. ‘Of course not. My granddaughter is a right little tomboy. She loves playing knights as much as she loves being a princess. But maybe I could make some glittery magic wands too for those girls and boys that like a bit of sparkle in their role playing.’
‘That sounds like a wonderful idea.’
‘I could make some knitted bears,’ Mary piped up. ‘In non-gender-stereotype colours of course.’
Everyone laughed.
Pretty soon everyone was piping up with suggestions and Ken was having a hard time writing it all down.
The Little Village of Happiness: A gorgeous uplifting romantic comedy to escape with this summer Page 23