by Heidi Swain
The image came back to me with alarming clarity. I had been wearing my work uniform, my go-to professional outfit. Work, I reminded myself.
‘Don’t,’ I said, the bubble suddenly bursting and my legs loosening their grip as common sense kicked in. ‘Don’t say it.’
‘Why not?’ he groaned, kissing me again, as his hands worked their way beneath my clothes. ‘I mean it, Anna. I’ve fallen—’
‘No!’ I said, louder this time and forcefully pushing him away.
He rocked back and straightened up, looking down at me as I scrambled to sit up.
‘I know you feel the same,’ he said, the heat still in his eyes and his breathing shallow in his chest. ‘Don’t you?’
‘No,’ I said, looking everywhere but at him as I readjusted my clothes and checked my hair for tell-tale strands of straw. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure.’
Almost every part of me was thrilled and flattered that Jamie Connelly lusted after and possibly even loved me, every bit as much as I lusted after and loved him, but what if starting up with him ended as quickly as it had begun? Were the feelings I thought I had for him worth risking the future I was being offered by his family? If our relationship turned out to be just a fling then I would have to leave after it was flung, and if by then I’d set my heart on staying I didn’t think I would be able to bear it. After all, my heart had been compromised before and look how that had turned out. The outcome might not have been my fault but the heartbreak was still mine to carry around.
‘What is it that you want, Anna?’ Jamie asked.
He sounded as confused as I felt.
‘I’m sorry,’ I told him, ‘but right now I have absolutely no idea.’
I guess deep down I wanted to have my cake and eat it. I wanted Jamie and the family and the dream job. I wanted the fairy-tale ending, but fairy-tale endings didn’t happen to girls like me. A second-time-around family had turned out all wrong, so why would it be third time lucky?
Jamie didn’t say anything but went back to searching for the parcels his father was proving so adept at hiding.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, pulling the emotion out of my tone and trying to sound more in control than I felt. ‘The last thing I want is for you to think I’m messing you around.’
‘I don’t,’ he said, turning back to me and pulling a strand of straw that I had missed out of my ponytail. ‘It’s fine. I should never have kissed you – it was completely inappropriate.’
He was right, it was. It was the most unprofessional few seconds I had ever encountered in my entire career, but it was also the most thrilling. Just the thought of his weight on top of me sent shivers up and down my spine and made me want to risk doing it all over again. And more.
‘But if you knew,’ he continued, looking at me just a little too intently, ‘if you really knew how hard it is for me to keep my hands off you. How hard it’s been for me ever since that moment you walked into the kitchen the first day I was back.’
I wished he’d stop saying ‘hard’. The word was doing nothing to strengthen my resolve to keep the tiny distance there was between us. I opened my mouth to admit that I really did feel the same way but changed my mind at the last moment.
‘Look,’ I said instead. ‘It isn’t that I’m not flattered.’
Jamie narrowed his eyes.
‘But?’
‘But I have to look at the bigger picture,’ I swallowed. ‘My professionalism is on the line here. I’ve worked for years to build up my reputation and I can’t afford to jeopardise it, just on a . . .’
‘On a what?’ he frowned.
I opened my mouth to answer but was distracted by a sound from below. Jamie took the opportunity to cut in.
‘I do get that you’re scared,’ he said, taking a step back as someone began to climb the ladder to the hayloft, ‘but I just wanted you to know how I really feel about you. I thought it might help you make up your mind. That it might make all the difference, you know?’
‘I’m sorry Jamie,’ I said huskily. ‘But I just can’t take the risk.’
I didn’t have time to think about what he might have said to that because Angus’s head popped up comically through the hatch. Jamie might have kissed me with the intention of showing his true feelings but I was relieved to have nipped the steamy moment in the bud, even if it was belatedly.
‘I thought I heard voices,’ smiled my employer. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, Dad,’ Jamie sighed as he surreptitiously checked his own hair for stray straw. ‘Everything’s fine. We were just checking out the space up here, trying to get a feel for how it would work when it’s converted into bedrooms.’
Angus nodded and we all looked around. There was certainly enough room for four or five small bedrooms, assuming permission was granted for the conversion and research proved there was a demand for such a charity. Personally I had no doubts at all that it was a fantastic idea, but I also knew it would take a lot of logistical untangling, planning and managing. It didn’t take much for me to imagine myself standing next to Jamie and helping to run the place.
‘It’s perfect really, isn’t it?’ said Angus as he struggled to his feet and strode about, pacing out the space. ‘Especially with the stables down below. That double stall at the far end would make a cracking games room if it was cleared out.’
‘And there you’ve hit the nail on the head, Dad,’ said Jamie sternly. It sounded very much as if his frustration with me was now being directed at his father.
‘What do you mean?’
‘All that junk you’ve accumulated from car boot sales—’
‘Junk!’ Angus shot back, sounding outraged.
‘Yes, Dad,’ Jamie frowned, shaking his head. ‘Junk. It will all have to go.’
Angus puffed out his cheeks and his shoulders slumped.
‘I suppose it’s about time I had a good clear-out,’ he relented a little sulkily as he looked out of the window at the set of stocks I had spotted the very first day I arrived. ‘Perhaps we could have a sale?’ he suggested, sounding much more like his old self. ‘And any money raised could form the beginnings of the charity fund.’
‘I think it’s going to take more than a few quid raised from passing on a load of old tat, Dad,’ said Jamie without thinking.
‘But it’s a great suggestion,’ I quickly cut in before Angus felt mortally offended or was put off the idea and jumped to working out how he could squeeze everything into the already packed loft rooms in the hall.
‘Yes I suppose it is,’ said Jamie a little begrudgingly as he finally caught my meaningful stare. ‘It would be one way to kick-start the project and generate some publicity.’
‘Perhaps the radio would feature us,’ said Angus wistfully, looking into the middle distance, ‘or even the local TV!’
‘Well,’ said Jamie uncertainly, ‘I’m not sure about that.’
‘And I bet there’s some real gems hidden here and about,’ said Angus, his eyes lighting up even brighter. ‘I bet the guy who does those quirky features for the BBC would love to come and have a look.’
Personally I wasn’t quite so convinced, but it sounded like Angus had found a new pet project, and if it took his focus away from the town sleigh, even if just for a while, then I was more than happy for him to let his imagination run away with him.
The air between Jamie and me was a little frosty after our intimate encounter, but with Angus none too keen on the idea of the pair of us sorting through the junk/gems in some of the stables, and us having made a calculated guess that that was most likely where the parcels were hidden, we had agreed to stick together and muddle on, even if we were back to working on a more formal footing.
That evening, after watching the hilarious US festive film Deck the Halls, we decided that we would leave Angus to his own devices for now. We also decided that, with Christmas creeping closer every day, we would have to put the charity plans on the back burner until the New Year, along with my decision
about whether I should stay or go.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ Jamie mumbled as we walked back to our neighbouring bedrooms that night. ‘I don’t know why I got it into my head that telling you how I feel and kissing you like that would help.’
‘Well, no harm done,’ I shrugged, trying to make light of what had happened, even though I hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
‘But for a minute there,’ he reminded me, making me turn as crimson as Santa’s trousers, ‘you weren’t exactly fighting me off.’
‘Well of course I wasn’t,’ I laughed, rolling my eyes and shaking my head with the intention of convincing him that it was no big deal. ‘You’re a handsome guy, James Connelly, and a girl knows a good thing when it’s pressed up against her.’
The connotation made me flush even redder, but it seemed to do the trick. Jamie laughed along with me and I carried on, keen to hammer home the point.
‘And having seen you kiss Hayley under the mistletoe I was kind of expecting you’d work your way to me, to be honest.’
‘But that wasn’t how it was at all,’ he interrupted as the laughter died on his lips. ‘I meant every word of what I said, or what I was trying to say.’
‘Well, whatever,’ I smiled. ‘A single girl has to make the most of every mistletoe moment that comes her way at this time of year.’
I was trying to diffuse the tension, but Jamie’s embarrassed expression suggested I had failed miserably.
‘Do you really mean that, Anna?’
‘Of course,’ I lied.
‘Well in that case,’ he shrugged, turning as red as I had been just seconds before, ‘we really won’t say another word about it.’
His abrupt ending to the conversation left me in no doubt that he really had got the message, and been hurt in the process, and although I regretted having to deceive him, and myself, I knew deep down that it was all for the best.
Chapter 20
Jamie and I did our best to stay out of each other’s way during the next couple of days and the slight chill that had developed between us didn’t go unnoticed.
‘So, what’s all this about you guys setting up some charity together?’ gushed Hayley when she returned to work after some unusual time off at home in bed nursing a nasty head cold.
The hall had been quiet without her and I had thought I had been missing her bubbly, brash presence until she marched in and made the awkwardness between Jamie and me one hundred times worse.
Jamie shrugged in response to her questioning as he stacked his breakfast dishes next to the sink, but he didn’t answer her.
‘Well,’ she huffed. ‘I’m pleased to see it’s got you all fired up because for a while there we thought you might not have anything to keep you occupied once you’d decided to leave all that charitable work behind and take over here.’
‘Anna will tell you,’ he said, sounding peevish. ‘And we are all fired up. We’re just a bit too busy with Christmas and everything to give it much thought right now.’
‘What’s got into him?’ she sniffed, even before he was out of earshot. ‘Has something happened between you two?’
She turned her slightly puffy but still kohl-outlined eyes in my direction.
‘I bloody knew you fancied him!’ she said, sounding smug. ‘The look on your face after I kissed him in the woods proved it and I knew it would only be a matter of time.’
‘Nothing has happened,’ I hissed back.
‘You’re lying,’ she carried on in a sing-song voice.
‘And no,’ I went on, trying my best to look her in the eye, ‘I don’t fancy him.’
She sauntered over to a cupboard and pulled out her plastic crate full of cleaning products, along with an extendable feather duster which she then wafted in my direction.
‘Carry on like that,’ she said mockingly, ‘and you’ll end up with a nose long enough to rival Pinocchio!’
I didn’t have long to worry about Hayley making the awkward situation worse, or to wallow in my nerves about meeting the rest of the family, who were due to arrive that weekend, because within the next few minutes Angus managed to put himself squarely back at the top of my list of priorities.
‘What’s he done now?’ I asked, as Catherine rushed into the kitchen clutching a note and wearing a worried expression.
I had soon learned to recognise her furrowed brow that heralded an ‘Angus problem’.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, briefly scanning the paper again before passing it to me. ‘What do you make of it?’
I didn’t have a chance to make anything of it because Jamie walked in and plucked the note from my grasp. He shook his head as he read it, then screwed it into a tight ball and tossed it in the bin.
Catherine looked from Jamie to me, then back again.
‘Well,’ she said, sounding as cross as it was possible for her to sound. ‘I can’t see how that is going to help us.’
‘He says he’s gone out,’ Jamie shrugged. ‘So he’s gone out. I’m certainly not going to go chasing around after him, Mum, and you shouldn’t either,’ he said, nodding at me.
‘But he hasn’t taken the car,’ Catherine tried to explain.
‘Don’t you have friends visiting later today?’ Jamie reminded her. ‘Friends you haven’t seen for months and who you’ve been looking forward to catching up with?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Then in that case you should be grateful for the peace and quiet.’
Catherine didn’t look so sure.
‘He’ll turn up, Mum,’ Jamie said, his tone more forgiving as he planted a token kiss on her cheek and grabbed his jacket before calling to Mick. ‘He always does.’
He and Mick headed outside and Dorothy looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
‘Do you want me to have a scout about outside and see if I can find him?’ I offered.
After all, it was more my responsibility to put her mind at rest than anyone else’s.
‘I don’t mind,’ I told her.
‘No, it’s fine,’ she said, looking over at the bin and the crumpled note. ‘I daresay Jamie’s right. Angus is a big boy now. He really should be capable of looking after himself.’
‘As long as you’re sure.’
‘I am,’ she said firmly. ‘Why don’t you run Dorothy into Wynbridge? You said there were a few things you needed to collect ahead of the weekend, didn’t you, dear?’
‘I did,’ said Dorothy, waving a couple of lists in my direction.
‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to get all that in my little Fiat,’ I said, trying to focus on the reams of writing.
‘Take the Land Rover then,’ said Catherine, nodding at the keys in the fruit bowl. ‘At least with it gone I’ll know Angus is somewhere on site.’
The journey into Wynbridge was a real treat. The elevated position of the Land Rover gave a far better view of the landscape and I kept pulling over to take in the far-off horizon and frosty fields. Dorothy, who had seen it all before of course, wasn’t quite so thrilled with the slow progress.
‘Am I not right in thinking,’ she tutted when I pulled over for the third time, ‘that you’ve been out and about in this thing with Jamie? And that you had a lift in it the night of the switch-on before he was even back?’
‘You are right,’ I told her, as I pointed out a hare that had darted out from a ditch and was streaking across the furrow, ‘but you hit the nail on the head.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve only been out at night, when it’s dark.’
‘Shame you weren’t about in July then,’ she sniffed. ‘We’d be getting on far quicker.’
I drove straight into town after that, lest I really got in Dorothy’s bad books and she thought about skimping on my portion sizes.
The little town was as busy as ever and I had barely parked before she was snatching up her shopping bags and opening the door.
‘Market first,’ she announced, playing fast and loose with the rule
s of road safety as she set her sights on Chris Dempster’s fruit and veg stall.
The man himself was off delivering around the county, but Steve was there, as was his mum, Marie.
‘Why ever didn’t you ring the house?’ she asked Dorothy, who wasted no time in manhandling the produce. ‘You know Chris will always fit a stop at Wynthorpe Hall into his rounds.’
‘Especially if a slice of your fruitcake is on offer,’ Steve chipped in with a wink.
Dorothy began selecting what she wanted and passing it to Marie to bag up.
‘This is just a few extra bits and bobs I wanted to pick for myself,’ she explained, before hastily adding, ‘not that there’s ever anything wrong with what you send.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ said Steve, pretending to be offended.
‘Ignore him,’ said Marie, sensing Dorothy’s discomfiture. ‘And introduce me to this lovely young lady.’
‘This is Anna,’ said Dorothy.
‘Of course,’ Marie smiled. ‘I’ve heard all about you, my dear. How are you settling into life at the hall? Not always for the fainthearted, is it? What with that exasperating Mr Toad to contend with!’
I didn’t say anything. I don’t think she was expecting an answer. Her questions were more statements of fact, from what I could make out.
‘Are you all set for Christmas then?’ she asked, turning her attention back to Dorothy.
‘I think so,’ said Dorothy thoughtfully as together she and Marie loaded up the bags she held out before passing them to me to carry.
‘Here,’ said Steve, rushing forward. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Organised enough to come to the wreath-making tomorrow anyway,’ Dorothy added. ‘I’m looking forward to it, and Mick has picked some more lovely greenery for me to bring along.’
‘What’s this?’ I asked, transferring a heavy bag from one hand to the other.
‘You should come along,’ said Marie, with a kind smile. ‘The more the merrier, eh, Dorothy?’
‘What a good idea,’ said Dorothy. ‘How are your floristry skills, Anna?’
