Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘Will you be punished?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘They’ll ban you from having days off maybe? Official ones, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not sure. It wouldn’t be much of a punishment anyway – when I do have days off I don’t do a lot with them, not unless I go home and I can’t do that at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ Darcie said. ‘I meant…’

  ‘If I did get a day off, maybe I could come and see you?’ he asked, seeming to read her thoughts.

  She blushed. ‘If you didn’t have anything else to do. Although I’d understand if you didn’t want to or you didn’t have time—’

  ‘I’d really like to,’ he said. ‘In better circumstances than this too, I hope.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘I’d love that.’ Her mind went back to the decision she’d made to go home after Christmas. Maybe there was a reason to stay for a while after all.

  The moment was broken by the bleeping of her phone from the table. She didn’t have to check it to know who it was, and then she remembered that she had already made arrangements to see Nathan again. How could she forget him? And what kind of person was she to forget him as soon as Tariq appeared? But where she had felt Nathan was someone perhaps worth taking a chance on, she felt more certain of Tariq, and she was sure that giving her heart to him would be a safer place for it. She could be terribly wrong, of course, but the conviction was there all the same.

  Dylan and Millie returned to the room. Dylan looked at Tariq. ‘Ready to go?’

  Darcie watched as Millie folded her arms and pursed her lips. It was clear she wasn’t happy about the arrangement and that she was allowing Dylan to take Tariq back under duress, so whatever argument they’d had in the kitchen, she’d lost.

  Tariq rose from his chair.

  ‘Wait!’ Darcie said suddenly. She ran to the counter, pulling a notepad and pen from a drawer. A few seconds later she ran to Tariq and handed him a sheet of paper. ‘You don’t have to feel alone. If you ever want to talk, well…’ She blushed again. ‘That’s my phone number.’

  He took the page with a smile. Darcie glanced across at Millie to see her exchange a half-amused look with Dylan, who didn’t seem nearly so entertained. If he had disapproved of Nathan, he was probably going to have major issues with Tariq but, for the first time ever, she didn’t really care what Dylan thought.

  ‘Thank you, again,’ Tariq said, looking from Darcie to Millie.

  Dylan went over and touched his arm to lead him out. He turned to Millie. ‘Lock up when we’ve gone and don’t let anyone in. I have my keys.’

  ‘How long will you be?’ Millie asked.

  Dylan glanced at the snowy window. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can be. I don’t want to stay out in this any longer than I have to. And I still have that bloody Christmas wrapping to do.’

  ‘That’s what comes of leaving things to the last-minute,’ Millie said with a faint smile.

  ‘You know me – it’s the only way I know how to do things. See you later.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Millie said.

  He nodded. And then they were gone.

  ‘Tori! Let them go if they want to…’ Spencer reached for her arm as she stood to follow her parents to the cab waiting outside the restaurant. She spun around to face him.

  ‘I’m leaving with them because you need to talk to your parents about acceptable boundaries,’ she hissed. ‘My folks are trying their best but yours aren’t doing a damn thing to get along!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Spencer! I’ve had enough!’

  Spencer’s arm dropped to his side. ‘So we’re in the wrong again? Figures…’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Your parents are narrow-minded snobs. If they can’t even enter into an intelligent discussion where opinions different than theirs are aired without getting upset, then they must be. Why do your parents get to have the only opinion that matters?’

  ‘My parents don’t insult people when they express their opinions!’

  ‘Neither do mine!’

  ‘Lewis called my dad a misguided fool! How is that not an insult?’

  Spencer raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Ok. Maybe he got a bit emotional at that point, but your dad drove him to that, being so pig-headed about everything. He might as well have stuck his fingers in his ears and started singing!’

  ‘Spencer,’ Tori said, lowering her voice and glancing around at the packed restaurant. It was decorated with sumptuous red and gold and strung with paper lanterns, a tiny Christmas tree perched on the bar the only concession to the season, ‘people are starting to stare at us. I don’t want a scene, I just want to go back to the Dog and Hare with my mom and dad.’

  ‘And not come back to my house?’ Spencer asked.

  Tori paused. ‘I have a lot of thinking to do.’

  ‘About us?’

  She sighed. ‘Maybe this is just more difficult than we thought – you and me. There’s so much against us and right now it feels like too much.’

  ‘We never thought it was going to be easy.’

  ‘But it shouldn’t have to feel like a war.’

  ‘I love you! You love me, right?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t that be enough?’

  ‘No, Spencer, it isn’t. Love is never enough because sooner or later the love takes a back seat and you have to think about rent and your job and how you raise your kids. Love will take you so far but it’s not enough.’

  ‘You’re saying there’s no future with me?’

  ‘I’m saying I need to think.’ A car horn sounded from outside. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘You can’t just leave without talking this through!’

  ‘I can and I am. Right now.’

  ‘Tori!’

  ‘Spencer, stop. This is not the time or place.’

  ‘It bloody well is! We need to talk and I won’t let you go until we do!’

  She held him in a stony gaze. ‘You want to talk? Why don’t you go and find Jasmine?’

  ‘What? Now you’re being ridiculous!’

  ‘No more than you.’

  ‘I thought we’d cleared up the Jasmine thing.’

  ‘Me too. But maybe it’s just a symptom of a dying relationship we ought to be taking more notice of.’

  ‘Tori, please… I don’t want you to go – not like this!’

  She was silent for a moment, and he wondered if she might relent. But then she reached up and placed a brief kiss on his cheek. ‘Goodbye, Spencer.’

  He watched as she pushed open the glass doors of the restaurant and disappeared into the night. Something had broken, and this time it felt unfixable. If he had stopped her from leaving the restaurant, maybe he could have saved what they had. But his stupid pride had got in the way and now all felt lost, as if letting her leave had fired her so far from his orbit that they would never be right again. She would go back to the Dog and Hare and she would talk to her parents, and she would decide not to come back to his house that night. It was only a small step from that to never coming back at all. She would fly back to Colorado with her parents instead of him and then she would be gone.

  He turned and made his way back to the table, where his parents silently watched him. Perhaps Tori was right – perhaps they were too different to ever make it work and had been foolish to think otherwise.

  ‘We’re sorry,’ Jenny said as he sat down.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Spencer said wearily.

  Jenny exchanged a shamefaced look with her husband. ‘We could go and talk to them,’ she said. ‘Clear the air.’

  Spencer shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea tonight. I’m not sure it’s a good idea any night… Mum, I sometimes wonder if Tori and I… well, if I’ve been just a bit too optimistic about our chances together. I mean, straight off the bat there are more barriers than most couples have to get over and that’s without al
l the small stuff that can destroy a marriage.’

  ‘Is that really how you feel?’ Lewis asked.

  Spencer shrugged. He didn’t know what to say, because the only thing he felt right now was numb and defeated, and he couldn’t see a way out of the mess he was creating.

  ‘If it is then you need to think carefully about what you’re doing. You’ve already proposed, but going through with it… that’s not a decision you can take lightly and if you have doubts now—’

  ‘Not about whether I love her, Dad,’ Spencer cut in.

  ‘Any kind of doubts,’ Lewis continued.

  ‘It hasn’t helped that you don’t get on with her parents,’ Spencer muttered.

  ‘We get on with them just fine.’

  ‘You could make an effort to—’

  ‘Agree with their stupid opinions even though we don’t share them? Smile and nod at the ridiculous things they say?’

  ‘Other people do it all the time. It’s called keeping the peace.’

  ‘It’s how dictatorships begin,’ Jenny said. Spencer faced her.

  ‘Seriously, Mum? You’re actually saying that with a straight face? Can you stop being a politics-obsessed academic and be my mum just for one minute of your life? They’re my prospective in-laws, not Joseph Stalin!’

  ‘I don’t see them making an effort.’ Lewis prodded his leftovers with a fork.

  ‘Then you be the bigger man and make the effort,’ Spencer said. ‘Would it kill you?’

  ‘How has a conversation about your doubts become one about our culpability?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Because you’re not exactly making things easier for us! I didn’t have these doubts before this week!’

  Jenny raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? Because I hear something much deeper than just parental differences. Maybe it’s the differences between you and Tori that are really bothering you, and the differences between us just serve to remind you of that.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ Spencer scanned the restaurant, looking for a waiter to bring their bill. He needed to get back to Honeybourne and talk to Tori. He hadn’t wanted to blame his mum and dad for any of this, but they were making it very tempting right now. They were entitled to express their opinions and he would defend that right until the last, but he couldn’t help feeling that they were going out of their way to wind up the Dempseys when they could just as easily retreat for his sake. It was as if they wanted him and Tori to split up. He could understand it coming from the Dempseys, who had always dreamed of some successful, handsome, white-toothed, hotshot lawyer for their daughter instead of a slightly weedy teacher from England – but from his own parents, who professed to like Tori and ought to be going out of their way to ensure their only son’s happiness? He just wanted to escape to the quiet of his own home and lock himself away for an hour to sort his head out and decide what he was going to do next. And perhaps it would be good to talk it through with someone impartial, someone who always said the right thing and whose solutions made perfect sense. Millie. It was always Millie who made things right, and he just hoped he could rely on her this time because he was running out of ideas.

  Darcie watched as Millie paced the floor. She looked at the phone clasped in her hand yet again and then turned her gaze to the window, where the snow cascaded from the sky in heavy flakes.

  ‘Of all the times for his phone to be off, it has to be tonight,’ she muttered. ‘Why the hell would he have his phone off?’

  ‘He’ll be back soon,’ Darcie replied, not at all certain of her prediction but feeling the need to say something soothing. Oscar snuffled in her arms. She’d just got him back to sleep, but it was an uneasy slumber and she didn’t expect it to last long. Millie certainly didn’t have the patience to deal with one of his screaming fits right now so Darcie had kept hold of him, thinking that he was likely to be at least a little calmer with her if he did wake.

  ‘I told him not to go,’ Millie said. ‘He’s always so stupid and stubborn about these things.’

  ‘He was just trying to be kind. He’s a good person and he wanted to help Tariq.’

  ‘What if he’s stuck in the snow? What if he freezes to death out there?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s bad enough for that,’ Darcie replied, not feeling the conviction of this argument either.

  ‘What did he think was going to happen when they got there? Did he think he could sneak Tariq under the fence and nobody would know he’d been gone? What if Dylan’s being questioned by army officers? What if he’s in trouble for taking him back?’

  ‘I don’t see how he could be in trouble for that – he did a good thing.’

  ‘But they might get him for aiding and abetting.’

  ‘Millie…’ Darcie swept a soothing finger along Oscar’s cheek as he stirred. ‘Nobody’s been murdered. I don’t think Dylan will be in trouble for driving him back. Maybe we would have been if we’d let him stay and he’d been found here—’

  ‘I don’t like not being able to get hold of him, it’s driving me mad.’

  ‘I know. How about we call someone else to see if they can get through to his phone? Maybe it’s just your network?’

  ‘Good idea.’ Millie pulled out her phone and scrolled down the list of contacts. She held the handset to her ear and waited. ‘Jasmine,’ she said after a pause, ‘you haven’t heard from Dylan, have you?’

  Darcie listened to Millie’s half of the conversation as she tried as concisely as possible to explain the night’s events. She didn’t keep any of it back – there was no need with Jasmine, who was as sensible with secrets as she needed to be. Millie nodded tensely during each pause in her flow of conversation, and after a couple of minutes she ended the call. She turned to reply to Darcie’s silent question.

  ‘Rich can’t go out, he’s been drinking, but Jasmine hasn’t had anything yet so she’s going to take the car and pick me up. We’ll have a drive along the road to Larkhill and see if we can spot Dylan’s car.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit dangerous in this weather?’ Darcie asked, a new sense of alarm building inside her at the thought of being alone in the house again with Oscar while Millie battled the elements and possibly ended up just as stuck as Dylan apparently was.

  ‘We don’t have a lot of choice.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Darcie asked.

  ‘You’re already doing it. Please just keep Oscar calm and we’ll be back as soon as we can.’

  Darcie chewed her lip as she pondered her responses to this. She could see the logic in the plan, but she didn’t like it one bit, and she couldn’t help feeling that it might make a bad situation twenty times worse. Instead of two people lost in the snow, there would be four, and two of them would be mothers who were very much needed.

  ‘Why don’t I go with Jasmine? You should be home with Oscar – he’s much happier with his mum than he is with me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to go out in this.’

  ‘I know but if you’re positive that someone needs to then I think it should be me.’

  Millie was thoughtful for a moment. ‘If you’re worried about being on your own here I could get someone to come over and stay with you? Or you could stay at Jasmine’s place with Rich?’

  ‘But then what if Dylan got back and there was nobody here?’

  Millie was about to reply when her phone rang. ‘Hey, Spencer… Now’s not really a great time unless you can tell me where my boyfriend is.’

  Darcie listened again to a second tense exchange as Millie explained Dylan’s mission and the lack of phone contact. When she eventually locked her phone, she turned to Darcie with a faint smile. ‘Good old Spencer. Luckily for us he hasn’t had much to drink tonight so he’s coming right over.’

  ‘I though he was out having a meal in Winchester?’

  ‘So did I, but I don’t think it went to plan. I expect we’ll find out later. First we need to get Dylan back.’

  ‘Do you think it was a good idea to tell him about Tariq?’
r />   ‘I would trust Spencer with my life – he won’t tell anyone about it. And it’s only fair if we’re asking for his help that he knows everything. If Tariq is still with Dylan, he would have found out for himself anyway.’

  ‘What about Jasmine?’

  ‘The same goes for Jasmine – she can be trusted. And there’s no way she won’t come over now, even if I tell her Spencer is, so we might as well let her. But at least someone will be able to stay here with you until the other two get back.’

  ‘I’d have been alright,’ Darcie said feeling a little shamefaced at her lack of courage.

  ‘I know.’ Millie gave her a tight smile. ‘But I’d feel better knowing you weren’t alone with Oscar. It’s alright for an hour while we sing carols but for anything longer we know he can be a handful.’

  ‘Jasmine seems to cope alright.’

  ‘Jasmine has a lot more experience, don’t forget. And I think she might have some secret mum superhero power or something – she must have to keep those triplets in line the way she does.’ Millie started towards the kitchens. ‘I’m going to make a flask of hot coffee with sugar. If anyone is stuck out there they’ll be freezing and I might need to warm them up.’

  Darcie stared after her. It sounded like Millie was almost fearing the worst, and surely things couldn’t be that bad? She hurried after her with Oscar still dozing in her arms. ‘Maybe they’re just having to drive really slowly in the snow?’ she ventured.

  Millie turned to her. ‘Of course they are,’ she said with forced brightness. ‘But I want to be prepared.’

  It took ten minutes for Jasmine to arrive, but after another five there was still no Spencer. Millie had put Oscar to bed, and she and Jasmine agreed that they would go on without Spencer and he could stay with Darcie. While Darcie was relieved to have some company, she had been hoping it would be someone she knew a little better. Things were tense enough without having to make small talk with a man she’d only met a couple of brief times. But then she was saved by a light tap on the front door.

  ‘Sorry, had to make sure the parents were ok before I came across. They wanted to come and help but I didn’t think there was any point and if we have to pick up Dylan for any reason in our car it’s sort of defeating the object if the car is full already. You’ve no idea how difficult Mum can make an argument when she wants to, though.’ Spencer kicked snow from his shoes at the threshold before stepping in. ‘It’s awful out there now too. Seriously treacherous to drive in.’