Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘That’s ok, you can stay with Darcie,’ Jasmine said.

  Spencer blinked. ‘Surely it’s better that Millie stays? After all, what will I do if Oscar wakes up? You might as well hand me a live grenade as a baby. I thought that was the idea.’

  ‘I want to go,’ Millie said. ‘It’ll drive me mad if I have to wait around much longer.’

  ‘I know but it makes sense that you stay here,’ Spencer insisted.

  Millie opened her mouth to reply but Jasmine spoke first.

  ‘Maybe Spencer does have a point. I can look after Oscar but it makes sense for you to be here if you can.’

  ‘I think so,’ Darcie agreed. ‘I can look after Oscar too but when he gets really awkward he only wants his mum.’

  Millie let out a sigh. Clearly she knew that the argument was valid, even if she didn’t like it. ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘But please be careful out there.’

  Spencer nodded and turned to Jasmine. ‘The sooner we get going the sooner we can be back.’

  There was a faint whimper from the baby monitor. Millie gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Sounds like I’m needed elsewhere.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jasmine said. ‘Knowing my idiot brother he’s probably driven into a snow bank or something and doesn’t have a shovel in the car to dig himself out. We’ll be back in no time.’

  Millie smiled tightly. ‘Of course… You’re probably right.’

  It was frustratingly slow going on the roads. Nobody had been prepared for this amount of snow to fall and no precautions had been taken by the local authorities. That, coupled with the almost total darkness on the smaller roads, deeper drifts deceptively hidden in hollows, made Spencer feel that they would have made better progress walking.

  ‘At this rate we’ll be home for Boxing Day lunch.’ Spencer was hunched over the steering wheel, peering through the windscreen as he tried to get a fix on the road ahead, only the occasional flash of a flimsy steel wire fence keeping him from going off course completely. ‘What was Dylan thinking, driving out in this?’

  ‘He does have his moments of supreme stupidity,’ Jasmine agreed. ‘Although he’s better than ever with Millie we can’t expect her to perform miracles with him.’

  ‘Not yet, anyway. I imagine us men take a lifetime to train.’

  ‘And then some,’ Jasmine replied with a wry smile.

  There was a pause filled with the revving of the engine and the whirring of tyres trying to get purchase on the ice and snow.

  ‘Is everything ok with you?’ Spencer asked carefully. Perhaps it wasn’t his place to ask about Jasmine and Rich’s relationship, particularly given his history with the two of them and his apparent feelings for her, but he felt compelled to show that he knew something wasn’t quite right, and that if she wanted to talk, then he was willing to listen.

  ‘Depends on what you think is ok,’ Jasmine said. She let out a sigh. ‘You know better than anyone what it’s like with Rich and me. It’s a spat – it’s nothing really.’

  ‘You don’t sound certain of that.’

  ‘I’m never certain of anything with him these days. We were ok after the… you know, the thing last summer when you told me how you felt about me.’

  Spencer winced at the memory as it dragged old and conflicted feelings to the surface yet again. In a moment of supreme stupidity, during a tense thunderstorm that had almost ended in tragedy, he had not only admitted to Jasmine that he had loved her for years, but he’d told Rich about his feelings for her too. Spencer’s revelation had saved their marriage in a strange way, but so many times since then he had recalled the incident and wished he had kept his feelings to himself. He said nothing about it now, though, and she continued.

  ‘But things did change. It was inevitable that they would. I never assume to know what he’s thinking and feeling anymore and I’m always wondering whether he might be tempted to hurt himself again, but with more meaning. I know it’s daft, and this is Rich we’re talking about, but look what happened to Millie’s ex-boyfriend and she wasn’t expecting that. In moments of desperation, people do terrible things… even some who don’t really mean to.’

  ‘So you feel you have to compromise to keep him happy even when you’re not?’

  ‘No, I feel that it’s more difficult to push an argument I would have once loved having. Our relationship was healthy before, it could stand up to a tempestuous episode or two. But now… I’m never quite as sure.’

  Spencer was thoughtful, his eyes trained on the road ahead. ‘Want to tell me about it? Maybe you’d feel better if you could get it off your chest, and you know I wouldn’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Millie already knows about it…’ She shot a sly sideways glance at him. ‘Don’t tell me she hasn’t already spilled to you… I know how close you two are.’

  Spencer smiled awkwardly. ‘If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about then I do know a little.’

  ‘Then you’ll know it’s an argument that could go around in circles for a long time and probably will if one of us doesn’t back down. The problem is, I can understand his stance, and I wish I didn’t have to be so bloody reasonable about that – it makes it tough to stand my ground.’

  ‘Can he see your point of view as clearly though?’

  ‘It’s Rich we’re talking about. Probably not.’

  ‘You shouldn’t always feel you have to compromise. It will only breed resentment,’ Spencer said, and his mind went back to his own situation with Tori. Did he really believe his own wisdom? Because it didn’t feel like it right now.

  Suddenly, there was a cascade of snow from a tree just ahead, and then a large dark shape crashed to the road. Spencer squeezed on the brakes and after a breath-sapping skid, the car finally came to a halt. Spencer threw a worried glance at Jasmine. ‘Looks like a branch.’ He killed the engine and clambered from the car, Jasmine following. ‘Must have been the weight of the snow,’ he commented as he touched it with the toe of his boot. ‘Broke it clean away from the tree.’

  ‘Can we move it?’ Jasmine asked. ‘It looks massive.’

  ‘We’ll have to try. If Dylan is somewhere ahead on this same road, and even if we don’t get to him, he’s going to need to come back this way. He won’t be doing that if there’s a huge branch blocking the way.’

  Jasmine took hold of one end and Spencer the other and they tried to lift the branch. It inched across the snow but didn’t move nearly as much as one would expect an object travelling across a slippery surface to travel.

  ‘This is going to be tougher than it looks,’ Jasmine said.

  ‘A bit like your fall out with Rich then,’ Spencer said shooting her a wry smile. ‘Again?’

  Jasmine nodded and they gave the branch another shove, but the distance it travelled was tiny once again. ‘I think it’s stuck on something,’ Jasmine said. She looked up and grinned. ‘A bit like me and Rich.’

  Spencer laughed as he straightened up to inspect the problem more thoroughly. ‘Maybe if we can tear off some of those twigs at the top that are snagged on the fence we might loosen it a bit so we can slide it to the side of the road.’

  ‘Typical,’ Jasmine said. ‘The road is like an ice rink when we’re driving but the minute we want it to be slippery it’s rubbish.’ She moved along and started to tug at a smaller branch. ‘This isn’t easy either.’

  ‘You need a bit of weight behind it,’ Spencer grinned as he stamped on one. ‘Take your frustration out on it.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Jasmine said, leaping on the nearest clump of twigs, which collapsed with a satisfying crack. ‘I hope Rich can’t read my thoughts right now.’

  ‘Well, as long as it’s a bit of tree and not his head you’re beating up he can’t complain.’

  ‘He’s lucky this tree decided to cross our path or I might have been driving him to hospital tomorrow instead of cooking turkey for him.’

  Spencer stopped and held her in a frank gaze. ‘It’s that bad?’

  �
�No,’ she replied after a pause. ‘I’m just frustrated.’ She brushed the snow from the log and sat for a moment. Sensing that she was ready to share, Spencer sat alongside her. She looked at him. ‘It’s just a baby. It’s not like I’m asking for the world and he knows how much I love kids. I mean, he loves them too so I don’t see the problem. I bet you’d give me a baby, wouldn’t you?’

  Spencer gave her a half smile. ‘You’ve always known I’d give you anything you asked for.’

  And then it happened. Jasmine leaned over and kissed him. It took a moment for his brain to catch up, and he couldn’t help but melt into it. But then he wrenched away and stared at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jasmine mumbled, leaping from her seat and shuffling backwards. ‘I don’t know why I did that.’

  ‘It’s ok,’ Spencer said. It was strange, but as he processed the event he was calm. For years he had dreamed of kissing Jasmine, but it wasn’t at all how he’d imagined it would be. He hadn’t wanted to grab her and wrestle her to the floor, driven wild with desire, nor had he been intoxicated by the very taste of her. Far from being the moment he’d always dreamed of, and despite the tingle of electricity he had always felt when she was near, the kiss, when it finally came, had just felt very awkward, and it was clear that Jasmine was feeling the same. He got up from his seat and turned to the branch. ‘We should get this out of the way before we become a part of the snow banks ourselves.’

  Jasmine nodded, and if the light had been better, Spencer would have seen that she was blushing furiously.

  They worked in charged silence, only speaking to give the occasional instruction or suggestion as they tried to move the branch, until, eventually, it groaned far enough out of the way to let them pass.

  ‘Why don’t you try Dylan again?’ Spencer asked as they got back in the car and he restarted the engine.

  Jasmine nodded and dialled the number, cutting the call off as it went straight to voicemail once again. ‘For some reason it’s still off. He probably let his battery run right down,’ she said.

  ‘Right. Helpful…’

  There were things that needed to be said and Spencer wondered who would be brave enough to say them first. The tyres slipped and squealed as the car tried to get going on the road again, and for a moment Spencer was absorbed in the task of moving it along, so that when Jasmine did bring it up, the breaking of the silence was almost a surprise.

  ‘I suppose that was a bit weird,’ she said. ‘Not that I think you’re weird…’ she added quickly, ‘but it’s weird that I did it. I mean, I love Rich… You know that. And we had the moment… Last summer, I mean, before you went to Colorado, and I didn’t know how I felt about you, but then we cleared it and I thought—’ she stopped, breathless, as she looked at him for answers.

  ‘I’ll admit,’ he began slowly, ‘when I came back to Honeybourne for Millie’s bakery opening I thought I was over you. And it was fine back then. But this time when I came home again, the old feelings returned. I don’t know why. Maybe I was just uncertain about this huge, terrifying future I was carving out with Tori, and everything seemed to be running away from us when the families arrived… They still are,’ he added quietly. ‘How do you feel about it now?’

  ‘I love Rich. That much I know, and I’m so sorry for leading you on. Of all the times to do something that stupid…’ She shook her head with a flurry of pink curls. ‘You’re ok with that? I mean, we’re ok? Because I could never forgive myself if I’d hurt you. But I can’t leave Rich, and it’s not that the kiss didn’t matter because it was nice… I mean, not nice, but not horrible… If we’d been in love it would have been nice… not that I couldn’t love you… But I love Rich… you see?’

  Spencer smiled. ‘It’s ok. You didn’t hurt me, and I feel like, in a weird way, it’s finally put the ghost to rest.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that to make me feel better? Because you’re the best, kindest friend I could ever have and that’s exactly the sort of thing you would do, which is why you’re the best and kindest friend.’

  ‘I’m not just saying it. Jas, you know how I felt about you, but I’m with Tori now. I was confused, but in a strange way, now I can see things clearly for the first time. I love Tori. I just hope I haven’t screwed things up with her for good.’

  ‘I would never tell her – not anyone – about tonight. You can trust me.’

  Spencer shot her a sideways look. ‘There’s nothing to tell, is there?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘No,’ Jasmine smiled. ‘Nothing to tell. So we’re ok? We can be friends and it won’t be weird?’

  ‘Yes. We’re ok.’

  But, of course, it would be weird for a while – how could it be anything else? Even if Spencer himself was ok with it, Jasmine would feel awkward and guilty, but Spencer was confident that, in time, they would get past it, especially considering how strangely enlightened he felt right now. As long as Jasmine was still certain of her marriage and that the kiss was an impetuous mistake, they could forget all about this, and their relationship could be what it was always meant to be – just a brilliant, reliable friendship and nothing more.

  ‘We’re ok,’ he repeated, almost to reassure himself as much as her. Then he trained his eyes on the road ahead and the car became silent.

  Half an hour later Spencer spotted Dylan’s car. It was at an odd angle at the side of the road, as if it hadn’t so much parked up but slid into position, hazard lights blinking through the gloom and Dylan desperately pulling with his gloved hands at a pile of snow around the back wheels. Spencer gently squeezed his brakes to stop alongside and killed the engine.

  Dylan straightened up as Spencer leapt out of the car.

  ‘Am I glad to see you!’

  Spencer glanced at the interior of the car, but Dylan appeared to be alone. ‘He’s gone back then?’

  Dylan’s reply was mute, uncertain surprise, and Spencer laughed. ‘Don’t worry. Millie told us all about it. I don’t think you need to be concerned about us dobbing you in.’

  Dylan gave him a sheepish smile. ‘I know. I’m just jittery – it’s been a hell of a night.’

  ‘Sounds like it.’ Jasmine stood next to Spencer now, surveying Dylan’s car. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Slid into a bloody ditch, didn’t I?’ Dylan said. ‘Got one of the front wheels stuck and now all I’m doing is kicking snow all over the place trying to reverse it out. I think I’m getting more dug in than anything else.’

  ‘And I bet your phone is out of battery too?’ Jasmine said, arching an eyebrow at him.

  Dylan scratched a hand through his hair with an apologetic smile.

  ‘Nothing ever changes,’ Jasmine said to her brother. ‘You always were the opposite of a boy scout – ready for absolutely nothing ever.’

  ‘I never said I was perfect,’ Dylan replied in a slightly offended tone. ‘I bet Millie sent you out, didn’t she?’

  ‘She’d have had half of Honeybourne out if we hadn’t stopped her. I’d better phone and let her know we’ve found you.’

  Jasmine stood to one side and as she spoke to Millie, Spencer folded his arms against the cold and surveyed the puzzle of how to get Dylan’s car out of the ditch with him.

  ‘If it wasn’t snowing I bet we could tow it out,’ he said.

  Dylan nodded. ‘Probably. But it would take more than your puny car.’

  Spencer shot him a sideways glance. ‘You know I came out to rescue you, but if my car isn’t macho enough I can just as easily leave you here to fend for yourself.’

  ‘You’d never do that – you’re too nice.’

  Spencer was silent for a moment. ‘You could try telling that to my girlfriend and her parents,’ he muttered. ‘I can guarantee that nice is one word not being used about me right now.’ The mood shifted in an instant from banter to rueful reflection.

  ‘They don’t know you yet,’ Dylan said, clapping Spencer on the back. ‘Give it time.’

  ‘I don’t thin
k I have time, that’s the problem. After tonight I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s flown straight back to Colorado with them. And the worst of it is, a bit of me wouldn’t even care.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Spencer shook his head. ‘My luck, that’s what happened. It doesn’t matter now.’

  Jasmine returned, stowing her phone in her coat pocket. She looked at the car. ‘There’s no way we’re pulling that out. You’d better come back with us.’

  ‘I can’t leave it there. It’s all skew-whiff and half blocking the road – someone might smash into it.’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ Jasmine said. ‘And there’s hardly anyone about. I doubt there would be much traffic on these roads on Christmas Eve if it wasn’t snowy, let alone with this blizzard.’ She looked at her brother. ‘You have breakdown cover?’

  Dylan shook his head. Jasmine let out a sigh. ‘See? Backwards boy scout.’

  ‘All this responsibility is still new to me. Cut me a bit of slack for not thinking of everything that grown-ups think about.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to think about leaving this here now. We certainly can’t move it and I, for one, don’t really want to try. It’s Christmas Eve, I’m freezing, Rich will be three sheets to the wind by now and the kids will be up way past their bedtime because he won’t have the wit to make sure they’re in bed.’ Jasmine plunged her hands into her pockets and stamped her feet in the snow. ‘So I vote we get home and sort this mess out tomorrow.’

  ‘You want to come out on Christmas Day?’ Dylan asked. ‘Won’t that be worse?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ll be up early anyway with the kids and at least it will be light. We’ll be able to get some help too – someone with a bigger, stronger car.’