The snow had stopped and the sky was a fresh blue, but the roads were worse than they had been the night before, the snowfall hardened to ice in temperatures that had dipped well below freezing in the early hours. Spencer groaned and swore as the car refused to behave, swerving all over the road, sticking in places, sliding in others, and hindering his progress as if it too wanted to stop Spencer and Tori from being together. It was lucky that traffic around the tiny roads of Honeybourne was nonexistent that morning. As it was, most of the other residents of his home village would be doing what normal people did on Christmas morning – spending time with their families in their warm homes, maybe opening presents or kissing under mistletoe, or at the very least nursing comfortable and well-earned hangovers from fun-filled Christmas Eve revelling. Certainly not driving erratically towards their destiny, any chance of happiness in Spencer’s future seemingly about to be thwarted.
Then the sheep appeared in the middle of the lane. There were about twelve of them, standing around looking dazed and not a bit concerned for the blue tin box that was sliding towards them. Spencer slammed the breaks on and the car pirouetted with the grace of a Russian ballerina before coming to a halt ten yards away but facing the wrong direction.
‘Tree branches, snow and now bloody stupid sheep,’ Spencer muttered under his breath as he put the car back in gear and tried to manoeuvre it into the right direction again. ‘You think you can beat me, world, but you can’t – not yet.’ With frustrating slowness, he moved the car back and forth, trying to turn it around, wheels spinning and black smoke pouring from the bonnet as it squealed with the effort, but even the noise and smell didn’t seem to deter the sheep, and when he finally got the car facing something like the right way, they still blocked his exit, staring at him.
‘Dopey sods!’ He punched his fist on the horn. Nothing moved. He leaned out of the window. ‘Shift, you stupid bloody animals!’ he yelled, but not a single sheep showed any sign of concern at his aggression. Leaving the engine running he leapt out of the car and ran towards them. ‘Shoo!’ he cried, flapping his arms at them. ‘Go home! Get off the road!’
The sheep stared at him but continued to huddle together, looking for all the world as if they intended to set up a permanent roadblock. Spencer had never felt so close to tears, the frustration building inside him like a bomb ready to explode. He’d lived in the country nearly his whole life, and yet he’d never encountered a flock of maverick road-hog sheep before. Why now, of all the times? He tipped his face to the sky. ‘If this is your idea of a joke, or you’re getting your own back because I dissed you the other day, then I get the message. I’ll come to church every Sunday, even if my parents laugh at me, but please tell your sheep to move!’ His gaze went back to the road. The sheep stared him down but there was no movement. Spencer let out a sigh.
Going back to the car, he pulled it in to the side of the road, as close as he could to the edge and stopped the engine. Leaving cars on the sides of roads seemed to be a new habit developed over the last couple of days. At this rate half the cars of Honeybourne would be parked on the sides of country lanes. But there was nothing else for it. There was no time to wait for the road to clear, and if Spencer was going to reach the Dog and Hare in time, he would just have to run the rest of the way.
The air of the bakery was already sweet with the smells of French toast, made for Darcie and Millie by Dylan as an apology for worrying them the night before, and as a Christmas morning treat. Millie pushed her empty plate away with a contented smile. ‘I do believe I did an excellent job of teaching you to cook.’
‘Why, thank you,’ said Dylan, grinning. ‘No allowances for natural talent, though?’
‘I saw what you were eating when you lived alone. If you had natural talent you certainly weren’t showing it.’
Darcie dropped her knife and fork and held her stomach. ‘I don’t think I could eat Christmas dinner until at least New Year now.’
‘I suppose I’d better think about preparing that,’ Millie said, making to leave the table, but Dylan stopped her.
‘Not yet. I’m sure nobody will mind if it’s a little late, considering the night we had last night.’
‘We have guests, though… Very fussy guests by the sounds of things.’
‘That’s if they bother to turn up. If what Spencer told us is anything to go by, we might be eating turkey for a lot longer than we bargained for.’
Millie was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Do you think Spencer and Tori will have worked things out?’
‘If I know him I’m sure he’ll have gone all girly on us and poured out his heart to her. That usually works, doesn’t it?’
Millie smiled. ‘It has been known to, on occasion. It certainly beats the caveman approach, so don’t think of going all nineteenth century on me next time we have a misunderstanding or I’ll be forced to take a pan to your head.’
Dylan’s grin spread. ‘Noted! But don’t worry about Spencer and Tori. They’re probably snogging each other’s faces off right now.’
‘Not if her parents are anywhere around.’
‘Hmm… they are hard work, aren’t they?’ Dylan agreed. ‘But the weird thing is, I kind of get where they’re coming from.’
Millie raised her eyebrows in a silent question.
‘Well,’ Dylan continued, ‘now that we have Oscar, I want everything in his life to be perfect for him, and I want him to be happy in everything he does – it comes with the territory as a parent, right? So if they feel that Tori is having to compromise in some area of her life – like moving to Honeybourne when she might not really want to – or if they feel strongly that Spencer isn’t the right bloke for her, or any other reason that might be odd to us but makes sense to them… All I’m saying is that if it was me, then maybe I’d be making things awkward too, just because I want my son or daughter to make the right choices in life.’
‘They could have a lot worse than Spencer for a son-in-law,’ Millie commented.
‘We know that, but they don’t really know him from Adam.’
Darcie watched and listened as the conversation went back and forth, and her heart went out to Spencer. She didn’t know him well, but she recognised something in him, a kindred spirit, someone who saw the world a little like she did. And she also saw kindness and humility in him, in the way he gave everything of himself to those around him, the way he always put others first. She knew what it was like to have life deny you the things you wanted, and then to think that you might get them after all only to have them whipped from under your nose again at the whim of fate. She had never fought for what she wanted, and had regretted that every time. But then she also understood, as she looked across at Dylan, that there were some things you had to let go of. And as Millie had paced the floor the previous night, almost out of her mind with worry for a missing Dylan, she had finally understood that. It was time to kill her stupid feelings for him once and for all.
As Millie got up to clear the table, Darcie’s mind went back to Spencer. She wondered if his fight was one worth seeing through to the bitter end, or whether it was a battle he needed to walk away from if he was going to fight another day. Whatever it was, she hoped he would get his happy ending.
Darcie helped Millie stack the dishwasher, and as Millie closed the door and went to the fridge to start pulling out the mountains of vegetables she would need for dinner, Dylan popped his head around the kitchen door.
‘My God! What are you doing?’ he asked with mock horror.
Millie spun to face him. ‘What?’
‘Presents first!’
He disappeared from the doorway again and Millie smiled at Darcie. ‘It’ll take hours for Dylan to open all of Oscar’s, which is really what he means when he says presents. He’s been dying to open them all week!’
‘He’ll probably spend the rest of the day playing with them,’ Darcie agreed, and Millie giggled.
‘You know him so well already, big man-child that he is. A few years ago
I would have thought a man like that an absolute nightmare, but it’s weirdly cute in Dylan.’
Darcie smiled. ‘You really love him, don’t you?’
‘More than life itself. And I never expected it really, at the beginning. That’s the funny thing about love, I suppose, sometimes it creeps up on you, sometimes it leaps out and scares you half to death, but more often than not you’re totally unprepared for it. I came to Honeybourne for a quiet life, and look what I got…’
‘It’s a good life, isn’t it?’ Darcie asked. ‘In Honeybourne, I mean. It’s a good place to live.’
Millie regarded her frankly. ‘What do you think? You’ve never actually told me whether you like it here or not.’
‘It’s nice,’ Darcie replied carefully.
‘But sometimes you’re lonely because everyone seems to know everyone else and you’re left on the sidelines?’
Darcie nodded.
‘I get that,’ Millie said. ‘If you’re still thinking of going home after Christmas then I completely understand. But maybe you should give it one more chance, and I’m not just saying that because I like having your help… although I do.’
‘I think I might,’ Darcie said, her mind going back to Tariq. Her thoughts had gone that way a lot over the last twelve hours, which had provoked feelings of extreme guilt when she remembered Nathan and the arrangements she had made to see him again. She liked Nathan, and she didn’t want to hurt him, but she desperately wanted to see Tariq again. Millie had mentioned her being lonely, and Darcie now wondered whether it might be easier to be lonely than to be faced with this awful choice. And that was assuming that Tariq felt the same way about her as she did about him. He had seemed to give all the signals, but she had never been very good at reading those, so there was no guarantee that what she thought she had seen in him was even there at all. But maybe it was worth sticking around a little longer to see what life in Honeybourne might bring next.
Millie pulled her into a hug. ‘I’m so glad. I love having you around, and you’re welcome to stay in the annexe as long as you want. We’ve got big plans for the summer, and if you were happy to stick with us that long, I wanted to put you in charge of some of them. How would that sound?’
Darcie blinked. ‘In charge?’
‘Yes,’ Millie nodded. ‘A proper job with a salary, and you’d get to make decisions with me about the business. You’re up for the challenge?’
‘You’d trust me?’
‘Of course I would!’ Millie laughed. ‘We both love you to bits and we both think that you have a lot more business acumen than you let on. You’re going to be fantastic – wait and see!’
Darcie couldn’t help the broad grin that stretched across her face. ‘I’ll do my best!’ she cried, flinging her arms around Millie. It was a complete surprise to her that Millie trusted her so much, but it was a lovely one and it meant a lot. With the appearance of Tariq and the promise of what might be, it felt like the start of something good. It felt like the best of reasons to stay in Honeybourne after all.
Dylan’s voice came from the living room. ‘Ladies! Come on, these presents won’t open themselves, and Oscar’s awake now so it’s a race against time!’
Millie linked her arm in Darcie’s. ‘We’d better go and put him out of his misery.’
Despite Millie’s constant reminders that she needed to start dinner if they were going to have everything ready on time, Dylan managed to cajole her into sitting through the unwrapping of the entirety of Oscar’s pile of gifts. Then came Darcie’s turn to open the few she had amassed, which amounted to the ones from Millie and Dylan, some sent from home by her parents and, surprisingly, some very nice chocolates from Colleen and Doug to thank her for her help in the Dog and Hare since Doug’s fall. She then handed Millie and Dylan the gifts she had bought them. Millie was thrilled with the aromatherapy kit, and Dylan just as happy with his aftershave, although Darcie wished she could have been just a little bit more original, even though she’d struggled to choose as it was. Dylan then opened various gifts from Millie, Jasmine and Rich, and Spencer. There was also one from Colleen and Doug and one from Ruth Evans, a slightly concerning pair of boxer shorts in a leopard-print design.
‘She’s still got it bad for you,’ Millie said with a giggle.
‘I wish she’d get rid of it,’ Dylan replied with a grimace as he held them up for inspection.
Before Millie’s pile was handed to her, she got up from the floor where they’d been sitting next to the tree and handed Oscar over to Dylan. ‘I really need to get on. Mine can wait until after dinner.’
Dylan’s face fell. ‘You’re not going to open them now?’
Millie laughed and kissed him. ‘They’ll wait. I’ll be able to appreciate them better if I’m not fretting about being behind schedule.’
‘But I wanted to see you open mine.’
‘And you will – later. Now I need to start prepping veg and I can’t very well serve turkey if it’s still gobbling.’
Dylan took Oscar from her. He looked like a balloon with all the air let out.
‘Don’t sulk,’ Millie said. ‘It’s Christmas Day.’
‘That’s why I wanted you to open your presents.’
Millie smiled. ‘It’s Christmas Day for quite a while yet. I won’t forget about the presents.’
‘Maybe I could start the dinner for you?’ Darcie cut in. ‘Then you could open your gifts.’
Millie shook her head. ‘This is supposed to be a day off for you.’
‘I want to help. I am going to be eating the dinner, after all.’
Millie pretended to look shocked. ‘Were we supposed to be feeding you too? I had an appointment at the soup kitchen set up for you.’
Darcie giggled, but Dylan didn’t laugh, he just sat looking crestfallen and sulky in equal measures.
‘Why don’t you play with Oscar’s Lego for a while,’ Millie said, not a bit fazed. ‘We all know you’ve really bought it for yourself anyway and not for your two-month-old son. He might be a child prodigy in the making but even he can’t build a Death Star just yet. By the time you’ve built something I’ll have the turkey in and then I’ll come and open my presents. How does that sound?’
Dylan nodded sullenly, and Millie’s laughter could be heard above the strains of ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ as she went into the kitchen and turned the radio on. Darcie followed her in, determined to help no matter what Millie said.
Spencer clutched at his side. He’d never run a marathon, but right now he had a pretty good idea of how it might feel. His lungs felt as though they couldn’t contain the oxygen he was pulling in to keep going, and the air he was breathing was so cold his head felt like it might freeze and shatter. When Tori had nagged him back in Boulder to go jogging with her, and he had laughed and patted his flat stomach saying he didn’t need to, perhaps he should have gone after all. In different circumstances, had she been here, she’d have laughed and reminded him of his cockiness, and how it had come back to bite him on the bum. But she wasn’t, and that was why he had to keep running no matter how sick he felt, or how many times he lost his footing on the ice, or how much sweat poured from his brow. He had to get there before she left – it might be his last chance to tell her how much he loved her, how much he needed her in his life.
Finally, the Dog and Hare was in sight. A minibus was parked outside, with Tori and her parents directing the driver who was hauling their many suitcases into the boot, cigarette hanging from his mouth and looking as though he’d been called out of bed before he’d had a chance to shave or wash. He probably had, Spencer reflected, if the Dempseys had had anything to do with it. He wondered how they had persuaded the nearest cabbie to come out for them on Christmas morning, and just how much it might be costing them, but it was a vague notion that he didn’t have time to ponder now.
Tori’s head whipped around at the sound of her name being called. She saw Spencer running towards her, and at the same time, so did her dad.
/>
‘I hope you haven’t come to cause trouble,’ he said, advancing on Spencer.
‘I… just… want to talk… to Tori…’ Spencer panted.
‘What are you doing?’ Tori asked coldly.
‘Came to stop you…’
‘Stop me doing what?’
‘Going.’
She paused. ‘Who told you I was going?’
Spencer shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. You are, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
He wiped a hand across his brow, conscious now that he was a sweaty mess. ‘So we can talk it through?’
‘I’m going to London.’
‘Now?’
She nodded.
‘But you just said you weren’t going!’
‘I’m helping my parents find somewhere to stay.’
Spencer glanced at Mr Dempsey and then back to Tori. He lowered his voice. ‘Can’t they do that without you?’
‘I want to go with them. I need time to clear my head.’
‘So you’re coming back? You’re not coming to my house to get your clothes?’
Tori chewed on her lip. ‘I was going to. Just in case…’
‘So Colleen was right! You were going to leave! Why did you tell me you weren’t?’
‘Because I didn’t want to have this conversation out on the street in front of my parents!’ Tori fired back. ‘Because I knew this would happen if I told you the truth and I can’t deal with it right now!’
Spencer stared miserably at her. ‘I don’t want you to go.’
‘I know.’
‘I love you.’
‘I know that too. But it’s too late. If you loved me like you say you do, you would have come to me last night, but you didn’t.’
‘I couldn’t, there was a thing and Dylan—’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Tori interrupted. ‘You didn’t even reply to my message. I don’t care what excuse you have cooked up. You should have come to me and you didn’t.’
Christmas at the Little Village Bakery Page 24
