The Holiday Swap

by Zara Stoneley

  ‘Well, it doesn’t have to be anything big, how about because it snowed?’

  ‘How about because it snowed us in together, and you’re not Daisy?’

  ‘You’re terrible. Anyway we’re not snowed in.’

  ‘Nice thought though. Here you go.’ He handed her a glass and lifted his, ‘cheers.’

  ‘Cheers. You wear a pinny well.’ She grinned. It wasn’t a chef’s apron like you’d expect from Hugo, it was flowery, with a frill around the edge. The faintest rose blush hit his face and he looked like a boy, caught out. ‘I found it in the airing cupboard, I think my mother left it when she was here one time. I don’t often cook to be honest.’

  ‘This is going to be edible then?’ He still managed to look masculine in floral. The broad shoulders and slim hips did that, she supposed. She had to stop staring – she really did have to stop staring.

  ‘I know how to do a good pheasant casserole – even I can do that. Five minutes and I’ll be with you, come in the kitchen or have a nosy around. It is rather a mess in the kitchen though,’ he waved a dismissive hand, looking slightly perplexed, ‘not quite sure how a meal for two can use up quite so many pans and knives.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll stay out of your way.’ A safe distance. ‘I’d rather nosy.’

  ‘I thought you would.’

  ‘Call it research.’ Flo had always liked to watch people, and she liked to look at what they wore, what they owned, what they kept, and what they discarded. ‘You’ve got a lot of books.’ She raised her voice so he could hear her from the kitchen, where there was a rattling of pans and the sound of water. ‘Did your mother leave these too?’

  ‘What?’ He was in the doorway, tea towel flung over his shoulder in a way that really shouldn’t be sexy.

  ‘George Bernard Shaw?’ She held up the book and grinned. ‘Man and Superman?’

  ‘‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ I like to think I’m the unreasonable man.’ His eyes narrowed wolfishly.

  ‘I can believe that.’ She put the book back in its place, and ran a finger over the spines of the others. They were a total mix: old, modern, novels, non-fiction, poetry.

  ‘My mother started reading to me before I was born and still persists in adding to my library. She says school was but the start of education.’

  ‘And this? Is this helping your emotional education?’ She held up the DVD. ‘I wouldn’t have put you down as a Richard Curtis fan, ‘Love Actually’ eh?’

  ‘You’d be surprised how much more affable girls are after watching that.’ The drawl was back, full on arrogant Hugo mode.

  ‘You’re so obvious.’

  ‘Well actually,’ he shrugged sheepishly, ‘that is one Daisy gave me for Christmas. She said I needed help.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ What had Daisy said about the constant stream of women doing the walk of shame past her window?

  ‘I’m not a heathen you know. I did have the best schooling—’

  ‘Money could buy?’

  ‘That was available. My father had rather high expectations.’ She could have sworn he looked suddenly uncomfortable. He flicked the tea towel down and back as though to dismiss a thought he wasn’t happy about having. ‘The dinner’s ready, let’s sit down.’

  The dinner was amazingly nice, or she was just so starving that anything would have been good. No, that was wrong, it was more than just a simple casserole.

  ‘This is fab.’

  He raised his glass of wine to her, the sardonic smile she’d decided was his way of taking a compliment. Confident and arrogant he might be, but he didn’t seem to know how to say thank you gracefully. ‘If you live here it would be criminal not to be able to cook game.’

  ‘So, what’s in it? This is really scrummy, really, it is just so tasty, and the meat.’ He’d jointed the birds, but the slightly gamey meat just fell of the bone the moment she touched it with her knife.

  ‘Good rustic fayre they call it.’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Apples, there’s apple, so is there cider in it?’ She closed her mouth let the flavour of the rich gravy play with her senses.

  ‘Cider, a splash of Calvados, crème fraîche, onions, the normal stuff. You look happy.’

  ‘Almost orgasmic.’ She laughed, probably not the right way to keep him at arm’s length, but it was good. She suddenly realised he was watching every move she made. Oh God, the last thing she was going to let him accuse her of was eating erotically. She had a carrot on her fork and decided it was a bad idea.

  He chuckled. ‘Happy and sexy, so at least I know home cooking is the way to your heart and not rom-coms.’

  ‘I like rom-coms,’ she swallowed and tried not to moan with appreciation. Now that would be misconstrued. ‘Harry met Sally is one of my favourites.’ Bad choice, but he’d probably never seen it.

  ‘You can act it out for me later.’

  Or maybe he had. ‘I thought you were too busy to watch films? You know, playing with your horses.’

  ‘I’ve watched a few.’

  Ahh, yes, with his many conquests. The way into a girl’s knickers…

  ‘This is actually really tasty. I can’t believe it’s those poor birds that were hanging by my back porch.’

  ‘It isn’t actually. I had a brace a few days ago, so I used them, they’d had time to hang. I’ve put yours in the shed. I’ll show you how to prepare them if you like and we can have a return match.’

  ‘Pheasant showdown?’

  ‘I must inform you, I play to win, always.’ Why did that sound like a challenge that wasn’t completely related to cooking?

  ‘I don’t have to sit for hours pulling feathers off?’

  ‘I’ll show you the cheats’ way, no time for plucking, there are far more interesting things we could be doing.’

  ‘You don’t stop, do you?’ She shook her head. Time to change the subject or she’d be the pudding. Unless that was all he’d got in mind anyway.

  ‘I enjoy the chase.’ He suddenly grinned, a proper grin that lit up his whole face. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, Florence Nightingale. Come on, I’ll clear up later, let’s sit and drink this wine somewhere more comfortable.’

  They sat down in front of the roaring fire, and she nursed her glass of wine, staring into the flames for a while. ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘I have changed quite a lot.’

  ‘Well, you’re more sophisticated, more beautiful.’ He was watching her intently, his gaze almost like a caress, and a shiver ran down her spine.

  She tried not to squirm. ‘I mean on the inside.’

  He waited.

  ‘I didn’t quite realise how much until I got back here. I got bogged down in acting the part, having the perfect life, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do, believe me.’ His tone had a rueful edge, but he didn’t add anything.

  ‘I was the girl who had it all, and I wouldn’t admit to myself that I didn’t.’ She turned the stem of the wine glass round in her fingers. ‘I just did things,’ she paused, ‘this will sound dotty, but you know that saying about stopping to smell the roses? I haven’t just stopped and thought for ages.’

  ‘So that’s why you’ve started to write?’

  ‘Yep. All of a sudden I had ideas, I used to always dream about this book I wanted to write, but then we got too busy. And, like Oli said, it was daft wasting time on stuff like that when we could be making a living out of the magazine. I’d probably never get published anyway.’

  ‘Oli?’

  ‘He was my boyfriend.’ How the hell had she ever thought he could be more than that? ‘It wasn’t just his fault; it was mine. I just abandoned my own personal ambitions, concentrated on his. Anyhow, he was probably right in a way.’

  ‘I doubt that. You never regret the things you tried and failed at, just the things you don’
t try.’ The drawl had dropped to an intimate level. ‘So what if you don’t get published?’ Hugo shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Do it, if that’s what you want to do. You’re a kick-ass kind of girl, Florence Nightingale, not a yes girl.’

  ‘I’ll kick your ass if you carry on calling me that. You put me off singing for life.’ Flo knew she was hitting out, making a joke of it, because all of a sudden this conversation seemed far too personal, he was getting to her in a way Oli never had. She could never remember sitting and talking like this to the man she’d thought she’d wanted to marry.

  Now she thought about it, Oli had never actually been interested in her dreams. Never encouraged her. It had all been about him. A future he’d planned out.

  Hugo laughed. ‘Well to be honest you were a bit of a wonky nightingale.’

  She stood up abruptly to get away from the closeness that seemed to have crept up on them. Why the hell she’d started confiding in him, telling him stuff that should stay in her head, she wasn’t sure. It must be the Calvados talking.

  The bookshelves were far enough away for her to get a grip again. She pulled out a slim volume. ‘Poetry, is that to woo the girls as well?’

  ‘I’m willing to try anything. Will it work on you?’

  Oh hell, he’d followed her.

  She ignored the comment, slightly too aware of the heat of his body behind hers as she stood by the bookshelf.

  ‘Robert Frost?’

  ‘Ah yes, The Road Not Taken ‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.’’

  ‘Quite a reader, aren’t you?’ She was surprised, but hoped he couldn’t hear it in her voice because she wasn’t having a go at him, and she hated it when people made generalisations.

  ‘My mother and I had a game. If I was getting argumentative and wanted something I’d have to give her a quote to justify it. She was very well-read, but it got me actually picking the books up I suppose. I don’t like to lose.’

  ‘So what did you use that quote for?’

  ‘To justify riding horses for a living rather than being a lawyer.’

  ‘Ah. So you don’t intend regretting things you never did.’

  He was right at her shoulder now. His head close to hers as she studied the books. One arm had somehow slipped around her, the heat of his hand on her waist, his other hand reaching out to turn the pages. Effectively trapping her, moving in, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to resist this time. She realised she was holding her breath. Waiting to see what he did next. His nose was so close to her neck she could feel every breath he exhaled. If he kissed her now, right on the sensitive spot near her ear, she’d either have to kick him or keel over.

  ‘So, er,’ she wriggled away a bit, feeling faintly stupid as she shuffled her way up the bookcase, ‘how are you going to justify cornering me?’

  ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’

  ‘That’s just so unimaginative, Hugo, you’ll have to do better than Shakespeare.’

  ‘You are demanding.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘I said you hadn’t changed. Just like the girl that used to ride Billy’s horses.’ He slid a hand under her hair, the warmth of his palm against her skin, and she flinched, practically jumping her way along now.

  ‘You’re being lazy,’ her vocal chords were doing quivery, weird things, ‘and that’s cheating. It’s not a reason.’

  ‘I’m realistic and just want to get you into bed.’

  His thumb pressed gently against her neck, then he lifted her hair, leant in and kissed her.

  Turning to look at him was just a natural reaction. As was lifting her face to meet that grey gaze. And parting her lips, and not daring to breathe as his mouth came down on hers.

  It was the gentlest touch at first, a caress as his mouth teased her lips. She could taste the sweetness of cider, the fruit of the wine. Then all she could taste was him as the pressure intensified and he ran his tongue over the edge of her teeth. His fingers played at the nape of her neck and her insides started to curl up, heat spreading down between her legs. She edged forward, her hip against his as he turned her so that she could feel the length of his body. The unmistakable erection.

  She could do this. She wanted to do this. They were two consenting adults having a bit of fun.

  No she couldn’t. She was an idiot. He’d wooed her with his bloody cooking and a few choice lines from a poem.

  It didn’t matter. It did. She was going to choose what she did next and when. If she didn’t do this now, it would be too late.

  ‘No.’ She pulled back. Put a hand between them on his chest, softened her voice, even though her pulse was doing a staccato beat and making her light-headed. Calm. ‘No, Hugo.’ Okay, maybe not soft, maybe shaky. ‘I think it’s time I went back to my, er, Daisy’s place.’

  He dropped his hold immediately, the expression on his face pretty unreadable, apart from the twist to his mouth.

  ‘Whatever you want. I’m not in the habit of forcing my attentions on anybody, I’ve never had to. I suppose,’ he looked at his watch, ‘it’s late and you’ll be ready for your own bed now if you don’t want mine.’

  Chapter 17 – Daisy. Handbags and hippy cats

  Daisy stared at the shoes in the little boutique window. She’d never really been one for window-shopping, but the shops around the El Born area of Barcelona drew her in.

  One clothes shops was full of nick-nacks – old sewing machines, shaving kits and gramophone players scattered in between neat piles of sweaters and carefully folded socks. Another had a stuffed fox in the window – she daren’t go in to see what else the taxidermist had been up to. The jewellery shop had a small hatch at the back, through which you could see the artist’s carefully crafted silver rings and she’d even discovered a guitar workshop down one of the back streets, with instruments at various stages of manufacture scattered around and the smell of sawdust hanging in the air.

  And then there were the handbag and shoe shops. Felt and suede bags hung up in a range of colours that put nature to shame, with samples so that you could pick the patchwork of your choice. And leather. She loved the smell of leather, and just walking round the shops made her feel at home.

  She took another look at the shoes.

  They were totally impractical of course. Unless you lived in Barcelona, but she couldn’t help look and was more than a little tempted to try them on. Or she could have coffee and cake at a nearby café. Or she could do both.

  The impatient beep of her phone, announcing an incoming text, saved her from a crisis.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  She couldn’t help the little lurch of happiness inside that brought a grin to her face. She hadn’t seen Javier since he’d taken her out on his scooter, and she’d missed him. ‘Fine thanks, rescue me from these handbags and shoes.’

  ‘???’

  ‘They’re seducing me’

  ‘Fancy a trip to see a hippy cat commune?’

  It was her turn to wonder what the hell he was on about. ‘Hippy cats?’

  ‘Meet me at the metro station in an hour.’

  ***

  The sun was shining by the time they got off the train at the small station of Montgat Nord. Right next to the sea. Daisy grinned. It was perfect.

  ‘Do I get to go in the sea this time?’

  ‘Sure.’ He laughed, his blue eyes as gorgeous as any ocean, and Daisy had a sudden urge to throw her arms around him and squeal. Spending time with Javier was like having all your birthdays at once; good birthdays when you got the presents you really wanted instead of the things other people thought you should want. ‘Come on, there’s an underpass here so we can get to the other side of the railway line. I promised you a beach the other day, so here it is.’

  ‘Race you.’ She ran, galloping down the stairs to put a distance between her and her silly ideas, and he chased after her.

  ‘You’re crazy.’ He was laughing, his blue eyes sparkling.r />
  ‘Look at it, it’s amazing.’ And so are you, she wanted to add, but didn’t. She waved her arm, then span around.

  They’d emerged from the tunnel under the railway line, straight onto the sand. Pulling her shoes and socks off, she curled her toes into the soft, warm sand.

  The beach by the station was deserted; a golden blanket that stretched as far as she could see.

  ‘Barcelona.’ She turned back to see Javier pointing back the way the train had come. ‘The coast curls round so you can see the city from here.’

  ‘I’m not interested in the city, I want the sea.’ She giggled.

  ‘You’re like a big kid.’

  ‘That’s how I feel.’ She did, mad, crazy, free. ‘Come on, let’s walk along the edge so I can paddle.’

  The sea was icy cold and Daisy stood for a while letting her feet get used to it. The water lapped around her ankles and she looked out to sea, suddenly sobering.

  Standing in a place like this, seeing the amazing colours she never saw at home, gazing at a landscape that stretched on for ever was what she’d dreamed of. And Javier had given it to her – as though he understood. How could it have taken her so long to do this, to book a plane ticket, explore the world? She’d been so close to missing out on it all, never setting foot outside her safe little world. She swallowed down the silly lump in her throat and concentrated on the water.

  It really was the most incredible shade of emerald green against the white-gold of the sand, and then, as the sand dropped away sharply, it turned to a deep, deep, blue, mottled with light and dark and broken by the lines of surf that advanced towards them. ‘You can see why people call them white horses, can’t you?’

  The sunlight flickered off the surface of the water, a million tiny shimmering lights that danced as the surface constantly shifted. ‘The sky is so blue here, we just don’t get this at home. Well maybe in the summer on the odd day – it’s just so clear.’ She twisted round to smile at him. ‘Thanks for bringing me, I’d have never found this place without you. It’s fantastic.’ And she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have come here without him, and it wouldn’t have been the same on her own anyway.