Christmas at the Lucky Parrot Garden Centre: A cosy, feel-good romcom with festive sparkle

by Beth Good

Hannah gulped, remembering his story about Woody in the loo. ‘I suppose I could, yes.’ Turning, she stifled a scream when she found Pepper right behind her, watching them both with large curious eyes. ‘Oh god, Pepper! I nearly fell over you there.’ Tentatively, she tiptoed into the bathroom, checked behind the toilet, in the bath, and then took up the cleaning brush to make a quick, half-hearted sweep of the toilet bowl. No scaly head loomed up to terrify her.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she called out, ‘Nothing to report in here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he called back. ‘Try the spare bedroom. It’s the one next to the bathroom. If you do find him, just call me, don’t try tackling him on your own. His bite can be painful.’

  ‘Right, great.’ She looked out at Pepper, still sitting on the landing, but the cat merely gazed back at her with a bland expression. ‘Thanks for that.’

  If Daniel picked up on her sarcasm, he didn’t comment.

  Hannah found the spare room. She was looking in an empty wardrobe and trying to think of ways to check under the bed that wouldn’t involve her potentially being on the same level as the snake, when she heard a soft thud from above her head.

  She and Daniel both emerged onto the landing at the same time. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, meeting her gaze.

  Hannah nodded. ‘Was that in the attic?’

  ‘I’ll go and check.’

  Daniel set his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, glanced up into the darkness of the attic, then said, ‘The light switch is over there. Could you possibly … ?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She leant past him to flick the wall switch, and watched as he began to ascend the ladder, leaving her with a pleasantly male, spicy scent of cologne. She stood anxiously at the bottom of the ladder as he climbed until his top half was lost in the gloom of the attic. That’s when she realised how dark it was getting.

  Suddenly he cursed.

  ‘The damn light bulb’s gone up here. I can’t see a thing. Could you pass me up a torch, please? There should be one on the bedside table in my bedroom.’ He hesitated, peering down at her. ‘That’s the first room on your right.’

  Hannah found the torch quickly, trying not to feel like an intruder in his personal space and trying not to spend time absorbing the details, like a pair of faded denim jeans spread on the bottom of his bed, a white T-shirt crumpled in a corner, his comb on the table. She didn’t want to notice those private details. They made him seem less of a celebrity, more accessible and even ordinary. Not good if she wanted to keep her distance.

  She climbed up the ladder far enough to pass him the torch, hoping that he would find Woody up in the attic. (As that would mean the snake wasn’t down here with her!) And of course it would mean she could go home and continue her not-seeing Daniel policy, which had foundered somewhat in the past half hour.

  Standing at the very top of the ladder, he played the torch beam over the attic. The beam cast some of his face in light and some in shadow, reminding her a little spookily of the night she’d suspected him of being a vampire. He used his other hand to steady himself, his index finger tapping lightly against the side of the ladder. Like he was playing a tune …

  ‘Can’t see him up here,’ he began, then gave a muffled exclamation. Inexplicably, he had somehow lost his grip on the ladder and was now falling, toppling back towards her. Hannah saw him coming as if in slow motion, but before she could dart sideways, his body suddenly collided with hers, knocking her to the floor.

  Even covered in deep-pile carpet, it was a hard landing.

  She lay there, not quite able to draw enough air into her lungs. Black spots fizzled and popped in front of her eyes, and as her vision cleared, she looked up into Daniel’s face. His green eyes seemed equally dazed, and a lock of black hair fell forward across his forehead as he stared down at her. Hannah had the oddest desire to smooth it back, and if she’d had enough breath she might have done so. Fortunately for her sense of self-preservation, she couldn’t move her hands.

  ‘Wh-What happened?’ Hannah managed to wheeze.

  ‘Your bloody cat happened,’ he told her testily. ‘He leapt out of nowhere and attacked me.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Oh, is that so?’

  Daniel raised himself onto his elbows to glare down at her, removing some of his weight. Her chest heaved with relief, air dragged into her lungs, her brain starting to focus again.

  Staring upwards, she saw Pepper looking down at them out of the attic, his gaze quizzical.

  Oh no, Pepper, she thought dismally. What have you done now?

  Waving a hand under her nose, he said, ‘Look.’ There was a livid set of red scratch marks on his skin, suggesting definite cat interference. But Hannah couldn’t seem to concentrate on the evidence. His muscular legs still lay tangled with hers, and his pelvis was imprinted against the top of her thighs. The heat of him, the sheer masculine power pressing against her was … Well, it was a potent distraction.

  Keep your mind out of the gutter. Think of the cat.

  ‘Serves you right for feeding him and tempting him away from me,’ she said, trying to regain control over the situation. Only her words didn’t quite come out right. They sounded a bit thin and breathless. Like she was panting, for god’s sake.

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that. I did it so that you would come over.’ He settled his weight more thoroughly on her lower body, befuddling her wits even more.

  ‘Really?’ She blinked. ‘Why didn’t you just ask me to pop by?’

  ‘From the chilly way you headed back to work after lunch on Monday, I got the impression you weren’t too keen on seeing me again.’

  She couldn’t deny the truth of that. Though he had misunderstood her reasoning.

  ‘I didn’t much want to see you today either.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He gazed down into her eyes, the power of that hungry stare mesmerising. His nose was nearly touching hers, his voice low and husky, almost a growl. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’ll be moving back to London soon,’ Hannah whispered the words into the millimetre space between their lips. ‘And I’m not interested in a one-night-stand.’

  ‘I still want to kiss you.’

  ‘Do you?’

  His eyes scorched her face. ‘Don’t you too?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she whispered, unable to look away. ‘But only once. Just for a … a minute or two. To see what it’s like.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  She raised her head slightly, he lowered his, and their mouths bumped somewhere in the middle. His lips were warm and firm, barely brushing against hers before they withdrew again. Hannah’s lungs constricted, but this time it wasn’t because he was squashing her into the floor. It was the flutter of desire somewhere under her ribcage.

  ‘That won’t do, will it?’ he asked softly.

  She shook her head silently. That wasn’t even an hors d’oeuvre. She wanted to know what it was like to kiss Daniel-not-a-vampire-Elliott.

  ‘Let’s try that again.’ Yet he lingered, gazing down at her, teasing her with nothing but his closeness and the warmth of his breath against her cheek, until she took matters into her own hands.

  Hannah’s lips were already parted when she grabbed Daniel and finally pressed her mouth to his. This time it was a proper kiss. Slow and deep, as if they were savouring each other. She understood then that Daniel was a man who liked kissing, and enjoyed learning about her body, and guessed that making love would be more than a means to an end for him. Her eyes closed, her mind drifting into pleasure, and she forgot about reclaiming Pepper, or finding his lost Woody, all puns aside. For now, there was only the taste and feel of Daniel.

  He cradled her face as if she were something precious, whispering her name and making love to her mouth.

  Hannah twined her fingers through the dark, silky strands of his hair, holding him close as if by doing so she could stop the kiss from ending.

  At some point, he slid an arm under her neck and rolled the
m so that she was on top straddling him. The tenor of the kiss changed, turning stormier, the first tender exploration consumed by the hunger that flared between them. Hannah met Daniel’s mouth with equal passion, kissing him back with enthusiasm until finally they broke apart, panting.

  Daniel began, his voice husky, ‘Oh my god, I want to – ’

  Sadly, whatever it was Daniel wanted, Hannah wasn’t destined to find out. Because her dreamy vision had suddenly sharpened on something long and brown slithering towards them across the landing carpet.

  ‘Oh!’ She struggled to untangle herself from Daniel, stabbing an elbow in his stomach as she tried to point past him at his undulating pet. ‘Sn … Sn … Sn …’

  He sat up, staring back at her in utter bewilderment. ‘Sn-ow?’

  ‘Snake!’

  As he turned, she rolled free and leapt up, making for the attic ladder, managing to land about half way up before daring to glance back down at him.

  Pepper, still peering down from his attic vantage point, hissed with sudden venom at the snake, his fur puffing out to make him look three times bigger. Which was pretty large.

  Hannah grabbed him and held on tightly when he began to fight for freedom. ‘B-Bad cat,’ she told him, practically squeezing the unfortunate cat like a set of bagpipes in her panic. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered when he protested with a squeak, relaxing her grip. ‘But you really do have to stay still. At least until …’

  But Daniel had risen to his knees in one graceful movement, and now caught the snake as it came past him.

  ‘Got him,’ he said calmly, though there was an edge of triumph in his voice. ‘Panic over. So you and Pepper can come down from there now.’

  ‘We’re okay where we are, thanks,’ she said, regarding the errant snake without much favour.

  ‘Nonsense. He’ll behave himself now, I promise.’ He held out the long, coiled body of the snake towards her, like someone displaying a necklace in a jewellery shop. ‘Come and meet Woody.’

  It was all a bit much for her, though whether that was down to the passionate kiss they’d just shared, or because of the snake, now eyeing her and Pepper with what looked like jealousy, she could not be sure.

  Unable to stay cool a moment longer, Hannah jumped down from the attic ladder, flushed and dishevelled, and ran past him down the stairs with Pepper in her arms.

  Behind her she heard Daniel call out, ‘Hannah, wait! I’m sorry if I upset you. I’ll put Woody back in his tank.’

  But she did not stop. She dared not.

  Of course, it wasn’t Woody the snake that had made Hannah run from Abbey Villa like the devil himself were at her heels.

  Not deep down.

  Not if she was honest with herself.

  It was The Kiss, as she kept thinking of it later that evening, that had made her flee his house. She stood in her rather too chilly bedroom, Pepper watching her from the bed, and stripped off her clothes before bundling into flannel PJs and fluffy pink bed socks for extra warmth. It was cold enough to snow, after all, and the heavy dark clouds above her cottage tonight made that event increasingly likely.

  What an idiot she was, though!

  After making up her mind that nothing could, or should, come of liking a man like Daniel Elliott, Hannah was feeling pretty fed up with herself. Not only for allowing him to kiss her, but for participating in it and actually enjoying it. She’d blown all her good intentions in one split-second of ‘wow-he’s-so-kissable’ stupidity.

  Even worse, she thought grimly, the kiss had been so damn good she now had no anti-Daniel reserves left. It had effectively removed all her barriers (which admittedly hadn’t been particularly strong, anyway) and left her wanting more. More kisses. More time spent in his company. Just basically more Daniel Elliott. Like he was some delicious cake and she had to have just one more slice …

  A cake?

  Hannah shook her head at her own banality, dragging back the duvet with its cheerful red-and-green cover, and plumping up her matching red pillows to make them nice and comfy.

  Though the man was rather edible, it could not be denied.

  ‘But maybe he won’t want to see us again, huh, Pepper?’ Hannah mumbled as she slid into her chilly single bed. She rubbed her cheek against Pepper’s fur, and he nudged her in response with his head, thundering purrs vibrating through his body and transferring to her own chest in a comforting cat-cuddle. Her body ached with tiredness, it felt incredibly good to be horizontal at last, even if she was not getting horizontal with the man living opposite. ‘Maybe after running away like that, he’ll … he’ll … ’

  But she was so weary, she fell asleep with that sentence unfinished, hoping in some futile, wordless way that she would somehow never have to face him again.

  Not even in her sleep.

  She didn’t see Daniel Elliott in her dreams though.

  Instead, she had the most bizarre and disturbing nightmare, where she was being chased through a maze of mirrors by an oddly persistent, undulating snake. A snake that grew bigger and longer the harder she tried to escape it …

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hannah had a busy day at work the next day. She’d drawn the short straw – literally, as the non-managerial staff drew actual straws for the worst chores – and had to clean out Chadwick’s icky cage. Not her favourite task!

  After that horror, Sam went off sick, sniffling and coughing like some Dickensian character from the slums, and Hannah ended up doing his chore as well, which was to clean out the hens. Then Lightning Brow escaped again, and Hannah spent a good quarter of an hour tracking her down behind the fish tanks in the Aquarium Department. She’d been pecked (by Lightning Brow), sworn at (by Chadwick, repeatedly), and was hot and tired, and feeling pretty hard done-by before it was even lunch time.

  But as darkness closed in outside, the flashing Christmas lights on the tree displays gave the place a festive feel, and soon there was a rush on the tills. Camilla found Hannah in the big greenhouse among the seedlings, and told her to abandon her wheelbarrow and help out there instead.

  The good thing was, dealing with customers and gift-wrapping gnomes, she didn’t have any time to think about Daniel.

  But it was yet another exhausting day, when she looked forward to being her own boss and setting her own hours …

  She was knackered by the time she got home in the dark. So when she opened the front door and saw that Pepper had knocked over the Christmas tree again, she just wanted to sit down and cry.

  Perhaps she could just walk around it this evening, rather than struggle to pick the blasted tree up again when she was so tired.

  She jumped at a knock on the door. ‘Who on earth … ?’

  Perhaps it was Mr Smirthwaite, coming to tell her that he’d be working on one of the other cottages in the little terrace.

  Dragging the door open, Hannah opened her mouth to say a weary, ‘Hello,’ but nothing came out.

  At the level where Mr Smirthwaite’s eyes would have been was a broad chest clad in an expensive-looking black wool coat.

  Her gaze travelled up to meet a pair of intense green eyes.

  Good grief.

  ‘Hi there,’ Daniel said, tilting his head to one side as he studied her. ‘You look … tired.’

  ‘Impressive deduction, Sherlock.’

  She was being snarky, but inwardly she wanted to wail out loud. Why did Daniel have to choose this moment to come and see her, in her dirty overalls, no doubt smelly too, her brown hair unbrushed, and so exhausted she was ready to pitch forward on her face and snore.

  ‘I thought I’d see how you are. After what happened yesterday.’ He caught sight of the downed Christmas tree. ‘What’s happened? Have you been burgled?’

  ‘Only by a cat burglar.’

  He looked mystified. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Pepper hates the tree, or loves it too much. I can never decide which. Anyway, it always ends up getting knocked over.’ She ran a hand through her dishevelled hair, feeling highly self-c
onscious under his gaze. ‘I need ornaments that can bounce.’

  ‘I see.’ Daniel’s mouth kicked up at the corner. ‘Can I help? It looks heavy.’

  Hannah stepped back and let Daniel in, too tired to argue. He carried in with him the crisp scent of cold Yorkshire lanes and evergreen trees, and as she closed the door to shut out the dark, a few white flakes spiralled dizzily onto the doorstep.

  Snow!

  By the time she’d closed the door and nudged the draught excluder back into place, Daniel had put down the cloth bag he was carrying, righted the Christmas tree, and started to pick up loose baubles.

  All this activity was being watched curiously by the cat, who had been curled up on the sofa, but now sat up to stretch and groom himself.

  ‘See what you did, you naughty cat?’ Hannah concentrated on Pepper to keep herself from staring at Daniel’s bottom, outlined in tight black jeans as he bent to retrieve a golden bauble from under her coffee table. She took the bauble from him with a murmured, ‘Thank you,’ and hung it back on the tree, then switched on the Christmas lights again. Thankfully they still worked, brightly flashing on and off in sequence.

  That job done, Daniel shucked his coat without asking if he could stay, and tended the fire instead, setting a shovelful of coals on the banked embers. They began to smoke and catch, bringing the fire back to life and slowly raising warmth in the small room. At least, that was what she was blaming for her heightened colour, Hannah thought, catching an embarrassed glimpse of herself in the mirror near the front door.

  ‘You look wiped out,’ he said suddenly, straightening to face her. ‘Why don’t you grab a shower while I make you a drink?’

  ‘I’m not really in a party mood.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything alcoholic. A cup of tea sound good?’

  Hannah forced herself to meet his fierce gaze, and instantly regretted it. She could feel her heart jolt and start beating incredibly hard, like she’d been running over the moors. Oh, this was so silly. Yes, Daniel was very fanciable, and they were alone together in front of a cosy fire. But he was also just a very kind neighbour.