The Christmas Promise

by Sue Moorcroft

  She felt colour sting her cheeks at the sudden realisation that she was standing chatting in her bikini for goodness’ sake. She forced a smile. ‘No, of course not. Just excuse me for a minute.’ Acutely aware of what felt like acres of flesh on display Leah tossed the cutlery on the table and set off for La Petite Annexe, forcing herself not to break into an undignified gallop.

  Michele, perhaps realising belatedly that Leah wouldn’t have chosen to be wearing only a purple high-leg bikini when introduced to a strange man and his wide-eyed adolescent son, called after her. ‘You take your time and we’ll bring everything out.’

  ‘Good of you,’ Leah muttered, bolting through the annexe door.

  Having let her embarrassment cool under a tepid shower before covering herself in cropped jeans and a T-shirt, by the time Leah rejoined the party the table was busy with conversation and everybody had already heaped their plates. Leah quietly took the only vacant chair.

  Which was between Ronan and Curtis. It would have to be.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured, when Ronan passed her a plate and napkin. She poured herself a glass of lemonade. Only Alister seemed to be doing damage to the wine bottle in the centre of the table.

  Ronan fell into easy conversation with Alister and as Curtis, Natasha and Jordan had found common ground in the belief that all software should be free, Leah’s residual bikini embarrassment began to fade.

  Curtis, she discovered by listening in, was, incredibly, only thirteen, despite being six feet tall and wearing head-to-toe black Goth gear. Leah wondered at a boy quite that young being allowed piercings in eyebrow, nose, and both ears. Although the sides of his head were shaved, the front section hung down to his chin, dangling perpetually in his eyes. Whenever he was offered anything from the table he replied with an endearing ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks.’ Aside from their height there wasn’t much similarity between father and son: Curtis sandy and hazel, Ronan uncompromisingly dark.

  Curtis politely helped Natasha and Jordan clear the first course as Leah brought out dessert. The sight of the steaming pudding with its accompanying chocolate sauce and fresh fruit silenced the gathering momentarily.

  Alister passed around clean plates. ‘Leah makes fantastic cake.’

  Ronan turned his dark gaze on her. ‘You’re surely not baking on holiday?’

  ‘It’s something incredibly easy—’

  Michele broke in. ‘Leah only has to look at food and it jumps around and becomes something delicious.’

  ‘But still.’ Ronan smiled. ‘Surely nobody works on holiday?’

  ‘You’re painting a house.’ Leah reached for one of the local yellow plums called mirabelles and bit into its sweet juiciness.

  *

  Ronan watched her lick juice from her lips. ‘We’re only kind of on holiday. My dad built the house when my mam was still alive and, hilariously, they named it “Chez Shea”. After she died, he and I spent a lot of time here and eventually I inherited it from Dad. As I’m off work for a few weeks I thought I’d come out and give it some TLC. Why does food jump around and make itself delicious for you?’

  ‘I trained as a chef but I work in chocolate products.’ Leah reached for another plum, her hair swinging over one shoulder.

  ‘She’s a chocolate taster!’ giggled Natasha. ‘It must be the coolest job in the world.’

  Curtis’s eyes grew round in astonishment. He stared at Leah. ‘Seriously? You taste chocolate? For a job?’

  Leah’s eyes twinkled. ‘Before you apply, there’s more to it than just scoffing chocolate down all day. I source ingredients, come up with new recipes or test other people’s. I’m lucky to possess the correct palate.’

  ‘So much so that when her last employer discovered she was moving to Chocs-a-million she was instantly put on gardening leave to remove her access to planned products,’ put in Michele, drily. ‘All right for some.’

  ‘Like teachers don’t get paid for taking the summer off?’ Leah sent her sister a sidelong look.

  ‘But “desk” isn’t a four-letter word for me—’

  Jordan interrupted, evidently focused on the important stuff. ‘She can make amazing desserts, Curtis. Talk to her nicely and she might make you something.’

  Curtis gazed at Leah hopefully.

  ‘She’s on holiday,’ Ronan reminded him.

  But Leah obviously recognised suffering when she saw it. ‘Maybe if we have a bad weather day we can have a bit of a bake off. The kitchen in the gîte has a big oven and hob.’

  ‘Yeah! Bake off!’ gloated Jordan.

  ‘Bake off, bake off!’ sang Natasha.

  Curtis switched his hopeful gaze to Ronan and Ronan softened. ‘Sounds as if you’re in luck.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks!’ breathed Curtis. ‘I like making stuff. ’Specially stuff I can eat.’

  Once the food had disappeared, Curtis, Jordan and Natasha wandered over to the shadier part of the garden – ‘Which means they don’t want us to listen in,’ observed Alister – and Michele did the polite-company thing in asking Ronan all about himself.

  ‘So are you being paid not to work, this summer, like Leah?’

  Ronan caught Leah sending Michele a faintly exasperated look. He’d gathered that the two were sisters but he thought some of Michele’s digs were a bit uncalled for. Before Leah could respond, however, her phone buzzed, claiming her attention.

  ‘I broke my clavicle and had to have it pinned. Luckily it was my left side and painting uses my right.’ He rubbed the dull ache that made his shoulder heavy and stiff. From the corner of his eye he could see Leah tapping rapidly at her phone screen. The phone buzzed again almost straight away and she snorted with amusement before resuming her tapping.

  ‘Poor you,’ said Michele. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I’m a helicopter pilot and I had a bit of an incident but in a few weeks I can contact my Aviation Medical Examiner and be passed fit to fly again.’ He deliberately glossed over what had happened. Those who didn’t fly treated it like a big deal to get an ailing helicopter to the ground rather than simple good airmanship. Now the op was over and the healing well underway he didn’t want to indulge avid requests for information. He just wanted to enjoy the extra time with Curtis.

  Happily, Michele seized on his job as the interesting element of his explanation. ‘Helicopter pilot? Glamorous! Makes teaching look boring.’

  Alister smacked his lips over his wine. ‘Ha! Maybe that depends on the teacher.’

  Michele aimed a death glare at Alister and Leah hastily put away her phone and butted in. ‘A helicopter pilot? That’s cool.’

  She obviously had her work cut out as peacekeeper, Ronan decided as he smiled at her. ‘Flying’s my life. I work for an air tours company called Buzz Sightseer, taking tourists over London. I’m the chief pilot and helped build the company up from day one.’

  *

  Leah was fascinated as Ronan talked about his job, relaxed and easy in his chair, long legs crossed at the ankle.

  He lived on the southeastern fringe of London’s urban sprawl, was divorced, and shared Curtis’s care with ex-wife, Sabina. He’d been brought up in Ireland, ‘the rocky bit, right at the top’ but his dad had moved them to England, helping Ronan through university then on his way to his commercial pilot’s licence before he passed away. ‘Dad would’ve been pleased that I got the career I love,’ he concluded. He gave the impression of calm control, of not wasting words, except to occasionally inject flashes of dry humour into the conversation.

  When Leah finally glanced at her watch the time had whizzed around to almost four. Regretfully, she searched around in the grass for her sandals. ‘I’d better get off to the supermarket, unless we’re eating out tonight.’

  Ronan sat up. ‘The supermarket in Muntsheim? I don’t suppose I could beg a lift? My car’s having work done and the garage said it should be ready round about now. I was going to call a cab.’

  Alister sloshed more wine into his glass. ‘You can l
eave Curtis here if he wants. He seems to be stopping our two from bickering.’

  Ronan gave a grin. ‘And miss a ride in your pink car?’

  Alister snorted. ‘Not my car.’

  ‘I did think it was a bit pretty.’ Ronan’s grin widened as he crossed to check with Curtis, who looked up only long enough to say that the others had given him the password to the wifi and he was quite happy where he was. Ronan going off without him was, apparently, ‘Cool beans’.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Michele began to get to her feet.

  Although she understood the eye-roll Michele directed towards Alister Leah suddenly found she’d used up her quota of sisterly compassion for the afternoon. ‘Sorry, no room, I want to give my car a run,’ she muttered. Once she’d dropped Ronan at the garage she could blast out into the countryside, letting her sat nav bring her back to Muntsheim to do the shopping when she was happily chilled. Surely she was entitled to snatch a few moments from this tense, unholiday-ish holiday, to open her car windows and let the wind blow it all away?

  Refusing to hear Michele’s ‘But—!’, Leah ducked into La Petite Annexe for her keys and purse then emerged with a brief ‘’Bye!’ and a hasty ‘C’mon,’ in Ronan’s direction.

  Ronan, with a last word to Curtis, allowed himself to be collected up and chivvied out of the garden.

  *

  Curtis watched his dad follow Leah up the path beside the house.

  Enjoying the feeling of cool grass beneath him, he turned back to his new friends. ‘Your mum’s a MILF,’ he muttered, too quietly for the adults to hear. He’d been waiting to use the line ever since he’d seen American Pie on DVD when his mum and Darren had been out one evening but, frankly, mums usually weren’t.

  ‘What’s a MILF?’ Natasha screwed her neck to try and see what Curtis was doing on his phone.

  Jordan groaned. ‘You must need your eyes testing. And don’t even think it. She’s our mum.’

  ‘Still a MILF.’

  A throaty roar emanated from around the house. Jordan cocked an ear. ‘Leah’s taking the Porsche. Hope your dad doesn’t scare easy.’

  Curtis stared at him. Jordan had short back ’n’ sides dark hair. Curtis wished he, too, had dark hair, like his dad, instead of being sandy with freckles, like his mum. ‘Why do you call her Leah?’

  Propping his chin on his hand, Jordan treated him to a condescending stare. ‘Because … it’s, like, her name?’

  ‘Really, Jordan, really? Duh! But why don’t you call her Mum?’

  Jordan stared. Then he began to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to slap the ground making that ‘Huuuurgh!’ sound between peals that people did when they couldn’t even inhale for laughter.

  Curtis gave Jordan a shove. ‘What?’

  Although she giggled, Natasha was more helpful. ‘Leah’s not our mum. She’s our cool auntie.’ She nodded to where Michele was talking in a low voice to Alister, who was brandishing the nearly empty wine bottle. ‘That’s our mum.’

  Jordan laughed harder. ‘Do you still think our mother’s a MILF?’

  Face burning, Curtis realised he hadn’t even thought who Michele was in relation to the rest of the group. Yet Michele was much more his idea of a mother – old and a bit plump, wearing a frown most of the time. ‘Erm, sorry.’ The ‘No’ was implicit in his tone.

  ‘Leah can’t be a MILF because she’s not a mother,’ Jordan pursued, with unanswerable logic. ‘She’s a “AILF”, which you can’t even say.’ His voice was rich with the superiority a fifteen-year-old reserved for thirteen-year-olds.

  Scowling, Curtis hunted for a way to redress the stupidity scale. ‘Does she ever look after you?’ He ripped up a handful of lawn to throw into Jordan’s face.

  Jordan coughed up a blade of grass before mashing Curtis’s face playfully into the ground. ‘I’m a bit old to need looking after. She used to.’

  ‘If she’s a babysitter she’s a BILF then,’ Curtis said smugly, and got the Urban Dictionary up on his phone to prove that ‘BILF’ wasn’t something he’d made up.

  Natasha clamoured, ‘But what is a MILF? And what is a BILF?’

  In the vicious tone siblings seemed to reserve for moments of inexplicable irritation Jordan suddenly snapped, ‘Look it up, Gnasher.’

  Glaring at her brother, Natasha snatched up her phone. ‘I will, then, in the Urban Dictionary!’

  But as Curtis could see she was spelling it ‘erban’ she had no success. Soon she shoved her phone in her pocket and went off to the woman that Curtis now understood to be her mother complaining that the lemonade was warm.

  *

  At the front of the house, Leah had made a beeline for the garage. ‘I won’t subject you to The Pig.’ She tugged at the wooden door and it began to creak over the paving.

  Ronan, reaching out to help, halted as the light fell on the car within, Leah’s pride and joy. She’d washed the dust from her scarlet Porsche Cayman after the long trek to Kirchenhoffen and it gleamed in the dim interior. ‘Wow!’ He stood aside as Leah climbed aboard, rumbled the engine into life and backed the scarlet beastie out of the cramped space.

  After shutting the reluctant garage door, he angled his way into the passenger seat. ‘Nice.’ He ran his fingertips over the stitching in the leather.

  ‘I love it. I never get tired of driving it.’ Feeling a surge of proprietary delight to be behind the wheel, Leah backed around to follow the lane out of the village, slotting into first gear to pull smoothly away.

  ‘And Alister doesn’t mind?’

  ‘What?’ Flicking through second and third, Leah felt the day’s irritations slithering from her shoulders as the power of the engine thrust her back in her seat.

  ‘He doesn’t mind you driving it?’

  The irritations thudded smartly back. ‘Mind? Not at all.’ Leah kept her eyes on the road, turning over in her mind the realisation that Ronan, who handled a truly cool machine as his job, appeared to have leapt to the conclusion that the Porsche could only belong to a man. Her foot steadied on the accelerator as she reined herself in to a stately forty-five miles per hour.

  Leah butted heads with dismissive men every time she went on a track day, especially if she was the only female participant. It had created in her a burning need to prove herself in the eyes of the condescending male. In fact, most males. The need was burning particularly fiercely right at this moment, urging her to make a stand on behalf of snubbed women drivers everywhere. And though they were currently sailing past neatly laid out fields that rose up to meet more distant tree-clothed hills she knew they’d soon come to a half-finished business park on the outskirts of Muntsheim with a very different kind of wide-open space. One that would provide the perfect arena to challenge Ronan’s assumptions.

  As she formulated her plans Ronan made up for her silence with a helpful run down of the tram system into Strasbourg and where to find the ‘office de tourisme’, near the cathedral. ‘But perhaps you’ve visited Strasbourg already?’ he prompted.

  Leah, attention not really on city tourist traps, replied only absently, ‘I expect we’ll get there but Alister’s more into cycling and active stuff,’ and Ronan retreated into silence, too. Maybe he was worried Leah wasn’t capable of talking and driving at the same time, she thought, with an inner grin.

  The fields petered out and the road became broader and busier, street lighting and advertising hoardings signalling the town’s approaches. Before long, the business park came up on their left. Leah slowed to give it the once over. Work at the site looked to have halted some time ago. Red skips and depleted brick stacks were corralled behind temporary fencing but she saw no sign of a workforce.

  Would the owners mind her borrowing their big empty car park for a few minutes?

  No, she decided, as she indicated and turned across the traffic to nose the car through a drunken line of plastic cones.

  Ronan glanced across at her, expression perplexed. ‘You’ll need to go on a bit for either the supermarket
or the garage.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Leah tried to look as if she were gazing about helplessly while actually assessing the area for hazards. ‘I’ll turn around.’ She straightened the car up, confirmed it was in first gear and made a last check of her mirrors. Then she stamped on the accelerator.

  ‘Whoa!’ gasped Ronan as the engine, howling in joy that it was playtime, catapulted them across the tarmac.

  ‘Oops,’ crooned Leah, relishing the feeling of acceleration pressing her into the seat. Settling her left hand on the handbrake she gathered power for another few seconds. Then she simultaneously yanked up the handbrake, stamped on the clutch and spun the steering wheel hard left. The Porsche changed direction like a dog chasing a rat.

  Flung against the door, Ronan gasped. ‘What the fu—’

  Standing on the accelerator again Leah sent the car flying back the way it had come, powered up, yanked the car into a donut that made her tyres screech, slammed into reverse, J-turned, and screamed to a halt neatly facing the exit.

  ‘It’s not Alister’s car,’ she pointed out, breathlessly. ‘It’s mine.’

  Want more? Then pre-order Just For the Holidays here.

  Coming May 2017.

  About the Author

  Award-winning author Sue Moorcroft writes contemporary women’s fiction with occasionally unexpected themes. She’s won a Readers’ Best Romantic Read Award and has been nominated for others, including a ‘RoNA’ (Romantic Novel Award). Sue’s a Katie Fforde Bursary Award winner, a past vice chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and editor of its two anthologies. She also writes short stories, serials, articles, writing ‘how to’ and is a creative writing tutor.

  The daughter of two soldiers, Sue was born in Germany and went on to spend much of her childhood in Malta and Cyprus. She likes reading, Zumba, FitStep, yoga, and watching Formula One.

  You can follow Sue on Twitter @SueMoorcroft and find out more by visiting www.suemoorcroft.com.

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