by Emma Jackson
This hotel was going to be full to capacity tomorrow with demanding guests – expecting a wonderful, luxurious, stress-free Christmas – and I didn’t fancy being in charge of that. I mean, look what happened when I tried to buy a Christmas decoration. Or run my own life.
‘Mum, I don’t think this is a good idea.’ I finally plucked up the courage to speak over the clip-clopping chorus of our shoes.
‘I don’t have a better one unfortunately.’
‘Why can’t I go instead?’
We arrived at the bottom and she stopped, turning to face me. ‘How?’
‘I’ll drive.’
Mum took a deep breath, pinching her bottom lip for a moment before she shook her head. ‘You’re not insured on my car. And you haven’t driven since you moved to London. Trying to do a four-hour trip in bad weather conditions wouldn’t be sensible, Beth. It wouldn’t be safe. I’d be so worried about you.’
I screwed my nose up. This was an irritatingly good point. I wouldn’t be much help if I ended up in hospital too.
‘What about the hotel though? This place is your pride and joy and Christmas is the crowning glory of your year. Aren’t you worried something will go wrong without you here?’
‘Of course, I’m worried. But, firstly, I’ll only be away for a day. Secondly, I know you are here and more than capable. And thirdly…this place is not my pride and joy.’ She reached out for my hand and gave it a little squeeze. I felt it in my chest, right around my heart. She cleared her throat and let go again to check her silver bracelet watch. ‘I have to go open the bar. You can watch over reception for a couple of hours, then start setting up the dining room for dinner. Lydia gave us some extras she had for us to make table centrepieces with; you can sort that out for me, can’t you?’
‘Sure.’ I forced a smile and tried to sound confident because I knew that’s what she wanted from me. She raised me to be a strong, independent young woman. How hard could it be?
Chapter Three
‘Argh, you piece of Christmas crap.’ I threw the holly leaf down after pulling its prickly edge out of my thumb. It was a faux holly leaf. What kind of sadist put sharp bits on a pretend plant?
I was trying to figure out how it was that I’d spent years visiting Lydia in her florist’s and had absorbed precisely zero knowledge of flower arranging, when my stomach gave an enormous growl. I never had made myself that sandwich earlier. No wonder I couldn’t concentrate on the fiddly little leaves; between the constant background buzz of anxiety about Grandad, my mum’s imminent departure leaving me in charge – oh God – and my blood sugar level crashing, I had the attention span of a toddler. If I was going to get these centrepieces sorted, I needed to fuel myself back up.
I strode over to the dining rooms double doors and pulled down the deadbolt on one side, so I could slip through to the bar, with the intention of grabbing myself a bag of peanuts. Inside, the burble of many one-to-one conversations joined together over the gentle clink of glasses. Mum was serving someone at the far end of the bar. I lifted the hatch and ducked under the swaths of thick garland fastened to the shelving above the bar with red velvet bows. It’s possible I was starting to get paranoid about aggressive Christmas decorations.
I’d made it safely through the foliage when a guest approached me at the bar, with two empty glasses and a face that made me freeze in place. It took a while for my brain to catch up, but it got there just as he set the glasses on the bar in between us and looked up at me.
It was the grumpy-backpack guy. Rain-dishevelled, nice-smelling guy.
I saw the question slide across his face and the recognition that very shortly followed. ‘Oh. It’s you.’
‘Small world.’ I forced a smile and my body began to thaw out from its shock, no doubt warmed by the sight of him.
My goodness, he scrubbed up really well.
That afternoon his charms had been obscured beneath the soggy hair, grumpy attitude and rucksack the size of Ben Nevis. Now there was really no question: he was hot.
How annoying.
That one solitary curl I’d seen earlier was now joined by all its brothers and sisters, dry and clean; lounging around on the top of his head without a care for the massacre that had occurred at the back and on the sides where his gorgeous dark blond hair was cropped much closer. I gave it an eight out of ten on the glorious mess scale. Still dishevelled, but in a rolled-out-of-bed way, rather than a run-over-by-a-fleeing-woman way.
The collar of his chequered shirt highlighted the firm angle of his jaw and why that characteristic seemed to jump out at me I didn’t know. What did a strong, square jaw signify to my female heterosexual biology exactly? That he would be able to take a punch well in a human version of the rutting season? That he was less likely to cut himself shaving and was therefore a better long-term prospect for a mate?
And this was all beside the point because I wasn’t interested in finding a mate for the long term or short term, thank you very much.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ I attempted to keep my voice friendly but detached: somewhere between news anchor and a satellite navigation system. He’d brought over two glasses. Was he here with his wife or girlfriend?
Not that I cared, of course.
‘Yes please.’ He slipped his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, pulling the shirt open wider across the base of his throat and revealing a tantalising triangle of tanned skin. I’m not going to lie, what his skin would taste like if I licked it definitely crossed my mind. It was like that bodily collision with him in the village had woken my libido up out of hibernation too early and now it was stumbling around all confused and aggressive. ‘Orange juice for me and a dry sherry for my nan. Room eight.’
I glanced around the room and saw a little old lady with auburn-tinted hair watching from her favourite spot between the fire and the Christmas tree in the bay window. When she saw me looking, she raised her hand and gave me a friendly wave.
I waved back, and my smile relaxed into something more natural and less like a scary wooden puppet.
‘So, you’re one of Dorie’s grandsons.’ She’d been staying with us for a week already and was completely lovely. She spent most of her days in the library or the bar, reading romance novels, sipping sherry and talking about her two wonderful grandsons who were joining her soon. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’
Immediately he pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms tightly over his chest.
‘Why? What’s she said?’
‘Oh, nothing much, except that one’s a banker and one’s a pilot…’ I remembered about him not having enough English currency. Surely, he wasn’t the pilot? Were they even allowed to wear glasses? It wasn’t fair for him to turn out to be gorgeous and a pilot. That didn’t happen in real life; the laws of physics or something would prohibit it. He must be the banker – he’d just been on holiday or travelling for business. I cleared my throat. ‘And that she couldn’t wait to see you.’
‘Oh.’ He blinked and shook his head a little. ‘I’m just a co-pilot at the moment. Building up my air miles to get my full licence.’ His cheeks tinged pink as he explained. His humility was so unexpectedly endearing that it was all too much. My bewildered libido was trampling all over my brain’s manifesto that I wasn’t interested in men at the moment and my stomach performed a slow roll filled with butterflies. He held his hand out. ‘I’m Nick.’
I didn’t want to shake his hand. I feared I might melt to the floor. But there was no way to avoid it really, so I took his hand and gave it a brief squeeze. Tingles raced up my arm.
‘Beth,’ I managed to croak before I near-ripped my hand away for the sake of self-preservation.
I busied myself fulfilling his drinks order and as I set the orange juice in front of him, I looked up and caught him watching me just before his focus skittered away. Behind his black-framed glasses, his eyes were the colour of the sea I’d seen earlier in Geri and Lisa’s proposal picture. Was it getting hot in here?<
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‘I put your T-shirt in the wash. Once it’s dry I’ll return it,’ I said, needing to fill the silence as I poured the sherry for his nan. Immediately I wanted to strangle myself with the Christmas garland. Why did I bring the angel up again? For one thing, I’d made quite a big deal of it and, for another, my mum was only a few metres away talking to one of the guests.
‘Right, sure, great.’ He blinked and slipped his hand in his back pocket again, but this time to bring his wallet out. ‘I managed to get some more cash out earlier. What can I give you to help with the repairs?’ He slipped out a few notes and offered them. ‘I know it won’t fix it, since it’s a family heirloom and everything but—’
‘Oh no, no, please.’ I shook my head and my hand at him, anything to get him to stop. Not only was I cringing because he’d probably thought I’d been fishing for recompense, but also, he still looked genuinely gutted about it. Mum was flicking glances our way now, one eyebrow raised in question at me, and I knew she was a heartbeat away from walking over and seeing what was wrong. Luckily, Julius Mundey – our resident awkward guest – was still making a speech to her, probably about some aspect of his stay that wasn’t completely perfect, so she couldn’t break away just yet.
‘Really. It was my fault earlier. You were right – I was staring at my phone trying to find the hotel. And I was rude,’ he persisted. ‘I have no excuse except for jet lag. Please, take the money, it would ease my conscience.’
I suppressed a groan and shook my head again. Mum was still watching us, and this time Nick caught on to the fact that I was watching her watching me. It was starting to feel like a Mexican stand-off. If he realised she was my mum, he might start apologising to her for the angel too. It would be so nice for her not to know I couldn’t even be trusted to buy a wooden doll without it meeting with an accident on the way home from the shop, especially since she was planning to leave me in charge of the whole hotel.
I wrapped my hand around his money, folding it back into his fist and leaned closer so I could lower my voice.
‘It’s really not necessary.’ I tried to breathe normally and form words through the haze of eucalyptus and male pheromones his increased proximity engulfed me in. His throat rippled with a swallow and I realised this wasn’t an improvement on the curious behaviour from my mother’s point of view, so I needed to make it snappy. ‘I lied. About the angel. She’s not a family heirloom. I’d only just bought her. Sorry.’ I released his hand and stepped back, biting my lip.
His bright blue gaze studied my mouth like I’d been speaking a different language and then travelled up over my face to look me in the eye. ‘You lied? About your mum being heartbroken?’
‘Yes, sorry. I was a bit stressed out and – well – like you said, you were quite rude.’
I watched a muscle flex in that evolutionarily superior jaw.
‘I see.’ He put the money away and picked up the drinks. ‘Well, I guess that makes us even now.’ He walked away without saying anything more and I winced.
Mum caught my eye one last time and mouthed ‘Are you okay?’ at me. I nodded, grabbed a bag of nuts and beat a hasty retreat to the dining room before she could start asking me questions. The fake holly centrepieces might’ve been prickly, but I had a feeling they’d be less painful than the dagger-filled looks Nick was sending across the bar at me.
In the end, after a hit of salt and protein, I was able to fix the centrepiece issue with a bit of perseverance and glue.
I overlapped some holly leaves, end over end, with a couple of miniature poinsettias and glued it all to a glass candleholder, then repeated the process a dozen times. It had been oddly therapeutic to concentrate on a repetitive task and I’d just about finished setting them in the middle of the tables – which were covered in deep red tablecloths to match the poinsettias – and lit all the little tea lights, when the guests began arriving for dinner.
Hopefully, the stems of the fake holly leaves wouldn’t melt from the heat of the candles and let off noxious fumes. On the plus side, it’d make the dinner shift quieter if everyone passed out into their food.
I showed people to their tables and took orders for drinks and appetisers. I didn’t even realise I was anxiously awaiting Nick’s arrival until his nan came in.
‘Good evening, Dorie.’ I met her at the door with a menu. ‘Table for two?’
‘No, just me again.’ She laced her fingers together neatly. If she was upset about Nick not joining her, she was hiding it well. In fact, she was twinkling as brightly as her very elegant diamond earrings. ‘My grandson has to catch up on some sleep. He was flying for nearly twenty-four hours.’
I supposed that would account for why he was so grumpy when I bumped into him earlier. I mean, when we bumped into each other. It was definitely a fifty-fifty thing.
‘Don’t pilots get to sleep on long-haul flights?’ I led Dorie around the tables to the back of the room where she usually sat by the window. The curtains were pulled back on the tall Georgian windows and even though the sky outside was inky black, fairy lights illuminated pathways in the rose gardens: it looked like the stars had fallen to earth.
‘“Controlled rest”, they call it apparently.’ She gave me a wry look as I pulled out her chair for her. ‘I have a “controlled rest” every day after lunch.’
I laughed as she sat down. It was obvious she was intensely proud of her grandsons but from what I could gather of her sense of humour, I doubted she let them know it. It would be extremely interesting to earwig a conversation between them. Not because I was curious about Nick. No. Just in a general, voyeuristic way. And I guess that meant I was in luck since I’d no doubt be serving them food and drinks for the rest of Christmas.
Quite different from my original plan for this Christmas. Peter and I would have been here at the hotel, for the first time in our four years together, rather than visiting his parents in Wales. I’d wanted to take him to the Christmas fayre because it was impossible not to get in the Christmas spirit there, go for some invigorating walks across the Downs to build up an appetite for all the gorgeous food on offer, and enjoy hot chocolates cuddled up by the fire – all that cheesy nonsense. I’d had it all figured out, the perfect opportunity to try and ease all his stress and get us back on the same page. What is it they say about the best-laid plans?
‘Ooh, this is nice.’ Dorie pointed to the candle flickering within my holly/poinsettia creation around it. Bless that sweet-hearted woman – perhaps all her reading of romance novels had left her eyes strained?
‘Would you like me to give you some time to decide?’ I gave her the cream faux-leather wallet, which held our latest menu.
‘Oh no, I’m old, honey, I know what I like, and I don’t want to waste too many of my minutes being indecisive. I’ll have the squash ravioli and a glass of the house white please.’
‘No starter?’
‘The more I eat, the less room there is for wine,’ she quipped. I laughed again and took her order to the kitchen.
The dining room filled up quickly after that. A few of the guests sometimes went out in the evenings for their meals, and there were a couple of very nice restaurants near the village, but the food at the Everdene Hotel was renowned itself. Serving up steaming, fragrant plates of squash ravioli, cheese soufflé, scallops, tuna steaks, roasted aubergine and belly of pork, was frankly making my stomach tie itself in knots. That packet of peanuts hadn’t taken long to burn off.
It didn’t look like the service was going to drag tonight though. At least, not for my six tables. Only four were taken and three of those were occupied by solitary diners. Dorie, Julius Mundey – aforementioned Mr Awkward who stayed with us for a weekend at least once a month and managed to make those couple of days feel like a fortnight – and Noelle Kingston, a writer from New York who was either scribbling in her notebook, staring off into space or asking me very strange questions, then laughing gleefully at my answers. I think she was working on a novel set in a hotel, either that o
r she was planning a murder and I was becoming an unwitting accessory.
The other table was taken by the Nakamuras, a young couple from Japan who were always ravenous after going hiking for miles every day. As soon as they hoovered down their food, they’d be off into the bar to plan their next adventure.
Lola – the other waitress working tonight – was not as fortunate as me. All of her six tables were full. Two families of four, with young kids: the Hendersons and the Featherbys; two middle-aged couples: John and Louie from Brighton, and Geoff and Fiona from Essex. Then there was Olive and Matilda who were about Dorie’s age and most likely sisters given the level of the bickering they engaged in – one was currently brandishing a butter knife in a decidedly threatening way. Lastly were the J’s: June and Jane, a mother and teenage daughter, who liked to photograph every meal and beverage they were served for at least ten minutes before they partook of it.
By the time the guests were well into their main courses and the volume of chatter in the room had risen considerably because they were well into their bottles of wine too, I felt it was safe to retreat to the waitress station near the serving hatch and check my phone. Anything to take my mind off my hunger pains and aching feet.
I had a message from Lisa:
Lisa: I can’t believe you knew Geri was planning to propose for months and never said anything!
I smiled, picturing her exact expression, shocked and happy and not at all cross. It was like when a kitten attacks a slipper, a lot of fluff but not a lot to take seriously. I checked on the guests before tapping out a reply:
Me: It was a secret. Looks like I’m better at keeping them than Geri. Congratulations, my lovely. I hope you are both sickeningly happy together forever and ever.
