Once Upon a Winter: A totally perfect festive romantic comedy

by Tilly Tennant

  The sisters bid their goodbyes and promised to call at Holly Farm over the next couple of days. Gina smiled and made a good job of looking at ease, but as they left, Hannah saw her features harden instantly.

  ‘Wait until I get my hands on that bastard,’ she hissed, the double doors of the ward swinging violently behind her as she burst through them.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What I should have done a long time ago – cut his fucking balls off.’

  ‘Gina!’ Hannah squeaked.

  ‘What? Can you blame me for being angry?’

  ‘Of course not, but you need to calm down. First, we need to get to the bottom of what’s really gone on here.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, I intend to.’

  Hannah glanced across at her sister. Her jaw was tight, her walk stiff and purposeful and Hannah was in no doubt that she wasn’t seeing things rationally. If she wasn’t careful she could make the situation much worse. ‘Let me talk to Jess.’

  Gina’s stride didn’t break. She stared straight ahead. ‘She’s my responsibility and I need to deal with her.’

  ‘You’re too emotional to do that right now. And the truth is, you’ve no idea what she told Howard.’

  Gina stopped at the glass doors of the hospital entrance. ‘I thought I knew Howard. Beating people up, hanging around in cars, stalking, reacting to crazy accusations… it’s just not him. If Howard is capable of those things then the world has gone mad and anyone is capable of anything.’

  ‘He told you he wanted you back. People do desperate things when they’re desperate.’

  ‘He should have thought about that when he was shagging his secretary,’ Gina fired back. ‘This was his doing, not mine. He already had me, and I loved him; all he had to do was treat me properly.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I haven’t decided.’

  ‘So, you might tell the police the truth after all?’

  ‘Ross might be sweet and forgiving and willing to sacrifice justice for my sake and I love him for that, but it’s not right. Whatever Jess told Howard about Ross, he already knew I was seeing someone because he’d been stalking me, and that’s unacceptable without any of the other stuff. He was looking for an excuse to wade in and if it hadn’t been the one Jess apparently gave him, he would have found something else to hate Ross for.’

  ‘He wanted you back that badly…’

  ‘No, he just hates to lose.’

  ‘But if you involve the police, what about Jess?’

  ‘I don’t know about that either yet. I don’t even know where to start with all this.’

  Negotiating their way through the rows of tightly packed vehicles in the car park, they finally arrived back at Hannah’s little Citroën. Hannah could see how angry and hurt Gina was, and how much she needed support right now.

  ‘We won’t bother with the train,’ Hannah said, ‘I’ll drive you to Birmingham.’

  ‘This is so you can come with me. I’ve already said you don’t need to.’

  ‘Yes I do. There’s no way I’m letting you go alone the state you’re in.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Hannah turned the key in the ignition. ‘Of course you are.’

  It had been a tense and silent journey. Gina had seemed calmer when they arrived back, but no sooner had Hannah yanked on the handbrake than Gina was out of the car and striding towards her front door.

  ‘Wait!’ Hannah cried, slamming the car door behind her as she gave chase. But Gina already had her key in the lock.

  ‘Jessica!’ Gina called as the front door flew open. But she needn’t have bothered; Jess appeared from the next room immediately. The look on her face told Hannah that she already knew how much trouble she was in.

  ‘Oh, Jess…’ Gina began, ‘do you have any idea of the shit you’ve caused?’

  ‘What happened?’ Jess asked. Her usual cockiness was replaced by a wide-eyed look of dread.

  ‘What happened? What happened was that Ross got beaten to a pulp by your dad.’

  Jess’s eyes widened still. ‘He got beat up? Dad said…’

  ‘What did Dad say?’ Gina asked.

  ‘He said… we talked about moving in with Ross –’

  ‘Nobody ever said we were moving in with Ross!’

  ‘Gina…’ Hannah cut in, ‘calm down.’

  ‘I am calm!’ Gina said, drawing in a deep breath in an attempt to make it true. ‘I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.’ She turned to Jess. ‘So you told your dad we were moving in with Ross?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Jess said awkwardly.

  ‘But you told him we might?’

  ‘I said I didn’t want to…’

  ‘What you really meant was that you didn’t want to leave Birmingham and you were trying to persuade your dad that you should live with him, so you used Ross as your pawn.’ Gina folded her arms. Jess looked at her shoes. ‘Well?’

  Hannah decided to intervene. She looked at Jess. ‘Why don’t you go and sit in the kitchen? I’ll come and talk to you in a minute.’

  Jess hovered uncertainly. ‘Go on.’ Without any argument, Jess dashed off.

  Hannah crossed the room to close the door and turned to Gina. ‘You’re angry, and you’re hurting. You’re not in a state to deal with this now… I’ll talk to Jess first.’

  Gina looked as though she wanted to argue, but then she let out a sigh. ‘You’re right. Talk to her and see if you can make any sense of what’s going on.’

  ‘Give us an hour. Have a bath or something to relax you – you look as though you badly need it.’

  As Gina disappeared, Hannah followed Jess through to the kitchen. She sat down opposite her niece and took a deep breath. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Has my dad really done that?’ Jess asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘I didn’t tell him to do anything, I swear.’

  ‘I believe you, Jess. But your dad went out to Holly Farm yesterday and beat Ross up and left him unconscious. There’s no denying that this is all quite a mess.’

  Tears began to well in Jess’s eyes.

  ‘Ross is so badly beaten,’ Hannah continued, ‘that he’s in hospital. He’s had to have surgery. He is devastated by the accusations your father is making – a lovely, sweet, kind man who doesn’t deserve that sort of slur – and he may take a long time to recover from that. You may not care for Ross now, but if your mum stays with him long term, you need to build a proper, trusting relationship with him.’

  Jess sniffed hard and rubbed the back of her hand under her nose.

  ‘What, exactly, did you tell your dad?’ Hannah asked.

  Jess didn’t look up, her gaze fixed firmly on the table. Hannah waited for a moment before trying again.

  ‘You might not want to tell me but you’ll have to tell the police if they ask. Ross is going to do his best to keep the police out of it, but there was a 999 call so it might not be that simple.’

  Jess’s head snapped up, a look of absolute alarm on her face. ‘I didn’t think Dad would go loco. I just wanted to move in with him.’

  ‘Jess, it’s really important that you tell me exactly what you did tell him.’

  Jess started to cry in earnest now. ‘I only said that Ross was really young – almost the same age as my boyfriend – and… I did say that I didn’t want to live with him because it made me uncomfortable…

  ‘Uncomfortable how?’

  ‘…like I wouldn’t be able relax when he was around and stuff.’

  ‘Did you insinuate that there was anything… weird about Ross?’

  ‘I… I don’t think so…’

  Hannah wondered if Jess had accidentally led Howard to the wrong conclusion but now was not the time to confront her with that possibility. And even if she had, the damage was already done and they simply had to find a way to undo it. ‘Did you ask your dad if you could move in with him before?’

  ‘
He said my place was with Mum. He said she’d be the better parent because he worked such long hours. He said that I didn’t need to worry about Ross being there because he would sort it.’

  ‘All this because you don’t want to move away from Birmingham?’

  ‘All my friends are here. I don’t know anyone in Millrise.’

  ‘I know it’s hard, but sometimes life is like that. Despite what you think now, you will adjust and you will be happy again. And you must be able to see how happy your mum has been since Ross came into her life.’

  Jess’s voice was barely more than a whisper as she asked her next question. ‘Do you really think Ross would drop my dad in it?’

  ‘Your dad has dropped himself in it.’

  ‘But will he go to the police?’

  ‘The police have already gone to him. And there may be other witnesses we don’t yet know about,’ she continued.

  ‘Then dad’s screwed!’ Jess cried.

  ‘We don’t know that. We’ll sort things as best we can, I promise.’

  ‘What will happen to Dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess the worst case scenario is that he could go to prison. What he did is very, very serious. But let’s try not to think about that yet.’

  ‘Ross will hate me forever.’

  ‘He isn’t like that,’ Hannah said gently. She gave Jess an encouraging smile.

  ‘So I have to tell the police everything?’

  ‘If they ask, yes.’

  ‘Will I get into trouble?’

  ‘I don’t know. It depends what they make of it.’

  ‘Shit…’

  ‘Shit indeed.’ Hannah got up and filled the kettle. ‘Do you think it’s time to talk to your mum? You owe her an explanation, and you need to tell her how you feel – why you’re so upset about moving away from here and how scared you are of things changing.’

  Jess was silent as Hannah flicked on the kettle and pulled two mugs from the cupboard.

  The door to the kitchen opened, and Gina put her head around it. Her eyes were puffy, and she showed no signs of having had a bath at all. Hannah wondered how much of the conversation she’d overheard behind the kitchen door.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Hannah asked.

  Gina gave a small nod, and then turned to Jess. ‘We’re in a mess, aren’t we?’

  Jess’s eyes filled with tears again and Gina crossed the room to pull her into a hug. ‘We’ll sort it out, though, just like we always do,’ Gina added, kissing the top of her head.

  ‘I’m really, really sorry, Mum.’

  ‘I’m sorry too.’

  Hannah had finally left for her drive home, despite Gina’s insistence that she wait and stay there until morning. Hannah wanted her own bed – more than that, she wanted warm arms to hold her in it and kiss away the stress. For once, she was glad she didn’t have a misguided teenager trying to ruin her relationship with Mitchell, although Martine was quite enough trouble by herself.

  It was gone ten p.m. when she sent the text to Mitchell to let him know she was safe and sound back on Holly Way. She hadn’t really had time during the day to tell him a lot else, and there were parts of the story that she really didn’t want to tell him, but half an hour after her text he was on the sofa with her and an open bottle of wine, and Hannah found herself pouring all her troubles into his willing ears.

  When she had finished, he kissed her tenderly and wrapped her tighter in his embrace, and she lay there, content in his arms as she watched the flames of the open fire spit and dance. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

  Although it was frosty, the day was bright and insects rose up from the long grass as Hannah, Gina and Trixie strode through it.

  ‘It’s getting warmer,’ Hannah said. ‘I think spring is just around the corner.’

  Gina shot her a sideways look. ‘You’re kidding me? It’s February and it’s bloody freezing!’

  ‘I didn’t say it was warm, just warmer.’ Hannah bit back a grin as her gaze went across the fields to where a familiar rooftop had just come into view. ‘I don’t know why you wanted to come out if you think it’s cold.’

  ‘I only think it’s cold because I’ve just been somewhere really warm for a week,’ Gina excused, ‘I’m still acclimatising. And I thought the walk would do me good – work off all that food I ate last week while we were on holiday.’

  ‘Oh, that’s what it is!’ Hannah smirked. ‘So nothing to do with the fact that while you and Jess definitely needed a bit of bonding time together on a sunny Canary island – and I’m not a bit jealous, obviously – you’ve also been desperate to see a certain farmer all the time you’ve been away?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Gina said tartly.

  ‘You don’t generally go around begging people to walk their dogs.’

  ‘I didn’t beg, I offered. As a favour.’

  ‘You know, if you’d wanted to see Ross you only had to ask. We could have just knocked on the door of Holly Farm instead of all this dog-based subterfuge.’

  ‘This way seems less suspicious. We happen to be doing an elderly neighbour a favour.’

  ‘So you do admit to an ulterior motive! I don’t think Paul and Briony would have minded us calling anyway. Ross is a lot better now and they seem to be putting things behind them now that the chance of actually prosecuting someone seems very slim.’

  ‘We won’t tell Howard that. He’s still shitting himself and it’s no more than he deserves.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell him he’s in the clear?’

  ‘No chance. I’m not letting him think he can go around beating people up because he doesn’t like them talking to me. As things stand now, he’s keen to keep me onside which means the divorce will go through nice and quickly and I’ll get what I want without a fuss.’

  ‘Do you believe what he told you last week?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About only doing what he did because he loves you and Jess so much?’

  Gina shrugged. ‘I suppose I understand him being angry if he thought Ross was messing with Jess. It’s natural for her dad to want to protect her and she admits she may have allowed him to think more than she actually told him. But the stalking – that was before Jess had said a word and there’s no excuse for that. He ruined the marriage. He made the decision that has left him on his own, he shacked up with a woman who turned out to be a gold-digging airhead, but he can’t see that. Typical Howard – everyone else is to blame for his woes but never him. He couldn’t stand to see that I might be happy without him. That’s mean and vindictive and petty. I honestly wonder now what I ever saw in him.’

  Hannah shielded her eyes from the sun that now poured over the fields as they crested a gentle incline. George’s dog was wandering off at a tangent. ‘Trixie!’ she called. ‘Come on, girl!’ The little dog’s head snapped up and she came haring back towards them, tail going like a child’s windmill. ‘I don’t like her wandering too far,’ Hannah explained. ‘She’s not our dog.’

  ‘I doubt she could get that far,’ Gina said mildly. ‘Her legs are so small she’d be knackered after a mile.’

  ‘Don’t forget I’ve had to chase her before and she’s faster than she looks. I don’t fancy another go.’

  Gina grinned. ‘Oh, yes, I remember that day particularly well.’

  ‘Anything to do with a certain handsome farmer making an appearance?’

  ‘It could be. He is so much more than handsome, though. I really can’t wait to get things out in the open so we can be a proper couple.’

  ‘Hopefully you won’t have to wait for much longer.’

  Gina glanced across as she kept step with Hannah. ‘Do you think we’re doing the right thing? Look how much trouble me being with Ross has caused already.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy! You love him and he loves you. Nothing else should matter.’

  ‘Like you and Mitchell?’ Gina raised an eyebrow.

  ‘That’s slightly more complicated, but I suppose so.’

/>   ‘I don’t think it’s more complicated, just a different set of complications.’

  Hannah was silent for a moment. When she couldn’t think of a reply, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a bag of dog treats George had given her in case Trixie wandered off and refused to come back. The rustle of the pack caused the little dog to race over as Hannah produced a treat and held it out – just for the sake of watching her tail wag like crazy. ‘Here you go, Miss,’ she said as Trixie snapped it from her fingers and almost swallowed it whole. Hannah looked up at Gina with a smile. ‘Now, there’s a girl who sees what she wants and takes it.’

  Hannah straightened up and they began to walk again, Trixie now a shadow at Hannah’s side just in case the treat bag came out again. They walked for a couple of minutes in companionable silence, until the impressive vista of Holly Farm rose ahead of them. From this direction, the house was bordered by vast swathes of the hedge that gave the farm its name. The top floor was the only part visible above it, plus a corner window of the annexe that Ross lived in. Hannah caught Gina’s broad smile, and when she followed the direction of her gaze, she could see Ross standing at the window, obviously watching them cross the field. Gina’s hand went up in a little wave, and Ross mirrored it.

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s like Romeo and Juliet,’ Hannah said, rolling her eyes but grinning just the same.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Gina returned.

  ‘But, I suppose it must be frustrating, Ross being on his sickbed. I mean, you can’t have any of your secret assignations while he’s cooped up and has Briony clucking over him like a mother hen.’

  ‘It is. We’ve had to make do with phone sex and it’s just not the same.’

  ‘Oh, God, please!’ Hannah snorted. ‘I did not need to know that!’

  ‘He said that we needed to wait for the right time to tell his parents and he’s right, even though I don’t like it. It’s best to tell them when he’s well and this has all blown over. We were both highly emotional at the hospital and they were too, and it would have been a terrible move to do it then.’ She reached for Hannah’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Thanks for being the voice of reason when I didn’t have an ounce.’