Once Upon a Winter: A totally perfect festive romantic comedy

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘That’s me – Captain Sensible,’ Hannah smiled. ‘Boring and reasonable to the last.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. You’ve certainly livened up my life lately.’

  ‘For all the wrong reasons,’ Hannah replied with a wry smile.

  Paul Hunter emerged from a side gate at the house’s perimeter and made his way across the field. ‘What brings you lovely ladies to these parts?’ he called to them.

  ‘We were just walking Trixie for George,’ Hannah returned brightly. ‘It’s a nice day, we had a spare hour and George looked a bit peaky when we saw him getting ready to take her out, so we told him to take an hour in his armchair and we’d give her a good run.’

  Paul bent down to tickle Trixie behind the ears, ‘That’s good of you. Proper little sisters of mercy, aren’t you?’

  Gina smiled at Paul. ‘How’s Ross?’ she asked, not a flicker of anything but neighbourly concern on her face.

  Paul stood up. ‘Why don’t you pop in and see for yourself if you’ve got ten minutes to spare? I’m sure he’d be glad of some company other than me and Briony.’

  ‘Is Briony home?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Oh, aye. Any other Sunday she’d be at church, but she wants to keep an eye on the lad. Not that he’d come to any harm now, but I think she finds it hard to let him be.’

  Gina kept her face straight, but Hannah knew she was hiding her disappointment well. There had been texts flying back and forth between her and Ross all morning, and he had intimated that his mum might be out and that his dad almost certainly would be.

  ‘We could pop in and say hello,’ Hannah replied, shooting a glance at Gina for some sign that she was giving the right answer.

  ‘Don’t stay out too long; it’ll be dark sooner than you know it,’ Paul warned as he slung the spade he’d been carrying back across his shoulder. ‘And mind you go back by the road,’ he added as he began to trudge away in the direction they had just come from.

  ‘We will,’ Hannah called after him, vaguely wondering how he was going to dig anything when the earth must be frozen solid.

  ‘Come on,’ Gina said, her eyes still trained on his retreating figure. ‘I suppose an hour with a chaperone is better than nothing.’

  ‘He’ll be happy to see you. And don’t forget we’re supposed to be winning Briony over too. If you think about it that way, then it’s a good thing she’s there.’

  ‘Yes, yes… you’re right, as always. So let’s get it over with.’

  ‘You could at least try to enjoy it a little. I know she’s a bit full on at first, but she’s actually lovely when you get to know her.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. But when I’m sitting having tea with her all I can think about is ripping her son’s clothes off and having him on the kitchen table.’

  ‘My God!’ Hannah giggled. ‘You’re obsessed!’

  ‘Let me tell you, if the shoe was on the other foot you would be too. I don’t know where he learned it, but in the bedroom, that boy is divine.’

  Hannah could understand only too well. She tried not to think of Mitchell’s hands all over her, the feel of his breath on her neck, the taste of him. She sighed and turned her mind instead to an hour of drinking tea and discussing the price of cattle feed.

  As always, Briony was thrilled at the arrival of company and couldn’t tell Gina enough times how beautiful the tan she had brought back from Lanzarote had made her look. Making a great deal of fuss, she put out a plate of chicken and a bowl of water for Trixie, and insisted Hannah and Gina cancel all plans to shoot off before dark, stating that Paul would drive them back. When Hannah tried to argue that George would wonder where they had got to with his dog, she assured them that Paul would call in at the old man’s house and take care of that too. So they soon found themselves plied with tea and a plate of homemade scones the height of Everest that were so delicious Hannah decided she would eat them and nothing else for the rest of her life.

  No sooner had they sat at the table than Ross joined them, professing as much surprise at their arrival as Briony had, and shooting furtive, longing glances in Gina’s direction whenever Briony’s back was turned. Loaded looks and mouthed messages passed between them at every opportunity, and Hannah decided that if it made them happy, then she was happy for them. Ross himself still looked to be in a great deal of pain – holding himself stiff and awkwardly – but it had only been just over a week since the attack and a lesser man wouldn’t have been on his feet at all. He looked a lot brighter than he had the last time Hannah had seen him, though, and insisted on pushing himself up from his chair at every opportunity to help Briony with tea making and plate fetching and various other little jobs.

  ‘He’s going mad with boredom,’ Briony said as she brought the full teapot to the table. ‘Just look at him – can’t keep his bum on that seat for more than a minute. But I suppose it’s to be expected; he’s just not used to sitting around.’

  ‘I am going mad with boredom,’ Ross agreed as he popped a jar of strawberry jam, thick with fruit, onto the table. ‘I’m just not an indoors kind of guy. The doc has told me six weeks’ rest, but there’s no chance of that. I’ll have to swap my bedroom for a padded cell if I stay there for that long.’

  ‘But you can still go out walking, can’t you?’ Hannah asked. ‘Around the farm, I mean, if you take it easy.’

  ‘Walking would be alright,’ Briony cut in, ‘but it isn’t enough for Ross.’ She shot a disapproving glance at her son. ‘So he’s talking about going back to work next week.’

  ‘You can take that look off your face,’ Ross said with an easy grin. ‘I told you it won’t be anything too strenuous. It’s hardly taxing, feeding a few sheep and wandering the fields.’

  ‘I know you,’ Briony replied, ‘you won’t stop at that. You’ll be hauling bags of feed and hay bales, and probably pop a rib in the process. And that tractor’s not exactly easy to drive but I know you’re itching to get back in it.’

  ‘You worry too much.’ Ross crammed a hunk of scone into his mouth and chewed serenely.

  ‘Someone’s got to,’ Briony said.

  Hannah glanced at Gina, but there was not a flicker. She was doing a great job of looking neutral about a conversation she must have been desperate to get involved in. Briony turned to her visitors.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you to stay for dinner?’ she asked, apparently deciding to let Ross off the hook for now. ‘It’s beef stroganoff and, though I say it myself, it’s not half bad.’

  ‘Ordinarily, I’d love to, but we should probably get back…’ Hannah reached down to where Trixie lay next to her chair and scratched the little dog behind her ear. The lazy thump of her tail on the floor was as much effort as the exhausted pooch could make. ‘For a start, George will be missing this one so I don’t want to keep her out too late.’

  ‘And I really need to get back to Birmingham tonight,’ Gina added. ‘Early morning meetings and all that. Another time I’d love to.’

  ‘How about next Sunday?’ Briony asked. ‘What are you doing then?’

  ‘I should probably do something with my daughter,’ Gina said, glancing briefly at Ross, who was staring into his mug. ‘I’ve been missing rather a lot lately and I’m afraid she hasn’t been getting enough of my attention.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring her along?’ Briony suggested, completely disregarding Gina’s argument. ‘I’d love to meet her and an extra mouth is no problem.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gina began. ‘It’s a big chunk out of her day to travel up here and she has college work to get done on a Sunday night…’

  ‘Please. I insist. If you’re both moving back to the area I’d love to get to know you a little bit better, and it would be one more friendly face if she ever needed one. Besides, it’ll be a change for Ross, a young person about the place.’

  ‘I’m nearer to thirty than seventeen, Mum,’ Ross put in. ‘As far as Jess is concerned, I might as well be ninety. When you’re a teenag
er eight or nine years is a lifetime away from cool.’

  Hannah chewed her lip. Briony didn’t know the half of it. She had a feeling that the reveal Ross and Gina had planned would have to be brought forward or Briony might take matters into her own hands and start playing cupid – maybe even with Jess herself (who was a very attractive and mature looking seventeen), and a more horrifying scenario than that she couldn’t think of.

  ‘It’s lovely of you, but another time, maybe,’ Gina smiled.

  ‘Actually…’ Ross put in, ‘why don’t you?’

  Gina’s cup stopped mid-way to her mouth and she stared at him. Hannah wondered if he was teasing, but she looked for a trace of humour or irony in his expression and found none. He was dead serious. Was he thinking it might be a good opportunity to get things out in the open after all?

  ‘I… um…’ Gina stuttered.

  ‘I’d really like it,’ Ross insisted.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Briony commented.

  ‘Like you said, it’d be good to have some different company for a few hours.’

  Hannah thought she was beginning to see his plan. It seemed that Gina finally got it too. ‘Not next Sunday, but the one after might be okay. And you really want me to bring Jess?’

  ‘Why not?’ Ross said cheerfully. ‘Like mum says, we should get to know you both better if you’re moving to the area.’

  Hannah took a great gulp of her tea so that she wouldn’t have to add anything. This charade was getting out of hand, and it didn’t seem very wise to Hannah. If Gina and Ross were planning to come clean at this lunch, things were about to get very interesting.

  Briony turned to Hannah. ‘You could bring your young man.’

  It was Hannah’s turn to choke. ‘I could?’ she croaked as a rush of hot tea stung her nasal cavity and tears sprang to her eyes.

  ‘Mitchell, isn’t it?’

  ‘I… erm…’ Hannah aimed a thinly disguised glare at Gina, who gave a confused shrug. Who had told Briony about Mitchell? Gossip always travelled fast, but Hannah was beginning to wonder why she was so worried about keeping it a secret, when Briony didn’t seem to be too disapproving.

  ‘I’ll ask him if he’s free,’ Hannah said, quickly deciding that she’d have to discuss all this with Gina before she did anything.

  ‘Well, let’s call that settled then,’ Briony announced to the room. She looked as though she’d just won fattest marrow in the parish veg contest. ‘Now…’ She shook the teapot. ‘Who’d like a top up?’

  Hannah glanced across at Gina. It didn’t look as if they were going to wriggle out of this, and she could see by the look of thinly veiled despair on her face that Gina silently agreed.

  The chair had been a steal from a car boot sale. It was shortly after Jason had left and she had probably been bored, or miserable, or lonely, or all three, and the sale was a place full of noise and bustle and life where she could forget herself for an hour and recall that there was still a huge world around her. She’d spotted the chair, standing in a sorry pile of junk, and her creative soul could see the beauty beneath the grime. In a funny way, now that she thought about it, perhaps she had fallen for it because it was a bit like her – the hope that she could be gorgeous and useful again with the right kind of love. She had brought the chair home, tied awkwardly to her car roof. Soon after, she had chosen paint to cover the flaking varnish, mottled with years of wear and damp storage, and picked out just the right fabric to reupholster the seat; but, somehow, life had got in the way, and everything was still sitting in her shed, gathering dust and waiting.

  Now she had Mitchell, and perhaps it was time her chair got its happy ending too.

  Rolling up her sleeves, Hannah began moving her other junk to pull it out. She set it in a specially cleared space where the paints and brushes sat on a dust sheet spread over the floor. This was time she had promised herself, where she could lose herself completely in a pursuit that was only about the pleasure she got from being creative.

  Flicking the CD player on, she smiled as the first notes of Mamma Mia began to fill the shed. No sisters, no nieces, no men, no drama – nothing short of a giant comet hurtling to earth was going to disturb her until the chair was painted.

  Two hours later, she was wiping her hands on a rag as she stood back to appraise her handiwork. The chair had gone from a sorry looking specimen, with scuffed varnish the colour and consistency of burnt treacle, to a beautiful chalky finish the shade of new parchment. Along with the blue and cream pastoral fabric she had chosen, and once the paintwork had been subtly distressed and waxed, it would be good enough to sit in any boutique in any town.

  Just as she was clamping the lid back onto the unused paint in the pot, her mobile phone buzzed. Wandering over to the shelf she had left it on, she let out a groan as she caught sight of the display.

  Chris.

  She was going to have to talk to him sooner rather than later; her subtle tactic of ignoring him in the forlorn hope he would give up and go away wasn’t working. If she didn’t answer the phone now he’d probably turn up at her house anyway since he didn’t seem to let a formality like an actual invitation get in the way. With a sigh, she swiped the screen to take the call.

  ‘Hey, Chris,’ she said in her brightest voice, ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Hannah… I hope you don’t mind but you haven’t called and well… I wondered if you still wanted that second date…’

  Hannah grimaced. Deep breath. Just tell him. ‘Chris. I’m sorry but I need to come clean about something. I’m afraid there isn’t going to be a second date. You see, I didn’t plan this but… I kind of met someone…’

  There was silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Mitchell Bond?’ he eventually asked in a quiet voice.

  ‘How did you –?’

  ‘News travels fast in these parts. And like you said yourself when we went out for that drink, there aren’t that many property developers around Millrise. I had hoped the gossip was wrong, but I guess I’m to be disappointed.’

  Hannah chewed her lip. They’d only been on one date and he really had no right to be upset that she had met someone else, but she still felt like a prize bitch. ‘I’m so sorry you had to find out like that. I should have told you before. I wanted to but…’ What could she say? There was no excuse for keeping him in the dark apart from one that didn’t show her or Gina in a very good light.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Chris said, ‘I understand perfectly.’

  ‘No you don’t. I liked you and we got on well, and if things had been different… But Mitchell… well, I can’t explain it, and I know that doesn’t make you feel any happier about the situation but I have nothing else to offer. He was just sort of there at the right moment and we ended up together without really meaning to. You’re a lovely guy and I’m so sorry to do this to you.’ Hannah drew a deep breath. She had given him the best and only explanation she had and whatever he did or said now she probably deserved.

  ‘I suppose it could be worse. You could have told me you’ve just discovered you’re a lesbian.’

  Hannah could hear the smile in his voice and suddenly and unexpectedly they were both laughing. She realised just how decent a guy Chris was, and it made her wonder how different things might have been if she hadn’t met Mitchell.

  ‘I really am sorry…’ Hannah felt she could never say that word enough. She wanted to say it again and again for the next week, just so he knew that she truly was.

  ‘You don’t need to be sorry. But just one thing… I don’t want to rain on your parade but be careful with him.’

  Hannah frowned. ‘With Mitchell?’

  ‘I don’t know how he is with you but as a businessman he’s a total bastard.’

  Mitchell, a bastard? That didn’t sound like the sweet, earnest, at times vulnerable man she knew. ‘Are we talking about the same person here?’

  ‘Bond Construction. That’s him. He used to be alright, when he first got going, but si
nce he’s made a few bob and a name for himself, things have changed. Lately his company have pulled some pretty shitty stunts. Like greasing the palms of people who matter when chasing tender for the local authorities so that no one else is even in the running. That doesn’t particularly affect me, but there are plenty of others unhappy about it. And now they’ve started moving in on the residential side of things.’

  ‘They don’t do houses,’ Hannah said, more certain now that Chris must be mistaken.

  ‘That’s what he says. But the last few auctions I’ve been to the guy who works for him has been buying up all the best houses before anyone else has a chance and outbidding no matter how much it takes.’

  ‘It’s not illegal to outbid someone at auction.’

  ‘No, it’s not. But if Bond Construction don’t do houses, why are they buying them so aggressively? It’s almost like a deliberate tactic to drive out any competition that might threaten the future of the business in the area, no matter what the cost. If I can’t buy properties at a reasonable rate, how can I turn a profit and keep expanding my own business?’

  ‘It makes business sense to me.’

  ‘Maybe, but that doesn’t make it right. Competition and free trade – isn’t that the basis of our entire economy? It’s good for us, and what he’s doing is wrong, whether it makes business sense or not. He doesn’t even care about residential properties.’

  Hannah was thoughtful for a moment. Even though she had defended Mitchell, she knew in her heart that Chris was right. It was a dirty trick to play if it were true. ‘You didn’t see Mitchell himself buying the houses?’

  ‘No. It was that guy who runs the company with him.’

  ‘Graham?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s him. But I don’t see that it matters who did the bidding; it was still the same pot of money bankrolling it all, and that’s Bond’s.’

  In a dark and dusty part of Hannah’s brain, pieces of the puzzle were beginning to slot into place. Some were still missing, but the picture that was forming was far from pretty. What if Mitchell was bankrolling the purchase of all these houses but didn’t know about it? He was barely in the office these days, and Hannah had never been comfortable with the amount of trust he was placing in Graham. Was this the reason Graham was so keen to make sure Mitchell did stay away from the office? Was he keeping Mitchell out of the picture so that he could siphon off company funds for his own private venture? How far was he going to go – until Mitchell had nothing left and Graham had a small empire of his own? And where did Martine fit in? Hannah was still convinced that the adulterer whose name she refused to give Mitchell was Graham, and if that was the case, did she know about Graham’s dealings?