Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

kept shoving under his nose.

It was as if, until that moment, he’d known that Louise was Louise Thornton, but the woman in the magazines and the single mother who liked baking had seemed like two very different people. And, suddenly, those two completely separate universes had collided. It had left him reeling. Get a grip, Ben. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

He spent as long as he could watering and feeding the plants. Then he tidied up the greenhouses and swept the floors. All the while a snapshot of Louise smiling stayed in his head, her lips stretched wide, her teeth showing. He stopped sweeping and rested the broom against the wall.

Suddenly it hit him. That was as far as the smile had gone. Her eyes had had the same hollow look he’d seen in those magazine pictures. She’d been faking it. For Jack.

Ben smiled to himself. The sun was starting to dip low in the sky and he was definitely ready for one of Louise’s bottomless cups of tea.

When he reached the kitchen door it was locked. There was no warm cloud of baking smells wafting through the cracks. No light, no noise-nothing. He tried the front of the house but it was the same story. There was no movement in the study or the library. The curved French windows round the side of the house revealed nothing but a darkened drawing room with a bare Christmas tree standing in the corner.

Where was Louise?

Had she gone off somewhere with him? Well, if she had, it was none of his business. And, since his work was done here, he might as well go home. Megan was due to drop Jas off in an hour and a half.

He hardly noticed the scenery as he tramped through the woods on the way down to the boathouse. He did, however, spot the loose brick in the boathouse wall as he passed it. Someone might guess the key’s hiding place if it was left like that. Slowly, he slid it back into position until everything on the surface looked normal again.

It was only when he had jumped into the dinghy and was about to untie it that he noticed a glow in the arched windows of the boathouse. Someone was in there. And he had a pretty good idea who. What puzzled him was the why. Why was she hiding out in a dusty old boathouse when she had a twenty-five- roomed Georgian house standing on the top of the hill?

There was only one way to find out.

He clambered out of the boat again and ran round the back of the structure, up the stone staircase and rapped lightly on the door. ‘Louise?’

The silence that followed was so long and so perfect that he started to think he must have got it wrong. Maybe a light had been left on a few days ago…but he hadn’t noticed it when he’d arrived. His fingers made contact with the door handle.

A weary voice came from beyond the door. ‘Go away.’

A grim smile pressed his lips together. No, his first instinct had been right. She was hiding out.

He pressed down on the handle and pushed the old door open. Everything was still inside. She didn’t move, not even to look at him, and at first he was too distracted by the transformation of the once dingy little room to work out where she was sitting. The inside of the boathouse now looked like the inside of a New England cabin. When had all this happened?

The cracking varnish on the tongue and groove walls was gone, sanded back and covered in off-white paint. The fireplace was still there, along with the desk and cane furniture, but something had happened to them too- everything was clean and cosy-looking. Checked fabric in blue and white covered the chair cushions and a paraffin lantern stood on the desk, adding to the glow from the fire.

A movement caught his eye and he twisted his head to find Louise, sitting cross-legged on something that looked like a cross between an old iron bedstead and a sofa, staring into the fire. She turned to look at him, her face pale and heavy. She didn’t need to speak. Every molecule of her body was repeating her earlier request.

Go away.

He wasn’t normally the kind of guy to barge in where he wasn’t invited but, instead of turning around and walking out of the door, he walked over to the opposite end of the sofa thing and sat down, hoping his trousers weren’t going to leave mud on the patchwork quilt that covered it.

‘What’s up?’

Louise returned to staring into the orange flames writhing in the grate. ‘Christmas is cancelled,’ she said flatly.

He shifted so he was a little more comfortable, avoiding the multitude of different-sized cushions that were scattered everywhere. His gaze too was drawn to the fire. ‘That explains the tree, then.’

Louise made a noise that could roughly be interpreted as a question, so he pressed on.

‘The one in your drawing room-standing there naked as the day it was born.’

Another noise, one that sounded suspiciously as if she didn’t want to find that funny. ‘There didn’t seem to be much point in decorating it now. Jack’s gone to Lapland.’

‘Lapland?’

She turned those burning eyes on him. ‘Father Christmas? Reindeer? Who can compete with that?’

He shrugged. ‘Think yourself lucky. At least Lapland is worth being deserted for. All I’m competing with is a few days in the Cotswolds with Mum and the suave new boyfriend.’

Okay, that got a proper snuffling sound that could almost be interpreted as a chuckle.

‘You win, Ben. Your Christmas stinks more than mine. Pull up a chair and join the pity party.’ She gave him a long look, taking in his relaxed position on the opposite end of the sofa-bed thingy. ‘Not one to stand on ceremony, are you?’

He grinned at her. ‘Nope. So…how does one throw a pity party at Christmas? Is it the same as an ordinary pity party or is there extra tinsel?’

A loud and unexpected laugh burst from Louise. Very soon there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them away with the side of one hand. ‘You rat, Ben Oliver! You’ve just ruined the only social event on my calendar for the next two weeks. I’m going to have to reschedule…Will the twenty-fifth suit you?’

It was good to see her smile. He knew from experience just how lonely a childless Christmas could be-and the first one was always the killer.

‘This place looks nice,’ he said, standing up and walking around the room to inspect it further.

Louise nodded, pulling her knees into her chest and tucking the cream, red and blue quilt over her legs. ‘It’s not bad, is it? I’ve even had the windows draught-proofed.’ She glanced around the room and then her eyes became glassy. ‘I’m tempted just to camp out here for the rest of the festive season. The house is just so…it’s too…you know.’

He nodded. The bare Christmas tree had said it all.

He took a deep breath and walked over to her, holding out a hand. She frowned at him and pulled the quilt more tightly around herself.

‘Come on.’ He wiggled his fingers. ‘I’ve got a lamb casserole that will feed about twenty ready to heat up at home. Come for dinner.’

She didn’t move. ‘Won’t Jas mind?’

‘Mind? She’ll have so many invitations to go to tea after a visit from you that I’ll hardly see her until she’s twelve. I’ll even let you be miserable at my house, if you really want.’

Louise smiled and shook her head. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

He stuffed the hand he’d been holding out in his jacket pocket. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘To quote a man I know: “Nope”. In my experience, people say they want you to be real, but only as long as it involves living up to their expectations of you at the same time.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I learned a long time ago that disappointing them costs.’

He held out his hand again. ‘Well, I already know how grumpy you can be, so I wouldn’t mind at all if you disappointed me on that front.’

Despite herself, she smiled at him, the firelight reflected in her eyes. ‘You’re not going to give up, are you?’ She lifted her arm, placed her long, slim fingers in his and pushed the quilt aside.

They both smiled as they anticipated his response.

‘Nope.’

His hand closed around hers, slender and warm, and he pulled her up to stand. Without her shoes, she seemed