Chloe’s Cornish Christmas (The Blossomwood Bay #7)

Chapter Four

‘I don’t believe it!’

Chloe stared at the big fat snowflakes falling languidly from the dark-pewter sky, coating everything in sight with a blanket of white. On the other side of the courtyard, the renovated barn looked like it was made from gingerbread, its eaves decorated in a generous layer of thick, gooey icing, the swathes of multi-coloured fairy lights around the doors and windows adding the final “candy-bedecked” touch. She had to admit it really was a picturesque image.

‘Shouldn’t be a problem driving over to the Dog there was no room at the inn for her that night.

‘No problem, Liz. Don’t worry, we’ll sort something out.’

Nick ended the call, placed his phone on the table and met Chloe’s eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Chloe. It’s the storm. As you’ve discovered, the roads are flooded and a number of bridges have been damaged or washed away completely, so people have decided to stay overnight at the Dog ashamed of how far she had plummeted down the housing ladder from the dizzying heights of the Georgian townhouse in Pimlico where she’d spent her teenage years and the tiny-but-elegant studio she’d shared with her ex in Knightsbridge. Even her student digs had been more luxurious than the place she had rented in Blossomwood Bay, and she hadn’t even been able to afford that!

If her father knew how she was living he would be horrified, but she refused to dwell on that. Fingers crossed, Joe would recover her car the following morning, give it a quick service, and she could be on her way back to Blossomwood Bay before the end of the day. If not she would go to the Dog & Whistle and beg Liz to give her a room.

‘Thanks. I hope that won’t be necessary, though.’

‘Okay. No problem. Good night, Chloe.’

‘Good night, Nick.’

Nick galloped back down the stairs and when she heard the door click shut behind him, she couldn’t resist dashing into the bedroom and throwing herself, her arms and legs outstretched, onto the king-size bed that was dressed in a voluptuous duvet with hotel-grade linen and a mountain of marshmallow-like pillows.

It was heaven, and she couldn’t quite believe she was there.

As she lay staring up at the vaulted ceiling amidst such unaccustomed comfort, a sudden wave of exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. She stripped off her clothes, folded them neatly and placed them on an elegant button-backed chair, then slid beneath the covers and exhaled a long sigh of gratitude that while life could deal what seemed like a never-ending stream of heartbreaking blows, it could also deliver moments of pure pleasure like this one.

It was the first time in weeks that she was about to fall asleep in a real bed, and unlike the nights preceding the loss of her beach hut studio in Blossomwood Bay, and therefore her means of earning a steady income, she truly appreciated the softness of the mattress beneath her body, the feel of the crisp, white cotton sheets against her skin, and the laundry-fresh aroma of fabric softener and lavender.

Total bliss!

However, she had to remember that it was only for one night.

As she waited for sleep to draw her into its welcome embrace, her thoughts lingered on Nick’s invitation to stay longer. She had turned him down without hesitation because she didn’t want to encroach on his privacy or exploit his aunt’s vicarious hospitality, but should she reconsider?Who knew how long it would take for the insurance company to pay out after Dexter’s untimely passing? Realistically, it would probably be late January at the earliest, during which time she would have been sleeping in her car through the coldest months of the year.

If she was honest, she hadn’t thought about how she would cope with the dip in temperatures. Thankfully, the weather had been mild until that evening’s storm, and anyway she’d had no choice in the matter, having to deal with whatever the meteorological gods had planned for the autumn and winter months. But the surprise snowfall had brought her precarious situation into sharper focus, and a blade of anxiety sliced through her chest.

What if the snow hung around until the new year, and beyond ?

Nick had told her he was “babysitting” the farm until his aunt returned from Australia in the new year. When he’d asked if she wanted to stay “for a while”, did he mean until then? If so, that would include Christmas. She knew that going to San Francisco to spend the holidays with her father and sister wasn’t an option. She didn’t have the funds for the flight, and while she knew her father would happily cover the cost, that scenario would entail her admitting that all was not well financially, something she had been at pains to avoid.

Her stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch of guilt.

She hadn’t just avoided telling her father that she had no home, no business, and no income, but she had also purposely allowed him to believe that she was still living in London, still at the same law firm she’d been working at since qualifying as a lawyer, although she had told him that she’d split up with Harry.

Success was important to her father, and she didn’t want to be the one who let him down, especially at Christmas, even though he barely paused to acknowledge the holiday. She couldn’t bear to contemplate how he would react if he knew she had left such a respectable profession to launch a gin distillery in a beach hut on the south coast of Devon, never mind that it has subsequently ended up burnt to the ground. Maybe the answer was to call her former boss and ask for her old job back? That way she wouldn’t need to continue with the embarrassing and exhausting subterfuge.

Was it her?

Was she a magnet for disaster?

Whatever the cause, she knew she couldn’t keep on doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. Something had to change, and she needed time and space to think about what those changes should be and to come up with a plan – and a back-up plan – that would deliver her a better life than the one she was living now. Above all else, she wanted to find somewhere she could put down roots, a place to live that didn’t have four wheels and an engine.

A place she could finally call home.

A place where she could have a dog.

Chloe cringed as her mind scooted back to an incident that had taken place a few weeks earlier when Blossomwood Kennels had been closed down by the authorities for neglectful practices whilst its owner was sunning herself in Spain. All the canine boarders had been returned to their horrified owners apart from one, a Dachshund called Archie, who had been abandoned when his owners decided not to return from their annual holiday in Thailand, leaving him without a home to go to.

She had fallen in love with Archie at first sight, not just because of his trusting brown eyes and cute waggly tail, but because of the predicament he had found himself in through no fault of his own, a situation she could truly empathise with as she herself had just that week been forced to leave her own home with nowhere else to go.

She had always wanted a Dachshund, and her friend Holly had known that when she’d asked her to take Archie on. She had been desperate to cry a resounding “yes!”, but she’d had to remain silent because expecting a dog to reside in the back of a scruffy old Renault would have been too cruel.Fortunately, Suzie – another friend from the Blossomwood Bay beach huts – had stepped into the breach to offer Archie a home in her teepee, but ever since that day Chloe had felt embarrassed by her actions.

She knew that if she had shared her circumstances with Holly, she would have understood, would have offered Chloe the sofa at her place, but she hadn’t told her friend what was happening. Even later, when Holly’s partner Oscar had purchased the six-bedroomed Fox & Fiddle pub to turn into a restaurant, she had chosen to actively avoid contact with Holly, and her other friends who remained in Blossomwood Bay – Rachel, Poppy and Beckie – rather than admit her homelessness.

She wondered why she’d been able to open up to Nick, someone she had known for less than an hour. Was it just because he was a stranger? Someone whom she didn’t expect to see again after that night? Maybe it was because he was at a crossroads in his own life, searching for answers that seemed to be just beyond reach? Perhaps his uncle’s passing had caused him to reevaluate his priorities. Or maybe he was wrestling with how best to support his aunt when he lived over two hundred miles away in Guildford.

Or maybe her sudden inexplicable urge to bare her soul – or at least a slice of it – had nothing to do with Nick. Maybe it was due to the aura of serenity that seemed to permeate the air at Fairholme Farm. Perhaps it had infiltrated her senses and lulled her into a relaxing sense of security?

But deep down she knew it was none of those things.

She knew her tendency to hide her pain from those she loved stemmed from the trauma she’d lived through in her teenage years, when she’d learned the importance, no, the necessity , of maintaining a cheerful outward appearance in order to convince everyone who enquired that everything was fine, because if she didn’t, she would have crumpled into a hot, sobbing mess, and that wouldn’t have helped anyone.