Home for Christmas

Chapter 24

‘I need to go,’ I said urgently, as I jumped up and gathered my things. ‘I have to apologize.’

Now Jeanie had enlightened me that it was she and Tim who had been kissing in the gazebo at the Brambles party, she thought the situation was highly amusing, but Holly was more sympathetic and mortified on my behalf.

‘Don’t forget all these messages you mentioned he’s been getting and the trips out,’ she hastily reminded me. ‘There must be something he isn’t telling you.’

‘He’s perfectly entitled not to tell her anything,’ Jeanie said, standing up so I could get around her. ‘Bella’s just his landlady, and as she hasn’t fallen for him,’ she wryly continued, ‘this is all of no real consequence anyway.’

‘Let us know how you get on!’ Holly called after me as I rushed off with the box file tucked under my arm and my face aflame with embarrassment and shame.

‘Jude!’ I called, the second I was in the door and had shrugged off my coat. ‘Are you here?’

‘Yes,’ he said grumpily, as I found him sitting in a sort of supporting nest of cushions on the sofa. I noticed he had my favourite Christmas film channel on but turned it off the second I appeared.

‘What are you going to accuse me of now?’ He frowned. ‘Stealing Rudolph’s red nose? Bricking up the chimney? Scoffing the last of the mince pies?’

Actually, he had scoffed the last of the mince pies, but that was currently of no concern to me at all.

‘I’m not going to accuse you of anything,’ I said, sitting on the arm of the chair so I was facing him. ‘I’m going to apologize.’

‘Apologize?’ he repeated, his eyebrows rising in surprise.

I took a deep breath, then said, ‘Yes. I’m sorry for being such a prat.’

‘Hey,’ he tutted. ‘That’s my line.’

‘Well, I’m borrowing it,’ I told him. ‘I’ve just seen Jeanie in the pub, and she told me that Tim was wearing the same jumper as you at the Brambles party. Not that I can really believe there’s more than one of those in the world, but still…’

‘Well, I could have told you that,’ Jude huffed.

‘So why didn’t you, then?’

‘Because you were hellbent on believing what you thought you saw, rather than what you actually saw,’ he sensibly pointed out.

‘That’s fair,’ I sighed, knowing I couldn’t dispute it.

‘I know it is.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I apologized again.

‘I know that, too,’ he said, sounding less put-out. ‘I meant what I said about not having looked at another woman since I met you, Bella,’ he added, making my heart go berserk.

Did he mean he hadn’t looked at another woman because – and the thought made my stomach swoop – he only had eyes for me, or was it that he hadn’t had the chance to go anywhere recently where there were other women to look at? I had to concede that he had spent most of his time (up until the accident, anyway) either in the house or at the hall, and everyone at the hall was already taken. Whatever he meant, I could feel myself being navigated towards yet more turbulent waters and started to desperately paddle my canoe back out of the current.

‘Well,’ I said, as I quickly stood up again, ‘that’s sorted, then. I hope you really can forgive me for jumping to conclusions.’

‘I do forgive you,’ he said generously, then added, ‘I admire you, actually.’

‘Admire me?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you’ve obviously come straight here from finding out that you were wrong and have apologized without pause. A lot of people would have either put it off or found a way to gloss over the situation without having to say sorry. But then,’ he said, smiling, ‘you’re not most people, are you, Bella?’

I did love the way he said my name.

‘Nope,’ I briskly gabbled. ‘I can’t abide putting things off or procrastinating over what needs to be done. If there’s something to be dealt with, I get on with it. Whether that’s doing the washing up or setting something straight. In my experience, it’s always better to come clean and carry on.’

Funny that I hadn’t applied that ethos to making it clear to Jude that the last thing I wanted to do with him was have a fling. Had I got my head around my feelings for him far sooner and then found the courage to tell him, it might have been us who had ended up kissing in the gazebo, rather than Jeanie and Tim.

I supposed I could have said something then, given that we’d cleared the air, but every minute that ticked by was a minute closer to him heading off, so it wasn’t a situation I could get myself into now. I would have to consign his kiss to the memory bank, labelled best kiss ever , and carry on.

‘Is that right?’ Jude asked, and I wondered if he’d just read my thoughts. ‘Come clean and carry on,’ he repeated, mantra-like.

‘Yep,’ I said, as I quickly pulled my gaze away from his. ‘Now, why don’t you turn the TV back on, and I’ll make us a drink. I’m certain you were watching that Snow Globe Christmas film when I came in, and I’ve only seen it half a dozen times.’

Jude rolled his eyes but picked up the remote, and I headed to the kitchen to cool off. Fingers crossed, that was the end of that and we were back on an even keel.

The air might have been cleared, but we were still skirting around each other the next day. I knew why I was avoiding anything deep and meaningful, but I wasn’t sure why Jude was. That said, when I checked the calendar at lunchtime and realized I had fallen behind with yet another thing on my festive schedule, worrying about what was going on in Jude’s head went completely out of mine.

‘Oh, bugger and balls,’ I muttered, letting out a frustrated groan.

‘A double swear,’ said Jude, looking and sounding amused. ‘What’s up?’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘sorry, I didn’t realize you were there.’

‘Evidently,’ he laughed.

‘The swears were justified,’ I said, defending my rude language. ‘I’d forgotten I was supposed to be making something to enter into the Wynbridge bake sale at the weekend and I haven’t given it a moment’s thought.’

‘I thought it was the Christmas tree and greenery auction.’ Jude frowned.

‘Oh, it is,’ I told him, ‘but there’s a bake sale, too, and cookie-making and decorating workshops happening in the town hall at the same time.’

‘Of course there are.’ Jude grinned, and I remembered how he had, not all that long ago, commented about Wynbridge turning into a Christmas town worthy of a Christmas film. He’d been scathing then, but he didn’t seem to mind now. At least when he did leave, I would be able to wave him off, feeling proud that, if nothing else, I’d restored some of his faith in the season. That was quite an accomplishment given his reasons for losing the love for it in the first place.

‘I suppose I could make some more mince pies,’ I said, opening and closing cupboards to check I’d got enough ingredients.

‘What do people usually take?’

‘All sorts,’ I told him. ‘The gingerbread house competition classes are the most popular, but they’re the most competitively fought for, too.’

Jude’s face lit up at the mention of gingerbread.

‘Obviously that’s way beyond my skill set,’ I said quickly in the face of his wholly unexpected reaction.

‘But not mine,’ he batted back confidently. ‘If you make the gingerbread today and let it rest, we could make the house and decorate it tomorrow, ready to take to the town hall first thing on Saturday.’

He sounded remarkably enthusiastic and very much as though he’d shrugged off the last remaining trace of lingering awkwardness. There was no skirting around each other now.

‘But I’m sure I haven’t got a single thing here that we’d need to do that,’ I pointed out, in spite of his unexpected eagerness. ‘The mince pies will be far easier.’

He fixed me with a look.

‘And also far less fun,’ he said in a sing-song tone. ‘Where’s your Christmas spirit, Bella?’

‘You’re right,’ I said with a nod, deciding to wholeheartedly embrace his seasonal change of heart, even if it might put my own heart in further jeopardy. ‘If you’re offering to help, then this might be the only opportunity I get to do this and not make a total fool of myself.’

‘You don’t strike me as the sort of woman who worries about making a fool of herself.’ Jude grinned.

Was that a dig about my misplaced kissing accusation?

‘Surely you’re someone who throws themselves in at the deep end and has a go at something without worrying too much about the outcome, aren’t you?’ he went on.

He wasn’t teasing me, then; actually, he’d pretty much summed me up.

‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘If we didn’t make mistakes, we wouldn’t learn, improve and refine, would we? The way my fairies have changed during the time since I started making them is proof enough of that.’

‘So we’re making a gingerbread palace, then?’

That was definitely a residential upgrade!

‘Let’s start with a gingerbread house and go from there,’ I suggested.

‘In that case, I’ll start writing a list of everything we’re going to need,’ Jude said enthusiastically.

He reached for my notepad and pen and then groaned because he’d overstretched.

‘And I’ll go out and get it all,’ I told him sternly, ‘but only if you don’t get carried away and set your recovery back.’

‘Someone’s keen to get rid of me,’ he laughed, then started writing.

I looked at the top of his bent head and resisted the sudden urge to kiss it. If only he knew…

It took Jude almost as long to write the list as it took me to buy everything. Stocks of ingredients were running low everywhere in town, and I guessed the competition was going to be even stiffer than usual. I had no luck finding boiled sweets in any of the shops, but Jemma came up trumps and weighed me out a few from the café’s supplies.

‘No prizes for guessing what you’re doing today.’ She smiled as she handed the bag over.

‘And tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Apparently, it’s a lengthy process.’

‘But a fun one.’

‘I’ll let you be the judge of that when we submit our efforts at the town hall on Saturday morning.’

‘You and Jude are baking together, then,’ she said, having picked up on the ‘we’, and her gaze softened. ‘How romantic is that?’

‘It’s purely practical,’ I said succinctly, putting a stop to her train of thought and refusing to jump on it myself. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, but he does.’

As it turned out, Jude was an expert gingerbread-maker, and by the end of the day the fridge was packed with clingfilm-wrapped balls of the stuff. Between us, we’d drawn up a sketch of what we were hoping to achieve. I thought it looked rather ambitious, but Jude was convinced we’d manage it. Time would tell.

What we ended up with was far better than what I’d imagined we would be able to create, and Jude had been right – a lot of it came down to the finishing touches and decorations. It was fairy-themed, of course, and one of my favourite components were the bright-red fly agaric toadstools that flanked the door. They had a festive connection, too, which I had taken great delight in explaining to Jude as I set to work with the piping bag.

‘I love the lights you’ve put inside,’ he said, sitting down once the house was completely finished so he could take it all in at eye level.

I’d had to remind him to be careful on more than one occasion, because he had got so carried away that his injuries had pulled him up short when he’d rushed about and forgotten that he was still very bruised.

‘I don’t think putting two inside is too much, do you?’ I asked, bobbing down to check the effect myself.

I’d made sure the door was wide enough to very carefully slide in two battery-operated tea lights, which lit the stained glass-effect windows up.

‘No, it’s perfect,’ Jude confirmed. ‘I daresay it will be light in the hall, so you needed two to make the windows really shine.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ I agreed.

We looked at each other and smiled. We’d worked as a perfectly synchronized team throughout the entire process. My unwarranted accusation had been forgotten, Jude had been completely present the whole time – with no more mystery messages landing, as far as I could tell – and I had thoroughly enjoyed both the process of making the fairy house and Jude’s company.

We’d laughed and chatted and even sung along to my festive playlist, which had been serenading us in the background, and even though this wasn’t anything like my usual run-up to Christmas, I was having a wonderful time and I knew Jude was, too, because he’d told me as much on more than one occasion.

‘Have you checked the forecast for tomorrow?’ Jude asked, his eyes still focused on mine.

I quickly stood straight again and pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket.

‘I have,’ I said, as I unlocked the screen, ‘but I’m going to see if it’s changed.’

‘I hope it won’t rain,’ Jude said, crossing his fingers. ‘It would be such a shame if it did.’

‘It wouldn’t dare,’ I said seriously. ‘Not for the switch-on or the tree auction and bake sale. Or the Winter Wonderland, for that matter,’ I added, so as not to jinx it. ‘No, look.’ I turned my phone around and showed him what had popped up.

‘Snow!’ he gasped.

‘Only a potential light dusting,’ I said, ‘but even that would be wonderful.’

‘For the most wonderful time of the year,’ Jude said ecstatically, pointing at my speaker, because that song had literally just started playing.

We began to sing along, and Jude reached for my hand and very carefully waltzed us around the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do or where to look, but one thing I did know was that my mind was finally made up.

At some point during the next twenty-four hours, I was going to tell him how I felt about him. I was going to say that if he was game and we could make long distance work, then, for the first time in my life, I was up for a whole lot more than flinging with him.