Saving Christmas in the Little Irish Village (The Little Irish Village #5)

Chapter 2

2

Hannah trudged under the wing of a golden angel and glanced up. The illuminated decoration, arms reaching to the heavens, spanned the width of the street. Her sisters said she was a Christmas Grinch because she didn’t believe in rampant consumerism, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate how lovely the festive streets looked. She was making her way back to the office andbeing careful to avoidthe puddles of water glistening on the pavement. They looked like mysterious rock pools under the twinkling fairy lights, she thought somewhat romantically, feeling a pang for Emerald Bay. She’d always loved exploring the rock pools down at the bay when the tide went out, leaving behind an arc of wet sand and rocks to clamber over.

The rain hadn’t lasted long, thank goodness. Hannah had taken shelter inside a cafe playing Michael Bublé’s Christmas album until the downpour had passed. Now, humming ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town’, she shivered despite her thrift-shop wool coat. Her breath was white on the frigid air, and she thought, kudos to Sonya, for whom she’d stepped in. It was hard work freezing your arse off flogging cards. She’d felt like Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match Girl these last few hours as organised people weighed down with parcels, getting in early before the last-minute Christmas rush, filled the pavements.

Nonetheless, it had been a successful afternoon because she’d offloaded the entire box, touting the cards stuffed with seed packets as a great little stocking filler for an important cause. ‘Christmas was a time for giving’ being her line that sealed the deal. She also fancied that people felt sorry for her loitering on the street in arctic weather. It was also easier to hand over a tenner than have her stand in their way, giving her spiel with the same zealousness as a religious fanatic sharing the good word.

A tenner was an exorbitant price for a Christmas card and packet of wildflower seeds, but she’d say it was a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. Think about how those seeds would impact the bee population and the world’s food chain. Oh yes, Hannah had her sales pitter-patter down pat.

It had been her idea to swap places with Sonya for the afternoon because she needed to put space between herself and Dylan.

As she reached the office, Hannah paused and looked in the window to see him on the phone and Sonya wearing a fed-up face as she sat there card/seed stuffing, lit by the harsh yellow glare. She could have headed back to her flat. The day was nearly done, but sometimes Dylan suggested going for a team-building drink on Fridays at the end of the day. She hadn’t wanted to miss the opportunity of squeezing into a snug alongside him. So here she was back at Feed the World with Bees, staring in the window with the same longing as a child outside a sweet shop.

Suddenly mindful of not getting caught on the outside looking in with her tongue lolling like an eager puppy, Hannah moved toward the door.

Dylan raised his brows in greeting as she stood stamping her Doc Martens-booted feet on the mat. Sonya, obviously glad of an excuse to down tools, stopped card stuffing and asked how she’d got on.

‘All gone.’ Hannah held out the empty box.

‘Well done.’

Hannah grinned. ‘Thank you.’ She perched on the edge of the desk, picking up a card and packet of wildflower seeds. ‘What have you got planned for the weekend, then?’

‘I’m heading up to Dublin for the anti-gold mining protest. If you’ve no plans, you should come.’

Hannah would have gone in a flash if her finances were flush enough for a weekend in Dublin. As things stood, she couldn’t even stretch to a weekend dossing on someone’s couch in the capital city. It was all right for Sonya, who still lived with her parents and paid a token gesture toward her keep. Working for non-profit organisations like Feed the World with Bees meant scraping by. Not that she was complaining. She loved working with people who lived and breathed environmental causes and, more often than not, spent their weekends holding placards, trying to draw attention to what was happening in their country and the world. Dylan was especially vocal, and Hannah admired him for it.

‘If my share of the gas and electric wasn’t due, I’d be by your side, Sonya. This proposed mining up north is bad news, all right. We don’t want it.’ Hannah gave a vehement shake of her head.

Before Sonya could reply, Dylan, who’d finished his call, beckoned her over and gestured at his computer screen. ‘Hannah, c’mere to me. Have you seen this?’

Hannah was glad of an excuse to stand in Dylan’s personal space. She leaned over his shoulder, and her body tingled in response to his minty breath and the clean scent of soap. There was something else, too. It was musky and giving off some serious pheromones, so she had to summon all her inner strength to focus on what Dylan wanted her to look at and not begin snuffling around his neck like a truffle-hunting dog.

‘Proposed garden centre and Christmas tree farm for Emerald Bay,’ Hannah read out loud before skimming over the article Dylan had dredged up from one of the news pages. When she’d finished, she reread it more slowly, this time trying to make sense of it, then continued to stare at the screen as her mind whirred. Surely not? But it was there in black and white. Some bigwig developer was pushing for the West Country’s largest stop-shop garden centre, complete with a Christmas tree farm, to be built behind Emerald Bay. There was even a quote from the architectural project manager – or arse, as Hannah immediately retitled him – about the boost this would bring to Emerald Bay’s local economy and tourism blah-de-blah.

‘It’s in the middle of nowhere, for feck’s sake.’

She didn’t realise she’d spoken aloud until Dylan said, ‘That land is all blanket bog, right?’

‘Right. Most of the land is a nature reserve, but not far from the edge of the village, there’s an abandoned farm with a famine cottage still standing. I’m picking that’s the proposed site.’ She shuddered, picturing a hideous monstrosity plonked on the landscape she knew so well. ‘This can’t happen.’

‘And you’ve not heard so much of a whisper about it until now?’

‘Nothing. It’s obviously been kept hush-hush.’

‘What are you going to do about it then?’

‘What I always do in times of crisis.’

‘What’s that then?’

‘Phone my mam!’