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

Chapter 5

5

In the moments after the scream, Hannah’s reflexes kicked in, and she covered her lower half with the scrunched-up jeans. Logic kicked in.

It was highly probable this wasn’t a case of stranger danger but rather a guest making his unsuspecting way upstairs to Room 5 only to encounter her standing here like Taylor Swift emerging on stage through clouds of dry ice. Though instead of wearing a sparkly leotard and shiny tights, she’d a woolly jumper, plain old cotton knickers and lily-white legs to boot.

The stranger, whose face was shadowed in the dim light of the staircase, was holding his hands up, warding her off. Hannah guessed that she must have given him as much of a fright as he’d given her. Her heart rate was returning to normal, and fright had been replaced by mortification. ‘Sorry, I, er, I, uh, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ Light bounced off the man’s glasses. ‘I’m staying in Room 5.’

‘I didn’t know anyone was staying,’ Hannah mumbled, beginning to back away. There was no chance she was going to turn around and expose her bottom.

It was a bad move because she dropped the jeans as her heel connected with the ruck in the carpet that Mam had been on at Dad to sort forever, along with all the other handyman jobs he never got around to. Her arms flailed like a Dutch windmill as she tried to steady herself, knowing that awful way you do before you hit the ground that it was futile.

‘Oof!’

‘Are you OK?’ The man took the remaining stairs two at a time. ‘Jaysus, you hit the ground with a terrible thud.’

Hannah, lying sprawled on the carpet, blinked several times in shock. She was winded and would likely be bruised; as for her dignity, that was well and truly in smithereens.

‘I’m fine,’ she lied as he loomed over her. She stared through the lens of his glasses into a set of intriguing smoky-grey eyes.

He held his hand out to help her up. Before she could grasp it, however, her mam’s voice rang out, breaking her trance.

‘Hannah Kelly, what are you doing at home? More to the point, what are you doing rolling about on the floor in your knickers like so? Are you all right, Thomas?’

Charming, Hannah thought. She was flat on her back, and Mam was concerned about whoever this Thomas was staying in Room 5. It was hardly surprising, though, given that she’d never been any different regarding guests of the Shamrock. They could do no wrong. When Hannah had pointed this out to her, Nora had quickly replied of course that was the case. The guests paid their way happily, unlike her five daughters, whom she’d had to wheedle the board from every week back in the day.

Kitty Kelly appeared behind her daughter-in-law. ‘What on earth’s going on?’ she demanded, her wily-eyed gaze sweeping the scene on the landing.

This time, Hannah clasped Thomas’s outstretched palm. He had a surprisingly firm grip, but his palms were soft. Soon she was quite gently lifted upright, and gave a muttered, ‘Thanks.’

‘Hannah’s home, Kitty, and she’s after giving poor Thomas a terrible fright gadding about in her knickers like so.’

Erm, shouldn’t that be the other way round? Hannah bristled, retrieving her jeans and covering herself once more, though why she was bothering now after the display she’d just put on, she didn’t know. She and this Thomas might be strangers, but there were no secrets between them now, she thought, face flaming.

‘It was bad timing, Nan.’ She began to edge backwards once more. ‘I didn’t know we had a guest staying.’

‘If you’d phoned ahead to say you were coming, I’d have told you,’ Nora tutted. ‘Thomas arrived late yesterday afternoon. Didn’t you, Thomas?’

‘That’s right.’

Thomas was staring up at the ceiling as though Michelangelo had left his mark up there, clearly as embarrassed by the whole debacle as she was. Well, maybe not quite as embarrassed, given he wasn’t the one standing here in cotton undies. She reached the safety of her bedroom.

‘Just a minute, young lady. Your mam’s got a point. Why are you parading about in your underwear? It’s winter, in case you didn’t realise.’

Jaysus wept! She may as well head down to the pub and do a few laps around the bar while she was at it, giving everyone a good gawp.

Enough was enough. ‘I wasn’t parading about, as you put it. I’d had a shower and needed a fresh pair of trousers.’ She closed the door on them all, shouting, ‘I’ll be down in a jiffy!’ before adding a muttered, ‘Now bog off, the lot of you.’

Hannah leaned her head back against the door, tossed the jeans aside and put her hands on either side of her face. You could fry eggs on her cheeks because that was up there with the most humiliating few minutes of her life. The only blessing was none of her sisters had witnessed it. With any luck, she thought, pushing off the door and digging about in her bag for her cords, this Thomas would be checking out before lunch. That way, she could put the whole episode behind her like it had never happened.

Hannah had never been lucky, though.

It was her rumbling stomach that forced her out of her room. She’d happily hide out until Mam knocked to say Thomas had left if it weren’t for being starving and knowing there was chicken pot pie in the oven. Her reward for brazening things out when she reached the kitchen was seeing Nan lifting it from the oven.

‘Here she is. Emerald Bay’s flasher,’ Nora announced from where she was standing at the table, pouring a cup of tea. Over the top of her head were Christmas cards draped over the string stretching the width of the kitchen.

Hannah pulled a face while Kitty set the steaming pie – big enough to feed an army – down on the worktop. ‘Your pot pie’s turned out a treat, Nora.’

‘Where were you two earlier?’ Hannah asked.

‘Nora and I whipped over to Kilticaneel for a spot of Christmas shopping. We’re not leaving it until the last minute this year. Young Chloe minds the pub of a Saturday now with your father heading off all rugged up on his rambles come rain or shine. The walking in the fresh air does him good.’

‘Never mind all that. What are you doing at home?’ Nora demanded.

‘I thought I’d surprise you all,’ Hannah said.

‘And didn’t that go well.’ Nora held her matronly arms out. ‘C’mere to me now, you eejit. If you’d let me know, I’d have made you your favourite dinner.’

This was a Kelly family tradition whenever any of the girls returned home. Although, more often than not, Mam got muddled as to whose favourite was which! Hannah had already decided the pie in the oven was her new favourite as she gratefully sank into her familiar-smelling mammy embrace.

‘I didn’t want to worry Dad. You know what he’s like at the best of times, let alone when the roads are icy.’ Then, feeling her mam shaking, she mumbled, ‘You better not be laughing at me, Mam.’

‘Not at all,’ Nora fibbed, releasing her daughter to pick up the cup of tea. ‘And your dad will be happy to see you once he’s told you off for not letting him know you were on your way. I’m just going to nip upstairs with this cuppa for Thomas. It’s for the shock, like.’ Her tongue was very much in her cheek.

Hannah watched her go through narrowed eyes. It was her who’d had the shock!

Kitty dropped the oven mitts on the worktop to give her granddaughter a hug.

‘This Thomas fella’s not leaving any time soon then?’ Hannah managed to get out glumly before the air was squeezed out of her.

‘No. He’s staying for the week.’

‘A week!’ Hannah shrieked, and in her horror at this revelation, she missed the disapproving set of her nan’s mouth. She pulled away from the embrace. What on earth was he doing in Emerald Bay for a week? She decided he must be visiting family because there was no other reason you’d want to park up here that long during winter.

‘A week.’ Kitty confirmed, looking none too happy.

Odd, Hannah thought. Guests at this time of year were always welcome – or any time of year for that matter. Especially when they were conventionally good-looking. She might not like that he was here, and he definitely wasn’t her type, but Tom had the jawbone of someone her nan would have usually cooed over.

She was about to delve deeper into what had Nan lemony-lipped, but her phone pinging in a text made her pause to check it. Her heart began yammering, seeing it was from Dylan, and she opened the message to scan it hungrily, only to see he’d sent her a link. When she clicked on it, the kitchen was suddenly filled with a reggae beat that launched into Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ call-to-action song.

‘That’s very apt, given the circumstances, so it is,’ Kitty announced, putting the bag of Brussels down.

Hannah blinked, unsure she was seeing straight as her nan began bopping about the kitchen like she was one of Bob Marley’s Wailers.

This was a side to Kitty Kelly she’d never seen before.