‘Do you deliver?’ she asked the man.
‘Sorry, afraid I don’t.’
Scarlett’s face fell. Time for Nathan to come in and save the day. ‘I had a sneaky feeling you’d say that, but I messaged the manager, the wife of a friend of mine, at the accommodation where we’re staying and she said you might be able to help me out as a special favour.’
‘And who is this manager?’ His breath came out white on the wintry Manhattan air.
‘Darcy, she runs the Inglenook Inn.’
‘You should’ve led with that.’ A smile spread across the man’s face. He’d looked serious when Nathan first clapped eyes on him but was much friendlier now. He extended a hand for Nathan to shake. ‘I’m Mitch, good to meet you. And Darcy is a good friend, she knows my wife well – long story – so I’d be happy to do you a favour. My truck is parked down the street so I can bring the tree to you when I finish up here.’
‘Great, how much for this one?’
They dealt with the preliminaries, Scarlett not able to stop herself leaning in to smell the tree, and Mitch asked the lad who’d been lurking earlier to come net the tree to make it easier to transport.
The lad kept his head down and only really looked at Scarlett, a hushed conversation exchanged between them as she watched him operate the netting machine to pull the tree tightly closed, his back still to Nathan. At least the tree wouldn’t be like the one he’d bought last year from outside a local pub that had left so many pine needles in his car that it was like the floor of a forest until he’d taken the vacuum to it. He pushed his wallet back in his pocket after he’d paid and looked around for a drinks cart. All that pizza with its salty cheese and then the nuts had made him thirsty. Scarlett was still talking away to her new-found friend and he was about to wave to her to move on when the moonlight caught the lad’s face and Nathan saw exactly who it was. He was the boy who’d stolen the money from the ground that evening in Madison Square Park, the same lad who’d stolen his wallet in Cornwall.
He was about to storm over and wrench Scarlett away when a woman came his way holding two steaming cups of hot chocolate and handed one of them to the boy.
It was then he realised he’d been hit with a double whammy. Because she was the girl on the knitting stall he thought he’d recognised when he walked past, but had told himself he was imagining things.
And, by the way they were glaring at him, they knew exactly who he was too.
Chapter Seven
Amelia
‘What is he looking at?’ Amelia bristled and muttered the rhetorical question under her breath as she stood with Kyle drinking the hot chocolate she’d found from the artisan stall at the end of the row. She’d been working on the knitting stall for the last two hours, Cleo had sent her to take a break so she could check on Kyle, and she’d go back for an hour or so to finish up. She hadn’t expected to find Kyle dealing with this man’s scrutiny, again.
Kyle had barely spoken to her ever since she’d found him with the bottle of vodka, apart from asking for the headache tablets the morning after. She’d made some quip about how he wouldn’t need them if he’d waited until the right age to have a drink and his body could handle it. And since then he’d been cordial but hadn’t entered into much voluntary conversation.
Ignoring the man who was still looking their way and seemed to be with the girl Kyle couldn’t take his eyes off, she asked, ‘How’s it all going over here?’
‘I haven’t stolen anything, if that’s what you’re implying.’
‘Kyle, for goodness’ sake, that wasn’t what I meant.’
He locked eyes with her about to retaliate but then thought better of it. ‘I know, I’m being a twat.’
He’d made her laugh. ‘Hey, your description not mine.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a tosser the last few days.’
‘You’re getting these descriptions spot on.’
‘OK, no need to go on about it. But I’m sorry, all right? I shouldn’t have taken the vodka, or been rude to you.’
She looked around, relieved to find the man had gone. It meant she could focus on Kyle as he finished his hot chocolate, threw the cup in the bin and took over the task of sweeping up the ground without being asked. She smiled a hello to Mitch as he helped another customer select a tree. Hands warmed with her own hot chocolate, she reached out and gave Kyle a hug and he did well to wait a few seconds before shrugging her off.
As he got back to work she tackled what they hadn’t managed to address after the vodka incident. ‘I thought your friend had gone to prison? The one you were talking to on the iPad,’ she added for clarification.
He stopped for a moment before carrying on, the broom swishing the damp pavement. He bent down to scoop up the debris, which he threw into a box beside the chalet. ‘He did, he’s out. He’s not exactly a mass murderer.’
‘He’s not someone who’s a good influence either.’
‘I know, but he’s a mate. He called me, not the other way round, I could hardly hang up on him, could I?’
‘I don’t want to see you led into anything you don’t want to do.’
