And this was all beside the point because I wasn’t interested in finding a mate for the long term or short term, thank you very much.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ I attempted to keep my voice friendly but detached: somewhere between news anchor and a satellite navigation system. He’d brought over two glasses. Was he here with his wife or girlfriend?
Not that I cared, of course.
‘Yes please.’ He slipped his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, pulling the shirt open wider across the base of his throat and revealing a tantalising triangle of tanned skin. I’m not going to lie, what his skin would taste like if I licked it definitely crossed my mind. It was like that bodily collision with him in the village had woken my libido up out of hibernation too early and now it was stumbling around all confused and aggressive. ‘Orange juice for me and a dry sherry for my nan. Room eight.’
I glanced around the room and saw a little old lady with auburn-tinted hair watching from her favourite spot between the fire and the Christmas tree in the bay window. When she saw me looking, she raised her hand and gave me a friendly wave.
I waved back, and my smile relaxed into something more natural and less like a scary wooden puppet.
‘So, you’re one of Dorie’s grandsons.’ She’d been staying with us for a week already and was completely lovely. She spent most of her days in the library or the bar, reading romance novels, sipping sherry and talking about her two wonderful grandsons who were joining her soon. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’
Immediately he pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms tightly over his chest.
‘Why? What’s she said?’
‘Oh, nothing much, except that one’s a banker and one’s a pilot…’ I remembered about him not having enough English currency. Surely, he wasn’t the pilot? Were they even allowed to wear glasses? It wasn’t fair for him to turn out to be gorgeousanda pilot. That didn’t happen in real life; the laws of physics or something would prohibit it. He must be the banker – he’d just been on holiday or travelling for business. I cleared my throat. ‘And that she couldn’t wait to see you.’
‘Oh.’ He blinked and shook his head a little. ‘I’m just a co-pilot at the moment. Building up my air miles to get my full licence.’ His cheeks tinged pink as he explained. His humility was so unexpectedly endearing that it was all too much. My bewildered libido was trampling all over my brain’s manifesto that I wasn’t interested in men at the moment and my stomach performed a slow roll filled with butterflies. He held his hand out. ‘I’m Nick.’
I didn’t want to shake his hand. I feared I might melt to the floor. But there was no way to avoid it really, so I took his hand and gave it a brief squeeze. Tingles raced up my arm.
‘Beth,’ I managed to croak before I near-ripped my hand away for the sake of self-preservation.
I busied myself fulfilling his drinks order and as I set the orange juice in front of him, I looked up and caught him watching me just before his focus skittered away. Behind his black-framed glasses, his eyes were the colour of the sea I’d seen earlier in Geri and Lisa’s proposal picture. Was it getting hot in here?
‘I put your T-shirt in the wash. Once it’s dry I’ll return it,’ I said, needing to fill the silence as I poured the sherry for his nan. Immediately I wanted to strangle myself with the Christmas garland. Why did I bring the angel up again? For one thing, I’d made quite a big deal of it and, for another, my mum was only a few metres away talking to one of the guests.
‘Right, sure, great.’ He blinked and slipped his hand in his back pocket again, but this time to bring his wallet out. ‘I managed to get some more cash out earlier. What can I give you to help with the repairs?’ He slipped out a few notes and offered them. ‘I know it won’t fix it, since it’s a family heirloom and everything but—’
‘Oh no, no, please.’ I shook my head and my hand at him, anything to get him to stop. Not only was I cringing because he’d probably thought I’d been fishing for recompense, but also, he still looked genuinely gutted about it. Mum was flicking glances our way now, one eyebrow raised in question at me, and I knew she was a heartbeat away from walking over and seeing what was wrong. Luckily, Julius Mundey – our resident awkward guest – was still making a speech to her, probably about some aspect of his stay that wasn’t completely perfect, so she couldn’t break away just yet.
‘Really. It was my fault earlier. You were right – I was staring at my phone trying to find the hotel. And I was rude,’ he persisted. ‘I have no excuse except for jet lag. Please, take the money, it would ease my conscience.’
I suppressed a groan and shook my head again. Mum was still watching us, and this time Nick caught on to the fact that I was watching her watching me. It was starting to feel like a Mexican stand-off. If he realised she was my mum, he might start apologising to her for the angel too. It would be so nice for her not to know I couldn’t even be trusted to buy a wooden doll without it meeting with an accident on the way home from the shop, especially since she was planning to leave me in charge of the whole hotel.
I wrapped my hand around his money, folding it back into his fist and leaned closer so I could lower my voice.
‘It’s really not necessary.’ I tried to breathe normally and form words through the haze of eucalyptus and male pheromones his increased proximity engulfed me in. His throat rippled with a swallow and I realised this wasn’t an improvement on the curious behaviour from my mother’s point of view, so I needed to make it snappy. ‘I lied. About the angel. She’s not a family heirloom. I’d only just bought her. Sorry.’ I released his hand and stepped back, biting my lip.
His bright blue gaze studied my mouth like I’d been speaking a different language and then travelled up over my face to look me in the eye. ‘You lied? About your mum being heartbroken?’
‘Yes, sorry. I was a bit stressed out and – well – like you said, you were quite rude.’
I watched a muscle flex in that evolutionarily superior jaw.
‘I see.’ He put the money away and picked up the drinks. ‘Well, I guess that makes us even now.’ He walked away without saying anything more and I winced.
Mum caught my eye one last time and mouthed ‘Are you okay?’ at me. I nodded, grabbed a bag of nuts and beat a hasty retreat to the dining room before she could start asking me questions. The fake holly centrepieces might’ve been prickly, but I had a feeling they’d be less painful than the dagger-filled looks Nick was sending across the bar at me.
In the end, after a hit of salt and protein, I was able to fix the centrepiece issue with a bit of perseverance and glue.
I overlapped some holly leaves, end over end, with a couple of miniature poinsettias and glued it all to a glass candleholder, then repeated the process a dozen times. It had been oddly therapeutic to concentrate on a repetitive task and I’d just about finished setting them in the middle of the tables – which were covered in deep red tablecloths to match the poinsettias – and lit all the little tea lights, when the guests began arriving for dinner.
Hopefully, the stems of the fake holly leaves wouldn’t melt from the heat of the candles and let off noxious fumes. On the plus side, it’d make the dinner shift quieter if everyone passed out into their food.
I showed people to their tables and took orders for drinks and appetisers. I didn’t even realise I was anxiously awaiting Nick’s arrival until his nan came in.
