Page 49 of A Scottish Highland Surprise

Okay, so Sparkling Gifts didn’t carry the same traditional old glamour that Carter’s or Drury’s did, but she woke up on those three mornings every week looking forward to seeing friendly faces from the local community and meeting new customers.

She assured herself that her enthusiasm for the little gift shop had nothing to do with Chris Auld.

Chris would drop in a few times a week, which always happened to coincide with when Helena was on her shift. He would chat to her about his mother, life in general and the three men’s fashion businesses he had just invested in.

Helena found herself looking forward more and more to Chris’s visits. She would make an extra effort with her hair and choose one of her smarter dresses or pretty, flower-sprigged shirts and flares.

She assured herself that it was because she wanted to be well turned out as she was representing Mrs Auld and Sparkling Gifts. Underneath the protestations, she knew better.

Mrs Auld had explained to Helena that Chris had decided to stay on in Briar Glen for a bit, rather than return to London and his rented flat. “He said there’s more business opportunities up here at the moment.”

Helena had nodded, a warm glow of delight lighting up inside of her. She didn’t want to begin to imagine how empty and fragile her life would be without Chris there.

They fell into an easy pattern. Chris would drop by and time his visits so that he could escort Helena to the park across from the village for her tea break. They would sit on a bench, nursing polystyrene cups of washed-out tea and throw their heads back, laughing at something stupid that had happened in the shop, or Chris would regale her with stories about growing up with his indomitable mother and easy-going father. “It’s a good job Dad was so malleable,” mused Chris, grimacing as he took a mouthful of tea. “Heaven knows what life would have been like if he’d been a force of nature like my mother.”

The September sun was playing hide and seek behind the trees and coppery leaves were cartwheeling around their feet. Helena glanced down at her watch. Her tea break was always over too quickly. She huddled deeper into her fake fur jacket.

“What do you want to do with your life, Helena?”

She drained the remnants of her tea and popped the cup into the bin beside their bench. “Wow! That’s a big question!”

Chris’s eyebrows arched. “Well?”

When he was looking at her like that, all interested, blazing tawny gaze, she struggled to have coherent thoughts. “I want to be a good mother to Marnie. I want her to look on me as a friend as she gets older, not just as her mum.”

“You’re already doing that,” he answered in his assured but strange accent. “I mean, what do you want to do for you?”

She shot him a look. “You’ll laugh.”

“I bet I don’t. Well, unless you tell me you want to become a professional footballer.”

Helena grinned at him. “I might be very good at football.”

“You could be. There’s so many things I want to find out about you.”

Heat charged through her and she found herself wishing she still had that silly polystyrene cup to play with.

Chris shuffled a little closer along the bench. His blond fringe was lifting in the breeze. “Go on. Talk to me.”

She pulled a face. “All right. You did ask. Well, I would love to have my own crockery shop one day. I know it doesn’t sound exciting or grand, but it has always been an ambition of mine.”

When Chris didn’t say anything, she let out a bark of embarrassed laughter. “See? I told you it was silly.”

Helena let her gaze drift away from the autumnal horizon and back to Chris beside her.

“I’m not laughing and I don’t think it’s silly at all.” He adjusted his leather blazer. “I think if you did something like that, it would be really successful.” He fingered his empty cup. “What does your husband think about it?”

Helena blinked. It was an awful thought, but she felt like Donald was intruding on their conversation. “Oh, I don’t talk about it much to him. Well, not at all. I did mention it once or twice when we first got married, but he just dismissed it.”

“Why?”

Helena shifted. “He’s a bit old-fashioned. He thinks once a woman gets married, they should stay at home.”

Chris processed this. “Right. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but I don’t happen to agree with him.”

She would have been very surprised if he had. She found herself smiling.

Looking down at her watch, she shot up from the bench. “Oh hell! I had better get back to the shop, otherwise your mum will be docking my wages.”