Page 50 of A Scottish Highland Surprise

“Helena.” Chris’s hand reached out and rested on her fluffy white sleeve. “You mustn’t let him clip your wings. You’re clever, you’re ambitious and you’re beautiful…”

Helena couldn’t look at him. All these moments were moulding together into something that she was treasuring and didn’t want to stop. “Chris…”

They stared at each other, the lazy golden sun glancing off their faces.

“It’s just a pipe dream,” she explained as they fell into step beside one another, Helena’s long white lace-up boots clipping alongside Chris’s buckled loafers. “I told you, Donald doesn’t even know I’ve got this job. I don’t know how much longer I can manage to keep that quiet, and once he does find out, which I have no doubt he will, he’ll be furious.”

Chris’s handsome face tightened. “You shouldn’t have to keep it a secret that you have a job.”

She clutched her bag to her side. “Yes. Well… I almost got found out the other week. One of Donald’s work colleagues came up to the village for a doctor’s appointment and he told Donald he was sure he saw me working behind the counter in the gift shop. Luckily, Donald didn’t believe him.”

Chris gave Helena a sideways glance as they ventured out of the park gates and across the road. “I bet your husband wouldn’t object if you had your own business that was making you a good income.”

She shrugged. The lights from Sparkling Gifts spilt out onto the pavement.

“What time are you finishing up here today, Helena? Two-thirty as usual?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Meet me again at the park entrance as soon as you finish.”

Helena’s heart revved in her chest. “But I’ve got to collect Marnie from school.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t keep you too long. Please?”

Helena couldn’t resist. “All right, but I can’t be late for her. What is this about?”

But Chris just winked, flapped his leather jacket and strode off.

All Helena could do was gaze after him.

Xander frowned across at me as we drove back to Briar Glen.

“You shouldn’t be reading in a moving vehicle. It will make you feel queasy.”

I glanced up from my phone screen as the scenery of swish office blocks and smoky-glassed, expensive restaurants gave way to the familiar woodland of Briar Glen that reminded me of broccoli clumps. Brown tourist signs announced, “Welcome to our town, where the famous blue briar rose was said to grow in abundance and a warm Scottish welcome is always guaranteed.”

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll bear that in mind.”

Xander’s brows bunched together. “Can’t you leave all that reading till you get back home?”

I continued to scroll through the email of documents Saffy had forwarded to us both – albeit grudgingly to me. “I could,” I admitted, my frustration growing. “But I’m keen to see if Saffy’s great-grandfather has given any more details about that cad Jonathan Gray.”

Xander flicked his indicator right, the light sparking against the windscreen of his sporty little Mazda. “Cad?”

“Well, how would you describe a man who abandons a woman in the snow on Christmas Eve?”

Xander flashed me a look from out of the corner of his eyes. “We don’t know the whole story.”

“No, I forgot,” I added crisply. “It’s a common occurrence to argue out in the street on Christmas Eve and threaten all sorts, before leaving the other person at the risk of the elements.”

Xander offered me a withering stare, but said nothing.

I clicked away from the copious diary entries and scanned through my gallery of photographs. The ones I had taken of the peacock tea set popped up and I enlarged them for closer inspection. What part did the crockery play in all of this? Did it even play a part at all? Or had Briar’s letter just been stuffed into the crockery case to conceal it?

Xander returned me to the car park behind The Cup That Cheers and watched me snatch up my bag from the footwell passenger side. “Thank you for taking me over to Saffy’s,” I said.

He gave a shrug. “Not a problem.”