Page 1 of The Christmas Highland Lodge

Chapter One

I offered a smile to the elegant, ice-cool blonde woman who had just entered the shop and was admiring our latest range of rose-gold tinsel and matching baubles.

I glanced down at my to-do list, which was making its way to the bottom of the pad. I still had a couple of suppliers to chase up. We hadn’t received the order I had placed for illuminated holly wreaths, and the ceramic penguin and robin decorations had arrived smashed to bits in the bottom of the box.

All around me, fairy lights dazzled and there was the warm, festive scent of cinnamon emanating from our Christmas pot-pourri for sale.

I was just about to ring the ceramic decoration suppliers and ask for them to arrange delivery of ones that weren’t like a Mensa jigsaw puzzle, when I realised there was a customer on the other side of the counter, waiting to be attended to.

‘Excuse me? I love these tear-shaped baubles. You don’t happen to have any in silver?’

I snapped my attention back to the woman who had entered Christmas Crackers just a few moments ago. ‘I think we may have some through in the stock room. Would you like me to check for you?’

She scooped up an eclectic mix of the two-tone rose-gold and lilac baubles. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, that would be helpful. Thank you.’

I hurried towards the stockroom, located at the rear of the shop.

Christmas Crackers was located on Craig Brae high street, stationed between the local optician’s and the card shop.

It was a sweet little place, with two huge, bevelled windows, covered in fake snow and tinsel, with a tree and a couple of illuminated Christmas cottage decorations.

The counter, a huge, old-fashioned mahogany affair on the right, greeted you as soon as you stepped inside the door and running down either side of the length of the shop was a number of matching wooden shelves and hooks, displaying everything from snow globes and festive table decorations to advent calendars and holly wreaths.

It used to be the local ironmongers until Mr and Mrs McIntosh decided to retire and sell the business just over three years ago to my boss, Vivian Sangster.

After completing my degree in interior design at the Glasgow School of Art, I worked for a couple of different department stores in the city for a few years. I ended up being able to indulge my love of Christmas by using my imagination and creating eye-catching window displays, which I loved doing but especially at my most favourite time of the year.

I glanced around the stockroom with a frisson of excitement. Only a matter of months now and Mrs Sangster would be retiring, heading off to the States and selling the business to me, as she had promised. I beamed from ear to ear.

I located the surplus baubles stock, marked up in sturdy silver boxes on the shelves in the stockroom and tapped back down the wooden floor of the shop, carrying several silver baubles. The wintry November sunshine shot through the shop window, making them sparkle even more. ‘How are these for you, madam?’

She beamed, displaying, large, white teeth. ‘Perfect. Thank you so much.’

‘Which ones would you like?’

‘Oh, I’ll take all of them. I’ve got three trees to decorate.’

Three?! Wow!

I tried not to stare at her as I prepared her purchases. I wondered where she lived and how big her house was, if she was going to be decorating three Christmas trees. Perhaps she was a day-tripper or was visiting for a few days?

I didn’t recognise her.

Perhaps this well-dressed, middle-aged woman was a new weekender? I smiled to myself. That would please Mr Clarkson, the caretaker down at the town hall. He was always grumbling, ‘Aye, all these darn incomers pushing up the prices of the properties in the area,’ and, ‘parking their bloody great SUVs all over the place, like they’ve been abandoned.’

While I reached for some of our embossed Christmas Crackers red and green tissue paper to wrap her purchases in, the woman appreciated her surroundings. ‘You have a beautiful shop. Are you the owner?’

I retrieved one of our large, glittery bags from under the counter and secured it with blue and green tartan ribbon. ‘Thank you. No, it’s not my business – well, not yet anyway. I’m the manager at the moment.’

I proceeded to explain to her about Mrs Sangster retiring and how I would be buying the business and taking over.

She nodded over at our white and gold wooden Nutcracker soldiers. ‘Well, it’s gorgeous. I could spend a fortune in here.’

‘Oh, please do!’ I joked, accepting her credit card.

While I processed her purchases, she pointed to the window and then the shelves, groaning with assorted festive gifts and decorations. ‘Do you do all of this? The displays?’

‘I do. It’s a labour of love for me. I studied interior design.’