Page 45 of The Christmas Highland Lodge

I took a couple more steps towards him and stopped. Blake adjusted his tie. He still wasn’t looking at me.

I shuffled from foot to foot on the crunchy woodland floor. What should I do? Maybe I should have pretended I hadn’t heard and just carried on walking? Oh well. It was too late now. I flashed him a look. ‘Are you all right?’

His almost-black eyes narrowed, as though he wasn’t sure whether he’d heard me correctly or not. He cleared his throat. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘You look upset.’

Blake’s unreadable gaze flickered over me. ‘It’s fine. It was nothing.’ He pushed his phone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

‘Are you sure? It didn’t sound like nothing.’

‘It’s ok. I’m ok,’ he ground out.

Clearly, the situation wasn’t ok and neither was Blake, but his shutters were well and truly locked down and were not prepared to budge anytime soon.

‘All right.’

He stood for a few moments longer, with the bare winter trees a tangle of dramatic criss-crossing branches behind him like spindly arms.

I couldn’t stand here any longer. He wasn’t saying anything.

‘I’ll be off then,’ I said, turning away and starting to head back to my car.

I’d taken several strides when his voice surprised me. It rang out at my retreating back. ‘Thank you.’

I turned around and blinked over at him. ‘Sorry?’

He let out a cough. ‘Thank you for asking if I’m ok.’

I stared at him for a few seconds. ‘Oh. Er. Ok. No problem.’

We both stood, looking at one another, with just the woodland sounds like an orchestra surrounding us.

Then, like the flick of a switch, the traces of vulnerability I’d glimpsed in him just seconds ago evaporated. The intense, focused edge in his eyes was back.

Smoothing down his tie, Blake waited for a few moments to let me get ahead of him. Then he set off himself, back towards Rowan Moore House, for his meeting with Max.

Chapter Thirteen

Life can often be like buses, can’t it?

Nothing comes along for ages and then two pull up at once.

This is what happened with the furniture, fittings and decorations ordered for the cabins, which decided to arrive a couple of days earlier than we had expected.

As I’d hoped, Max and Stephanie had been very enthusiastic about my other suggestion of allowing the public to suggest names for each of the four Magical Occasions Cabins.

‘Once we’ve got them finished, I thought we could post pictures of the interiors and exteriors online and ask people to come up with suitable names for each one,’ I’d explained to them at our most recent catch-up at Rowan Moore House. ‘The four most original suggestions that we like the best will win.’

The Styleses had nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’s a wonderful idea,’ beamed Stephanie.

‘Thank you. I thought the prize could be a gift voucher of £200 towards the cost of a long weekend stay and a Christmas hamper supplied by Mrs Crill who owns the local bakery, Sugar ‘n’ Spice.’ I added that I had already spoken to her and she was very keen on the idea. ‘Is that agreeable to you both?’

Max and Stephanie said that they thought the hamper was also a great suggestion and so I explained I would post details of that competition once the cabins were completed on the Magical Occasions Cabins social media accounts.

It was a couple of days now since Blake’s fraught phone conversation with the mysterious Amy.

I’d glimpsed him around Rowan Moore House, deep in conversation with Max and he had given me a nod of greeting.