Page 25 of Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle

‘You’re a ray of sunshine. I’m so glad you’re here.’ He looks over at me again and the warmth in his eyes makes my breath catch.

That’s the third time he’s said that and every time, it makes me go so warm all over that I don’t even need the borrowed jumper I’m wearing, and it truly is freezing up here. ‘That’s not what most people call me. Most people think I’m a nuisance. Annoying, slightly batty, should have my life together at thirty-nine.’

‘I’ll let you in on a secret…’ He motions for me to lean closer, and his voice is a whisper when he speaks. ‘I turned forty this year and didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want anyone to know that I’m forty and still this much of a mess.’

His gorgeous voice is low and close enough to my ear to make me melt in all the right ways, and I pull back so I can look at him. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

‘All my secrets are safe with you! In the past forty-eight hours, I’ve been more honest with you than I’ve been with anyone else for years.’

It’s the same for me. He’s easy to talk to and non-judgemental. From the very first chat on the video call, I’ve felt safe to be completely honest with him.

His hand reaches towards me and one finger traces an invisible pattern on my knee, through my trousers, and as I’m trying to persuade myself not to take that hand, hold it, draw some mindless patterns of my own somewhere on his body, his stomach lets out the loudest rumble that any stomach has ever made, and he yanks his hand away as we both dissolve into laughter.

‘As you can tell, I came up to ask if you wanted to join me for dinner and we got distracted.’

‘Sor—’

‘No, it’s a good thing.’ He doesn’t let me apologise. ‘It’s nice to see this place through someone else’s eyes. I live here, but it’s been a long time since I’ve really seen it, do you know what I mean?’

‘You work so hard to pay the bills that you forget what you’re paying them for?’

His face breaks into the most open, unguarded beam. It’s the kind of smile that, if he was really my husband, would’ve made me take his face in my hands and press my lips to his. I quickly push the thought away. Apart from the fact he’s my employer and I barely know him, he’s obviously got a lot of emotional baggage connected to this place, and I need to remember that I’m here to decorate and that’s where it ends.

To remind myself of how inappropriate it would be, I imagine the reaction I’d get if I was to kiss Patricia Calloway instead, and the thought of a stiletto embedded in my neck is a swift reminder of how even entertaining the notion of kissing bosses is likely to end.

Ollie nods emphatically, like I’ve hit the nail on the head with that sentence, and our eyes meet. In my peripheral vision I see his hand move towards to my knee again, and it would be so easy to shift closer…

‘Dinner is a good idea.’ I get to my feet and tidy the photos on the desk because these are not thoughts a pretend wife should be thinking, and he shakes himself and gets up too.

On the stairs, he holds his hand out to help me down. There are no handrails in the tower, and even though I’ve been up and down these stairs many times today without the need for assistance, I can’t resist slipping my hand into his. It’s not every day you get to be the wife of a gorgeous, castle-owning Scot… It’s not entirely wrong to make the most of it while I’m here, is it?

9

A couple of days later, Hamish says he’s going into Campbeltown and asks if I’d like to join him, and after working on one of the busiest shopping streets in the UK for so long, in a few short days, I’ve almost forgotten that shops even exist. Hollybrae Castle is a total escape from the world, and while that’s been welcome, I also want to get out to explore the nearest town and see what Christmas bits I can pick up.

Hamish leaves his truck in the harbour car park and lets me loose, and I spend a wonderful couple of hours enjoying the sea air and exploring an array of small independent shops that sell the most unique things, with not a single household name in sight. Hamish told me it looks busy today, but ‘busy’ has a different meaning here. Busy in London is so tightly crammed that you can barely breathe, and battling your way through the crowds at this time of year is an exercise in frustration, but here, everyone has got time for you. Every shopkeeper greets me, asks if they can help with anything or notices my English accent and suggests I’m a long way from home.

In London, I’m just one face in a sea of others, but here, I feel like I’d get to know everyone if I came back often, and their shops are beautiful. They remind me of growing up in Ipswich, in the days before high streets across the country died a slow death, but here, everything is thriving. Unlike the flashy lights of London streets, their Christmas decorations are understated and vintage. There’s the warm light of glowing bells above my head, strung from one side of the road to the other, and every shop bears a wreath of real foliage and an unassumingly decorated real tree, welcoming shoppers inside.

It’s like stepping back in time in the best way possible. After years in London, this is exactly what I need. This is how to do Christmas shopping. This whole place feels like exactly what Christmas should be.

I find the festive curtain tiebacks I’d envisioned but didn’t know existed. I find locally made chocolates and posh cheese, and a shop that specialises in handmade vintage-style decorations and nearly clear out their entire stock. I find arts and crafts stuff to entertain Maisie and Rory when they visit. I find the most gorgeous little boutique where the owner hand-knits everything from Christmas jumpers to festive socks, and I find the best pair of Christmas socks I’ve ever seen and instantly get two pairs in his and hers sizes because I know someone else who’ll love them too.

And people are so willing to help. Shopkeepers offer to order in anything I want. Assistants offer to help me carry things back to the car, but I’m used to carting around heavy stock and bulky props, and it doesn’t faze me as much as the thought of having to go back to London after this. This place feels like a community, where everyone knows everyone and people truly care about their neighbours.

There’s no rivalry between shops. If one shop hasn’t got something I’m thinking of, the owner directs me to another shop down the road, and there’s no competition to have the flashiest, sparkliest, shiniest window that outdoes every other window. Their windows simply showcase the products they sell, and it’s so refreshing that it makes me question why it was constantly reiterated to our team that we must one-up all the other shops on Oxford Street. It makes me wonder what it would be like to work somewhere like this again… I used to, and I always felt it would be a step down to go back to smaller shops, like I’d be admitting failure of my lifelong dream, but seeing a place like this still thriving is making me wonder if Calloways was the step down in the first place?

* * *

‘You look like a woman with a purpose. And a ladder.’ Ollie pushes open the door of the entrance hallway and catches me on my way to clean the upper reaches of our largest room before starting to install the undecorated garlands that have arrived this afternoon. Boxes upon boxes of many, many metres of green branches, waiting to have lights twirled through them and festive touches tied on when everything else I’ve ordered also arrives.

‘Hello,’ I call over my shoulder as I carry my ladder towards the dining hall. ‘How was your day?’

‘I’m more interested in how yours wa— Good lord.’ He rushes after me to hold a door open, and then looks around the room in surprise. ‘If anyone ever asks me “how many poinsettias is too many poinsettias?” at least I’ll know the answer.’

‘Hamish drove past a farm selling them from their driveway on the way home. It would’ve been rude not to,’ I tell him with a grin. ‘And it’s a moot point. There is, of course, no such thing as too many poinsettias.’

He laughs, but even his laugh is cut off as he bends to examine one. ‘Have you glittered these?’