Page 42 of The Cotswolds Christmas Fair

‘Can you do anything else, Sam?’ Bob asked, and the little dog shook its head vigorously, causing a guffaw from the audience. Bob chuckled. ‘Then bow.’

Sam did, and the audience erupted into applause. Even Jen was won over by the absolute cuteness of this display of canine talent, even though she considered herself a cat person. But if Tig’s obvious aversion to her continued much longer, she thought glumly, she might consider switching sides.

Ted was looking impressed. ‘That dog’s definitely more talented than either of us!’ He took a sip of his drink and grinned. ‘Pretty pawsome, right.’

She shook her head. ‘Thank God you didn’t decide to do some stand-up.’

He shrugged, mock-offended. ‘Think I’d be quite good at it, actually.’

‘You would not.’

The evening continued as more people stood up to display their talents. Reverend Pauline brought a karaoke machine and sang a surprisingly impressive rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York’, and Matt, the older man from the café, iced thirty Christmas cookies in a minute. The audience appreciatively munched through the end results as they listened to banjo music and watched tap dancing, among other displays. The night was finished off with a surprisingly moving reading of ‘’Twas the Night Before Christmas’ by a man in wellies named Alan. By the time he’d finished, everyone was mesmerised.

Jen had been expecting something rather more cultured, and as she thought of the reels on Anthony’s Instagram showing him reading serious and meaningful poems out to a rapt audience, she wondered what he would make of Babblebrook’s open mic night. She suspected he would be derisive, and she tried to be too. She was too sophisticated for this. Wasn’t she?

‘Brilliant!’ Ted said, turning to her with a goofy grin. ‘That’s properly cheered me up, thanks for coming with me.’

‘Well, I’m not sure it’s prepared me for highbrow discussions with Anthony. But that was kind of entertaining,’ she admitted.

The truth was, she’d loved it. Sitting by the fire with her best friend in the cosy pub, while snow fell outside and all these people enjoyed themselves without any pretensions, supporting each other without judgement. She’d felt completely at ease.

Perhaps it wasn’t sophisticated or intellectual. But it was sweet and fun, and that had made for a pretty perfect evening.

Chapter Eighteen

There was an exhibition at the gallery, an up-and-coming artist who Anthony admired and Jen had never heard of. She liked the paintings; stark black-and-white pictures of crows with splashes of red featuring somewhere in each. She didn’t know what they meant, though.

That didn’t seem to matter. Anthony stared at the paintings, drinking them in, dark hair falling into blue eyes, lips slightly parted. Jen tried to stop herself imagining kissing them, and focus on the art.

‘I don’t know what it is about them that has such an impact, I just – I think they’re so stark, you know?’

‘I like the contrast,’ she said. ‘You know, the monochrome and then just that one colour that’s so—’

‘Striking.’

‘Exactly.’

He turned to her and smiled, and she felt as though she was intelligent and impressive and someone completely other than her goofy messed-up self. The open mic hadn’t helped her prepare for cultured art gallery visits, fun though it had been, but she’d spent the night reading up on art movements on Wikipedia.

Anthony turned back to the picture. ‘I wonder what it represents,’ he mused.

Jen had no idea. And she was back to being her awkward self, more comfortable drooling over Bake Off than analysing art.

‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s like the impressionists did, you know, painting sort of mundane subjects but using them to show something special, like the light?’

He snapped his head round towards her, eyebrows raised, a laugh firing from him. ‘What?’

Jen blushed. ‘I just mean . . .’ She had no idea what she meant. She needed to get better at this stuff if she was going to impress him.

He stepped closer to her and brushed a stray hair from her face gently, his eyes searching hers, a soft smile playing on his lips. ‘You’re cute, you know that?’ he said.

And for a heartbeat they stood like that, so close they were almost touching, so close she could smell his aftershave. Everything in her was poised, longing for what happened next.

She didn’t know whether she kissed him or he kissed her. She only knew that his lips were every bit as soft and sensuous against hers as she’d imagined, that his arm as he held her by the waist and pulled her in, was every bit as strong as she’d dreamed.

When they pulled away they stayed close, his arm around her, her hand resting on his chest, both smiling as though their lives depended on it.

He cleared his throat, flicked his hair from his eyes. Still grinning. ‘Shall we . . . ?’