Page 68 of The Cotswolds Christmas Fair

‘We’re closed,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you hear me call last orders?’

She shook her head, the room spinning as she did so.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked softly. ‘Have you got someone to take you home? Weather’s rough out there.’

She shook her head. She had no one.

Squinting at her phone, she tried to book an Uber. Nothing available. And, as she staggered out of the warm bar, she understood why.

The snow was lying thick on the ground, and still coming down fast. She watched the swirling flakes, vaguely aware that she would have found them beautiful if she wasn’t freezing in just her jumper, and apparently stranded.

She refreshed the page on her Uber app. Still nothing.

Jen hugged herself and stamped her frozen, soaked feet and tried not to cry. She would have to call someone. The only alternative was to find a doorway to sleep in, and even in her drunken state she knew that was a disastrous plan.

It was late. Everyone she knew would be in bed, or had turned out to be a liar who was playing her all along.

At last, with numb fingers, she called the one person she could always count on. She listened as the phone rang and rang, desperately willing for the moment she heard that voice at the other end of the line.

And then, just as she was giving up hope, she heard it. And, with chattering teeth, she explained the situation.

Ted was wearing a T-shirt and pyjama trousers when he arrived. He climbed out of the car and opened his arms, and she fell into them, sobbing against his warm chest.

‘OK, all right. Come on, you’re freezing, let’s get you in.’

He helped her into the car and cranked up the heating as she fumbled with her seat belt. Now she’d begun crying, she couldn’t stop.

‘OK,’ he said, patting her leg. ‘It’s OK, I’ll take you home.’

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, then reversed the car carefully to turn around. And during the slow and treacherous journey home, which she barely noticed because she was so absorbed in her own problems, she told him the whole sorry tale. Between sobs and yawns, and gulps when she thought she might throw up, it all came out – a confused and somewhat incoherent version, but the main events were there.

Ted frowned. ‘So – what? He was just using you?’

Jen nodded, sniffling. ‘And I’m such – what an idiot I am. I believed him. I really believed that he liked me, I believed he thought I was special. I’m so stupid.’

They were waiting at a red light. Ted turned to her, his gaze gentle. ‘You’re not stupid.’

‘And I really – I really wanted to be special, I really wanted to be all the things he thought I was.’

‘You don’t need some guy to tell you how to be special, Jen.’ His voice was so soft she could hardly hear him. ‘You are special, just by being yourself, and the kind, quirky, creative things that make you you.’

She blinked at him, trying to keep him in focus. Trying to stop herself from bringing the gin back up in his pristine car.

He drove on, slowly, carefully. The wipers were working overtime trying to clear the screen of snow, and in the darkness all that could be seen ahead was a flurry of flakes lit by the headlamps. No one else was on the roads. It was the early hours, and anyone with any sense was tucked up at home on such a terrible night.

Ted’s reassuring presence and the steady rhythm of the engine began to lull Jen as she finally warmed up, and she slid down in her seat a little, her eyelids drooping.

‘I – did you get my message earlier?’ Ted asked.

She turned to look at him. He was focused on the road ahead, clutching the wheel as the tyres slipped and slithered now they were on the country roads that led to Babblebrook.

‘I – was busy.’

He nodded, still looking ahead. Jen didn’t want to admit that she’d seen his message and ignored it. She felt bad, but she was struggling to focus and she couldn’t have a serious talk with him right now; she was exhausted, and more than a little tipsy. It wouldn’t be anything that bad, surely. What did he have to be unhappy about, after all? He was the one who had everything sorted; great job, lovely girlfriend. He didn’t have a problem in the world.

Chapter Thirty

Ted shut the engine off when they reached the house, so it wouldn’t wake anyone. He stepped out of the car and gave her another hug, steadying her as she tottered up the path. Just the snow, she told herself. Though she could hardly blame the weather for needing multiple attempts to get the key into the door.