Page 25 of Christmas All the Way

Glancing down, he plucked the feather from his T-shirt and let it fall to the ground. ‘You do that. I’ll be out of your way – I only came in here to pick up some tinsel for a client.’

Grace knew she should leave but her feet felt suddenly rooted to the floor. ‘Right. Well, thanks again for – um – catching me.’

But Raff had already turned away and was moving purposefully towards one of the shelves further inside the stockroom; either he hadn’t heard her or didn’t deem it worth his time to reply and neither was an encouraging thought. Fleeing through the open door, Grace hurried to the entrance lobby, only to find Misha alone, with no sign of the customer.

‘Where did she go?’ Grace cried, looking around in consternation.

Misha raised her eyebrows. ‘The baby shower woman?’

Grace nodded. ‘Yes. I went to find her some pink feathers but it took a bit longer than I expected.’

She would not blush, she told herself, although her cheeks did not appear to get the message.

‘She kept looking at her phone, then said she had somewhere else to be,’ Misha said, tutting. She nodded at the feathers Grace held. ‘So she couldn’t have needed them that badly.’

‘I suppose not,’ Grace said, feeling more than a little deflated. ‘And I got into trouble finding them.’

Briefly, she described her encounter with Raff. Misha’s eyes widened when she reached the part where she’d fallen. ‘And he caught you? Actually put his arms up and caught you?’

Grace definitely felt her face flush again, probably turning an even deeper shade of pink than the feathers she still held. But not as rosy as it had felt when she’d realised just how close she and Raff were to each other. ‘Sort of. I’m not really sure how it happened. One minute I was falling and the next, I was pressed against his chest.’

‘Oh,’ Misha breathed, her expression suddenly dreamy. ‘It’s like something out of a film, the two of you surrounded by a cascade of feathers. How utterly swoon-some.’

Grace shifted uncomfortably because the last thing she wanted was for Raff to somehow discover she’d romanticised the encounter. ‘He was more shouty than swoony, to be honest. But I shouldn’t have been on the ladder in the first place.’

Some of Misha’s misty-eyed softness dissipated as she seemed to recollect who it was Grace had fallen into. ‘No, I suppose not.’

‘And I spilled feathers everywhere,’ Grace went on. ‘Which reminds me, where can I find a dustpan and brush?’

‘In the cleaners’ cupboard, next door to the staffroom,’ Misha replied, and shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe he caught you.’

Grace smiled, beginning to wish she’d kept her mouth shut. ‘I expect he did it without thinking. Anyone would have done the same.’

Misha looked unconvinced. ‘Not my boyfriend. He’d have whipped out his phone to capture the moment on camera, and then be too busy laughing at me sprawled on the floor to help.’

If that was true then Misha deserved a better boyfriend, Grace thought, but she kept the observation to herself. ‘I’d better go and clean up the mess,’ she said. ‘If the baby shower woman comes back, give her the pink feathers, will you?’

True to his word, there was no sign of Raff by the time Grace had hurried upstairs to collect the dustpan and brush. But nor was there any trace of the scattered feathers. She stood in the doorway, staring around in consternation. All the evidence of her foolishness had been tidied away; the ladder had been returned to its usual resting place and there wasn’t a speck of pink on the ground. Sighing, Grace went back to the cleaners’ cupboard to replace the dustpan. It looked as though she had something else to thank Raff Caldwell for.

When Grace’s phone rang later that evening, she was surprised but delighted to see Jack’s name on the screen. ‘Hello?’ she said, a little breathless from the sudden surge of anticipation that welled up inside her. ‘Is that you, Jack?’

The handset crackled and buzzed, causing her to hold it away from her ear for a moment. Then she heard his voice and her heart leapt again. ‘G’day, Mum. How’s it going?’

She laughed. ‘G’day indeed. You’ve only been there a few weeks – you can’t have gone native already.’

‘Hardly,’ he said, but she thought she detected a hint of an accent. ‘Dad’s kept me too busy for that. We’ve been to Bondi loads – I’ve finally learned how to surf – and he says we can go up to Brisbane next weekend.’

Brisbane – wasn’t that where Keeley had said Xander came from? ‘It sounds amazing,’ she said warmly, thrilled Jack seemed to be reconnecting with his father at long last. ‘And how are you getting on with Rosalina and the twins?’

Rosalina was Kevin’s second wife – the woman he had fallen in love with once his marriage to Grace had ended. Their golden-haired twins who’d arrived not long after he’d emigrated to Australia had helped to fill the hole created by having to leave Jack. There had never been any question of Jack emigrating with him and Grace was glad they were getting the chance to bond now. ‘The twins are great,’ he said, his affection obvious. ‘Rosie too.’

His tone didn’t waver but Grace thought she detected a micro change in his enthusiasm. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘You did a brave thing by travelling so far from home on your own. It’s great that you’re having a brilliant time. Have you managed to find a job yet?’

He hesitated. ‘Not yet. To be honest, Dad hasn’t been much help on that score. He keeps telling me I don’t need to work, that he’ll see me right. I don’t think he understands that I want to find a job. Apart from anything else, it’ll help me make friends.’

There it was again, the faint whisper of something not right. Grace frowned. The plan had been for him to put his bartending experience to good use by finding a pub in Sydney to work in but it sounded as though Kevin did not agree. ‘Do you want me to speak to him?’

‘No,’ Jack said, and paused. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun sleeping in late and hanging out at the beach but I’m not sure how much longer I can do it before it gets a bit boring. Does that sound mad?’