Page 2 of The Secret Holiday Kiss

An expensive repair job and the need to stay somewhere else while it was carried out were the last things she needed. But most of the projects on her books were winding down for Christmas, and there had been one email, one potential new client eager to talk to her, and he was based in Norwich. So, she had fallen on the kindness and hospitality of the brother she wasn’t close enough to, and now here she was, back in the seaside village she’d grown up in, in the house she’d escaped from when she was eighteen.

She watched as Sophie strode across the grass with the dogs – two of them named, ridiculously, Darkness and Terror, in a move that was entirely uncharacteristic of her brother, and a much smaller one called Clifton. They ran close to Sophie, then darted off to explore beneath the trees, charting the furrows in the grass that might have been left by rabbits, deer or moles. The day seemed draped in cobwebs. For the last twenty years, Daisy had been a city person, but she suddenly wanted to be out there, in the fresh, sea-scented air.

By the time she had filled her to-go cup up with coffee from the machine in the kitchen and stepped into the cold, Sophie and the dogs were nowhere in sight. The gravel crunched satisfyingly beneath her feet, the driveway so much more appealing than it had been when she had lived here, with neat flowerbeds along the front façade, spotlights nestled in the soil to provide elegant lighting after dark, a brick weave border separating the drive from the grass.

Daisy would have loved to work on a project like this, the bones of the building solid and elegant, the perfect canvas for a detailed and satisfying transformation. But when Harry had started working on it, she had been busy with her own clients, and he knew her feelings about Mistingham, and about her promise to herself that she would never come back for any length of time. It wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t asked her to get involved.

Now here she was, and her childhood home was reborn.

She strode across the grass, her trainers squelching in the mud from some earlier rainfall, and she wished she had a solid pair of walking boots. They were not the kind of thing she ever needed in London, but were essential for living out here. Still, the walk was achingly familiar, the freedom of the parkland, the copses on either side, the promise of the coastline ahead. Soon she was at the fence, the public pathway just beyond, enough room for hikers and strollers to walk comfortably on the clifftop between the estate border and the drop down to the beach.

Except now the fence was taller, and it was reinforced. She couldn’t see any way to get through, and she wasn’t going to risk torn jeans and – more importantly – torn flesh by trying to climb over it. The sea was darker close up, tumultuous with white-edged waves, the salty scent hitting her nose like an echo of a different life. How could a place feel so right and so alien, all at once? Was there still the gap in the cliffs, the hidden tunnel she had sneaked through as a teenager, the rock pools she had spent so much time exploring? She shook her head. She couldn’t get caught up in daydreams.

‘Oh.’ Her thoughts were derailed by the arrival of Felix, Harry’s pampered goat. He was, admittedly, adorable. Mostly white but with black splodges, his ears pink, his jumper – knitted by Birdie, an older woman who had lived in the village for ever – sunshine yellow with colourful kites all over it. ‘Hello, you.’

‘Baaaaaah.’ Felix nibbled the hem of her cream parka.

‘No respect for expensive fabrics, then? That figures.’

‘Felix respects himself, anything that will lead him into a disastrous adventure, and dinner time.’ Daisy hadn’t heard her brother approach. Harry was in a green waxed jacket, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his mid-brown hair, slightly longer on top, ruffled by the wind. He looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him, without the pinched expression she associated with drive and ambition, or the understandable wedding day nerves he’d had the last time she’d been here.

‘I can see why you love him,’ she said. ‘He’s ridiculously cute.’

‘Cute things have always been a weakness of mine,’ Harry said dryly, as Felix nudged his thigh and he stroked the goat absent-mindedly. ‘How are you doing? You headed off to bed early last night.’

‘I was tired from the journey,’ Daisy said, and Harry nodded, even though she knew he could see right through her.

‘You didn’t tell me much about what’s going on in London.’ He stood next to her, and Daisy turned her gaze to the sea, because it was easier when you didn’t have to look a person in the eye. ‘I thought you were happy with your new flat. That it was your fresh start.’

‘After my cheating shithead of a husband revealed himself to me, you mean?’

Her ex-husband, Stefan, had slept with another woman in their bed, in the home Daisy had spent years perfecting, blowing apart the life she had built for them. An acrimonious divorce had followed, and Daisy had lost everything, including one of her biggest clients and the stability of her business. Just as she had started getting back on her feet, her flat had flooded.

‘I’m so sorry, Daisy,’ Harry said quietly. ‘I’m sorry he did that to you, and I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you as much as I could have been. That I wasn’t there for you when it happened.’

‘I didn’t really allow you to be. It’s not your fault.’

‘I’m glad you’re here now, though, even if it was your only option.’

‘You don’t know it was my only option.’

His laugh was soft. ‘I do know that. I was pretty surprised you turned up to the wedding.’

‘Miss my brother finding a woman who’s prepared to put up with him? Never.’ She glanced at him. ‘Sophie seems lovely. I’m looking forward to getting to know her.’

‘She feels the same. So what happened? Why are you here?’

Daisy thought about deflecting, then realized she didn’t have the energy. ‘You know my new flat, the one I was so excited about?’

‘I do.’

‘The plumbing is fucked. Water started coming in through my living room ceiling, then my bedroom. Apparently, it’s a building-wide issue. The whole system needs an overhaul. Mo and Pete are on the case, but—’

‘Who are Mo and Pete?’

‘Good guys I work with on projects. But this is bigger than either of them; it could take weeks to fix. Months.’

‘Well, you’ve got a place here as long as you want. We’re happy to have you.’