Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe

Louise marched up to the school reception and fought back tears herself while she waited for the receptionist to stop fiddling with the photocopier. Maybe she should just have given an interview to Celebrity Life or something. Her refusal to play their game had just made incidents like this inevitable.

Jack was hugging on to her, his face buried under her arm. She stroked the top of his hair.

Now she was good and angry. She and Toby were fair game. They’d chosen this life. But Jack had no choice. When she’d got her son settled in, she was going back outside and she would find that photographer and she would shove his camera so far down his throat that he’d be coughing up bits of his memory card for weeks. That’s if they didn’t make it out the other end first.

Ben was happily walking down the road, minding his own business. Well, almost. He’d just spotted a picture of the Wards’ cottage in the estate agent’s window and was actually paying more attention to that than the direction in which his feet were heading. He and Megan had dreamed about buying that place for years.

With his current income and the maintenance payments to Megan, could he afford it? Maybe.

But, before he could do the mental arithmetic, he was winded by some idiot charging up the hill backwards. He didn’t even have the chance to say hey! before the track-suited figure garbled out and apology and ran off. He was so busy staring up the hill at the pink-clad bottom with the word ‘Juicy’ emblazoned across it that he was almost knocked over a second time by a man in a large anorak and a wild look in his eyes. He had a huge camera in his hand.

Ben shrugged. Bit late in the season for bird-watching, but what the hell did he know? Global warming was having a weird effect on the wildlife in this area. Last year some strange-looking bird only seen in the isles of Scotland had been blown down to the south coast of England by a freak storm. The local ‘twitchers’ had gone bananas. That man had had the same crazed look in his eye. Marauding ornithologists aside, nothing was going to stop him wandering down to the newsagent’s to get his morning paper before his meeting today.

However, Mrs Green, owner of the shop for the last thirty-three years and purveyor of local gossip, was in a chatty mood. Ben valiantly attempted to tuck his paper under his arm and drop the money in her hand, but her arms stayed firmly folded across her ample chest and he was forced to hover, one hand reaching over the counter, as the inquisition began.

‘I heard that another celebrity has bought Whitehaven, Mr Oliver. What do you think of that?’ She narrowed her eyes and analysed his reaction. He was trying hard not to have one. Something might have given him away, because she added, ‘Of course, I expect you know all about that—having been so friendly with Laura Hastings, and all.’

‘I just helped out in the garden, really.’ He waved the coins again, hoping the glint of something shiny might distract her.

‘Yes, but you’d know if the place had been sold, wouldn’t you?’

‘Not necessarily.’

He didn’t know why he was protecting Louise Thornton. Just that, having been the source of local gossip himself a few years ago, he knew how unpleasant, how … invaded … it could make one feel.