Christmas Eve Marriage

Clara eyed her aunt suspiciously. ‘Why are you getting dressed up to go shopping?’

‘I’m only putting on a dress!’ Thea protested.

‘And you’ve got lipstick on.’

Trust Clara to notice that. ‘I often wear lipstick. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Rhys is nice, isn’t he?’

It was Thea’s turn to look suspicious at the airy change of subject. ‘He seems nice, yes.’

‘Do you think he’s good-looking?’

‘He’s OK,’ said Thea. Nothing like Harry, of course, but yes, definitely OK.

She didn’t want Clara matchmaking, though. Her niece didn’t like Harry and was tireless in suggesting alternative boyfriends—encouraged by her mother, Thea thought darkly. If Clara got it into her head that Rhys would do for her aunt, she would be shameless in promoting their relationship, and Thea could foresee huge potential for embarrassment.

‘Sophie says he’s really cross the whole time,’ Clara was continuing artlessly, ‘but he didn’t seem cross to me. He’s got lovely smiley eyes.’

Thea didn’t feel like admitting that she had noticed his eyes herself. ‘Really?’ she said discouragingly instead.

‘Maybe he could be your boyfriend?’ Clara suggested, evidently deciding to go for the direct approach after all. ‘Sophie says he hasn’t got a girlfriend.’

Thea filed that little piece of information away to consider when her niece’s gimlet eyes weren’t fixed upon her.

‘I’m not looking for a boyfriend,’ she said firmly. ‘You know I’m still in love with Harry. You don’t get over somebody just like that.’

Clara set her chin stubbornly. ‘Rhys would be much better for you than Harry,’ she said, sounding so like her mother that Thea was quite taken aback.

‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid he’s not really my type,’ she said, wishing that Clara would go so that she could check her make-up.

Just because Rhys wasn’t her type didn’t mean she should let standards slip.

‘I think you should give him a try. I’m sure he’d be nicer to you than Harry.’

‘Clara, we’re going shopping not embarking on a new relationship, all right? And if you dare say anything like that to Rhys or Sophie, I’ll…I’ll be very cross,’ she finished in a threatening voice that had absolutely no effect on her niece, who grinned and skipped out of the room to change out of her wet swimming costume.

Without making any promises at all, Thea noticed.

Rhys had hired a sturdy 4x4 which dwarfed the tinny little model Thea had driven up the road in the small hours. She eyed its gleaming exterior nervously. It looked like an expensive car to repair.

‘Did I do any damage last night?’

‘Barely a scratch, in spite of all that noise,’ said Rhys, giving the bonnet an affectionate slap, much as he might pat a horse. ‘She’s solid as anything. It might be worth checking your own bumpers, though.’

‘I’ll do that when we get back,’ said Thea vaguely, with no intention of doing anything of the kind. She would worry about any damage when she returned the car. For now, she would be quite happy if she didn’t have to go anywhere near it for the next two weeks.

Thea enjoyed the drive much more than she had expected to. It was wonderful not having to worry about the lack of safety barriers or the precipitous drops, or being responsible for getting the car round each of the tortuous bends. She could sit back, relax and enjoy the view.

Or she would have been able to if only she could stop her eyes drifting over to Rhys. He was an incredibly calm and reassuring driver. Unlike her, he didn’t get his gears muddled up. He didn’t shout at the car or swear or panic about which side of the road he was supposed to be driving on. He just sat there, hands sure and steady on the steering wheel, and Thea felt utterly safe in a way she never had with Harry, who drove a flash model and couldn’t bear to have another car on the road in front of him.

Rhys was the kind of person you wanted to be sitting next to on a plane when both pilots went down with some mysterious disease and all the passengers were left to panic. Thea had seen a late-night movie like that once. Everyone flapped around and in the end the heroine had to get the plane down, but if Rhys had been there things would have been different. He would have taken over the controls and calmly landed the plane.

Of course, it wouldn’t have made for such an exciting movie.

On the other hand, if the director added in fizzing sexual tension between Rhys and the heroine, who probably bore an uncanny resemblance to Thea herself, it might work. The two of them could end up shut in a room together—quarantine, Thea decided, blithely disposing of all the other passengers—and someone would have made a mistake so there was just a double bed and neither of them would have any pyjamas with them, naturally, and Rhys would say, Well, no point in wasting it, is there? At which point she…

Good grief, what was she thinking about? Thea jerked herself back from the brink of fantasy just in time. For a moment there she had felt quite…hot.

This getting-out-of-a-rut business was doing very odd things to those hormones of hers. From having their interest piqued earlier over breakfast, they were now standing up, putting on their lipstick and patting their hair into place, ready for action.

Down, girls, Thea told them sternly. Concentrate on the view instead.

Fortunately, Clara was chatting away with her usual disarming friendliness in the back seat. Thea herself felt too shaky to carry on a conversation. It was all she could do to stare unseeingly out of the window and will her hormones to relapse into lethargy once more.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.’ Rhys’s voice made her start.

‘What?’

He smiled. ‘You’re looking a bit nervous. The worst of the road is over now.’

‘Oh. Right. Yes.’ Thea cleared her throat. ‘I suppose I was a bit nervous.’

That was true enough, but it wasn’t about the lack of safety barriers.

Once at the supermarket, they split up. Sophie trailed listlessly behind her father, responding to his suggestions about what she would like to eat with her usual hunched shoulder.

‘Whatever,’ was all she would say, while Clara and Thea puzzled over the Greek alphabet.

‘We’ll just have to go by the pictures,’ said Thea, tossing what she hoped was a tin of tuna into the trolley. It was either that or pilchards.

‘I think Rhys really likes you,’ whispered Clara in a stage whisper. ‘I saw the way he was smiling at you in the car.’

‘Shh!’ Thea glared at her, pointing frantically to indicate that Rhys and Sophie might be in the next aisle.

‘We should invite them to dinner,’ Clara pursued in the same stage whisper, ignoring her.

Thea closed her eyes briefly. ‘Clara, I really don’t think—’

‘To thank them for breakfast and giving us a lift,’ Clara added innocently. ‘I’m sure Mum would say we should.’

She would, too. ‘We’re on holiday. We don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking,’ said Thea, conscious that she was fighting a losing battle.

‘I’ll help you. We just need to make something simple. Sophie says her dad’s always going on about how he likes home cooking, but he can only do about three things himself. He’d probably really like it if you cooked something for him.’

In the end, Thea gave in to shut Clara up. She knew quite well that her niece had visions of whisking Sophie away so that she and Rhys would be left sharing a romantic dinner for two on the terrace in the dark, with just the stars for company.

Put like that, it didn’t sound too bad, did it? Thea’s hormones rustled with something dangerously like excitement at the thought. They were completely out of order today.