Christmas at the Little Waffle Shack - Helen J. Rolfe Page 0,50

she wouldn’t be mentioning the new resident of Heritage Cove to her parents, the man who’d done the very thing that had taken a beloved member of their family away.

Lucy was wrapped in hugs when she arrived at her parents’. She admired their tree and, as she did every year, reminisced about some of the decorations they’d kept from her childhood, including the wooden star covered in gold glitter, in the centre of which was a photo of her aged six. She was never sure whether that particular ornament should go to the very back when people came round but she liked seeing it today. Coming home was always grounding and reassuring. Even if you didn’t share what was on your mind, just the four walls of the home you grew up in held the power to wash a sense of calm over you. Her mum rambled on about the open-air carol concert she’d persuaded her dad to brave this year three days before Christmas with their good friends the Wallaces, her dad wanted all the little details of what she was working on in her workshop now. He’d come to visit a few weeks ago and sat on the sofa next to the desk taking it all in as she’d worked. Her parents had had their doubts when she shared her career dreams but those doubts had been replaced by a pride she could read in the delight on their faces every time they discussed her projects, old and new.

With every intention of going straight from her parents’ to Aubrey House, on the other side of Heritage Cove, for Maud’s Christmas gathering, Lucy found herself stopping in the village mid-afternoon when she realised that, with her busyness and her head all over the place from trying to block out thoughts of Daniel, she’d completely forgotten the parcel of Christmas cinnamon-and-ginger cookies she’d ordered from the bakery and the Christmas flowers she’d put on order at the florist for Julian’s gran.

She parked at home and used the walk to clear her head, going first to the florist, where she collected the most beautiful bouquet of white lisianthus and Asiatic lilies tied together with branches of white birch and silver-green foliage. She strolled along The Street, ignoring the posters she saw on lamp-posts advertising the opening of the Little Waffle Shack. She didn’t want to think about it or Daniel and she’d ignored the text message he sent her earlier saying he hoped she’d be there. More than that, she’d deleted it. She couldn’t even bear to see his name there taunting her. He was something she could never have. How could she ever get involved with a man who’d done the same as the person who took Joanna’s life? Selfish, that was what it was. And, worse, he’d never told her, which made him a liar. Or at least a liar by omission. Wasn’t that the same thing?

‘Lucy, you’re looking gorgeous,’ Celeste grinned when she went into the bakery to collect the cookies.

Lucy laughed, a moment of light relief at being spotted in something other than her work clothes. ‘I know, you don’t often see me out of dungarees and my old worn coat in the daylight hours, but I’ve been visiting family.’

‘And those flowers…they’re like a winter wonderland. Are they for you?’

Lucy had inhaled the floral scents all the way here. ‘Unfortunately not, I almost want to keep them though.’ Maybe she should get a bouquet to add some cheer to her flat. One of the cupboard doors had come right off in her hand this morning and her mood had almost seen her sling it across the room in frustration.

Jade beamed a hello her way when she emerged from out back with a Christmas cake for another customer. A pair of Christmas-tree earrings dangled from her lobes and swung about as she laughed and chatted.

Celeste found Lucy’s box of cookies for her and came around to her side of the counter. ‘Who are these for? Same person as the flowers?’

‘Another relative.’ Strictly speaking, Maud wasn’t her relative, of course, but even though most of the people she knew here in the Cove knew about Julian and the divorce, she didn’t readily admit she was keeping the truth from an innocent old lady who deserved more. ‘It’s the season of catching up with people, isn’t it?’ she added to avoid going into more detail.

‘Sure is. My social calendar is nice and full this month, just the way I like