We haven’t talked about when or if to tell the girls.’ Flushing that she sounded vaguely proprietorial about ‘the girls’ she pulled her phone from her shirt pocket as Nan and Brett headed for the warmth and delicious smells emanating from the tea room. She’d known Nico and co wouldn’t arrive early because of his scheduled supermarket delivery but it was nearly eleven. She tried calling but was directed straight to voicemail so she texted instead. You all OK? Christmas Opening going well. xxx
Then it was time to transform herself into a human PA system, cruising the courtyard calling, ‘Mark’s fantastic model making demo is about to begin under the gazebo! Free demo!’ and an expectant crowd began to gather.
Half an hour later, when the demo was over, Nan appeared again, wearing mince pie crumbs on the front of her coat.
Hannah paused in handing out lollipops to children. ‘Are you going?’
Nan craned to look over Hannah’s shoulder. ‘Not yet.’ Then she waved energetically, grinning. Brett, who’d followed Nan, waved and grinned too.
Hannah swung around in time to see The Bus turning into the car park, its pea-soup colours cheered by tinsel streaming from the door handles and her parents’ faces beaming through the windscreen. ‘Mum! Dad!’ she shouted in astonished delight.
The Bus paused for Mo to manoeuvre her body through the passenger door, pulling on a purple coat. ‘Hannah, darling! Are we a nice surprise?’
Jeremy drove on because Christopher was gesticulating violently that he was holding the traffic up and Mo and Hannah raced towards one another.
Hannah’s heart soared as her small, round mother cannoned into her arms. ‘I thought you were spending Christmas in Switzerland!’ Mo smelled of buttered toast and her hug felt like love.
‘We missed you all too much. Christmas isn’t Christmas without your loved ones, is it? Nan’s known we were coming for the past few days but we thought we’d surprise you.’ Mo extricated herself to hug Nan and Brett, too.
The Bus safely parked, Jeremy hurried up for another round of cuddles and the family ignored the jostling of the shoppers around them as they caught up on all the news.
Teo’s plaintive voice broke in. He looked decidedly chilly in his chef whites. ‘Hannah, are we going to get my demonstration going?’
‘Sorry!’ she called back hastily. She beamed around her family. ‘This morning’s crazy.’
‘We’re ready to see Middledip again so we won’t linger,’ Mo declared, hugging her again. ‘You’re in your element amongst all these pretty shops, aren’t you? I’m proud of you, Hannah.’
The afternoon whizzed by in a flood of people flowing in and out of festively twinkling shops as if they had only this one day to accomplish all their Christmas shopping. Christopher Carlysle sought Hannah out. ‘Bloody amazing,’ he boomed. ‘Can’t thank you enough. The traders should finally be happy we’ve kept to our agreements.’
It was as if he’d never been rude or unfair. Hannah smiled sweetly, her mind more on the continued non-appearance of Nico and family than Christopher finally dismounting his high horse. She heard her name called for the hundredth time that day and hoped six p.m. would hurry up so she could call at Honeybun Cottage and check everything was OK.
Nico’s day began badly.
The girls had jumped in the bath together and he’d been sorting out clean towels when he’d heard Josie give a horrified squawk. ‘That’s my dad’s phone!’
Nico whipped around but was too late to stop Maria scrubbing his phone industriously with a yellow, duck-shaped sponge.
‘I jus’ washing it!’ Maria protested indignantly, hiding the phone … underwater.
Nico swallowed back the swear word on his lips. He’d left the phone on top of the cistern while he’d daydreamed about how much he missed Hannah after spending this last week with her and wondering when to reveal their altered status to Josie. ‘We don’t wash phones, sweetheart. It breaks them,’ he told Maria ruefully, retrieving his property and regarding the unresponsive screen. He knew the trick to drying out phones by sticking them in a packet of dry rice but he had to wait until the girls were dressed and the Tesco delivery – without rice – had arrived before they could buy some at the village shop, Josie in one of her talk-a-mile-a-minute moods and Maria yanking on her walking rein like a disobedient puppy. By the time they reached home again it was lunchtime. He sealed the phone in the rice without a great deal of hope it would fix it then made scrambled eggs, trying