I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,10

him. Winkling her out of his life was too important to him.

Robin went behind the bar. He took two glasses, held one up to the brandy optic and one up to the malt whisky, then he delivered the glass containing the brandy into the eager hands of his partner. Charlie lifted the glass, savoured the fumes and sighed.

‘Oh, darling, it’s been too long,’ he said, addressing the contents before sipping.

Robin crossed to the window, gazing out onto a landscape of dark skies and snow. The flakes were falling large as pennies. ‘Looks like we’re here for the night,’ he said.

‘They have three bedrooms upstairs,’ said Bridge. ‘The beds aren’t made up, but there’s plenty of duvets and sheets. I went for a snoop.’

‘I can see headlights in the distance,’ said Robin, squinting.

Bridge’s heart made a treacherous bounce in her chest as if preparing to break out and lay down a red carpet. Hearts could be terribly immature at times.

‘It’s a voiture splendide,’ Robin said. ‘Maserati I think. Emerald green, beautiful.’

It had to be Luke, thought Bridge. He was not only a Maserati sort of guy these days but he’d always had a thing about green cars.

Robin’s running commentary continued. ‘Yes, it’s pulling in. Man and a woman from what I can see, unless my eyes deceive me.’

Luke and Carmen, thought Bridge. Great.

Charlie was fiddling with his phone. ‘I can’t get a signal.’

‘No signal, no internet. I just managed to get through to someone to let them know I was safe but then the line dropped and I haven’t been able to get it back,’ said Bridge. ‘There’s a phone on the bar, but the landline’s dead too.’

Robin left his space by the window to open the door for the newcomers. In rushed a young blonde-haired woman followed by a man and half a ton of snow, as if the weather sought to take refuge with them. The wind whistled a howling protest as Robin shut it out. The male newcomer had very dark hair. Definitely not Luke.

‘Thank goodness this place is open,’ said not-Luke.

‘It wasn’t, this young lady had to break in,’ said Robin, bobbing his head towards Bridge.

‘An obvious emergency,’ said Bridge quickly in her defence. ‘It doesn’t look as if it’s open again for another two days, at least that’s what I gathered from the note stuck in the window.’

‘It’s mad out there,’ said the blonde, putting down her handbag and a red suitcase to peel at strands of her long hair that had glued themselves across her pale-skinned, pretty face. Bridge’s brain was quick to sum people up, always had been: the blonde was reed-slender, young, not one who had embraced the present trend for slug-eyebrows, spider-leg eyelashes and inflated lips, which was refreshing to see. The man, tall with the sort of build that suggested he worked out in a gym, but not obsessively. Dark hair cropped just at the point where it had begun to curl, light grey eyes, an attractive rather than handsome face with his nose a little crooked, maybe from an old rugby injury. Bridge wondered what their relationship was: brother and sister, friends? She didn’t get the couple vibe from them, but they looked good together.

‘We should hole up for an hour or two until this subsides and then try and get back home,’ said the man, his accent polished private school, confident and deep in tone. His overnight bag, Bridge noted, was black leather, stylish, understated.

‘Unless home is within skiing distance, I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Charlie. ‘I think it’s wise to presume you’re here for the night with me – I’m Charlie – my husband Robin over there and our new friend Bridge.’

‘Jack and Mary,’ said Mary, liking how their two names sat together in a bracket.

‘Hello,’ said Jack, in the manner of someone who thought introductions were unnecessary because he wouldn’t be there long enough for them to mean anything.

‘You certainly won’t be going anywhere for a while, so I’d take your coat off if I were you and relax with us,’ Charlie continued.

Mary took off her pink mac, a fashion rather than a practical piece, Bridge surmised. Jack, realising that what Charlie said was probably true, removed his coat, shook the wetness from it. A vintage Crombie; Charlie recognised it because he knew class when he saw it.

‘Where’s home for you two then?’ asked Charlie.

‘Place called Oxworth, you won’t have heard of it,’ said Jack.

‘Oxworth in South Yorkshire? I know it well. In fact, I know