Читать книгу Christmas at the Dancing Duck - Daisy James - Страница 12

Chapter 4

Kirstie inhaled a deep, steadying breath, grabbed the handles of her bag, and stalked out of the waiting room. She had no intention of accepting a lift from Josh Turner so she could be interrogated once more about the choices she had made. She remembered the last time she had seen Josh, disappearing into the distance without a backwards glance. Anxiety gnawed at her stomach, swiftly followed by an invasion of guilt.

She made her way to the taxi rank but was dismayed to see that she would be seventh in line for a ride to Cranbury. It had only been an hour, but she missed London already, with its proliferation of black cabs and Uber cars. There was no way she could stand in the queue without a coat to protect her from the biting wind, so she let out a sigh, gritted her teeth, and made her way to the car park.

She couldn’t fail to spot the vehicle that belonged to Josh. He had always been totally predictable when it came to his choice of transport – the flashier, the better. An old, lipstick-red Alfa Romeo Spider purred softly in the third bay from the entrance, reggae music rippling from within.

She rapped on the window and was gratified to see his initial reaction was a wide welcoming smile: a smile she had dreamed of every night for months after he had screeched away from the car park of the Dancing Duck that dreadful night over eighteen months ago. She should have been at his side; after all they had been planning the trip together for months. She could still recall the jagged pain of those first few weeks after his departure. She had craved some kind of contact, but there had been no email or text or even a postcard, and Josh had never been a fan of social media. It had been like starting the grieving process all over again.

‘Hi, Kirstie!’ That familiar grin with the cute dimples curling like brackets to frame his lips – lips she had kissed so often that they were as familiar as her own.

‘Hi, Josh. I’m sorry Livie sent you to collect me. I had no idea you were working at the Dancing Duck.’

‘Well, someone had to help the poor girl out. And if you had come home more often you would have known I’ve been managing the bar for the last three months.’

Josh’s mouth tightened at the corners, his mahogany eyes boring into hers as he leapt from the driver’s seat to stow her suitcase in the back seat. Kirstie groaned – this was going to be an even more uncomfortable experience than standing in the taxi queue freezing her butt off. She glanced over her shoulder to see that only two people remained in line and she contemplated making a run for it. However, the car was warm and Kirstie was starting to get the feeling back in her fingers. Maybe if she feigned sleep, the ride wouldn’t be so uncomfortable? She was the Queen of Wishful Thinking!

‘Look, Josh, can we just …’

‘Forget what happened? Take the easy option? Nothing new there then, is there, Miss Harrison?’

Josh fired the ignition and the engine thrummed into life with a powerful surge. Through the windscreen, twilight had morphed into dusk and ripples of indigo and violet streaked across the sky like an artist’s palette. She decided to try again, this time with a smile and a conciliatory tone.

‘I’ve promised Livie that I’d make sure this was the best Christmas ever at the Dancing Duck before it’s sold. If we’re going to work together over the next two weeks, we should try to put our differences aside and …’

‘So you’re happy about the pub being sold, are you?’

‘Well, not happy as such, but it’s probably for the best.’

‘The best for who?’ Josh asked, rubbing his palm over the dark stubble on his chin as he took a bend in the road at speed. ‘Livie and Harry have been working their socks off to keep the pub afloat after what happened to Don and Sue. Every spare penny has been ploughed back into the business. Livie might not have said anything to you but she’s devastated about losing it. And all you have to say is that it’s for the best? One more thing you can erase from your past, eh?’

‘Josh, that’s not fair …’

‘It might not be fair, but it’s true. Your sister loves the village and everyone in Cranbury loves the Dancing Duck. However, for Livie and Harry it’s more than just a place to have a few drinks or enjoy a summer fayre or the Big Christmas Baking Bash. It’s Olivia and Harry’s home and they hoped to make it Ethan’s home too.’

‘But Livie and Harry aren’t planning on leaving the village. They’re buying Bramble Cottage. Ethan will have a garden to play in and …’

‘Livie’s just trying to emulate her younger sister, trying to move on and forget the past, but unlike you, she doesn’t really want to. Her heart is breaking to see the pub being sold. Did she tell you about the guy who’s buying it?’

‘Yes. Miles Morgan …’

‘Did she tell you what he has planned for the pub and the Old Barn?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘And you’re still happy to go ahead with the sale?’

‘It’s not a question of being happy,’ snapped Kirstie, her temper rising. Josh always knew which buttons to press to fire up her emotions. ‘It’s a question of having no other choice – which I’m sure Livie and Harry will have already explained to you.’

Josh did not respond but spent the next ten minutes concentrating on the winding roads that led to the village of Cranbury. Kirstie allowed her thoughts to drift. Josh was right. Deep down, even though it had come as a huge shock when their accountant had told her they would have to sell their childhood home and break the final tie to the business their parents had left them, she did think it was the best solution to the problem. Running a village pub meant working long, unsociable hours and now that Ethan was around it was a mammoth task for Olivia, even with Josh employed as bar manager to help out when Harry was at work.

However, she also knew from Olivia that there had been fierce opposition from the villagers. Every single one of them, even old Mrs Didcot who had never so much as set foot in the pub, had rallied round since they had announced the sale to try to bolster their flagging finances with a well-attended summer fayre – and Kirstie had seen the photographs on Facebook of a fabulous Hallowe’en disco and Bonfire Night party. But it had all been to no avail.

The least painful option was to sell quickly and move on. But it was tough knowing the strength of local feeling, especially delivered through the dulcet tones of Josh Turner.

They had arrived in Cranbury. Its familiarity sent a spasm of nostalgia and homesickness through Kirstie’s veins. Topped with a sprinkle of snow, it really would look like a scene from a traditional Christmas card. St John’s parish church, where she and Olivia had been christened and where Olivia and Harry had been married, and where their parents’ funeral had attracted the largest congregation for a decade, loomed to her left. She looked quickly away to her right to feast her eyes on the impressive façade of the Dancing Duck on the opposite side of the village green. The sight whipped the breath from her lungs and sent tears burgeoning along her lashes.

The sun had disappeared over the horizon, but the whitewashed frontage of her childhood home was charming, illuminated by the amber glow of the street lamps, its golden letters declaring boldly to the thirsty visitor that they had arrived at the door of The Dancing Duck. Out of habit, she reached for her phone to take a photograph to upload to Instagram, but she thought better of it. After the Facebook comments, did she really want her followers to know where she was hiding out for the next two weeks?

She experienced a sharp nip of loss that she would have to curtail her inclination to share her every move with the world. Then again, she thought with a sinking feeling, would anyone be interested? Cranbury was as far from the glitz and glamour of London’s West End as a disgraced TV presenter could get.

She stared up at the wrought-iron sign swinging from a post, depicting the silhouette of a duck suspended in mid-air. She could remember with absolute clarity the day her father had returned from the sign writer’s. It was the first time she had been allowed to taste champagne at the age of fifteen. She and Olivia had pretended to be drunk and had spent the afternoon dancing to Robbie Williams in the Old Barn with all the other teenagers of the village who had accompanied their own parents to join in the unveiling celebrations, Josh and Harry among them.

‘Well, the least you can do now you’re here is to throw yourself into the Christmas celebrations Livie has been planning for the last three months. It’s just a shame that I know for a fact you wouldn’t have been here if you hadn’t revealed to the whole world your pathological hatred of Christmas.’

Kirstie cringed as Josh strode though the arch of the oak front door. So much for hoping the villagers would have better things to do than be glued to their TV sets at eleven o’clock on a weekday morning when Kirstie’s Kitchen was broadcast. And for all those who weren’t, she was certain that Josh would have relished the opportunity to fill them in on the details of her humiliation.