Page 33 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Fred

On Saturday morning the muse was still with her, and she was in the workshop before eight, to make the best of the winter sunlight that flooded through the windows.

First, she snapped pictures of the workshop interior and took a video, panning around the space and settling on the view of the ocean through the window.

Then she got shots of the plan cabinets, some with drawers open to give glimpses of the design archives.

She hovered over the handmade gifts, before moving outside and videoing the vegetable garden and the rugged cliffs.

“What are you up to?” Aunt Cam asked, the hood of her dressing gown pulled over her sleep turban, a basket over one arm.

“I worked it out,” said Fred, a little breathlessly. “We don’t need clever gimmicks and taglines to relaunch Hallow-Hart Crackers. We just need to let people see the heart of the business. This, here, this is the magic! It’s a marketing dream.”

“Of course it is!”

Fred laughed. “I mean, look at this place, it’s like Beatrix Potter’s books and the world of Poldark had a baby!

A woman-centric family-run business in a rugged paradise, what’s not to love?

We need to think about getting B Corp certified.

Has Mum ever looked into that? I need coffee.

I’m going to do a series of ‘meet the Instagrammer’ posts, I’ll need photos of all of you… ”

“Welcome home, Fred Hallow-Hart.” Aunt Cam smiled, patting her arm. “We’ve been manifesting for you to find your path; I’ve burned so many bay leaves, I was beginning to worry about my carbon footprint.”

“Huh?” Fred’s mind was still whirring.

“I was only saying that you’ve been back for a while, but just now I think you’ve finally arrived home,” she said, in her calm slow way.

“Praise be to the Goddess. I’ll leave you to it; I noticed some velvet shank mushrooms in the woods yesterday, and I thought they’d be just right in an omelet for first breakfast.”

Aunt Cam reached forward to tuck a lock of Fred’s hair behind her ear, before turning and wandering back down the garden toward the woods, boots crunching on the snowy path and the low hum of her voice carrying on the breeze as she sang “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

Fred watched her go. “Yes,” she said to herself. “This is where the magic is.”

When she’d finished in the garden, Fred decided to head down to the beach and get some shots there too.

Later, she would edit them and write posts to go with each one.

She would schedule the online content in advance, to publish daily, to keep their social media presence up.

She would have gone to the Christmas market, but there was too much danger of bumping into Ryan, and she still felt out of sorts after their argument.

Bloody Ryan Bloody Frost and his stupid, unwelcome opinions.

The beach was almost deserted, apart from a couple with three dogs that bounded over the pebbles, in search of their tennis balls, and someone sitting on a rock in the distance, staring out to sea.

This part of the bay never got overly busy, even in the summer.

The huge boulders littering the beach and the ever-present threat of more rock falls to come—not to mention the tide, which came in higher here, cutting the entire beach off at certain times of the day—meant that people mostly chose to wander the longer stretches, away from the cliffs, near the golf course and food vans.

Fred began to take pictures. The wind was stronger here and she could already feel the salt coating her skin and hair.

She’d missed this: the wildness of Scotland, the cold bite of air so fresh it was like breathing peppermint into her lungs.

Of course, London had its own wildness; it was Lowry paintings in motion, towering buildings, and the frenetic energy of ten million people making the city hum with vitality.

London had welcomed her in, and she’d felt so sure that she was done with this place.

Standing here now, she knew she’d been mistaken.

Her phone vibrated in her hand, and she saw Ryan’s name in the top corner. Without clicking on the message, she read the top line.

I was out of line. I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you. Rx

The tension that had held her in its grip since yesterday afternoon drained out of her. She opened the message properly and took in a deep cleansing breath, before typing back.

I’m sorry too. I never was any good at being angry with you. Fx

Haha, me neither. Rx

She pocketed her phone and faced the sea, smiling at the waves as they crashed onto the shore and the sun did its darndest to break through clouds that hung like gray mountain ranges in the sky.

“Ahoy there!”

No sooner had the voice reached her than the wind whipped it away again, but she turned all the same and did a double take when she saw Warren, walking unsteadily over the pebbles, holding out two paper cups as though for balance.

“Hello, what are you doing here?” she asked, smiling as she crunched her way over to meet him.

He was breathing heavily when he replied, “I came down to check out the food vans, for the article.” He handed her one of the paper cups. “And then I saw you across the way and thought you might appreciate a hot drink.”

She felt the welcome heat of it through her frozen fingertips and caught the bittersweet scent of mocha rise out through the sip-hole in the lid.

“A man who brings me mocha on a freezing beach is a good man indeed!” she said, taking a grateful swig. “Thank you. That’s really thoughtful.”

They began slowly tramping across the pebbles together. She remembered what Ryan had told her about Warren’s upbringing, and she knew she needed to broach it with him.

Warren shrugged off her compliment and took a sip from his own cup.

“I wanted to ask you—” She stopped, wondering how to approach this.

“Ask me anything,” he said, smiling.

“It’s…it’s a bit delicate.”

“Now I’m intrigued,” he said jovially, an eyebrow raised.

“It’s about your family.” Fred watched his expression freeze over, but she’d started now, so she might as well finish.

“This is probably on me, but I’d got the impression that you’d had a hard time growing up, certainly emotionally but maybe financially too, and…

it’s come to my attention that finances weren’t an issue for you. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

Warren looked out toward the ocean; his expression was unreadable. Finally, when she was feeling so uncomfortable that she wanted to scuttle away and hide under a rock like a hermit crab, he spoke.

“You’re right,” he said, still watching the waves.

“Money was never a problem. I’m sorry if I gave you the idea that it was.

My family have plenty of cash, but they were never generous with kindness, and in terms of love and affection I would describe them as emotionally bankrupt.

They could never forgive me for going into journalism, instead of becoming a doctor or going into law—something that wouldn’t embarrass the family.

” He took a deep breath; he looked sad but resigned. “We are estranged. Well and truly.”

“Warren, I’m so sorry…” She reached a hand out toward him, rubbed his arm.

He smiled wanly at her. “It’s fine. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that my circumstances were something they’re not. I can see how my words could have been misconstrued.”

“I’m sorry. I feel awful now. I just, you know…I wanted to come to you with it because I was chatting with Ryan—”

“Ah, Ryan. Of course.”

There was an edge to his voice that sent a familiar bolt of adrenaline through her, and her stomach turned over.

“No, no. He didn’t say anything,” she backtracked, panicking.

“We were just chatting about something completely unrelated, but it sparked something in my mind, and it made me wonder if I’d got the wrong end of the stick, which I clearly did.

This is all on me. I’m…I’m really sorry, I clearly heard something different than what you said.

I took your words and formed my own story. ”

He turned to her then, his expression relaxed and easy. “It’s fine.” He smiled. “Honestly. If I’d heard me talking, I’d have probably imagined I’d grown up in the Bronx.”

He was making light of it for her. Had she imagined his tone? Or was it simply her old trauma again, lurking around corners, waiting to ambush her, sending her scrambling for conciliatory gestures? Would she always be haunted by it?

“Still”—she smiled as her internal organs unclenched, easing down from high alert—“I feel bad.”

“Please don’t. You haven’t done anything wrong. How are we supposed to get to know each other, if we don’t ask questions about our pasts? I’m not offended, so you shouldn’t be worried. In fact, I’m glad you asked me, because it means that you care.”

“I do care.”

He brushed her cheek with his finger. “I want to get to know you, Fred, and I’m happy that you clearly want to know me better too.”

“I do. That’s really all it was…”

He landed a smoldering kiss on her lips, slow and passionate enough to make her toes tingle in her boots and her heart race for all the right reasons.

“To be fair,” he said, smiling as he broke their kiss, “I have a habit of embellishing the mundane. It’s the writer in me, always trying to Dickens-up any subject.”

She laughed. “You’re very sweet to try to make me feel better.” She did feel so much better!

“I’m not, honestly. Add my frustrated inner novelist to a social situation where I feel like I need to overcome my shyness, and I’m practically Baron Munchausen.”

Two black Labradors bounded past them toward the water, followed by their owners, who took a more leisurely pace while munching on baguettes.

“So, did you try anything from the food vans?” she asked. “The seafood is caught fresh every day.”

“Not yet, I’d only just arrived when I spotted you.”

“Do you want to go get something now? I skipped first and second breakfast, so I’m ravenous!”

“First and second?”