Page 56 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Finally, she had uploaded the video to the Hallow-Hart Crackers Instagram, TikTok and Facebook accounts, and put a link to it in the newly generated newsletter.

By the time she’d switched out the workshop lights and begun to wend her way back to the house, the snowy ground was covered over in a thick crust of glistening frost that crunched beneath her boots.

The fairy lights illuminated plants frozen white and encrusted with ice crystals that sparkled.

Even the sea below sounded sluggish beneath winter’s cold soporific breath.

—

When her phone buzzed her out of sleep with a message from Ryan, at seven thirty the next morning, she had been dreaming about being chased through the town by Krampus and all she’d had to defend herself with were giant slabs of baklava.

She groaned when she checked the time, and opened the message.

It was a picture of the Naughty List outside Frost Hardware.

Though hers was still the recurring name on the list, there were four spaces where her name had clearly been recently rubbed out.

The caption Ryan had written beneath read, Baby steps! x

She smiled and typed back, Did you see the video?

He replied, I did. It’s brilliant. Did you see how many likes you got on TikTok already?

She propped herself up against her pillows and opened TikTok.

It had almost three hundred likes; and when she pulled up Insta, it wasn’t far behind.

There were plenty of comments—which she would respond to, once she was up and had a coffee to hand—and the shares were racking up steadily too.

She still had a lot of work to do, there was no time to rest on her laurels just yet.

“Huzzah! You’re up. Now we can get those scallops in the pan,” said Aunt Aggie when Fred, showered and dressed, entered the kitchen forty-five minutes later.

“Benj Frost dropped them off at Ryan’s request, first thing, after he’d been night fishing; he said you’d earned a treat.

It’s been all go here! You, young lady, are the talk of the town. ”

“In a good way, this time, thank the Goddess,” added her mum, smiling.

“It’s such a lovely video, everyone says so,” Aunt Cam said. “You get an extra rasher of bacon in your baguette for being so clever.”

Fred appreciated the sentiment; she was astonishingly hungry.

“So, what’s next on the agenda?” asked her mum, pushing a mug of coffee into Fred’s hand. “And is there anything I can help with? The aunts are going to take the first shift at the market, while I make up some more crackers, but I’m a good and willing multitasker.”

Fred mentally ran through the list of things she needed to do today.

“Actually, there is something you can help me with. I want to get the Smoke and Soul video edited and ready to upload by this afternoon, to catch the scrolling mums at the school gates, and then have Nonna’s Olive Branch and Coast Roast ready to go this evening, to catch the commuters and evening meal scrollers. ”

“Oh, she’s so businessy, isn’t she, Aggie?” said Aunt Cam, in an awed voice.

Aunt Aggie flipped a fat scallop in the pan, which hissed and sizzled. “She’s savvy. Gets it from me,” she said, with assurance.

“So,” Fred continued, secretly chuffed that she’d impressed her aunts, “I was wondering if you could write out the vouchers for the Dinner-for-Two giveaways the restaurants agreed to, and hide them in random cracker boxes; your handwriting is nicer than mine, and I think it’s important that they’re done by hand, it feels more personal.

” Images of the Christmas letters in the attic filled her mind.

“Ryan is giving away a kilogram bag of each of his Christmas blend coffee beans, so I’ll get you to write that one up too. ”

“Of course,” said Bella. “Oh, and I spoke to Andreas, and he’s offered twenty-five percent off a two-night stay with breakfast.”

“The Crooked Elm have offered the same, along with evening meals on both nights, to make up for housing Warren while he was in Pine Bluff,” said Aunt Aggie.

“It’s hardly their fault,” said Fred.

“All the same,” said Aunt Cam, “they want to do it.”

“Okay, great!” Fred was pleased that everyone had been so willing to trust her on this offer.

Offering free meals was a big deal for a small business, and Fred was determined to ensure that their gamble paid off in dividends.

“I’ll take a video of you inserting the vouchers, Mum, and upload it tonight across all the Christmas market socials; there’s only three more days of the market, and we want to make sure that all the visitors to Pine Bluff know that there are special surprises to be found at the Hallow-Hart stall. ”

“Oh goodness”—her mum ran her hand over her messy bun, looking apprehensive—“I’d better try and make myself look presentable if I’m going to be on video.”

“You are beautiful exactly as you are,” Fred said, without breaking her stride, leaning over to kiss her mum on the cheek.

“I can’t believe how lucky I got when they were giving mums out.

” Then she carried on with her to-do list, not seeing Bella dab at her eyes with her cuffs.

“I’ll keep a steady stream of reminders going, to catch any scrollers we miss.

If the venues themselves are sharing my content, that’ll help widen the net… ”

“Why don’t we do a special price drop of the crackers—say, twenty percent off? Really try to drive business to the stall for the last push,” said Bella.

“Are you sure?” asked Fred.

“Of course we’re sure,” said Aunt Aggie.

“All right, then, I’ll post it on our socials today.”

“What can we do, dear?” asked Aunt Cam.

“If you could help spread the word to everyone in town, that would be great,” said Fred. “Word of mouth is equally important; we need to catch all the people who aren’t active on social media.”

“Got it!” said Aunt Cam. “You snag the scrollers, and we’ll catch the strollers. You can count on us.”

I always could , she thought, feeling suddenly emotional.

“Ladies, our mission is clear,” barked Aunt Aggie. She thrust a scallop and bacon baguette, dripping with melting butter, at Fred and said, “Now sit and get that down your neck. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

—

The rest of the day was a blur. Every hour, her mum made her leave the workshop and do a lap around the gardens, even though it was freezing out, insisting that the fresh air would invigorate her mind.

Lunchtime arrived, and Bella left the workshop with the wheelbarrow she used to transport stock to her car piled high with boxes of Christmas Crackers, some of which contained the lucky vouchers.

She texted Fred a thumbs-up emoji when she reached the stall, and got the aunts to jumble up all the boxes and restack them randomly so that Bella wouldn’t have a clue which boxes contained the winning vouchers.

As soon as the text came through, Fred pressed “send” on the Hallow-Hart Crackers newsletter and uploaded the stories, reels and TikToks she’d created to their social media channels, and tagged the participating businesses.

The aunts arrived home an hour later and presented Fred with a warm turkey and cranberry pie from the Festive Pie stall and a gingerbread hot chocolate from Cocoa Me, which she fell upon as though they were manna from heaven.

Smoke and Soul’s video went live soon after, and three hours later she pressed “share” on Nonna’s Olive Branch.

By seven o’ clock she’d had to silence her phone in reaction to the near-constant dinging of notifications.

Time seemed to have sped up; each time Fred checked the clock at the bottom of her laptop, another hour had whizzed by in what felt like minutes.

Ryan’s interview for Coast Roast was the final video to be edited, and she was glad she’d left it till last. It was hard to focus on the task in hand when she was distracted by how they looked together—good, she decided—and the way he looked deep into her eyes when he answered her questions.

She found herself mesmerized by the way he moved his hands when he spoke, and then perving over his forearms when he’d rolled his shirt sleeves up; she’d pressed “pause” at one point and spent a good minute simply admiring the shape of them, which was not at all a weird thing to do.

“What are you doing?” asked Bella, when she’d come in to bring her a Baileys coffee.

“Nothing!” Fred said, quickly pressing “play” and blushing furiously at having been caught watching arm-porn. “Just checking pixel quality.”

“I see. The aunts are threatening to perform an intervention, if you don’t come in for dinner soon.”

Fred chuckled. “This is the last video, and then I’m done. Well, done in terms of content. I’ve still got to catch up on the comments and interactions, and I want to check the insights and traction, make sure we’re hitting the right markers…”

“All right, finish Ryan’s video and then come in for some food.

We’re all of us administrators on the Hallow-Hart socials, so me and the aunts will take care of the interactions, and you will not do any more work this evening.

You can check on your markers in the morning; they aren’t going anywhere. ”

“I’d rather just power through and get on top of things—”

“Absolutely not. You’ve paid your penance, not that you had any to pay, and now it’s time to stop.”

“Mum…”

“No. You always wanted me to lay down the law, so here it is: you’ve got thirty minutes to finish what you’re doing here, and then the laptop goes off. No more screen time for you tonight. Any sass and you’re grounded. Do I make myself clear?” She raised one eyebrow in a challenge.

Fred fought a grin. “Yes, Mum.”

“Good.” She kissed the top of Fred’s head. “And in case you decide to push your luck, you should know that I’m not above turning off the Wi-Fi.”

When her mum left, Fred stretched her back out and got down to her work with a renewed energy, warmed by more than simply the Baileys coffee.