Page 97 of Under the Mistletoe with You

‘It was an accident,’ huffs Dai.‘Bloody dog appeared over the fields when we were out getting the sheep in, some hiker’s pet.I told them to put it on leash so it wouldn’t scare the sheep, but ...’

‘It clearly had something else on its mind,’ finishes Nash, opening the door with his hip.‘She’s okay?’

Christopher gives him a nod, and the huge grin that breaks across Nash’s face brings a smile to his own.That’s not a look he’s seen Nash make before.A kind of childlike glee he wouldn’t have thought typical for such a snarky little man.

Nash sets down a washing-up bowl of scalding hot water on the floor between them all, and without batting an eye, Nessa washes her hands in it with some hand cleaner fromher bag.Christopher wishes he was even ten per cent ashardcoreas this tiny terrifying woman.

‘The panting means it’s puppy time.How many?’

‘Eight, according to the vet,’ Dai says.

With raised eyebrows, she hands towels to each of the men.‘When the puppies come, clean them up.Rub them warm.It’s cold and she’s been at it a while, so chances are they’ll need our help breathing air for the first time.Us helping takes the pressure off Nessa.Right?’

‘Right,’ they chorus, towels at the ready.

‘You’ll be used to this, of course,’ Dai says to Nash.

‘If the American is such a pro, why am I here?’Thelma snaps indignantly.

‘I just play a veterinarian on TV.’

Thelma returns this proclamation with a withering look.‘That doesnotcount.’

It doesn’t take long for the first puppy to finally arrive, squealing and wriggling, and the room feels lighter for its arrival.One down, thinks Christopher.Seven to go.

Thelma explains that, due to Nessa’s age and exhaustion, she’s going to cut the umbilical cords for her, and that together they are all going to help remove the sacs from the puppies.That way, Nessa can concentrate on birthing the puppies and then getting them feeding.‘It’s unusual’, she stresses, ‘but unusual circumstances mean cautious medicine.’

Despite, in her opinion, his lack of proper training, Thelma plops this first one in Nash’s hands.He breaks open the sac and cleans up the puppy’s eyes and nose with such tenderness.The puppy is quiet, so Nash checks inside its mouth for any blockages and the puppy whines indignantly.

‘See now, you’re a whizz, lad,’ says Dai.

Christopher agrees that Nash is definitely a natural, but doesn’t say it out loud.He’s not sure why.

Soon there’s a wriggling puppy in Christopher’s hands.He takes a huge breath as he wipes the sac from her face and gives anawooof joy as she starts to wriggle in his grasp.

Nash reluctantly gives his puppy back to Nessa, tucking the little dog in against her side where it immediately begins to nuzzle for her nipples.Poor girl, this is going to be a long night.Once he’s satisfied that the second puppy is okay, Christopher plops her down next to the first puppy, just as puppy three is handed over to Dai.

After such a long wait, they’re now coming way faster than Christopher expected.

Dai rubs the third puppy a little too vigorously for Christopher’s sensibilities, but the pup seems not to mind.A fourth appears, taken up by Thelma, and she does the same kind of vigorous rubbing.Is that something they learned together, whelping puppies as children?Reunited by Nessa, the two puppies chorus in squeals for milk and life.

Another puppy is passed over to Nash.Five down, counts Christopher.

‘Not long to go now, girl.You’re doing brilliantly,’ whispers Thelma.

Poor Nessa looks exhausted, but she keeps going and puppies keep coming.If Christopher had a wobbly sense of time from running his own bakery, it truly has nothing on this.

‘She is such a good girl,’ says Dai.

Their eyes meet, just for a second, and Christopher swears he can see that old love between them, or even just an echo of it.Love doesn’t go away.It can’t.It’s like energy – all it can do is be transformed into other things.For them, perhaps hate, but haven’t the great romance writers spent their careers telling everyone that the line between love and hate is very thin?

Christopher is snapped out of his sentimental musings when the puppy in Nash’s hands lets out a roaring burp, and then promptly poops all over the towel.

‘He’s good at this, isn’t he?’Dai insists, as he takes another puppy from Thelma’s hands.‘Can’t have been all movie magic, surely.Didn’t you deliver puppies in that one with the lawyer and the Kardashian girl?’

‘It was kittens,’ chorus Nash and Christopher.The cringe that rips through Christopher’s body could rival the puppy’s burp, and the heat that emanates from his cheeks could warm the entire room.That’s not even one of the top Nash Nadeau films that most romance fans would have seen; that’s a deep cut from his IMDb.The kind of film that now just attracts people wanting to complete their ‘weird celebrity cameo’ lists on Letterboxd.

Still clutching puppy number five but wrapping it in a clean towel, Nash bursts into peals of satisfied laughter.‘I knew it!Iknewit.You’resuchan Eve.’