Page 40 of The Christmas Fayre on Holly Field

Harriet waved them off, then made the children a snack to come home to, before having a quick clean-up. The house wasn’t untidy and neither was it dirty, but she felt the need to present it in its best possible light, so she gave the downstairs a quick once-over with the vacuum cleaner, picking up discarded and out-of-place items as she went, then hurried upstairs to make herself more presentable.

Guessing that a full face of makeup was over the top and so was getting out her curling tongs, she settled for a swipe of lip gloss and another coat of mascara. After tugging a comb through her hair, she checked her reflection in the full-length mirror and decided she’d have to do. She wasn’t particularly pretty, she knew, but she was reasonably pleased with what she saw, and she hoped Owen would be too.

Wait a minute, lady…

Harriet quickly backtracked. There was no reason whatsoever for Owen to concern himself with the way she looked – and he probably didn’t care anyway. So why was she so bothered?

‘Oh, give it a rest,’ she muttered. She knew exactly why – he was handsome in an understated way and she was seriously attracted to him. It was only natural that she’d want to look her best. It was a matter of pride. Nothing more.

Maybe if he wasn’t constantly moving from one place to the next, they might have a chance; and give it another year or two, she also might be ready to start dating again.Ifhe thought about her in that way. Which she was fairly certain he didn’t.

So why invite him for tea?she could almost hear Pen ask. Pen would have said that a simple ‘thank you’ would have sufficed. Andthatwas why she hadn’t mentioned it to her boss, because deep down she knew Pen was right, and Harriet didn’t want to hear it.

They were back, she realised, hearing the sound of her children’s animated chatter and Owen’s deeper tones, and she trotted downstairs.

‘Did you have a good time?’ she asked, giving the kids’ wellies a pointed look to remind them to take them off. Owen made a face, his expression contrite, and he bent down to unlace his boots.

In stockinged feet, he stood there uncertainly as both children talked at once, and she smiled reassuringly at him. This level of loud chatter was quite normal, and he would have to get used to it if he intended to stay for tea.

Bobby held out a bobble hat stuffed full of shiny brown nuts. ‘Look, Mam. Conkers.’

‘So I see.’ Gosh, this took her back. She’d never played conkers when she was a child (too scared of getting her knuckles rapped), but most of the boys used to, playing ferociously every break time and after school as well. Then it was banned by many schools, and no one played conkers at all any more.

‘Crumbs, you’ve collected loads,’ she said, picking up one of the smooth nuts and holding it in her hand. Seeing it reminded her of her childhood, and she smiled wistfully.

‘I’m hungry,’ Sara said, bringing her back to the present.

‘Tea will be an hour or so yet,’ she said, ‘but there are cheese and crackers in the kitchen, if you want them, and you can have a flapjack each to tide you over.’

The children dashed off, leaving Harriet and Owen standing in the hall.

‘I wish I had their energy,’ he said.

‘So do I!’ Harriet’s reply was heartfelt. ‘They wear me out just looking at them.’

She led him into the kitchen, which was now mercifully empty, as the children had taken their snacks into the living room, and she emptied the hessian bag that Owen had brought with him earlier, placing the bulbous butternut squash on a chopping board. Several sweet potatoes followed.

‘If you tell me what else we need, I’ll get it out,’ she said, and while she rooted around in the cupboard, Owen expertly peeled and chopped the vegetables.

It was odd having a man in her kitchen, she thought, as they stood side-by-side, cooking. Declan had never prepared a meal with her, unless opening a bottle of wine counted. But she realised she quite liked Owen being there. Occasionally, she would accidentally brush up against him, or he’d reach for something at the same time and their hands would touch. And every time they made contact, however fleeting, she would feel a shiver deep inside.

On the surface, the atmosphere appeared to be light and inconsequential as they chatted about this, that and nothing in particular, but Harriet didn’t believe she was imagining an undercurrent of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She wondered if Owen also felt it or whether it was just her overactive brain: that she had been without male companionship for so long, she was seeing things that weren’t there and feeling a connection that didn’t exist.

Owen hadn’t had this much fun in ages, and collecting conkers had taken him right back to his childhood. Harriet’s children seemed to have enjoyed themselves, too: Bobby full of bounce and eagerness (much like the dog), Sara a little more reserved at the start. But once he had led them to a spreading horse chestnut tree, it soon became a competition to see which of them could find the biggest conker.

The ground underneath the tree had been littered with the fallen nuts, some of them still firmly encased in their green spiky outer shell, but many had burst open to reveal the glossy brown seeds.

Because they looked like nuts, Bobby wanted to know if they could be eaten, and Owen had stressed that they most definitely couldn’t. Although they probably wouldn’t be fatal, the nuts were toxic, and he went to great pains to explain that they weren’t like the chestnuts eaten at Christmas.

Without thinking, he had promised to take them foraging for sweet chestnuts and hazelnuts, before realising he should have run this past Harriet.

With the dog walked and a goodly number of conkers collected, Owen took the children back home to their mother, his pace quickening with each step. He was keen to return to Harriet, telling himself it was because he was hungry, and ignoring the suspicion that it washerhe wanted, not the food.

Oh dear, he thought with dismay, he shouldn’t have taken her up on her invitation. Not if he was beginning to have feelings for her. Purely carnal ones he could cope with – it wouldn’t be the first time he’d felt sexually attracted to a woman and hadn’t done anything about it – but this was different. He liked her a lot. He had liked her from the very first conversation they’d had in Pen’s Pantry, when she had been as spiky as the casings on the conkers that he had helped her children collect today.

He admired her spirit in not only taking him up on his challenge (which he’d thrown down casually, never expecting her to go through with it), but also going two steps further. Christmas was still two months away and, considering there were presents to buy, she was going to have her work cut out. Still, this made the blog even more interesting, as his followers would want to read about how she coped. In some ways, Owen didn’t envy her. He only had his brother and his family, and his parents to buy for. Children would be an added strain on her purchasing dilemma, and he was keen to see how she coped with it.

His heart had lifted when he saw her standing in the hall as he’d followed the children into the house. She’d looked delectable: her cheeks slightly flushed as though she had been rushing around, a hint of colour on her lips. Her hair was down and flowing around her shoulders, and the knitted dress she wore skimmed her curves.

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