Page 43 of Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall
‘So where are we off to?’ he asked, swinging the basket by his side.
‘We’re exploring this wonderful garden,’ she said. ‘The boys don’t know it at all. Have they been here very often?’
Marc felt ashamed. ‘They’re never been here actually. They’re usually in California.’
‘How many houses do you own?’
He felt embarrassed answering. He counted them in his head. The place in Gstaad that he never used. The one in Aspen. The penthouse in New York. The farm in New Zealand. The apartment in Paris.
‘A few,’ he said carefully.
Christa said nothing for a while as they walked. A peacock walked onto the path and opened his fan, much to the boys’ delight.
They all stopped and watched him show his beauty to them.
Christa leaned over to him and whispered, ‘Do you think he has a vineyard in France?’
Marc burst out laughing and the peacock, insulted, wandered off the path.
Christa turned and lifted her chin and gave a cheeky smile. ‘Sorry, it was too easy. I had to take the shot. I hope you’re not too badly wounded.’
‘Not at all. It’s funny and I did sound like an idiot. I don’t know why I said it,’ he admitted. But he knew why he said it. He wanted to impress her and he had failed.
Bill and the boys were a good way ahead now.
‘We all say things that come out the wrong way,’ she said.
They followed the path in a comfortable silence, as the sun shone down on them. There was no warmth in the rays but the light showed off the elegant lines of the deciduous trees that must have been over one hundred years old and counting.
‘I can’t remember the last time I was out in the country like this,’ she said as the path meandered down and a large hedge loomed before them.
‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘It’s good for us, don’t you think?’
She looked up at him. ‘I do.’ Her face was clear and bright. She didn’t have on any makeup, synthetic fillers, false eyelashes, or expectations. Ever since his divorce, certain types of women were the only ones who approached him. The ones looking for a rich husband who were everywhere in parts of California. Perhaps they were lovely but it was hard to see under the exterior they had created, thinking that’s what rich men wanted. Even his ex-wife had succumbed to fillers and Botox and eating next to nothing. It made him sad when he thought of her once-carefree face and attitude when they met before he became rich.
He found he suddenly wanted to kiss Christa, but then that would mean he’d be crossing boundaries and she would run away and that would be that. She was out most nights, probably seeing someone in town, he assumed. It made him wish he was something more than he was, so she would be interested in him, but she was not interested. She had made it clear she thought him shallow and silly at times. He saw her mouth part slightly and he leaned in a few millimetres.
‘Dad, Christa, Dad, come find us,’ he heard the twins yell, breaking the spell.
‘Where are you?’
‘In the maze. The first one to the centre is the winner; the last one to the centre has to bite their bum.’
Marc saw Christa run to the entrance and she turned to him before yelling into the maze, ‘Challenge accepted.’
Marc put the basket down where Bill was standing. ‘Do you mind looking after this?’
Without waiting for an answer, he stepped into the maze and looked ahead. There was a pathway surrounded by hedges, and all he knew was he had to find Christa who was somewhere inside the walls.
13
Christa walked through the maze, occasionally hearing the boys yelling out for each other or crowing like birds.
There was something eerie about the dense foliage and the scent of the rain from the night before that made her feel nervous but excited.
Marc was somewhere near. It thrilled her, like her own little private game.
She turned a corner and saw the leg of one the twins disappear ahead, then heard the crunch of gravel next to her behind the hedge.
