Page 3 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Matt sniffed.
“He looks like a murderer,” he said.
Kate laughed.
“He does not.”
“I bet he’s got cauliflower ear,” he said, squinting at the picture.
“Well, I don’t care about that stuff,” said Kate. “I just want to meet someone nice. Who’s not a maniac. And who doesn’t turn out to be a money launderer and/or a drug dealer.”
“Your track record is terrible,” said Matt.
“I prefer to think of it as atypically galvanizing,” said Kate.
“That’s just a fancy way of saying freakish and terror-inducing,” Matt pointed out.
“It’s been more interesting than yours.”
“You didn’t meet my wife,” said Matt.
Kate laughed. Barely anyone than other than Evelyn had met Matt’s ex-wife. His short-lived marriage was the stuff of Blexford legend: whispered stories abounded about his mysterious bride, everything from cult member to jewel thief to—somewhat unkindly—buried beneath the patio.
Kate was in the happy position of having two best friends: Laura had been a stalwart, a constant in Kate’s life that neither distance nor brimful calendars could hamper. Her friendship with Matt had evolved rather differently; he had been her childhood best friend, her bête noire, and then her best friend again. There was a time when Kate had vowed she’d never step foot in the café, let alone be baking for it.
“I’ve got to go,” said Kate. “I’m meeting Richard on the bench on the green and we’re walking up to the manor together.”
Kate hopped down off the stool and slipped her coat back on, wrapping her scarf twice around her neck. She called her good-byes to the Pear Tree regulars, who waved back, their mouths full of cake.
“Have fun!” called Matt above the noise. He began to sing loudly: “On the first date of Shagmas...” Kate turned back and poked her tongue out at him.
“Hey!” he shouted, as she pulled the door open and let in a waft of spiky cold air.
Kate looked back, her eyes narrowed as she waited for another sarcastic comment.
“Catch,” he called, and threw over one of the tartan blankets they kept for weather-hardened customers who liked to sit outside. “That bench will be freezing.”
“Thanks,” said Kate; she caught the blanket and stepped out into the cold.
“I don’t want you getting piles!” Matt shouted after her. Kate shook her head, smiling, and walked across the white-tipped grass to the bench.
•••••
The green was a small patch of land in the middle of Blexford Village, around which sat the café, the Duke’s Head pub, and a small but princely stocked corner shop run by the ever-busy Evelyn, all surrounded by trees and cottages.
Kate stretched the blanket out. She laid one half on the bench and the other across her lap and waited. A large fir tree liberally strewn with fairy lights stood proudly in the center of the green, and several smaller sets of lights hung from brackets above shop windows. Even the trees that were mere skeletons of their summer selves were dripping in lights.
A bright red Santa hat had been placed atop the wooden sign that pointed in the direction of Blexford Manor, and it was in that direction that a steady stream of cars and cabs now headed. Kate guessed they were going to the first of the Twelve Dates; Blexford didn’t usually getmuch through traffic. A couple of Range Rovers struggled with the narrow road, and more than one car pulled over near the corner shop to check their satnavs.
Kate felt glad she’d come back here to live. At first she’d missed city life, but now she felt she had the best of both worlds. She worked on her fabric designs at her kitchen table, looking out onto the long garden and the vegetable patch beyond. And when they were ready for printing she took the train up to her London office and soaked in the bustle of the city.
It hadn’t been an easy decision to pull up stakes and move back to Blexford, but when her mother ran off to Spain with Gerry, the estate agent who was supposed to be helping her parents downsize for their retirement, her father, Mac, was distraught.
It was a shock to everyone; one minute they were looking at cozy cottages and the next her mum had dropped everything and disappeared off to Spain.
For some reason Kate had assumed her mum would calm down as she got older, learn to appreciate the gem she had in Mac. But age hampered neither her mother’s ambition nor her libido.
It was Matt who’d called Kate to alert her to Mac’s deteriorating mental health. He’d popped round to the house and found Mac slumped across the table, drunk, an empty bottle of whiskey next to him.
