Page 40 of Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm
The sun is setting in the distance, making the clouds around it look pink and gold. It’s too late to start cleaning up the caravan tonight, and now I’ve stopped moving for a few minutes, I realise that I’m as knackered as I must look. I grab the long, flat cushion I’ve just pulled off the bench and put it on the grass outside. I turn it upside down and sit on the least damaged part, facing the setting sun.
Noel grins as he comes back, a Roscoe-Farm-branded recyclable cup in each hand and a paper bag between his teeth, containing two pumpkin cupcakes with orange butter icing and sprinkles of sugared pumpkin seeds.
‘I like your thinking.’ He sits beside me on the cushion and hands me one of the cups. ‘Pumpkin spice hot chocolate. Roscoe Farm’s finest. If you like it, I’ve got plenty of pumpkin spice you can have for the caravan. And you’ll have to get some peppermint flavouring as well, because you can’t run a place called Peppermint Branches without offering peppermint hot chocolates. A couple of different options will help too. If you don’t make them too expensive, people are likely to try a plain hot chocolate when they arrive and then a flavoured one when they leave.’
‘You’re really good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?’
His cheeks go red as he sips his hot chocolate and flinches because it’s too hot.
I set mine down on the grass beside me and start on the pumpkin cupcake instead, swiping my finger through the sweet icing and taking a bite of fluffy and lightly spiced orange-coloured cake. As arrogant and harsh as Noel can be sometimes, he’s actually quite humble, and in the few days I’ve known him, I can already tell that he’s terrible at taking compliments.
‘I’m fascinated by the number of things your mum can pumpkin-ise. Is there anything she doesn’t put pumpkin in?’
‘Hmm.’ The look of concentration on his face makes me smile as he seriously considers it. ‘Toothpaste?’ he says eventually with a grin.
The sky above us is almost completely pink as the sun drops to the west, the pumpkins sprawling out on Noel’s side, and Christmas trees waving in the gentle breeze on mine.
‘It’s been ages since I stopped to watch a sunset.’
‘The sunsets in autumn are always the most spectacular.’ I nod towards the sky. ‘It’s my favourite time of year.’
‘And yet you bought a Christmas tree farm …’
‘Ah, but my favourite thing about it is the lead up to Christmas. Autumn and the part of winter before Christmas blend together for me. This is my ideal place. Literally sitting right in the middle of autumn and winter.’
‘Something else I totally agree on. Festive music in OctoberandSeptember to December being the best months of the year. You never know, we might start getting along at this rate.’ He nudges his shoulder into mine, and it makes me grin because we definitely seem to be getting along, despite the occasional grumpy hitch.
I pick up my cup, not quite sure how I feel about the prospect of pumpkin spice working in hot chocolate. Coffee, fair enough, but hot chocolate seems a bit of a stretch. His other pumpkin goodies have been delicious so far, so I breathe in the steam for a moment and brace myself to take a sip.
‘Oh my god, that’sincredible.’ The smooth chocolate liquid feels thicker, rounded out by the taste of pumpkin and just a hint of warming spice that only comes out after you swallow it. Chelsea and I have always had a thing for pumpkin spice lattes in the autumn, but this puts them all to shame. It’s the perfect level of sweet, warm, and chocolatey – a blend of autumn and winter. ‘You’re going to have to teach me how to make it.’
He hides his face behind his own cup. ‘With pleasure.’
I concentrate on the darkening pink sky, thinking about what would go well with hot chocolate. ‘What about roasted chestnuts?’ I speak before I even realise I’m going to say anything out loud.
He laughs. ‘You’re going to have to elaborate.’
‘I could offer food of some sort. Something festive and fun to eat while people are walking around … I went to a Christmas fair with Chelsea last year and we got little paper bags of hot roasted chestnuts from a stall selling them straight from a tabletop cooker. Do you think it’d be worth it?’
I really appreciate the amount of serious thought he gives it. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer. Or anything more Christmassy. It’s perfect.’
It’ll be yet another unexpected expense, but I can’t get the grin off my face as I sip my hot chocolate again. A bag of freshly roasted chestnuts would go down perfectly with it. Nothing has ever sounded more tempting on a cold winter’s day.
Noel stretches his legs out straight in front of him, setting the cup between his knees and leaning back on his hands. I sip my hot chocolate and try not to show I’m watching him as his eyes scan from the pumpkins, to the sun disappearing below the horizon, to the Christmas trees.
‘Do you think your parents would like it?’ he asks softly, and I know from the gentle tone in his voice that I don’t have to answer if I don’t want to.
‘They’dlovethe hot chocolate.’ I know full well that he meant it in a much bigger sense, but I’m not sure whether I want to talk to him about it or whether Icantalk about it without crying.
‘They’d love it,’ I say eventually. ‘Running off to Scotland and buying a Christmas tree farm was exactly the crazy sort of thing my dad dreamed about doing in his retirement. He never got that far, but …’ I swallow and bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself welling up again. ‘It’s exactly what I wanted the money from their house to be spent on. It’s what I was waiting for without realising I was waiting for it.’
‘I thought you were drunk and good at buying shoes?’
‘Well, yeah, that too. But it was an answer to a question I didn’t know I’d asked. My whole life has been covered by a blanket of grief, and that auction was the first sparkle of hope I’d felt in two years.’
‘I want to ask you what happened to them, but I don’t want to pry, or push, or make you talk about something you don’t want to talk about. I’m going to leave that sentence there and if you don’t want to talk about it, just stay silent and I’ll start talking about rainbows and fluffy kittens or something.’
It makes an unexpected laugh burst out of my throat. He has a knack for making me laugh when it’s the last thing I feel like doing, and he has no idea how much I appreciate it in moments like this.
