Page 35 of Christmas Ever After
‘Which, of course, you would know, considering how much time you’ve been spending together lately…’ She would be less obvious about fishing for gossip if she had a fishing rod in one hand and bait in the other.
‘He’s helping me out, you know that.’ I’m determined not to give her anything to get excited about. ‘And maybe I’m trying to help him a bit too. You don’t know of anyone who wants to be set up do you? Anyone we know who’d make a nice couple? Anyoneyou’dfancy a date with?’
‘At my age? No. I loved my Reginald. I could never date again, but Iwillkeep my very large ears to the ground about anyone else.’ She gives me a conspiring wink. ‘It’s nice that you’re helping him. Unexpected, but nice. That’s what Raff needs – someone to help him. He’s lonely. Claude Dardenne never found his mojo until he met his wife. Raff can’t help anyone find love because he isn’tinlove.’ She clears her throat pointedly. ‘Or, at least, hewasn’t. He can barely keep his eyes off you.’
‘We’re just friends,’ I tell her, even though my cheeks flare red at the thought of Raff liking me inthatway. Are we even friends? We don’t know each other well enough to have classified it yet. I can’t help glancing at him again, and my knees feel decidedly unstable when he senses my gaze and looks in this direction again with a smile.
Mitch is holding the arch now and Raff is drilling it into place. I’ve never found power tools sexy before, but Raff is making that drill lookhot. Or possibly the other way round.
Mrs Bloom is watching me with a knowing look and I’m certain she can tell exactly what I’m thinking. I shake myself. ‘And no matter what, he’s still a Dardenne. He’s still peddling his “magical” snow globes with the intention of extorting money from people gullible enough to believe in them.’
I say something she’ll be expecting to hear, but it feels unfairly harsh now. Raff is a lot of things, but he’s certainly not a crook, and we’ve got enough people talking about us with the video and the viewing numbers that have exceeded 70,000 now, we don’t need to be the subject of street-wide gossip too.
She sees straight through me. ‘People like you?’
‘No. Definitely not me. There’s no magic in this world, and…’ I catch Raff’s eyes across the distance again and those butterflies get a speed boost. I think about the moment he handed me the nutcracker snow globe in my shop. The way the tips of his fingers touched mine, and how he steadied it until I could safely take it one-handed. His shy smile and how his dark hair flopped over his forehead. The way he so carefully took Minnie the mouse away. ‘I wish I did. It would be nice to think there’s a power greater than us, driving us to meet the people we’re supposed to meet, but there isn’t… even if Raff himself isn’t as bad as I thought he was.’
That’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever heard me say about him, and she knows it means something too, and she mercifully doesn’t push me any further.
We watch Raff and Mitch double-check the fixings of the arch and check it for steadiness. When they’re happy, Mitch goes to take a photo for social media and then move his truck and Raff makes his way over to where we’re standing.
‘Good morning.’ I can’t stop myself smiling as he approaches. There’s a breeze today and it blows around his silky chocolate-brown hair, and I tell myself that Idon’twant to reach up and tuck it back.
‘So you noticed then?’ He grins at me. ‘I was hoping to get it back up and reinstalled as a surprise, but it was too heavy to manoeuvre on my own and it ended up being a street-wide job. Mitch wanted to get a new one but there wasn’t enough in the budget for it, so I thought I could fix the existing one.’
‘How’d you manage that?’
‘It’s metal, it just needed heating up with a welding torch and bending back into shape. Trying to makethatday ancient history as soon as possible.’
‘You didn’t have to do that. It was my fault. I’m surprised Mitch hasn’t been after me to pay for a new one.’
‘If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine, Fran.’
At the nickname, Mrs Bloom’s intake of breath is so loud that people in Scotland probably heard it.
‘It was only a bit bent out of shape. I’ve seen worse.’
‘You’ve repaired many metal archways that have been bent by the weight of a giant—’ I was going to compare myself to a humpback whale, but he doesn’t let me.
Instead, he reaches out and puts a finger on my lips and shakes his head sharply. ‘The arch is decorative. Anyone, ofanyweight, would’ve had the same effect on it. You’re exactly as you should be. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.’
Mrs Bloom’s face has got the look of a kettle that’s about to reach boiling point, and I’m sure she’s going to let out a long whistle and release a load of steam at any moment. Meanwhile, I’m melting because you don’t hear things like that as an overweight ballet dancer, and before I’ve thought it through, I’ve reached up, put my arms around his neck and pulled him down for a hug.
His aftershave wraps around me in the same way that his arms wrap around me. His hands spread open on my back and he pulls me tight to him.
‘Oh, look at that, I see a customer!’ Mrs Bloom sounds like she can’t get away fast enough to share this mouthful of gossip with everyone she comes across, but with Raff’s arms around me, I can’t bring myself to mind.
‘I’d have fixed it last week if I’d known it would get me a hug like this,’ he murmurs into my ear. His lips brush across the shelland make me shiver, and he mistakes it for a shiver of chill and his arms hold me even tighter.
‘He’s a clever one, ain’t he?’ Mitch appears out of nowhere and claps Raff on the shoulder, making us jump apart with an unexpected squeak. ‘That must’ve taken a lot of time and patience, and I didn’t even have to ask. I hope you’ve matched up some couples because I’m not letting you go in January.’
His gaze flicks to me and he looks awkward. ‘And you, Franca, obviously. I don’t want to see either of you go. If only you could’ve been this friendly before, eh?’
All of this is my fault, and I get the feeling that Mitch blames me too, and the thought of Raff leaving replaces the butterflies inside me with giant boulders of anxiety and reinforces the feeling that I have to do something about this. ‘You’re married, aren’t you, Mitch?’
‘Happily. Forty years next year.’
‘Do you know anyone single?’
