Page 56 of The Secret Mistletoe Promise
‘I need to go and check on the bakery,’ he said.
‘I need to go and … brush up on my voices.’ She grinned.
Dexter returned it. ‘We did good rehearsing.’
She laughed. ‘We did awful rehearsing.’
‘I know. And I don’t regret a second of it.’ He leaned in, planted a swift, hard, achingly sexy kiss on her lips, then went back inside, presumably to put out the fire and collect Artichoke. After a moment, when she felt like her legs would carry her, she followed him and helped him put everything back exactly how they’d found it, pigeon intruders notwithstanding.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘What are you doing?’ Birdie asked Imogen the next day, when she found her in the hallway, trying to angle herself so there was only a blank bit of wall behind her, her phone up in front of her.
‘Mum wants a photo of me.Proof of life, apparently, like I’ve been taken hostage and the messages and phone calls have all been faked by my kidnappers. I don’t want to give away where I am.’
‘You really don’t think she knows?’
‘I mean, probably.’ Imogen changed the angle of the phone, but it was impossible to have any kind of featureless background. There was too much on the walls and surfaces – paintings and ornaments – that was so uniquely Birdie. If she went outside, was there even a normal brick wall she could stand against, or were all the buildings in Norfolk flint, giving away where she had run to?
‘But if she knows, then you have to accept that she hasn’t come to find you.’
‘Or she’s respecting my wishes and giving me the space I asked for.’ They smiled at each other, resisting the laughter that – if it came – would be tinged with bitterness. Birdie handed Imogen a mug of coffee, and she sat on the stairs, giving up on her mission for the time being. ‘That’s not it, is it?’
Birdie sat two steps down from her, her back against the wall. ‘How are you feeling about everything? I promise this isn’t me trying to find out how long I get to keep you, because you know I’d have you for ever.’ She was in a grass-green dress with little red apples on it, and Imogen thought it would go perfectly with the coat she’d commandeered. Was it time to give it back?
‘It’s all very confusing,’ she said slowly, because how could she begin to articulate it? Especially after yesterday, after a kiss that was so good it belonged in a film, but was somehow actually her life. How was any of the last few weeks her life?
‘I don’t think I’ve been a good grandmother to you,’ Birdie said.
‘What are you talking about?’ Imogen nudged her gran’s shoulder with a socked foot. ‘It’s me that’s neglectedyou. I could have ignored everything Mum said and come up to see you, rather than sending covert texts and emails.’
‘If that was an easy thing to do, would you have got to the point where you had to flee from your own wedding?’
Imogen sighed. ‘I suppose not, no.’
‘Because you were doing it to please her.’ Imogen opened her mouth, but Birdie kept going. ‘I understand, because Stella is my daughter, and I know how persuasive she can be, how she withholds affection depending on what shegets in return. I do think that’s partly my fault, and I’m sorry that you’ve suffered because of it, and in such a dramatic way.’
‘I brought the drama,’ Imogen said.
‘You got to the point where all the behaving, all the times you’d put other people first, got the better of you. Are you going back to him?’
‘I can’t.’ The first image that popped into her head wasn’t her ex’s derision when she’d been FaceTiming him, telling him they were over, it was Dexter in his grey T-shirt, post pigeon rescue, stalking towards her as she leaned against the doorway of Mistingham Manor, already weak-kneed. ‘I should have broken up with him months ago. I hate that I’ve caused him heartbreak.’
Birdie scoffed. ‘So that’s one decision made, what about the others?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m staying for the Christmas performances.’
‘I amveryglad about that. You rehearsed with Dexter yesterday? I trust it’s going well?’
Imogen tried to burrow into her jumper, but that would be as obvious as the blush creeping up her neck. ‘We had a first go, but we need a whole lot of work. We were terrible.’Not at kissing.‘Hopefully not everyone will be up to RSC standards.’
‘Of course not. It’s just a bit of fun. That’s what you should be focusing on right now. Having fun, letting loose. God knows you deserve some freedom.’ She tapped Imogen’s foot, her multiple rings more solid than perhaps she realized. ‘I’m going to get on with lunch. Come down when you’re ready and you can try my sauce.’
‘Sure.’ Imogen leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Dexter’s face came swimming into view, and she replayed the kiss for what must have been the hundredth time.Freedom, she thought, and a smile crept across her lips.
Lucy found her later that afternoon, leaning on the white-washed wall next to the bakery, about to take a selfie.
‘You look really pretty,’ she said, startling Imogen out of her selfie-mode focus.
