Page 62 of A Festive Surprise

The house still smelt amazing from their cake baking the day before. Now they had a perfect cake ready for icing. Another wave of sickness crashed in Holly’s stomach; the creeping sense of humiliation when she remembered the last time she’d decorated a Christmas cake.

She grabbed her coat and hauled it on. ‘This costume doesn’t give me much room to manoeuvre.’ She adjusted the leggings.

Farid drove her to Georgia’s quaint little boat shop. Holly hadn’t visited it yet. Behind the shop was another structure, like a shed, with an enormous sign reading Santa’s Grotto. The eaves dripped with fairy lights set on a cycle likely to induce an epileptic fit.

In the car park area, Farid pulled up beside a minibus with a picture of a sea eagle and the name Hidden Mull emblazoned on the side.

‘Seriously?’ said Holly. ‘There’s a tour bus here? Are they shipping hundreds of kids from the mainland especially for this?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Farid. ‘Georgia said she had a tour coming in. That’s why she wants to be in the shop.’

How had she got herself into this? She got out of the car, keeping her head down. Please, ground, open and remove me from this hell. Even if it took her straight to another one, because, right now, she fancied her luck more with Satan than Santa. Anyone who didn’t know she had on an elf costume under her coat would think her someone with a lurid taste in leggings. ‘What am I supposed to do now?

‘We find Georgia.’ Farid took her hand and led her through the quirky mullioned doors fitted perfectly into the upturned boat hull that made the frame of the shop.

‘Holly!’ Georgia pounced on her before she’d got two feet into the shop. ‘I can’t thank you enough for this, really.’

‘Yeah, you owe me big time. Why doesn’t Archie mind the shop? Then you can be the elf.’

‘He would have but we have a house party arriving in the main house and he’s meeting them, so he can’t.’

Holly skimmed around the shop. The nautical theme continued inside with driftwood shelves, nets hanging from the ceiling and fishing baskets full of handmade goodies. Holly wasn’t as deeply into this kind of thing as Georgia but it was well done, tasteful and appealing. Some other people milled around, checking out the wares.

‘And here’s Kirsten.’ Georgia pulled over a young woman with long, dark, curly hair. ‘She was a bridesmaid at my wedding, but in case you’ve forgotten each other. And this is Kirsten’s fiancé, Fraser.’

‘I do remember.’ Holly shook hands with a fit guy in a kilt. ‘You do the island tours, don’t you?’

Farid moved closer. Holly smirked. Was he jealous? Threatened?

‘Yes, we do. And today we have the golden generation of Mull residents.’ Fraser’s smile was cute, the way his teeth grazed his lower lip. But he didn’t set Holly alight in the way Farid did. The way only Farid could.

She scanned over the sea of people. ‘You mean the pensioners?’ A high proportion of older people were browsing the shop.

‘Yup. My nan’s here with her chums.’

‘And are they coming to Santa’s grotto?’

‘No.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve finally convinced my nan and her friend to go up in the seaplane.’

‘Fraser flies it.’ Kirsten tossed him a proud grin.

‘So cool,’ said Holly.

Farid made an impatient sound behind her.

‘I hope he knows what he’s doing,’ said one of the elderly ladies.

‘Yes, Nan, I definitely do.’

‘He used to fly Typhoons in the RAF,’ said Georgia.

Holly turned to Farid and winked. His upper lip hooked slightly as he glanced around, a little too deliberate in the way he avoided Fraser’s eyes.

‘You remember Blair?’ Georgia asked.

‘Who?’ said Holly.

‘You met him at my wedding too.’ Georgia waved to a young man with long blond dreadlocks. He was hand in hand with an elegant woman with her hair in a high afro updo. They were helping a lady with white fluffy hair to choose something.

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