‘And my other Christmas present to you is a crash course – if you’ll pardon the pun – of driving lessons,’ Shay added.
‘You can’t afford them! I can’t afford them! We’re both broke.’
‘I’ve got a nice little part-time job as barman at The Faery Glen in the New Year to fit in round my shifts.’ Shay was grinning. ‘Hedley and Biff are delighted and are more than willing to stand as your referees. To be honest they found paying your salary a bit of a drain – it’ll mean more money for them to donate to the animals – and you can still help out there whenever you like.’
‘Oh.’ Lu’s eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t usually a weeper – well, not unless it involved animals, of course – but this was all too much. ‘Oh, thank you. I don’t know what else to say. Thank you so much.’
She kissed Shay and then Roger but passed on the kennel maids.
‘But I won’t have to have my hair cut off, will I? Will it fit under the cap?’
‘The beads and braids may have to be calmed a bit but I’m sure you’ll manage.’ Shay was still grinning. ‘And there is something else. Another present. I thought we should do all this before Christmas so as not to detract too much from Doll’s big day.’
The kennel maids parted in a sort of Busby Berkeley movement.
Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, Lulu’s secret favourites of the
puppy farm puppies, multicoloured, all gangly legs and liquid eyes, bounced up to her and all tried to kiss her at the same time.
‘They were the leftovers from your rescue mission. They didn’t sort of fit into any breeds. They haven’t been rehomed, and I knew the love affair was mutual, so they’re all yours – well, ours really. Your Christmas present from me—’
The tears really fell now. Pip, Squeak and Wilfred happily licked them away.
Emerging from a canine group-hug, Lu wiped her eyes, knowing the kohl and mascara would have run and made her look like a pierrot doll, and sniffed happily. ‘But where are they going to live? Richard and Judy rule our place with iron claws, and—’
‘With me. So they’ll only be next door. Lav and Lob have readily agreed to let them move in. They love dogs, had loads when they were younger. And they’ll be glad of the company when I’m on night shift.’
Lulu sighed. Now she’d have Shay
and
the puppies living next door. It was wonderful, of course, but how much more wonderful if they could all live together in a little cottage – maybe one of the tiled-roofed cottages on the village green. And she and Shay could organise their shifts so that they had time off together and take the dogs for long walks and come home to their own little nest.
‘So,’ Roger held out a hand and helped her to her feet, ‘everything’s sorted. Welcome to the RSPCA, Lu, I know you’ll do well. The next training course starts in February, so we’ll have plenty of time to discuss the ins and outs before then. And Pip, Squeak and Wilfred are staying here for another couple of weeks just until they’re past their vaccination stage. I’m absolutely delighted, my dear.’
Sniffing back more tears, Lulu hugged him and Shay again, and the puppies. ‘Thank you … thank you all so much.’
‘You are happy with all this, aren’t you?’ Shay emerged
from the mass attention of Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. ‘You don’t think I’m trying to become some sort of control freak, do you? You don’t have to agree to any of it if it’s not what you want.’
Lu threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. ‘No, of course not. You’ve given me the shove I needed. It’s all amazing. Brilliant. Honestly – I couldn’t have asked for anything more.’ Well, apart from a place of their own with roses round the door, of course. ‘Now shall we go to Lorenzo’s and really celebrate? And tonight it’s all on me to say thank you again. You’re simply amazing. You’ve changed my life …’
‘You’ve made a considerable difference to mine too.’ Shay smiled, pulling her even closer. ‘I’d never considered falling in love with someone who looks like Elly-May Clampett and smells like a dead polecat.’
Lu grinned. ‘You say the nicest things!’
‘Oh, I can say even nicer things than that. How about – Tallulah Blessing, I love you even more than I love my Motley Crue CDs and I’d really, really like to marry you one day.’
‘Fog’s still really thick,’ Joel said, letting Mitzi’s rich velvet curtains fall back across the window. ‘But Shay and Lu must have made it through – it’s at least an hour since they left. Where are they going tonight?’
‘No idea,’ Mitzi hopped around the living room trying to pull on her boots. ‘Winterbrook probably. She had a new old dress on. And come away from the window and stop spying on people. You’re turning into Flo. She’s an ace curtain-twitcher.’
‘I must admit I felt a bit voyeuristic earlier getting a front row seat for Shay and Lulu’s snogathon.’ Joel laughed. ‘But there, I’m as nosy as the next person, you know that. And you look gorgeous – where are you taking me tonight?’
‘Lorenzo’s,’ Mitzi collapsed on to the sofa and hauled at her boots. ‘As it was my fault we had to cancel before.’
‘That’s great. But you don’t have to—’
‘I know I don’t. But I want to. I really messed it up last time and you were such a star sitting freezing your bits off in the village hall munching sardine and piccalilli sarnies instead of munching your way through Lorenzo’s luscious menu. Anyway, I have an ulterior motive.’
‘Oh, God.’
Mitzi paused in zipping up and squinted at him. ‘Crikey – do you know me that well? Already? Scary … And as a
special treat I’m going to drive so you can get roaring drunk if you want to.’
Joel sat in one of the fireside chairs. Richard and Judy clambered ecstatically all over him. ‘Is that because you think I’m a pretty old-fashioned bloke?’
‘A northern dinosaur, you mean?’ Mitzi finally won the battle of the boots and stood up triumphantly. ‘Of course. I know you think the man’s the boss and the woman knows her place.’
‘Aye. Kitchen and bedroom in that order,’ Joel winked at her.
She threw a cushion at him. He threw it back. God, he was beautiful. They laughed together and Mitzi suddenly got the tingle from her toes zinging to the tip of her head. Damn. She actually
wanted
him. Right there and right now. Sex had been off the agenda for so long she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be engulfed in waves of hot lust. Oh, dear, wasn’t it slightly distasteful at her age?
She peered at him to see if she’d given off embarrassing, telltale, hormonal signals, but he was still laughing and fussing Richard and Judy so she guessed not. Phew.
Ten minutes later, as she inched the car along Hazy Hassocks high street through the yellow swirl of fog with the hormones still rampaging, Joel looked across at her. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to drive?’
‘I can do fog,’ Mitzi said, staring straight ahead, chewing her lip in concentration. The density of the fog and Joel’s proximity were twin distractions. ‘I can do hazardous. Women are better at hazardous than men. They don’t see it as a macho challenge.’
Joel chuckled. ‘Okay. I’m not going to argue with you on that one – yet. But has it occurred to you that there might be a bit of a logistical problem here?’
‘Where?’ Mitzi inched the car on to the main Winterbrook road, using the verges as a marker. ‘Well …’ Joel relaxed back in his seat. ‘I work in Hazy Hassocks and live – if you can call it that – in Winterbrook.
I drive my car to work. We’re driving, in your car, to Winterbrook where I’m under instructions to become roaring drunk. Which means you can help me stagger into my soulless bachelor hovel at the end of the evening, but my car will still be in Hazy Hassocks which makes getting to work difficult in the morning. Unless you stayed over with me and drove me to work in the morning.’
‘Can’t leave Richard and Judy without their supper. And I’ve left the fire on at home. And probably candles.’
‘Lu and Shay can see to all that.’
‘They might forget. Or stay out all night or, well, anything. And – um – oh, I know … Doll could come over early in the morning and pick you up before surgery. She wouldn’t mind.’
‘Couldn’t have that. Not in her condition. It might still be foggy in the morning. I’d never forgive myself for putting her at risk.’
‘What a thoughtful employer you are,’ Mitzi grinned, not taking her eyes from the solid sulphurous wall inches in front of the windscreen.
‘I try,’ Joel grinned back. ‘So that means we’ll have to drive back to Hazy Hassocks at the end of the evening and I’ll retrieve my car from the surgery and drive, completely pissed, back to Winterbrook through this fog. Or—’
‘Or you could stay over at mine – and sleep on my sofa or in the spare room.’
‘Or not,’ Joel said quietly. ‘Which seems like the best option of all to me.’
Lorenzo’s had pulled out all the festive stops. Eschewing their usual Italian decor, they’d gone for a virtual thicket of white and silver Christmas trees, with waterfalls of tiny white twinkling lights and silver frosted branches adorning the walls, and sequinned candles flickering on all the tables. Mitzi, halfway through her seafood cannelloni with calabrese, sighed with pure pleasure. What more could a girl ask? Fabulous food, fabulous wine, fabulous surroundings
and a more than fabulous man. A more than fabulous man who wanted to spend the night with her. And with whom she wanted to spend the night more than anything in the world. But not just one night. Not just a fleeting affair. She couldn’t be hurt again.
‘There’s someone waving at you.’ Joel broke into the dilemma of her thoughts. ‘A young man. A very young man. Waving and grinning.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Mitzi waved her fork back across the restaurant in a casual manner. ‘That’s Troy.’
‘Troy?’
Joel wrinkled his nose. ‘Look here, Mrs Blessing, it’s clear that you have a penchant for younger men, but really – should he be allowed out on a school night?’
‘He’s a bank manager,’ Mitzi smiled sweetly. ‘He replaced Mr Dickinson when I was disposed of. The spotty oik beside him is Tyler. He replaced me.’
‘No way,’ Joel was staring unashamedly. ‘He’s nowhere near as sexy as you are. And – blimey – what are they doing?’
Everything she’d wanted them to do, Mitzi thought happily. The Mistletoe Kisses, had, as Granny Westward’s book promised, loosened inhibitions and made everyone in sight seem desirable and irresistible.
‘Um, well, I popped into the bank earlier. My friends, Moira and Evelyn, had told me that Troy and Tyler would be entertaining some of their biggest would-be corporate customers here tonight … I – er – thought it might be a perfect opportunity to test drive the Mistletoe Kisses prototype before Doll’s wedding. Troy is such a kid, I knew he’d eat them, and hopefully share them with Tyler. They take about six hours to take effect. Which is—’ she glanced at her watch ‘—just about now …’
‘Bloody hell, Mitzi,’ Joel tried not to laugh and failed miserably. ‘You mean, we’re not just here to enjoy a romantic meal? This was your ulterior motive? You are a very, very wicked woman.’
Troy and Tyler, much to the horror of their suited and booted dining companions, were fondling one another’s hands across the snowy white linen. Occasionally they’d break off in the fondling and kiss each other on the cheek. They did, Mitzi had to admit, look totally perplexed as they did it – but it was bliss to watch them make total and utter prats of themselves.
‘A touch too much ground cyclamen bulb, as I thought,’ Mitzi said, nodding. ‘And possibly too much garlic – which of course I masked by using far, far too much vanilla – all of them, according to Granny, sure-fire aphrodisiacs … Never mind, at least I’ll know what measures to use for Doll’s wedding now.’
Joel forked up some more of his saltimbocca, then dropped it back onto his plate as Troy, his eyes as pleading as a puppy’s, leaned towards the most outraged of his dinner guests and tried to kiss him. There was a roar of affronted heterosexuality as the corporate guests rose to their feet as a man and stormed away from the table.
Mitzi bit her lip and stared at the tablecloth. It was cruel, yes, but wonderfully satisfying.
‘Oh, look they’ve left their tortellini,’ Joel said as he took a cheerful swig of Chianti. ‘Revenge, being a dish best eaten cold, seems to be the only thing on the menu not being wasted. As a payback it was wonderful – but I really never thought you had a vindictive streak in you.’
‘Haven’t we all? I’m only human, and even the most ardent love and peace people can eventually be stirred to vengeful feelings, believe me. And I’m sure this little incident won’t have dented Troy and Tyler’s career opportunities too badly. After all, the Sex Discrimination Act will see to that. Even if all those suits assume Troy and Tyler are gay lovers with tarty tendencies, they can hardly use that as a reason for not doing business with the bank, can they? No, it was just an opportunity to test out a recipe – oh, and bring bloody, strutting, patronising Troy Haley down to earth.’
Joel chuckled. ‘And do you feel better now?’
‘Loads, thanks. Although as you know being dumped from the bank hasn’t been the awful experience I’d imagined it would be. Far from it. I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had in my life. Still, two birds with one stone and all that.’ She swallowed some more cannelloni. ‘Oh – has seeing this bitchy side of me made you – um – feel differently about me?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Joel leaned across the silver foliage and the wine glasses and took her hand. ‘Just makes you a more rounded human being.’
‘Try something other than
rounded
.’
‘Can’t,’ Joel grinned. ‘Ouch.’
‘Serves you right. I can kick like Thierry Henry when I’m angry. Now are you shocked?’
‘Nope. I can do a mean Chinese burn – and I addressed my inner-bitch with my brother and my ex-wife too. Nasty, of course, but God, it made me feel great.’
Mitzi, who knew all about Joel’s ex decamping with his brother, raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? What did you do to them?’
‘Oh, nothing as original as poisoning them with magical herbs and making them seduce everything with a pulse,’ Joel smiled at her. ‘But it was pretty unpleasant.’
‘Go on then. Tell me. I’m all agog. I thought you were such a nice man.’