Christmas at Hope Cottage: A Magical Feel-Good Romance Novel(23)
‘Go, Evie,’ she said now, mock-sternly. ‘I’ll be all right, it’s just a couple of hours. I’ll survive – trust me.’
Evie shook her head. ‘What’s this “Evie” business?’ she asked Pennywort, who was sitting in his customary seat at the kitchen table. The dog gave a small huff. It was a very old argument.
Emma ignored her – they both knew she’d called her grandmother Evie since she was six years old.
‘Go on now, go give Harrison Brimble his recipe for athlete’s foot, or whatever it is.’
Evie laughed. ‘It’s plantar fasciitis, but all right, if you’re sure.’
‘Oh plantar fasciitis, well that changes things then, I can understand the need for a house visit now.’
‘Ha ha,’ snorted Evie, ‘I’m sure he’ll make it.’
She still looked a little worried, so Emma rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll be fine, stop being a mother hen. I’ll probably take one of my many naps, lucky me.’
Seconds after she’d left, there was a knock at the door and Emma shuffled forward to open it. ‘What did you forget,’ she called through the closed door. ‘Corn plasters, perhaps?’ She opened it wide, only to see Jack Allen standing outside, a grin on his face.
‘Corn plasters?’
She swallowed, gathering her cardigan closer to her body as the cold wind entered through the open door, making that whistling sound that rattled the drainpipes, causing her to shiver slightly. ‘It’s you,’ she said, blinking, the laughter dying on her lips.
‘Me,’ he said with a small smile.
‘Thought I’d come past, see how you’re doing,’ he said, running a hand through his dark blond hair, hazel eyes hesitant. His eyes trailing over her face, lingering on her injuries, and then frowning. She knew she looked a sight; while the marks on her face had started to fade, she still had several bruises, which had turned a yellowy-green now as they healed.
Aside from that, she was wearing a very old, patchy pair of joggers, covered as usual in dog hair, and there was a coffee stain on her sleeve. She felt herself flush, wishing that just once she could see him when she looked at least halfway decent. ‘Do you want to come in?’
‘Um…’ He hesitated. ‘Okay.’
Outside, there was the sound of a car slamming on its brakes and they both jumped, then peered outside to see. Across the garden wall, through the open window of the car, they saw Stella Lea, the girl who’d hated Emma since she arrived here at six years old, declaring herself her enemy based on a two-hundred-year-old disagreement between their families. Things had only got worse since Stella and Jack dated a few years before, but that was over now, wasn’t it?
Stella sat behind the wheel staring at them both, her face bloodless, her eyes blazing, looking for all the world as if she’d just been slapped in the face.
Emma blinked, then looked from Stella to Jack in shock.
Then, with a sudden screech from her tyres, Stella tore off down the road.
Jack closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose.
Emma swallowed. ‘Are you and Stella still together?’ she asked.
Jack took a breath. ‘It’s… well, it’s complicated. The short answer is not any more, but you know how she is – how she’s always been about you.’
Emma nodded. Stella had always seen her as a rival. Unfortunately the feeling was mutual.
‘I better go or else she’ll turn this into World War Three…’ He hesitated before turning to leave. ‘Sorry. I’ll see you.’
Emma retreated inside the cottage, where she closed the door and rested her head against the cool wood, breathing heavily, seeing Stella’s expression behind her closed lids. She couldn’t help but be sucked back into the past.
* * *
Those first few weeks when Emma first came to live at Hope Cottage there were many lessons to learn about the recipes her family made, her new home, and the people in it.
She learned that cinnamon didn’t just provide warmth and flavour; it could help ease fear and anxiety. That celery wasn’t just something you served at really boring parties; it could help lower blood pressure. And that borage didn’t just make a colourful addition to salads; it was said to give courage too.
She learned that food made in the kitchen of Hope Cottage left at dusk, in dishes and on plates wrapped up in dishtowels over a covering of clingfilm, inside baskets that were secreted away to the sound of quick footsteps and desperate hearts. Those same baskets and dishes would return a few days later, in time for their next assignment. The blue casserole dish with the white daisies on its side, the cream plate with the rose pattern and the chip on the rim, the copper pot with the wooden handles, all clean and clear of food, but never empty, all the same.
When the co-owner of the Whistle-In Store, Harrison Brimble, recovered from a nasty fall despite all his doctors’ dire speculations, it could only have been as a result of Evie’s Get Up and Go Gumbo, according to Mrs Brimble, who left six ticket stubs for the vintage cinema in town inside the blue casserole dish. When posh Madge Sanders finally got a proposal out of Timothy Wastrel after ten years of dating, she was convinced that it had to be because she’d fed him every last bite of Dot’s Make Up Your Mind Meringue, and she left French chocolate and perfume on the rose plate.