Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe

I knew it from the very first moment. Never, ever have I felt anything like this before. I’ve found my soul mate. Pity it’s a house and not a man. However, I could never imagine a man being as perfect as Whitehaven. I envy the owners so much it hurts.

Still, for the next two months I can pretend it’s my home. That’s the beauty of being an actress. I can step into another reality for a while. Alexander isn’t coming with me to film on location, so I can pretend I’m not married too, just for a bit. He always says his travels do him good, so maybe this will be my holiday away from him.

The house sits on a wooded hill high above the River Dart in Devon, farther upstream than the busy town of Dartmouth, just before a bend where the green waters widen. I spotted the whitewashed exterior and columns from the river as we crossed over in the local ferry from the little village of Lower Hadwell. Just a glimpse. Even then the house seemed to be calling to me, tempting me …

Alex would scoff if he heard me talking this way out loud. He’d call me sentimental and a romantic fool. He hasn’t got time for my impractical mental meanderings, he says. But maybe they’ve done me some good.

I know that the script for this latest film is marvellous, that we’ve got the best director in the business, and that the cast is top-notch, but for the first time since my agent signed me up for it I’ve got excited about this project. Finally, like everyone else has for months, I feel this summer will be magical.

CHAPTER THREE

A hefty gust of wind blew up the river and ruffled the tips of the waves. The small dinghy rocked as Ben tied it to an ancient, blackened mooring ring on the stone jetty. He stared at the knot and did an extra half-hitch, just to be sure, then climbed out, walked along the jetty and headed up a narrow, stony path that traversed the steep and wooded hill.

He whistled as he walked, stopping every now and then just to smell the clean, slightly salty air and listen to the nagging seagulls that swooped over the river. At first glance it seemed as if he was walking through traditional English countryside, but every now and then he would pass a reminder that this wasn’t a wilderness, but a once-loved, slightly exotic garden. Bamboo hid among the oaks, and palms stood shoulder to shoulder with willows and birches.

After only ten minutes the woods thinned and faded away until he was standing in a grassy clearing that was dominated by a majestic, if slightly crumbling, white Georgian mansion.

Each time he saw this beautiful building now, he felt a little sadder. Even if he hadn’t known its history, hadn’t known that the last owner had been dead for more than two years, he would have been able to tell Whitehaven was empty. There was something eerily vacant about those tall windows that stared unblinking out over the treetops to the river below and the rolling countryside of the far bank.

He ambled up to the front porch and tugged at a trail of ivy that had wound itself up the base of one of the thick white pillars. It had been nearly a month since his last visit and the grounds were so huge there was no way he could single-handedly keep the advancing weeds at bay. Too many vines and brambles were sneaking up to the house, reclaiming the land as their own.

Laura would have hated to see her beloved garden’s gradual surrender. He could imagine her reaction if she could have seen it now—the sharp shake of her snowy-white head, the determined glint in those cloudy eyes. Laura would have flexed her knobbly knuckles and reached for the secateurs in a shot. Not that her arthritic hands could have done much good.

At eighty-eight, she’d been a feisty old bird, one worthy of such a demanding and magical place as Whitehaven. Perhaps that’s why he came up here on the Sundays when it was his ex-wife’s turn to have Jasmine for the weekend. Perhaps that was why he tended to the lilies and carnivorous plants in the greenhouses and mowed the top and bottom lawns. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shook his head as he crunched across the gravel driveway and made his way round the house and past the old stable block. He was keeping it all in trust on Laura’s behalf until the new owner came. Then he’d be able to spend his Sunday afternoons dozing in front of the rugby on TV and trying not to notice how still the house was without his whirlwind of a daughter.

He ducked through an arch and entered the walled garden. The whole grassy area was enclosed by a red brick wall dotted with moss, and sloping greenhouses filled one side. It was the time of year that some of the insect-eating plants were starting to hibernate and he needed to check on them, make sure the temperature in the old glasshouses was warm enough.

And so he pottered away for a good ten minutes, checking pots and inspecting leaves until he heard a crash behind him. He swung round, knocking a couple of tall pitcher plants off the bench.

The first thing he saw were the eyes—large, dark and stormy.

‘Get out! Get off my property at once!’

She was standing hands on hips and her legs apart, radiating annoyance but managing to look haughty at the same time. But then he noticed that she kept well back and her fingers worried the flaps of her pockets. His hands shot up in surrender and he backed away slightly, just to show he wasn’t a threat.

‘Sorry! I didn’t realise … I didn’t know anybody had—’

‘You’re trespassing!’

He nodded. Technically, he was. Only up until a few seconds ago he hadn’t known anybody had cared—save a dead film star who’d loved this place as if it were her only child.

‘I made a promise to the previous owner, when she was ill, that I would look after the garden until the house was sold.’

She just stared at him. Now his heart rate was starting to return to normal, he had time to look a little more closely at her. She was dressed entirely in black: black boots, black trousers and a long black coat. She even had long, almost-black hair with a heavy fringe. But beneath that dark curtain her face was pale, her eyes large. Ben thought he’d seen beautiful women before, but this one was in another league altogether.

‘Well, the house has been sold,’ she said as her chin tipped up. ‘To me. So you can clear off now. You won’t be required any longer.’

He pressed his lips together. There wasn’t much he could say to that. But the thought of leaving Whitehaven and never coming back shadowed him like a rain cloud. Funny, he hadn’t realised that he’d grown so personally attached to the old place or how much he cared about its future. This new woman—striking as she was—didn’t look like the sort to potter around a greenhouse or dead-head flower borders.

But that really wasn’t his business. He picked up his coat from where it lay on the bench and turned to go. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I won’t come again.’ There was a door at each end of the long narrow greenhouse and he headed for the one at the other end from where she stood, the one that would lead him back into the woods and back down to his boat.

‘Wait!’

He’d almost reached the door before she called out. He stopped, but didn’t turn round straight away. Slowly, and with a spark of matching defiance in his eyes, he circled round to face her.

She took a few steps forward, then stopped, her hands clasped in front of her. ‘The estate agent told me the place has been empty for a couple of years. Why do you still come?’

He shrugged. ‘A promise is a promise.’

Her brows crinkled and she nodded. A long silence stretched between them. He didn’t move, because he had the oddest feeling she was on the verge of saying something. Finally, when she knotted her hands further and looked away, he took his signal to depart.

This time, he had his hand on the door knob before she spoke.

‘Did you really know her? Laura Hastings?’

He let his hand drop to his side and looked over his shoulder. ‘Yes.’ A flash of irritation shot through him. For some unfathomable reason, he’d not expected this of her. He’d thought her better than one of those busy-bodies who craved gossip about celebrities.

‘What was she like?’ Her voice was quiet, not gushing and over-inquisitive, but her question still irritated him.

He stared at her blankly. ‘I really must be going. I meant what I said. I won’t trespass here again.’

She followed him as he swung the greenhouse door open and stepped out into the chilly October air. He could hear the heels of her boots clopping on the iron grates in the greenhouse floor. The noise echoed and magnified and he let the door swing shut behind him to muffle it.

‘Hey! You’re going the wrong way!’

No, he wasn’t. And he wasn’t in the mood to chitchat, either.

She didn’t give up, though. Even though it must have been hell to stride after him in her high-heeled boots, she kept pace. Something to do with those long legs, probably.

Either the changeable riverside weather had turned milder, or he could feel the warmth of her anger radiating towards him as she closed the gap. He left the garden through an arched gate in the brick wall and started off on the path that took him back down the hill and to his boat.

‘I asked you to get off my land!’

He stopped and turned in one motion, and was surprised to find himself almost nose to nose with her. She just about matched his height at six foot two, but then she had the advantage of heels and was standing on a slope.

She stepped back but her eyes lost none of their ferocity.

He didn’t have time for mood swings and tantrums. He had more than he could handle of those from his ex at the moment. That was why coming to Whitehaven was such a good distraction on a Sunday afternoon. It soothed him.

He looked Miss High-and-Mighty right back in the eyes. ‘And I’m getting off your land as fast as I can.’ Even though he had a strange sense that she was the trespasser. She was the one spoiling the peace and quiet of this perfect spot.

Her lips pressed together in a pout. One that might have been quite appealing if he weren’t so angry with her for being here. ‘The road is that way.’ She jerked a thumb in the direction of the drive.

‘I know.’ He deliberately didn’t elaborate for a few seconds. Just because he was feeling unusually awkward, although, in the back of his mind, he knew she was bearing the brunt of his frustration with someone else. But the woman in front of him was cut from the same cloth—expensive designer cloth, by the look of it—and he just couldn’t seem to stem his reaction. He took a deep breath. ‘My boat is tied up down by the boathouse.’

He blinked, waiting for more of her frosty words.

‘I have a boathouse?’ Once again, the tide had changed and she was suddenly back to being wistful and dreamy and far too beautiful to be real. That just got his goat even more. When she spoke again she was staring off into the bare treetops above his head. ‘It’s real? It wasn’t just a film set?’

He shrugged and set off down the path and his features hardened as he heard her following him.

‘Now what? I’m going, okay?’ he called out, only half-turning to let the words drift over his shoulder.

‘I want to see my boathouse.’

Ben normally loved the walk back down the hill on an autumn afternoon, but today it was totally ruined for him. He couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the leaves ranging from pale yellow to deep crimson. He didn’t even stop to watch the trails of smoke snaking from the cottages of Lower Hadwell, just across the river. All he could hear were the footsteps behind him. All he could see—even though she was directly behind him and completely out of sight—was a pair of intense, dark eyes looking scornfully at him. It wasn’t a moment too soon when he spotted the uneven stone steps that led down to the jetty.

As he reached the top step he heard a loud gasp behind him. Instinctively, he turned and put out a hand to steady her. But she hadn’t stumbled; she hadn’t even registered his impulsive offer of help. She stood with her hands over her mouth and her eyes shining. Great. Now it was time for the waterworks. He was out of here.

As quickly as he could, he made his way to where his boat was tied and started untying the rope, busily ignoring her slow descent of all the steps behind him. Just as he was about to step off the jetty and into the dinghy his mobile phone chimed in his back pocket. He would have ignored it, but it was Megan’s ring tone. Something might have happened to their daughter.

And, since she was standing within reaching distance, not doing much but staring at the old stone boathouse, he slapped the end of the rope into the frosty woman’s hands and dug around in his jeans pocket for his phone.

‘Dad?’ Not Megan, but Jasmine.

‘What’s up, Jellybean?’

There was a snort on the other end of the line. ‘Do you have to keep calling me that? I’m almost twelve. It’s hardly dignified.’

Ben’s brows lowered over his eyes. Less than twenty-four hours out of his custody and she was already starting to sound like her mother. ‘What’s up, Jas?’

‘Mum says she can’t drop me off this evening. She’s got something on. Can you come and get me?’

Ben looked at his watch. Jasmine had been due back at five. It was past three now. ‘What time?’ Maybe it was just as well he’d had to leave Whitehaven early. It would take all of that time to cross the river, walk back to the cottage and drive the ten miles to Totnes.

He waited while his daughter had a muffled conference with her mother.

‘Mum says she has to be out by four.’

Ben found himself striding along the jetty in front of the boathouse. ‘I can’t do it, Jas.’ He kept walking while Jasmine relayed the information back to Megan. And when he reached the end of the jetty he turned and went back the way he’d come.

‘Mum says she wants to talk to you.’

There was a clattering while the phone changed hands. Ben steeled himself.

‘Ben? I can’t believe you’re being difficult about this! I know you’re still angry with me for moving on, but this kind of behaviour is just childish.’

He opened his mouth to explain there was nothing difficult about not doing the physically impossible, but Megan didn’t give him a chance.

‘Everything always has to be on your terms, doesn’t it?’ she said in that weary, self-righteous tone she seemed to have adopted recently. ‘You’d do just about anything to sabotage my new life, wouldn’t you? But I’m not coming back, Ben. I can’t.’

It had taken a while to get there, but Ben really didn’t want her back any more. Not that Megan was ever going to believe that. Her ego had puffed up far too much since she’d found her ‘freedom’ to allow that.

His voice was more of a growl than he’d intended when it emerged from his mouth. ‘I do hope you are not letting our daughter overhear this. She doesn’t need to witness any more arguments.’

Megan gave a heavy sigh. ‘That’s right. Change the subject, as always!’ Still, he got the distinct impression she had moved into the hallway as her voice suddenly got more echoey.

‘Megan, I’m at Whitehaven. This has nothing to do with sabotage and everything to do with being too far away to get there by four o’clock.’

He waited. He could almost see the pout on his ex’s face. And, as he found himself back by his boat, he noticed a similar expression on the woman standing there watching him. He abruptly turned again and carried on pacing. Not exactly the same expression. The lips were fuller, softer.

‘Fine! Well, if you’re not going to make the effort to come and get her, I’ll just have to take her with me. I’m having supper with … a friend. I’ll drop her back at eight.’

And with that, Megan ended the call. He was tempted to hurl his phone into the slate-grey waves. This is what that woman did to him—riled him up until he couldn’t think straight, until he was tempted to do foolish things. And he never did foolish things.

He jabbed at a button to lock the keypad then stuffed his phone back in his pocket. Then he marched back to his boat.

‘Thanks a lot for giving me some privacy,’ he said dryly as he got within a few feet of the glowering woman on the jetty.

She gave him what his grandmother had used to call an ‘old-fashioned look’ and waggled the end of the rope from side to side. Incredible! How did the woman manage to make a gesture sarcastic?

‘You didn’t give me much choice, did you?’ she said.

Ben ran his hands through his wind-tousled hair and made himself breathe out for a count of five. He had to remember that this wasn’t the woman he was angry with, not really. ‘Sorry.’

He’d expected the pout to make a reappearance, but instead her lips curved into the faintest of smiles. ‘Divorced?’

He nodded.

‘Me too,’ she said quietly. ‘Well, almost. That conversation gave me déjà vu. I bet I could fill in the blanks if I thought hard about it.’

Against his will, he gave half a smile back. ‘You’ve got kids?’

‘A boy,’ she said, her voice suddenly lower and huskier. When she caught him glancing up towards the house, eyebrows raised, she added, ‘he’s staying with his father while I move in down here.’ She turned away quickly and stood perfectly still, staring at the woods on the hillside for a few long seconds.

She turned back to him, a smile stretching her face. ‘What do you know about the history of the boathouse?’

He played along. The same smile had been part of his wardrobe in the last two years. Thankfully, he was resorting to it less and less often. ‘As far as I know, it was built long before the house. Some people say it’s sixteenth century. And, of course, it featured prominently in the film A Summer Affair, but you know that already.’

The defiant stare vanished altogether and she now just looked a little sheepish as she stared at the glossy seaweed washed up on the rocks nearby. ‘Busted,’ she said, looking at him from beneath her long fringe. ‘It was a favourite when I was younger and when I saw the details of the house, I knew I had to view it.’ She turned to look back at the two-storey brick and wood structure. ‘I didn’t realise this place was real. I suppose I thought it was just fibreglass and papier maché, or whatever they build those sets out of …’

‘It’s real enough. Take a look. But I ought to …’ Ben looked at the rope in his hand. ‘… get going.’

She nodded. ‘I’m going to explore.’

Ben stood for a few moments and watched her climb the steps up to a door on the upper level. It hadn’t been used for years. Laura hadn’t been steady enough on her feet to make the journey down the hill for quite some time before she died.

He climbed into the dinghy because it felt like a safe distance but carried on watching. The wooden floor could be beetle-infested, rotten. He’d just stay here a few moments to make sure the new owner didn’t go through it.

His hand hovered above the outboard motor. Any moment now, he’d be on his way. He readied his shoulder muscles and brushed his fingertips against the rubber pull on the end of the cord. He gripped the loosened rope lightly in his other hand.

The boathouse was on two levels. The bottom storey, level with the jetty, had large arched, panelled doors and had been used for storing small boats. The upper level was a single room with a balcony that stretched the width of the building. He was waiting for her to walk out onto it, spread her hands wide on the railing and lean forward to inhale the glorious salty, slightly seaweedy air. Her glossy, dark hair would swing forward and the wind would muss it gently.

A minute passed and she didn’t appear. He began to feel twitchy.

With a sigh, he climbed out of the boat and planted his boots on the solid concrete of the jetty. ‘Are you okay back there?’

No response. Just as he was readying his lungs to call again, she appeared back on the jetty and shrugged. ‘No key,’ she yelled back, looking unduly crestfallen.

All his alarm bells rang, told him to get the hell back in the boat and keep his nose out of it. Whitehaven wasn’t his responsibility any more. Only, the message obviously hadn’t travelled the length of his arm to his fingertips, because he suddenly found himself retying the boat and walking back up the jetty to the steep steps that climbed up to the boathouse door.

As he reached the bottom step, she turned and looked down at him, one hand on the metal railing, one hand bracing herself against the wall. Her thick hair swung forwards as she leaned towards him.

‘The door’s locked. Any ideas?’

With his fingernails, already dark-rimmed from the rich compost of the glasshouse plants, he scraped at a slightly protruding brick in the wall near the base of the stairs. At first, he thought he’d remembered it wrong, but after a couple of seconds the block of stone moved and came away in his hand. In the recess left behind, he could see the dull black glint of metal. Laura had told him about the secret nook, just in case.

He supposed he could have just told the woman about it, yelled the vital information from the safety of the dinghy. He needn’t get involved. Even now his lips remained closed and his mouth silent as he climbed the mossy stairs and pressed the key into the soft flesh of her palm.

There. Job done.

For a couple of seconds, they stayed like that. Then he pulled his hand away and rubbed it on the back of his jeans.

‘Thank you,’ she said, then shook her long fringe so it covered her eyes a little more.

She slid the key into the lock and turned it. He’d half-expected to door to fall off its hinges, but it swung in a graceful arc, opening wide and welcoming them in. Well, welcoming her in. But his curiosity got the better of him and he couldn’t resist getting a glimpse.

‘Wow.’

He’d expected shelves and oars and tins of varnish. Decades-old grime clung to the windows, and the filmy-grey light revealed a very different scene. A cane sofa and chairs huddled round a small Victorian fireplace, decorated with white and blue tiles, and a small desk and chair occupied a corner in front of one of the arched windows.

She walked over to the desk and touched it reverently, leaving four little smudges in the thick dust, then pulled her fingers back and gently blew the dirt off them with a sigh.

‘Did she come here often, do you know? Ms Hastings?’ she asked, still staring at the desk.

Why exactly he was still here, keeping guard like some sentry, he wasn’t sure. He should just go. He’d kept his promise to Laura. He wasn’t required. And yet … he couldn’t seem to make his feet move.

She turned to look at him and he shrugged. ‘Not when I knew her. She was too frail to manage the path down, but she talked of it fondly.’

She blinked and continued to stare at him, expressionless. He wasn’t normally the sort who had the urge to babble on, but most women he knew didn’t leave huge gaping gaps in the conversation. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked at the dust on the bare floorboards with the toe of his boot. Everything was too still.

‘Not really your sort of place, is it?’ he muttered, taking in the shabby furniture, the broken leg on the desk chair, held together with string. The place was nowhere near elegant enough to match her. This woman was used to the finer things in life. Finer than a dilapidated old boathouse like this, anyway.

Her chin rose just a notch. ‘What makes you think you know anything about what sort of woman I am?’

Just like that, the sadness that seemed to cloak her hardened into a shell. Now the room wasn’t still any more. Every molecule in the air danced and shimmered. She strode over to the large arched door in the centre of the opposite wall, unbolted it, threw the two door panels open and stepped out onto the wide balcony.