A knock on the door distracted her from her staple retrieval and, brushing glitter from her festively red skirt, Holly headed through to the hall to answer it, pausing only briefly to enjoy the fairy lights in the green garland on the stairs, and the tiny red felt stockings hanging from it in lieu of berries. She didn’t need a husband to have a perfectly decorated Christmas, anyway. It might not be minimalist, or magazine-worthy Scandi style, but her decorations were definitely unique. And all hers.
It was, of course, the postman. Holly couldn’t remember the last time anyone other than her parents and the postman had knocked on her door. And since her parents were currently cruising their way around the Caribbean, that only left one option. And as the postman was kind of hot, in a broad, dark and brooding way, she didn’t mind nearly as much as she might otherwise have done.
‘Another parcel for you, Miss Starr.’ The postman gave her a warm smile, so at odds with the slight shadows Holly always saw in his eyes. Maybe she was imagining them. Sebastian had always said she made up stories, imagined things that weren’t there. Like him being in love with her.
Except he’d proposed. She hadn’t imagined that. He’d just changed his mind, four months later.
‘Thanks.’ She took the parcel from his hands and tried not to blush. Not because he was gorgeous, but because he’d been lugging at least one parcel a day to her front door for over a month now. He probably thought she was ordering them just to give her an excuse to see him. Mind you, she could think of worse reasons. Like, I’m trying to craft the perfect Christmas to avoid thinking about how alone I am. Yeah, she really didn’t want to share that one with the postman. Although if he got a glimpse of more than her hallway, there’d be no hiding it. ‘And please. It’s Holly.’
‘Holly,’ he repeated, and her name didn’t sound spiky and prickly in his mouth. It sounded warm and soft. She liked it that way. ‘I’m Jack.’
Jack. A good, strong, reliable name. And he was very reliable – as a postman. Which suited Holly perfectly. An attractive man she could admire daily as he reliably delivered her craft supplies and Christmas decorations, without her ever needing to risk anything beyond a little doorstep flirting. No disappointment, no heartbreak. Just a gentle flirtation.
Perfect.
‘Hi, Jack.’ Holly even risked a small smile. He’d certainly earned it. Especially after last week’s order of air drying clay. She’d only meant to order five small packets, but somehow ended up with five packs of twenty. They had been heavy.
Of course, now she had no idea what to say next. They’d exchanged names, she’d got her parcel … what next? Did she just shut the door? Say, see you tomorrow? Make a flirty little joke? She’d never been good at this. Oh, good grief, she couldn’t even manage a tiny bit of flirting with the postman. What hope was there for her ever getting back out there on the dating scene? None, that’s what. Maybe she could craft herself a boyfriend out of air drying clay and felt.
‘I like your lights, by the way,’ he said, and she blinked at him in confusion until he waved a hand towards her bedroom window. Right. The icicles. She’d been a little uncertain about putting them up – no one else on Maple Drive seemed to have any – but she’d always had Christmas lights. Lots of them. The icicles felt like a compromise – a tiny, token demonstration of her love of all things festive.
‘Um, thanks.’ Now what? Did she compliment him on his postbag? What would a normal, non-craft crazy loner, do? Holly could do normal, she was almost certain. Look at the icicles!
The awkward moment stretched out between them, as Holly tried to figure out how to break eye contact. Until a sudden crash in the kitchen startled her into spinning around.
‘What on earth …?’ Leaving the door open, Holly dashed towards the kitchen. Maybe Perdita had found that blasted staple already. Except she hadn’t heard a yowl. Perdita had a very distinctive yowl …
‘Careful,’ Jack said sharply, and when she glanced back Holly realised he’d followed her in. His post bag was slung over his back, and his fists were up, as if he were spoiling for a fight. ‘It could be a—’ They reached the kitchen, and stared at the unlikely sight before them. ‘Dog?’ Jack finished.
‘Dog,’ Holly agreed. Not just any dog. A compact, bat-eared dog that was sprawled on her kitchen floor, looking up at her with very sad and sorry eyes. The bulk of his body was white, but those oversized ears, the patches over his eyes and one or two spots over his back were black. ‘He must have wriggled through the cat flap.’
‘Tight squeeze,’ Jack commented, eyeing the dog, then the cat flap. ‘Especially with those shoulders. And that stomach.’
‘And the ears …’ They stood straight up, adding a good couple of inches to the dog’s height, lined in a pale, velvety pink. ‘What sort of dog is he, do you think?’ With his wrinkled face, non-existent tail, and powerful legs, he looked like no dog Holly had ever seen before. Except, now that she thought about it … didn’t the house across the road have some sort of dog? She’d never really paid much attention. She was, after all, a firmly declared cat person. Still, she was sure she’d seen the husband or the daughter walking a smallish dog from her front window, from time to time. She’d just never studied the details. Like the ears …
‘French Bulldog, I think.’ Jack crouched down in front of the creature, who was returning Holly’s stare with equal bafflement. ‘Hang on. He’s wearing a collar. Hey there, boy.’ That last was to the dog, Holly assumed, as Jack reached out, slowly, cautiously, and lifted the tag hanging from the animal’s collar. ‘Claude, apparently. What a name.’
‘Claude,’ Holly repeated. ‘He doesn’t look like a Claude.’
‘He looks like a thug,’ Jack agreed. ‘Except for the ears.’
‘And the eyes.’ Holly frowned a little as she looked closer. ‘His eyes are … gentle. And a bit sad.’ With almost the same shadows she saw in Jack’s actually. The poor creature seemed to vibrate with a sense of misery. Of loneliness.
Holly could sympathise with that. Maybe she could crochet Claude a Christmas hat, or something.
‘Is there an address? Or a phone number?’ she asked, shaking off the strange connection with the dog.
‘The McCawleys, at number 11.’ Jack let the tag fall and stood up. ‘So, just across the road. I think they’re out though. Do you have a number for them?’
Holly shook her head. She didn’t have numbers for any of her neighbours, now she thought about it. Really, they were right there, next door. That was sort of the point of them. Why would she need their phone numbers?
Besides, when she’d moved in with Sebastian, shortly after they’d decided to ‘merge their lives’ as he put it, she’d been too loved up and deep in their new engagement to worry about other people. There’d been decorating to do, and wedding planning, and dreaming about her future and … and she wasn’t thinking about Sebastian. Not at all.
Even if tomorrow was supposed to be her wedding day.
No. Back to the dog.
‘I guess we could put a note through their door??
?? Holly said. What was the proper etiquette for dealing with house-breaking dogs, anyway?
‘As long as they’re not away over Christmas.’ Jack straightened up and stood, leaving Claude staring up at him pleadingly.
‘Do you think he’s hungry?’ That might explain the oversized eyes. He looked like a creature in a Disney movie. ‘Do French Bulldogs like cat food, do you think? It’s all I have.’
Jack shrugged. ‘It’s worth a try. I get the feeling this guy might eat anything you put in front of him.’
Holly got that idea too, although she couldn’t imagine where from. It wasn’t like she was a dog whisperer, or anything. In her experience, animals had as much a mind of their own as humans. And God knew she’d never had much luck getting her own species to do what she wanted.
Still, she dug out a spare food bowl from Perdita’s cupboard and tipped some dry food into it, laying it on the floor in front of Claude. Then, as an afterthought, she added a bowl of water. When she stepped back she realised that not only was the postman still standing in her kitchen, he was also surveying her kitchen table. Or, at least, what used to be her kitchen table. These days it was more like Christmas Craft Central.
‘You’ve been busy,’ he observed, reaching out to touch a string of red, gold and green bunting lying across the end of the table. The fabric shifted slightly, pulling the strings buried under the rest of the stuff on the table. Holly held her breath, waiting to see if the tower of decorations, the tangle of fairy lights or the cooling racks laden with the pieces of her gingerbread house, waiting to be assembled, would topple over at his touch. Thankfully they didn’t. That was all she needed – to bury the postman in biscuits and sequins in her kitchen. ‘Is this what’s in all the parcels, then? Craft stuff?’