Angie looked scandalized. “None at all?”
“Not one bauble.”
Angie narrowed her eyes. “I can’t call you Scrooge, because you’re far too generous and compassionate.”
“One of my brothers calls me the Grinch.”
“No way. The Grinch was just as bad as Scrooge. Except green.” Angie contemplated a twenty-piece set of festive cookiecutters. “How’s Mattie managing with the new role? I know it’s a new adventure, but she’ll have taken her old baggage with her.”
“Holding it together, from what I can tell.” Nell shrugged. “It’s easy to put on a front when you’re chatting on a video call. And Mattie is expert at it.”
Angie frowned. “I’m trying desperately hard not to pry, but I’m worried about you, Nell. You haven’t been your usual self for the last week or two.”
“My usual self or the self I’ve become since I met Mattie?”
“Both.”
Angie had a point. Everything had been going around and around Nell’s head, and it had become distracting. She poked at a Frosty the Snowman exhibit. It was more fragile than it looked. She knew the feeling. “This long-distance thing? It’s not easy.” She fixed her gaze on the gold tinsel. “The Christmas Shop at the Garden Centre is hardly the place for a heart-to-heart.”
“I disagree. It’s so much easier to talk honestly while doing something else. Even easier if you can’t look at each other,” said Angie. “Rosie came out to me while I was driving up the M5. It’s a good job I’d already guessed, otherwise I might’ve crashed.”
“That’s so Rosie.” Nell’s laugh fell away. “Everything between me and Mattie feels so vague. We might do this, we might do that. I’m in limbo the whole time.” God, sharing feelings like this was so difficult. She turned away from Angie’s sympathetic look and back to the tinsel. “I’ve fallen so hard for her, but she’s…I don’t know, holding me at arm’s length. I get the idea I’m way more invested than she is. And it would be so easy for her to meet someone else.”
Angie ran her fingertips over the tinsel. “Is that what’s scaring you?”
“Among other things. She’s confident, expansive, and gregarious. All the things I’m not.” Nell’s vision went a littleblurry. “I don’t know what to do with myself when she’s not around, which is most of the time.”
“I know you like your own company, but sometimes I think you’re lonely, which is very different from being alone,” said Angie.
“It wasn’t a problem before I met Mattie.” Nell plucked at the tinsel. Bits of gold foil stuck to her sweaty fingertips. “I thought of joining a walking club, but most people want to chat the whole way, and they’ll either walk too slowly or tackle it like it’s a military campaign.”
Angie rescued the tinsel garland before Nell could pull it to shreds. “There’s always that book club Rosie mentioned.”
“I’ll think about it.” She really might too. “Are you all packed for your holiday?”
Angie and Graham closed the B&B for two weeks every December to go on their own holiday. This year, it was a break in the Caribbean, starting in Antigua and moving on to the British Virgin Islands. Had Mattie been there? It would go top of their list if she hadn’t.
“Packed, yes, but Christmas present-buying is nowhere near finished.” She grimaced. “That means I’ll have to fight the hordes in the shops when we get back.”
They walked to the end of the aisle and braved the next one. A larger-than-life inflatable Santa Claus wobbled on his voluminous backside. “Why can’t a garden centre just sell garden stuff? Plants, and seeds, and lawnmowers,” she said in mock grumpiness. She peered at the label on what she thought was a tablecloth but turned out to be luxury polyester curtains with a festive fireside theme. But the crowning glory was the Christmas festive toilet lid. She laughed. “What fresh hell is this?” Possibly she asked too loudly because a garden centre employee wearing a red and green elf’s hat looked at her with disdain.
Angie tucked her hand into Nell’s elbow. “Come on, let’s get some hot chocolate and cake from the cafe before you turn into the Grinch after all.”
Nell refused to buy anything remotely Christmas-related until Mattie had given her answer. Instead, she bought two dozen tulip bulbs, all of which she ought to plant as soon as possible, so they could establish roots before the first frost of winter. The borders at the top end of the garden would be the ideal place for them.
However, the box of bulbs sat by the back door until the following weekend, when the rain finally let up. She wrapped up in her old, padded coat and a beanie. Most likely, she’d be shedding a layer or two once she’d warmed up from digging. She stabbed the spade into the ground and used her booted foot to push the metal down. The earth was thick and heavy with clay, and it clung to the blade of the spade. She added some home-grown compost and sand into the border to help drainage. Then she planted the bulbs, taking care to make sure their pointed side faced upwards.
“There you go. You can sleep until spring,” she said, when she’d finished covering them up with soil. And then she rolled her eyes. She’d started speaking to herselfandto inanimate objects.That’s what lonely people do. She jammed her hands into her coat pockets. Planting bulbs hadn’t taken long. Not long enough, if she was honest. There were still plenty of daylight hours left. She glanced over the fence at Cove House. Angie and Graham had flown to Antigua a couple of days ago, otherwise she would’ve suggested a walk.
Nell’s phone vibrated in her pocket. Mattie? She was still in Norway, but it was possible she’d have an answer about Christmas. Nell opened the notification and scowled at the reminder for her next dental appointment. She shoved the phone back into her pocket and glowered at the garden. Whatother jobs could she do? There was a lot of preparation work to do if she wanted to have a good crop of vegetables next summer. So far, she’d cleared the weeds and the remains of last season’s crops from the vegetable plot at the bottom of her garden. Next was the process of digging over the cloying soil and mixing in compost. Now was as good a time as any.
She speared the spade into the ground and turned over the soil. Dig, turn, dig, turn, until her arms, legs, and back ached. She leaned on the spade’s handle and, out of habit, glanced over the fence at Angie’s house. She narrowed her eyes to focus when she thought she saw something moving.What’s that?She abandoned the spade and stepped closer to the fence to get a better view into Angie’s kitchen. Someonewasin there. No, it was two people. Nell was too far away to see specific features, but their bodies were silhouetted through the reflective glare of the glass. Burglars? Or had Angie and Graham cut their holiday short? Just as Nell reached for her phone, one of the shadowy figures waved at her. Then the kitchen door flew open and Rosie emerged, along with another woman of a similar age and height.
“It’s only me!” Rosie shouted. “Mum said I could borrow the air fryer.”
“Another minute and I would’ve been on the phone to my colleagues reporting a suspected burglary in progress.”
Rosie giggled. “Sorry!”
