Page 103 of The Secret Holiday Kiss

Terror’s whine was pure pleasure when Avery fondled his ears.

Daisy grinned at Sophie and Harry, and her brother raised an eyebrow in a you are so gone for him expression, which was surely unnecessary because he’d been at the ball and had seen them together.

‘Right,’ Avery said after a moment, and gave Daisy a pleading look. Sophie rattled the treats jar and the dogs raced over to her, including Clifton who had been lying on the rug, the fire’s warmth more important than affection.

‘You were amazing.’ Daisy wrapped her arms around him.

‘I stroked a dog,’ Avery said with a laugh. ‘I’m not going to win any awards.’

‘It was a big step, don’t downplay it.’

‘OK, then. Does that mean I get extra pancakes?’

‘That’s not up to me.’

‘As many as you want,’ Sophie called. ‘I’ve made far too much batter.’

Breakfast was followed by presents in the living room, which was mostly looking like itself again, the sofas back in their rightful places, the extra chairs and tables returned to the village hall, a thousand paper snowflakes swept away. The swags of material were still up, and so was the model village, in pride of place beneath the windows.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ Daisy asked, as she handed Avery his wrapped present.

‘Mary and Winnie have asked to have it in the hotel,’ he said. ‘They think it could work in the foyer, but I don’t know if they’re just being nice, keeping me on side because I’m in charge of their house.’

‘But they’re paying you for that,’ May said, ‘so they have no reason to keep you sweet. It’s the quality, pure and simple. And gifting it to them is very generous.’

‘What about the sculptures?’ Sophie asked. ‘What’s happening with them? Are you going to sell them?’

‘No idea.’ Avery ran a hand through his hair. ‘I can’t imagine anyone would want to buy them, though. If they stay out all year, they’ll deteriorate pretty quickly, but I could spend some time weatherproofing them and see if they could have permanent locations, or they could stay in storage, ready for any future treasure hunts.’

‘The hare could come out for the Easter bunny hunt,’ Daisy suggested. ‘He’s a multipurpose animal.’

‘They could all be multipurpose,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s put it on the agenda for the next village meeting, and we can discuss what happens to them.’

‘Another village meeting?’ Daisy said. ‘Can’t wait.’

‘Hey.’ Harry folded his arms. ‘You’re going to have to get used to it now, Dais. You will be expected at all village meetings for the foreseeable future.’

‘Especially as people are going to have a lot to say about the bookshop reopening,’ Sophie said.

‘But Harry and I are doing that.’ Daisy frowned. ‘It’s our bookshop.’

‘If you think that,’ May said, ‘then you haven’t been paying proper attention since you’ve been here. You can make decisions, but you have to be prepared for almost everyone, Valerie and Frank included, to have very strong opinions about all of them.’

‘We’ll take it one step at a time,’ Harry said soothingly, and Daisy realized she must have looked like a rabbit caught in some very bright headlights.

‘Daisy is more than a match for Valerie.’ Avery put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. ‘She’s come up against serious fraudsters and won.’

Harry shook his head. ‘That doesn’t automatically make her a match for Valerie. It’s a lesson we’ve all had to learn over the years.’

In the run-up to lunch, they were joined by Fiona and Ermin, Jazz and Omari, Dexter, Imogen, Lucy, Birdie and Artichoke. The dining room had been set up for their Christmas feast, which included a roast turkey and a hunk of beef, a mushroom wellington made expertly by Dexter, all the trimmings including Brussels sprouts with hazelnuts, roasted potatoes with rosemary, and Sophie’s homemade Yorkshire puddings.

Daisy had contributed a delicate smoked salmon tart that she’d made the day before, still in a daze after the ball, Avery sitting at the kitchen table reading out the recipe and fending off Felix, who for some reason had been allowed in the manor on Christmas Eve. She hoped she’d got the measurements right.

As everyone took their seats around the table, chatting and passing serving dishes, pouring wine, dolloping cranberry sauce and mustard onto their plates, Daisy sat back and sipped her prosecco. Her Christmas meals with Stefan had always been elegant, usually two other couples joining them for lunch, Daisy spending hours on the table decorations and then the food. Here, everything was chaos. The conversation was anything but polite, the table decorations were holly sprigs and pine cones that Lucy and Imogen had spray-painted gold, and everyone had pitched in with the meal. And it was the best Christmas she’d had in years.

She tried not to think of all the ones she’d missed out on here, on how much attention she’d given her carefully managed life in favour of spending time with her brother, simply because she was afraid of the emotions she’d have to face when she came back to Mistingham. But she’d done it, and none of it had been as difficult as she’d thought. It was time to leave the past in the past. Instead she would focus on the future, and all that it held.

‘Want to go to the beach with me?’ she asked Avery, when everyone was moving back to the living room, groaning about how full they were while also hunting down the boxes of Quality Street.