Page 97 of The Secret Holiday Kiss

‘Hey,’ Dexter said with a laugh, ‘what about me?’

‘You’re Dad. That’s different.’

‘That’s very kind, Lucy,’ Harry said seriously. ‘You’re a very astute young woman.’

‘Of course she is.’ Sophie grinned. ‘Don’t remind him too often though, Luce, or his head won’t fit through the door.’

‘And it’s a big double door,’ May added.

Daisy sipped her tea and watched it all play out, the realization settling inside her that she had so much to look forward to. Messy kitchen meetings and walks along the coast path, Dexter’s bacon sandwiches and opening the bookshop again after all this time. A brand new, exciting project for her to get her teeth into, and not one that would be meaningful for someone else long after she’d left it behind, but one that was meaningful to her, and Harry, and everyone in Mistingham. One that she would always be a part of.

She wiped surreptitiously at her cheek, turning around to reorganize the bottles of red wine waiting on the counter, because Harry had bought a load in case the villagers weren’t as generous with the drinks as they had promised to be with the food.

‘OK?’ May asked, coming up beside her.

‘Sure.’ Daisy gave her a tentative smile. She didn’t know what Avery had told her, or where he’d been for the last couple of days. ‘You?’

‘I’m excited about the ball,’ May said. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job.’

‘We have. I was a small part of it.’

‘But the decoration.’ May shook her head. ‘It’s gorgeous. So festive and beautiful. So personal to Mistingham.’

‘Personal?’ Daisy frowned. She couldn’t think what May was referring to, anything that was particularly personal about what she’d done, unless the other woman had a thing for paper chains too.

‘Yes.’ May’s dark eyes twinkled. ‘I think everyone’s going to be blown away.’

‘That’s … great.’

‘I have to get home.’ She squeezed Daisy’s arm. ‘There’s not long to go and I have to remind myself how to put makeup on.’

‘Me too,’ Daisy said with a laugh, and gave herself a mental pat on the back for not asking May anything about her brother, or whether he was still planning on coming to her ball.

Slowly, everyone dispersed, heading to their homes or up to their rooms, to pamper themselves and get Christmas-ball-ready. It was one of the things Daisy loved about a fancy event: the chance to put on something special and make an effort, to spend some time on making herself look and feel good.

She took her cup of tea, checked the dogs had enough food and water, and went out into the hall. The air was crisp and sea-fresh after all the comings and goings, and Daisy breathed it in. She had time for a long bath, to start the new book she’d borrowed from Sophie – a romance about a woman stuck on a joint hen-and-stag do in Cyprus with the seriously hot bad boy she’d known since she was a teenager – and to empty her head of everything.

But May’s words came back to her, about how personal the decor was, and she wanted to work out what her friend had meant. She tiptoed down the corridor and pushed open the door into the ballroom. It was half past three, the sun was already sinking, and the Christmas tree lights were on, but the rest of the room was cast in that quiet, pre-dusk gloom that was somehow exciting and sinister all at once.

Except something else was glowing, besides the Christmas tree twinkles, and it was at the end of the room, in front of the windows, where Daisy had planned to have her beautiful centrepiece and then run out of time. But someone else hadn’t run out of time, someone who had access to phosphorescent paint, because the glow was little dashes of luminosity, of neon pink and green and yellow.

She tiptoed closer, her breath catching when she saw it was a model of Mistingham.

It was made out of wood, the shapes simple and polished: houses and the hotel and the village hall; a beautiful oak tree, its abstract branches slotted into grooves in the thick trunk. The detail had been added in paint – windows and flowers and a little yellow cat painted on the wall of a house. Daisy spotted the manor, set aside from the rest, and Felix was painted in pink, standing next to the front door. The oak tree had dots of luminous colour, representing the rainbow lights.

It was beautiful and charming, and she could hardly take it in. Then she noticed that, in the gaps between the wooden buildings, and inside the manor and the hotel, where the windows had been cut out rather than painted on, there were tiny bulbs. The sea was a single piece of wood, but it, too, had tiny holes in it, little perforations throughout, like a hundred pinhole cameras. She searched the table the model had been placed on, and eventually she found a switch.

The sun had fallen further now, she was in darkness save for the soft glow of the Christmas tree and the luminous details painted on the wood, and she held her breath as she flicked the switch, then gasped.

The tiny bulbs inside the buildings and beneath the wooden sea lit up like fireflies. It was her view of Mistingham from the loft: the one she’d shown Avery when they went up there together, when she had pointed out all the twinkling lights. He’d added the nighttime glow of fishing boats, or the reflection of the moon on the water. It was exactly what she’d told him she wanted, all those weeks ago when they were standing in this room, and she’d said, I want something … magical. Something for the whole of Mistingham to admire.

It was more magical than anything she’d imagined, and he must have been working on it ever since that day, alongside running the house construction, creating the sculptures for the treasure hunt, returning to Norwich every week to face the man threatening his livelihood. Alongside making her fall in love with him.

He had been doing all these thoughtful, touching, creative things. Running a project, looking after his team, protecting his neighbours, making her feel desired and wanted and happy, and he still thought he wasn’t good enough for her?

Daisy stared at the model of the village she had learnt to love again, with its glimmering nighttime lights and its Hound of the Baskervilles paint, and let the tears fall silently, far away from anyone else. Because, as well as finding her home here, falling back in love with the seaside village she’d grown up in, she’d found Avery. She’d followed the sound of her favourite, cheesy song, and she’d discovered a man who was so much more than he appeared to begin with – and he had been pretty incredible in that first moment – and she was not going to let him go. Not now. Not ever.

She wanted to make a home here, rebuild her life and create something worthwhile with the bookshop, to carry on the legacy her father had left, to start a new chapter, and be another Anderly who settled in Mistingham. But she also wanted Avery, for tonight, for Christmas – for ever, if he’d let her. And she hoped, considering what he’d done for her, what he’d created for the ball, despite thinking that she was returning to London and ending their relationship before it got too difficult, that he still wanted her too.