Page 62

As Élisabeth and Felix were leaving with Judith and Lisa, Élisabeth paused next to Wanderer’s fish tank, her fingers reaching to the glass. ‘Lonely fish. Fish needs un amour.’

‘Right,’ said Noémi, wondering when her mum had changed her stance on company. She’d once said Wanderer had too short a memory to feel loneliness, and in that way, the fish was blessed. ‘I’ll add it to my SOB list.’

If Noémi had thought Shay’s arrival on the street had caused a challenge, he had nothing on her mum. Now Noémi was juggling Christmas Eve extravaganzas, festive outfits, and an imminent fish tank upgrade. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be tasked with turning Barbara’s clan of badgers into the three wise men.

Though as her mum whispered, ‘Good luck’ and ‘I love you’ to her in French, even though it sounded a bit like she’d got her name wrong, it gave Noémi the courage to whisper a question back. The answer had been affirmative, and that much she was taking as a sign. She would get Daniel to help tomorrow, because once you’d decided something scary, there was no point leaving time to chicken out.

It didn’t take long for the shop to clear, happy customers laden with bags of books. Noémi had collected more email addresses to keep people updated with the new events she had somehow promised, which would surely all add towards saving her bookshop and the roofs over their heads. She felt genuinely excited to get going, though her introverted soul was now ready to find the fluffiest blanket and sit quietly with a book.

Once she’d hugged and thanked Daniel and Tommaso and secured their help for the next morning’s discreet mission, there was only one person hanging back.

‘I did pay for this,’ Shay said, holding up his festive novel from earlier. ‘It’s fantastic. In fact, I’ll buy more from you to send to my sisters for Christmas.’

‘Oh? You’re not going back to Ireland yourself?’

‘Who knows where the wind will take me?’

Did he actually just do an Irish jig? He liked to insert humour where a straight answer would have been preferrable.

‘Are your sisters into armchair adventures?’

‘If you settle down and have a football team of kids, perhaps you say goodbye to real-life adventures for a while.’

Noémi’s forehead scrunched. ‘Or maybe their family is a whole new kind of adventure? I mean, kids have great little imaginations.’ She lowered her voice, in case books had ears. ‘And let’s face it, their stories are often better than ours.’

‘You’re never too old to be young, as Snow White’s dwarves would sing,’ he whispered back, tipping his elf hat in farewell.

She found herself grinning again, which was becoming a constant in this curious man’s presence.

‘I can’t tempt you to sit and read another chapter?’ she heard herself ask. She usually read alone, but if he could sit still for long enough to stop his hat from tinkling, she supposed it might be nice to have company. ‘Or to wait for the next batch of cookies, seeing as you dodged my last one?’

‘There’s no way a woman should get everything on a first date.’ His lips twitched into a smile as he repeated her faux pas from earlier. ‘And if I start tasting your baked deliciousness, where would temptation end?’

And then with the quickest brush of his lips against her cheek, he was gone, leaving her cupping a hand to her face and wondering if she’d just imagined it. Yet the tingle that seemed to radiate from her face right down to her toes told her it had very much been real.

Chapter 34

16 days until Christmas

Was it normal to go to sleep thinking about someone and to still be contemplating them in the morning? Did that mean she’d been dreaming about Shay and his funny elf tights all night? If nothing else, his marketing 101 tip about grabbing attention was working on her. She hadn’t even thought to check in with Fantasy Man the evening before.

After having spent nearly a full day with Shay, snowshoeing around hills in weird outfits, having him there while she was baking and hosting, and even encouraging him to read – even if he wouldn’t sit still – had left her feeling strangely addicted. Like the lure of a seasonal cookie, Shay Cassidy was moreish.

Which was exactly why she’d decided against asking him to help with this morning’s plan, involving three ladders and something that was hidden under a dust sheet. As much as she might be enjoying his company, he wasn’t sticking around. Although a wayward part of her wanted to gobble him up like a pack of mince pies, her sensible self knew that just as Shay had warned – where would temptation end?

‘Much safer not to nibble,’ she concluded, in the most encouraging voice she could muster. ‘Absolutely no nibbling.’

She had a bookshop to save and no time to be filling her boots with flighty men.

‘I’d totally nibble that,’ said Daniel to Tommaso as they came out of Ham’s Hardware, tasked with borrowing ladders for Noémi’s mission – which she hoped could be dealt with swiftly and discreetly, before she got too anxious and changed her mind.

‘Same,’ said Tommaso, with a low whistle. ‘Though my gaydar tells me he’s not for turning.’

‘Mr Ham?’ Noémi asked, as she huddled with Felix outside the bookshop, trying to keep warm. The snow was still unusually thick on the hill, though it had stopped falling for now and the roads and pavements were clear.

The hardware shop owner was at least a generation older, and sort of pinkish and ham-like. Not Daniel’s usual type of hunk.

‘No, the nephew.’