Christmas Magic. Cathy Kelly

and Felicity had downed her own glass quickly.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘just needed a little pick-me-up.’

      True to form, Leo didn’t notice Michel at all, just smiled at Ryan and pulled Felicity into his arms for a hug.

      ‘You look pretty gorgeous, my dear,’ he said, charming as ever. ‘I had no idea red suited you so much.’

      Felicity recovered more quickly this time. Leo had seen a man beside her and had instantly ruled out the thought that said man could be with her. She pulled out of his embrace and introduced Michel.

      ‘Michel, my ex-husband,’ she said, putting a hand on Michel’s arm. ‘Leo, meet Michel. Michel was kind enough to drive us up – you know how I hate long drives. We’re staying in the hotel across the road. I couldn’t get a double here.’

      Leo didn’t gasp. His eyes narrowed as he took in the other man, a man who was taller, wore a very elegant Italian suit and was plainly sleeping with his ex-wife.

      ‘You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone,’ he said.

      Felicity ran through the answers at high speed in her mind.

      She settled on: ‘No, I didn’t. Is Sonya here? I’d like to meet her. As I’ve said a million times to everyone, we should all be grown up about this.’

      ‘Sonya’s not here,’ snapped Leo.

      ‘Mum did say you should bring her,’ Ryan pointed out.

      At this moment, Michel chose to murmur to Felicity that perhaps she needed some privacy with Leo.

      ‘No, darling,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s all fine. Let’s find Mel and her boyfriend. I’ll see you later, Leo.’

      As she swept off, she could see Ryan put his arms around his father and say it was lovely to see him. There was no doubt about who was the more mature, she thought.

      She and Michel came upon Mel at the bar, holding out for a pint of beer for Shane, who was, Mel had explained, not a champagne man.

      ‘You look beautiful, darling,’ Felicity said with a tremor in her voice. She wasn’t sure if she was able for any more. If Mel got upset, Felicity vowed that she’d leave.

      And at that instant, Michel said the best thing he could ever have uttered: ‘So this is the beautiful, clever daughter I have heard so much about?’

      He was a quick study, Felicity realised.

      Mel beamed.

      ‘I drove your mother up here,’ Michel went on.

      There was no mention of four-poster beds and what they’d already done in one. He understood totally.

      ‘Hi, Michel,’ said Mel. ‘This is Shane.’

      ‘You are good at computers, I believe?’ said Michel.

      Nobody was happier than Mel to be discussing how marvellous Shane was.

      After the happy couple had been welcomed and the buffet was over, Mel sought her mother out again and pulled her to one side. Mel’s face was worried.

      ‘Dad says Michel is your date.’

      ‘I suppose he is,’ said Felicity, feeling a touch of Judas Iscariot as she cast off Michel so easily. ‘I would have loved to have met Sonya,’ she added. ‘Ryan says she’s lovely. The eight of us should go out one night to dinner: all the Morgans, Shane, Sonya, whoever Ryan wants to bring and Michel. It would be lovely.’

      She held her breath then and waited. It felt like such a long wait. Mel could see her father sitting at a table of much younger guests – flirting with the women, if the wild laughter was anything to go by.

      ‘I suppose that would be nice,’ Mel said slowly. ‘But you’re a Barnes now, you’ve gone back to your maiden name.’

      ‘Oh, pet, I’ll always be a Morgan when it comes to you,’ Felicity said. ‘I’m your mum, nothing will ever change that.’

      After the buffet, tables were pulled back for dancing. Michel and Felicity stood to one side and watched it all, apart and yet part of it.

      ‘Thank you,’ whispered Felicity, breathing in the scent of his aftershave. Eau Sauvage. She loved it.

      ‘I have children myself and am divorced,’ he murmured. ‘Of course I understand. Shall we dance just once?’

      Felicity could see her former mother-in-law in the distance. She’d gone to offer her congratulations but hadn’t brought Michel in case Nanna Morgan said something rude.

      ‘Yes,’ Felicity said.

      The band struck up the ‘Anniversary Waltz’ and the happy couple danced for a moment, then the band summoned all the guests up. Felicity held Michel’s hand and they joined the throng on the dance floor. Michel danced very well, much better than Leo. For the first time since she’d entered the party, Felicity allowed herself to relax.

      She could see Leo staring at her glumly from the bar, could see Ryan happily chatting to a girl near the door, and on the dance floor, Shane and Mel were locked together. Nanna Morgan was now being twirled by Leslie, who was waving at Leo to join them. Rather like a sulky child being asked to join a party, Leo ambled over and soon he, his mother and sister were linking arms and dancing, while his father sat down to catch his breath.

      Mel was going to be fine and the Morgans could look after themselves. Felicity allowed the music to flow over her and laid her head on Michel’s shoulder. They’d go back to their lovely hotel in a little while, but for now, it was marvellous to simply be herself.

       Madame Lucia

      Stanley Maguire hadn’t planned on renting out the upstairs office. A large, L-shaped room on the floor above Maguire’s Travel, the office had just been vacated and Stanley had finally decided that the time had come to extend his travel agency empire on to the second floor. The architect had already drawn up the plans and Stanley could see himself in a spacious room overlooking Main Street, with cool green walls and a couple of cream leather couches perhaps, for valued customers to sit on. It was time to make a statement about the success of Maguire’s Travel.

      And then the woman had come into the travel agency and asked him, in a quiet but somehow steely way, if she could rent the office out for a couple of weeks. Stanley had meant to say no. He’d done his best, in fact, but the words wouldn’t come. There was something about her smiling round face and those warm brown eyes that made him lose the run of himself. No had become yes.

      ‘No bother at all, Sister,’ he’d said, because she had a look of a nun about her with her tidy grey hair and the sober navy suit. Sure, what harm would it be to have a nun in the place while he was away on holiday? He even heard himself offering to send the office cleaner up to dust and vacuum.

      ‘Thank you, Stanley,’ the brown-eyed woman said, clasping his hand. ‘You’re a kind man: I can tell.’

      Stanley beamed like a schoolboy even though it was at least thirty years since he’d graced a schoolyard. It was only when she was gone that he realised that she hadn’t told him her name or what she wanted the office for.

      The girls in Maguire’s Travel were fascinated when the small card went up above the doorbell for the upstairs office.

       Madame Lucia: fortune teller

      ‘I thought Himself was going to turn it into a posh office,’ said Carmel, who’d worked in Maguire’s longer than anyone else and who’d had it up to the tonsils with men and their empires. ‘Wait till he comes back from his holidays and sees this! I suppose she’ll be some flamboyant type who’ll stick exotic lights in the window and have a stream of lunatics dropping in and out.’

      But there was no stream of lunatics. There was only the neatly dressed