Love At Christmas, Actually: The Little Christmas Kitchen / Driving Home for Christmas / Winter's Fairytale. Jenny Oliver

in the darkness, holding her close, so that his mouth was against her ear, gently telling her things that were too good to be true.

       ‘We could get a little place – I’ve got some money – you could put off uni for a year. We could work, save, raise this kid…together. I’ll do that. I’ll raise it as mine. We can keep our lives here. Your family would come around eventually. We could do it, we could!’

       Some days she felt Luke was so much younger than she was, still believing in the goodness and kindness of people. Thinking her parents would change their mind. The way they had looked at her that evening, like there was nothing more disgusting on earth. They looked at her like she was a murderer- she had murdered their Megan, the one that they had loved and adored, and she should be punished. And she couldn’t punish Luke too. She couldn’t stay. If she stayed, she’d always be that Megan, that failure. God, all those years of being their little princess, with her lessons and her extra classes and being exhausted all the time. All for nothing. She wasn’t sure who she pitied more, her or them. Or Lucas. Beautiful Lucas, who loved her and wanted to look after her, because he knew, just like the rest of them, that she couldn’t do it alone.

       ‘That sounds wonderful.’ She cried into his shoulder in relief, soaking up those moments with his arms around her, surrounded by the smell and feel of him. His lips resting against her neck, his fingers stroking patterns on her back. She just lay there for hours, as the seconds ticked into Christmas day, memorising the sound of his sleep and the feel of his skin, until she knew exactly what she had to do.

       The next morning he awoke to an empty bed and a note on his pillow:

       Merry Christmas. I love you. Goodbye.

      ***

      ‘And that was “Matter to Me”, one of my personal favourites of our back catalogue.’ His voice filtered out through the open door. Lucas was showing off now, and as Megan huffed outside, pacing back and forth, unable to either leave nor stay, she had to admit he was doing it with style.

      Her life was in his lyrics. Every movement, every in-joke, every heartbreak had been used to create something beautiful. And she couldn’t blame him at all.

      She stood shivering outside the pub, wishing she had a cigarette, just so she looked like she was there for a reason. She should walk up the hill. She should go back to her parents’ and read Skye a story, and avoid Lucas Bright until she could leave. A chill ran down Megan’s spine, and she pulled her scarf closer around her neck, looking out into the village. It was beautiful, she had to give it that. The little fountain in the centre, the cathedral in the distance. The cobblestones outside the Nag’s Head, that she had drunkenly tripped over so many times as a teenager. She felt a soft coldness on her cheeks and looked up. Of course, it was snowing. Trying to get up the bloody hill now was going to be dangerous, if not impossible.. Unless she left right away. She looked back through the door with longing, but the band had long since stopped playing, and a barrage of top twenty hits was blaring from the speakers, breaking the magic. She pulled her coat closer around her, and nodded to herself. She was going to leave. She was going to walk up the hill before she got stuck. And she was going to hide from Lucas. That was the only way.

      ‘Hey stranger,’ a voice said casually from behind her.

      Oh shit.

      She turned, and there he was, leaning on a doorframe and lighting up a cigarette like he was seventeen again. Except the smart coat and the reindeer scarf sang more of parental responsibility than life on the road. You knew this would happen, her brain taunted, you wanted him to find you.

      ‘Hey…you,’ Megan’s voice seemed to have disappeared into the cold, and she wrinkled her nose to dislodge a snowflake that had settled.

      ‘Going to have to check which one of us in the village won the bet about which year you’d come home. I put my money on 2010, so I’ve lost either way. But Frank in the butcher’s and Marco at Vittorio might still be in with a chance.’

      Lucas had always been good at cool. When Fliss the Blockbuster girl had dumped him after two weeks of snogging and not much else, he’d written “A girl with tattoos got my heart like a needle”, and performed it in the video store. It got a lot of hits on Myspace and he left with a newly-made groupie on each arm.

      ‘Well, I’m sorry you lost out,’ Megan shrugged, stamping to keep warm. What was there to say? I’m sorry I left you? I’m sorry I lied? I’m sorry I hurt you but it was the best decision of my life?

      ‘In more ways than one,’ Lucas said simply, his brow furrowed, eyes dark in the dim lighting of the pub garden. Megan reached into her pockets for her gloves, pulled them onto her shaking, numb hands with effort.

      ‘Well, I’d better be going. I liked your set.’

      ‘Any of it sound familiar?’

      ‘You always stole from real life.’ She smiled softly, looking for a chink in the armour. His face was impassive, eyes darker than they used to be. ‘I’m sorry, inspired by real life to create illusion,’ she corrected.

      ‘If the feeling is real, then the story is too,’ Lucas nodded, remembering some ancient mantra he must have said once to her, a lifetime ago. It sounded like him.

      ‘It was good to see you, I’ve got to go–’ she started off the path, trying to get away before he could ask her.

      ‘Megan,’ he said. ‘Why did you go?’

      She turned, shivering, the cold and the snow, and those last mystical chords of each song that reverberated through her history with this man seemed to cut her to the core.

      ‘Because there was no point dragging you down with me,’ Megan said simply, arms wide, waiting for him to argue or shout or shrug and leave her standing there. Why had he offered? Why had he wanted to save her? Why did she have to be the bad one?

      ‘Do you regret anything?’

      Yes, she was wanted to scream. Yes, I should have stayed with you, and my parents would have softened and I wouldn’t have this chronic twinge in my chest when I think of you, or this ache now that you’re really here, staring at me like I let you down. And then Megan thought of Anna, of Jeremy. Of singing in the kitchen on Sunday mornings, of Pulp Fiction dance-offs, of Christmas decorations and Special Sangria, and the old biddies who showered her baby with presents and cookies and kindness. She couldn’t regret anything.

      ‘She’s the best thing that ever happened to me,’ Megan shrugged, and trudged up the hill, leaving him to watch her go. Which was more than she’d offered him before.

       Chapter Five

      ‘Okay, so give me a list of suspects.’ Skye sat on the kitchen counter, taking out her notebook, whilst Heather searched for a missing pack of biscuits.

      ‘Suspects?’

      ‘Yes,’ Skye said seriously, ‘so I can start my investigation.’

      Megan entered the room and ruffled Skye’s hair. ‘Skye McAllister and the case of the missing bourbons? Doesn’t really do you justice, hun.’

      Skye rolled her eyes, and jumped down from the side. ‘So what are we doing today?’

      Megan got herself a mug from the cupboard and poured herself a coffee, taking a moment to savour the good stuff her dad always insisted on buying from the farmers’ market. It was imported from South America, and it made him feel good thinking the money was going straight to Mr and Mrs Hernandez, or whoever owned the land, which probably wasn’t true at all. It tasted excellent though. She shook her head and focused on her daughter.

      ‘You were never this demanding, why can’t you just read a book?’ Megan shrugged.

      ‘Because there’s important work to be done,’