Not Just for Christmas: The perfect Christmas short romance. Alex Brown

happy, and follow your dreams.

       Ed xxx

       Chapter One

       Present day

      Kitty Clarke loved this part of her day. The quiet and calm before the impending bustle as soon as she flipped over the ‘Closed’ sign on the door of her Spotted Pig Café on the corner of Tindledale High Street. Not that she didn’t adore her customers and the vibrant mêlée they brought in with them – chatting and musing over the latest goings-on in the village. She absolutely did, and was eternally grateful to have such a thriving business. But it was nice sometimes just to potter around the kitchen on her own, baking and creating and doing what she loved best of all, the warm air around all cosy and cocoon-like and deliciously infused with the scent of cinnamon and orange peel from her individual panettone bread puddings. A whole batch of them baking in the oven, ready for her customers to devour before lunchtime, no doubt. They couldn’t get enough of the comforting fruit bread, smothered in seasonal rum custard and perfect for getting everyone in the Christmassy mood, and with only a week to go until the big day it was really just as well.

      Her daughter, four-year-old Teddie, was holding out for snow. She’d been delighted the previous evening when a few wisps had fluttered down past the little mullioned windows of their cottage behind the café, flanked either side with black timber-framed shops, and settled over the cobbles of the High Street. The twinkly red, gold and green Christmas lights looped like bunting between the old-fashioned street lights all the way along to the village square, where Kitty had lit the column candle at the foot of the war memorial just a few weeks earlier. She did it every year in the run-up to Christmas, ever since her husband, Ed, had died when a landmine exploded on his last tour of duty in Iraq. Birthdays and celebrations too; it had become a bittersweet ritual for herself and Teddie, who was just beginning to understand that her daddy lived in Heaven, watching over her from the clouds above. But Kitty didn’t feel sad or maudlin any more. She had come to terms with her husband’s death. Made peace with it if you like. Yes, she had her moments when her heart still ached and she would have loved Ed to have been here to envelop her in his arms with one of his speciality big bear hugs – that was usually at the end of a particularly busy week in the café, when she felt tired and emotional, and when Teddie, bless her, had been teething, or grizzling, or asking a trillion unanswerable questions, just like any other energetic child.

      But it was getting easier now that Teddie was turning into a proper little girl, and had started at the village school in September just gone, meaning that Kitty could now channel more of her energy into running the café during the day. And, to be honest, before Ed’s death, with him being away for months at a time on peacekeeping missions in Iraq, she had been quite used to not having her husband around. Four tours in total. He had been killed on the second-to-last day before he was due to come home for good. Ed had desperately wanted to be around for the birth of their first baby and to watch her grow up, which was why he had applied for the training post working with new recruits at the army base in Market Briar, the closest big town to Tindledale – but it hadn’t worked out like that. Life, or indeed death, really could be cruel sometimes, Kitty often surmised. Because that was what she had signed up for: a soldier’s life, or soldier’s wife in her case.

      To help shift her thoughts back to the present moment, Kitty turned up the radio, pulled the panettones out of the oven and hummed along as Mariah Carey sang ‘All I want for Christmas is You’. She’d just reached the ‘make my wish come true’ bit when something caught her eye.

      ‘Coo-eeeeeee, only me!’ Kitty turned to see Deedee, one of her regulars, a charismatic sixty-something woman, and probably Tindledale’s most vivacious villager, tapping on the window interspersed with lots of big fluffy-mittened hand waving.

      After wiping her hands on her ditsy print pinny and unlocking the front door, Kitty ushered Deedee inside, a gust of chilly December air unfurling around the door frame making her curly blonde hair billow around her face. She quickly batted it out of her eyes and smiled warmly.

      ‘Hiya, come on in,’ Kitty said, her teeth near chattering.

      ‘Ooh, sorry love, it’s perishing out there. Brrrrr!’ Deedee said, theatrically pulling her faux fur coat in tighter as she scooted inside, treating Kitty to a puff of her intoxicating perfume. She closed the door behind her. ‘I know you’re not open yet, darling, but I wondered if I could leave some of these on the counter. A pound a strip! And Mrs Pocket is going to pick the winners out of a hat after the Christmas carol concert on the village green.’

      Deedee fished around inside her big tote bag before waving a wad of raffle tickets up in the air. ‘To help raise some pennies for the old dears’ Christmas tea dance. You’ve been very kind with your offer to treat us by supplying the cakes and sandwiches for the buffet, but I’d really like to get each of them a little gift, too. You know, talc and choccies for the ladies and I thought a hanky and York Fruits for the gents. Nothing too fancy, just a few token bits to open after they’ve had a twirl around the village hall and tucked into one of your delicious spreads.’

      Deedee paused to clutch Kitty’s arm and then, after leaning in a little closer, she added, ‘It’s a such a shame. You know, some of them are completely on their own.’ She paused momentarily to do a conspiratorial head shake. ‘And with no family to speak of – husbands or wives long gone, God rest their souls, grown-up children off gallivanting on the other side of the world – it can’t be very nice, not at Christmas, now, can it?’ she finished, her forehead creasing with concern as she patted her windswept feather cut back into place.

      ‘No. I’m sure it can’t be …’ Kitty said, glancing away to keep an eye on the clock: it wouldn’t do for her to open up late, and the bus had just chugged to a standstill in the village square opposite, so her first customers of the day would be arriving any minute now and wanting full English breakfasts with a nice cup of tea to wash it all down. But there was another reason why Kitty felt distracted: Christmas day was the hardest day of all for her to get through too − the day when Ed’s absence was most sorely felt, the day when Teddie had a knack of asking all of the poignant questions about her daddy in quick succession, some of which Kitty was never quite sure how to answer for the best. How do you convince a four-year-old that her daddy can’t ‘get a lift on Santa’s sleigh when he flies by Heaven on the way to Tindledale on Christmas Eve’? But at least they had each other, and Ed’s parents, brother and two sisters, too. Kitty’s parents had died years ago. That was why she had moved to Tindledale in the first place, to be closer to Ed’s family while he was away on tour, and they were wonderful, very supportive. But, still, they always spent Christmas away on an all-inclusive cruise and she never had accepted their offer to join them. Kitty preferred to stay close to where her memories were of her time with Ed, so she knew what it felt like to be alone. Kitty took the raffle tickets. Anything to help bring a little extra Christmas cheer to the lonely hearts at this time of year was a no-brainer.

      ‘Oh, you’re such a sweetie. Thank you, darling.’ Deedee gave Kitty a big hug before pulling back and adding, ‘I shan’t hold you up. Cheerio!’

      ‘No problem. Bye-bye.’ Kitty grinned, flipping over the ‘Closed’ sign and opening the door as she waved Deedee off and welcomed the first batch of customers over the threshold.

      Ten minutes later, Bella dashed in to the café with an anxious look on her teenage face.

      ‘I am so sorry, Kitty! Really sorry. Please don’t sack me. It won’t happen again, I promise,’ she said, near to tears as the words babbled from her mouth while she unravelled a bright-red hand-knitted scarf and pushed it into her bag. ‘Dad’s van conked out and we tried pushing it but it was impossible with all the ice down the bottom of the lane, and then we rang April to see if she could come and rescue us, but her Beetle wouldn’t even start, it was that cold, and so I walked the rest of the way and—’

      ‘Hey, it’s fine. Come on, now – it’s not the end of the world,’ Kitty soothed, jumping