Baby It's Cold Outside. Kerry Barrett

Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

      Chapter 41

      Chapter 42

      Chapter 43

       Excerpt

       Endpages

       About the Publisher

      Friday

       Chapter 1

      I was happy. Really happy. So happy my cheeks hurt from smiling. I found Jamie’s hand under the table and squeezed his fingers. He turned to me and grinned.

      ‘We’re getting married,’ he said.

      ‘I know!’

      ‘Finally,’ my cousin Harmony – who was always called Harry – said with an arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrow. I scowled at her across the empty dinner plates, but I wasn’t going to let her spoil my mood, not tonight.

      We’d just arrived in Claddach, the tiny Highland town where we’d grown up, and we were enjoying a welcome family dinner. My mum was there, my sharp-tongued cousin Harry and her wife Louise, and Harry’s mum, Suky – my mum’s twin sister. It was brilliant.

      In exactly one week and one day from now, Jamie and I would be married. Harry was right, it had taken us a long time to get here, but now we had arrived. And everything was going to be perfect.

      ‘Can I just say,’ I said looking round the table. ‘That I am so excited and relieved to finally be here. I know this week – and of course Saturday itself – is going to be the best week of my – of our – lives.’

      Mum, who was sitting on the other side of me to Jamie, squeezed my arm.

      ‘It’s going to be wonderful,’ she said.

      A commotion at the back door made us all look round, and our great friends Eva and Allan fell into the kitchen, stamping snow from their boots.

      ‘It’s coming down very heavily out there,’ Eva said in her brisk Yorkshire accent. ‘It’s bloody freezing.’

      She spotted me and swooped, gathering me into her considerable chest and hugging me so tightly I couldn’t speak.

      ‘There’s nothing of you, love,’ she said. ‘Have you been doing that five:three diet?’

      I wriggled out of her hug and grinned. Eva always told me and Harry – and now Louise too – we were too thin.

      ‘I’ve got a dress to fit into,’ I said. ‘A beautiful, wonderful dress.’ I looked at Allan. ‘How’s everything at the café?’

      ‘It’s grand,’ Allan said, pulling up a chair. We all shuffled round, and almost imperceptibly the table seemed to grow, just enough, so we all fitted. I glanced at Mum and she winked at me.

      Allan produced a fat, green cardboard file.

      ‘We’re all set,’ he said. Jamie and I were getting married at the café that was owned by Mum, Suky and Eva. It had a gallery upstairs, called The Room Upstairs, which was run by artist Allan, and where they held functions. Its big windows gave it an amazing view over the loch, and it was the ideal venue for our wedding.

      Allan opened the folder.

      ‘Hang on,’ I said. I waggled my fingers over the table, which was covered in dirty plates, and watched in satisfaction as they all rose into the air in a shower of pink sparks and stacked themselves neatly in the dishwasher.

      ‘Ah witchcraft,’ said Jamie happily, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of wine. ‘It makes life so much easier.’

      He was right. I came from a family of witches – me, Mum, Suky and Harry all had the gift. We could clear a dirty kitchen with a flick of the wrist, produce bottles of wine on a whim, and help people with all sorts of problems. Mum, Suky and Eva – who was also a witch – enchanted the cakes and biscuits they sold at the café. Sometimes the help they gave was asked for, sometimes it wasn’t, but it always worked. Harry had built a whole career out of her talents, with a website for witches called Inharmony.com and a luxury spa in Edinburgh where she offered up spells on demand for extortionate prices. Me, I was a lawyer and for years I’d shied away from my witchcraft. Now, though, I embraced it – mostly. Jamie, who was a doctor like both his parents, loved that I could tidy our tiny house in seconds or find a taxi in the pouring rain.

      Now though, my mind was on wedding stuff, not spells.

      I spread the contents of Allan’s folder all over the table.

      ‘So we’re going to divide the room and have the ceremony in the smaller end and dinner at the other,’ I said. ‘And after dinner everyone can go downstairs to the cafe to give us time to move the tables and chairs to one side for the dancing.’

      ‘We’ve got a DJ,’ Jamie said. ‘But we’re hoping some people might play as well.’

      Claddach was a haven for all sorts of creative types – a bit like St Ives in Cornwall, or Totnes in Devon. There were writers, poets, artists, potters, jewellery makers and lots of musicians. Allan’s gallery served as a hub for them all and he often ran writers’ groups, readings, concerts and classes alongside his exhibitions. Someone was bound to bring a guitar, or a violin, or even a drum kit, to our wedding.

      ‘There’s nothing really left to do,’ I said. ‘Not until that photography exhibition closes and we can get into the gallery to decorate.’

      ‘Wednesday is the last day,’ Allan said. ‘It’s all yours after that.’

      I grinned, excited by the idea of decorating my wedding room.

      ‘What colours have you chosen?’ Suky asked.

      ‘Light blue, silver and white,’ I said. ‘I wanted it to have a frosty feel.’

      Jamie and I had both grown up in Claddach, which was nestled in a valley in the Cairngorms. We loved winter and had deliberately chosen to have our wedding at this time of year to make the most of the snow that was almost guaranteed. We’d not been disappointed. It had started to snow as we got ready to leave Edinburgh, where we lived, and by the time we arrived in Claddach the town was already wrapped in a cosy blanket of the white stuff. I was delighted. It was like I’d ordered the weather specially and even though my mum, aunt and cousin were brilliant witches, that was one thing that was definitely out of their remit.

      ‘And the dresses for Chloe and Harry are this silvery blue?’ Suky found a fabric swatch in among the documents on the table and held it up.

      ‘Yes,