Kerry Barrett - Baby It's Cold Outside

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Book List Also available by Kerry Barrett Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered I Put a Spell on You

Title Page Baby It’s Cold Outside Kerry Barrett

Copyright Copyright Copyright Author Bio Acknowledgement Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 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 HQ An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014 Copyright © Kerry Barrett 2014 Kerry Barrett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. E-book Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9781474007801 Version date: 2018-10-30

Author Bio KERRY BARRETT was a bookworm from a very early age, devouring Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfeild, before moving on to Sweet Valley High and 1980s bonkbusters. She did a degree in English Literature, then trained as a journalist, writing about everything from pub grub to EastEnders . Her first novel, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered , took six years to finish and was mostly written in longhand on her commute to work, giving her a very good reason to buy beautiful notebooks. Kerry lives in London with her husband and two sons, and Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes is still her favourite novel.

Acknowledgement A big thank you to my uncles Brendan and Sid, who provided me with amazingly useful information on the Falklands war, military helicopters, hypothermia, US birth certificates and mixed-race marriages. Tim Maguire, from Humanism Scotland, was very helpful in explaining the process of being a celebrant. Thanks also to Lindsay Colbeck and Lynne’s friend Graham, who gave me an insight into how funeral homes operate, and to my Facebook friends who shared their wedding memories. Lots of thanks, as always, to my friends and family for all their support; to Lucy, Victoria and Helen from HQ Digital; and a massive, squidgy, cuddly thank you to all my readers. You all rock.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

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.comand 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.