Charlotte Phillips - The Present - The must-read Christmas romance of the year!

‘I’m not sure they heard that in Central London,’ he said, pulling himself up easily and sitting on the edge of the hatch.

She made an apologetic face.

‘Sorry. I went for full volume because I thought I’d be stuck here for ever.’ Her face felt hot underneath its coating of plaster dust. He looked as if he’d walked off a film set, with his tool belt and his work-shirted broad shoulders, and she suddenly felt very stupid, buried in the floor. ‘I didn’t expect anyone to turn up in the first two minutes. What are you, a superhero?’

He winked at her.

‘I could be.’

For goodness’ sake.

‘I also do gardens and building care. I just save the world in my spare time.’

She stared at him, and he grinned back at her.

‘I came in from the garden to fix that dodgy window in the kitchen, so I could hear you crashing through the floor.’

He made it sound as if she were a baby elephant.

‘You need to keep your feet on the joists, or make sure you stay on the boards at that end.’ He jerked a thumb to the other end of the loft where the lifetime’s worth of clutter was piled up.

‘I know that,’ she said, nettled. ‘I’m not a complete idiot. There’s a box over there in the corner, balanced on that joist. I was trying to snag that. I honestly thought that if I was careful there wouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Without the boards put across, these places just aren’t made to bear that kind of weight.’

Losing patience with the general implications that she was heavy, which he was doing absolutely nothing to dispel, she made another futile attempt to pull herself up, struggling to free her legs. Bits of wood and plaster splintered and chipped, and something gave underneath her, making her squawk in fright.

‘Stay still for heaven’s sake,’ he said. ‘The whole thing could go at any moment.’

He stood up quickly, and balanced on the joists, his head bent to avoid the ceiling.

‘If you’re trying to get me to stay calm, you need to work harder,’ she squeaked.

‘Just don’t bloody move, and you’ll be fine,’ he said, moving carefully, keeping his feet on the cross-joints.

‘Do you think you can get me out of here?’ She could hear the edge of panic in her voice. ‘It’s Jack, isn’t it?’

He nodded.

‘’Course I can. Just let me work out how best to do it.’

‘I’m Lucy.’

‘I know,’ he said. He walked around her, effortlessly sizing up the situation. She looked up at him from the floor feeling totally foolish. ‘Your gran talks about you all the time.’

Oh, just bloody great. She hadn’t considered that gossip worked both ways. Lucy could just imagine Gran making him a brew and forcing home-made cake on him while she held up his work, chatting non-stop about her granddaughter. She closed her eyes briefly. She badly needed to get her head around the idea of Gran no longer being formidable and full of energy. Her soldier-on façade had been so effective that Lucy had continued to think of her as managing perfectly well for far too long. This most recent fall had made that glaringly clear.

‘I’ve seen you around, obviously,’ she said.

Obviously . He was pretty hard to miss, with his super-fit physique and jeans-and-work-boots combo. As he worked in the daytime and Lucy was generally around more in the evenings, there hadn’t been much opportunity to say much more than a quick hello, but she’d been increasingly aware of his presence over the last year or two. Another sign that Gran, a keen gardener herself, was doing less while he was doing more. Another sign that Lucy should have stepped in earlier.

‘Grab onto me and I’ll haul you up,’ he said, at last, bracing his feet on the joists and leaning forward. Before she could suggest any alternative, possibly one that didn’t involve him being in her personal space, he slid one muscular arm around her waist and snapped away bits of broken wood with his free hand. Her face was pressed briefly into the soft fabric of his shirt. He smelled of wood and furniture oil and warm skin. She clutched at his shoulder as he started to pull her. If he happened to let go now she would go straight through the floor.

‘I’m not going to let you fall, okay?’

There were splintering and scraping sounds as he pulled her up, and then suddenly she was blissfully free of the floor. He placed her down carefully, making sure she put her feet on the joists. She noticed he didn’t rush to take his arm away, supporting her as she found her footing.

‘Are you hurt?’

The right leg of her jeans had a long and ragged rip in it, and her knee throbbed a bit. He crouched and examined her leg gently.

‘Well, there’s my pride …’ she said.

He looked up at her and gave a half-smile, which to a different girl in different circumstances might have been heart-melting, but in her case could only be interpreted as sympathetic. There was dust in her hair, dirt smeared on her clothes, and he’d just seen her at possibly her most undignified.

‘You’ve got quite a graze there,’ he said, standing up. ‘It’ll need sorting out. Let’s get you downstairs.’

‘So you do medical treatment too?’ she said, batting his arm away as he tried to help her across the attic and back to the hatch. ‘I can do it, I’m fine.’

‘I’m a superhero,’ he said. ‘I do everything.’

‘In that case, would you mind grabbing that box without falling through the ceiling?’ She nodded at the wooden box, still nestled safely in the corner among the cobwebs.

No way was she was going through this humiliating experience and still not have the box to show for it.

Jack watched as she negotiated the loft ladder and then walked downstairs, clearly trying to give the impression that she was completely unscathed when the graze on that leg must hurt like a bastard. She clearly had no clue how close she’d come to breaking her bloody neck. The crash had sounded as if half the roof had fallen in. He stood by until she hobbled into the kitchen, by which point he could no longer help himself.

‘Sit down, will you?’ he said, exasperated, taking her firmly by the shoulders and pulling out the nearest chair with his foot. ‘That leg obviously needs looking at, and you’re fooling no one with the gritted teeth.’

She frowned up at him, but didn’t argue. He pulled out a second chair and lifted her foot onto it. Half the right leg of her jeans was hanging off and he could see a bleeding scrape underneath.

‘I can either cut these off or rip them,’ he said.

‘That’s a bit brutal, they’re my favourite jeans,’ she protested. ‘Isn’t saving them an option?’

He held up the enormous ragged flap of denim that was practically hanging by a thread.

‘Seriously?’

She made a huffing noise and sat back, resigned, while he grabbed the Stanley knife out of his tool belt and cut the fabric away. Her shin was one long graze, fortunately not too deep.

‘Where does Olive keep her first-aid stuff?’

She pointed at the high corner cupboard. He found antiseptic wipes and dressings, and she held her hand out for them impatiently.

‘I don’t have time for this, I’ve got tons to do,’ she grumbled as she scrubbed the wound with an antiseptic wipe. ‘That attic up there is like something from “ Hoarders: Buried Alive ”. I’ve got four weeks off work to sort the house out, and as if that isn’t enough, there’s bloody Christmas to organise.’

Since he didn’t do Christmas, not any more, he couldn’t really relate to that as a major problem to be reckoned with.

‘I was sorry to hear the house is going,’ he said, watching her stick an inadequate plaster haphazardly over the graze. He was, too. Not all of his customers were as long-term or as friendly as Olive Jackson. This had been an easy gig, close enough to his house to fit around his other commitments, happily flexible if he needed to move workdays around at the last minute.