Sue Moorcroft - The Little Village Christmas - The #1 Christmas bestseller returns with the most heartwarming romance of 2018

Ben paused, a hot dog halfway to his mouth. ‘Don’t think I’m trying to get you drunk. There’s lemonade indoors if you want it. Your ex glared at me when he saw me taking two cans.’

She laughed and then groaned. ‘I hope he doesn’t come out to check up on us! Every time I see him I realise how much I prefer being single.’

Ben gazed at her for several unsmiling seconds. ‘You’re giving me lots to think about tonight: rebound relationships as a good thing and the joys of being footloose and fancy-free.’

There was such a strange expression on his face that Alexia just gazed at him, not knowing how to answer.

Obviously divining her confusion, he smiled faintly. ‘My wife and I split up a while ago. Learning to like being single could make things easier.’

Alexia put down her burger. ‘I’m sorry if anything I said was smug or insensitive.’

He smiled, if a little painfully. ‘It was refreshing. It’s easy to keep viewing things from the same old perspective.’

‘You’ve taken off your wedding ring.’

‘Rarely wore it. Safety hazard when I’m up a tree with a chainsaw.’

They lapsed into silence, chewing smoky food and sipping beer. People began to emerge from The Angel to call their goodnights, the more thoughtful among them depositing their rubbish in a skip as they passed. Alexia returned the farewells, wiping up her ketchup and licking her fingers. Though surprised to realise it was past eleven, she felt no immediate need to move.

Sebastian emerged and hesitated.

‘Night, Seb,’ she said brightly, not wanting a repeat of the ‘can I walk you home?’ conversation.

With a brief ‘Night’ Sebastian melted away down the darkened drive. Alexia felt a pang at the despondent set of his rounded shoulders. Ben was probably right that things would be easier when she could carry through on her plan to leave the village.

Gabe appeared, carrying a box of empty cans. ‘I’ll take these to the recycling.’ He glanced back in the direction of the building. ‘It looks frighteningly bare in there. You are going to put my property back together again, aren’t you?’

Alexia laughed. ‘Just give me till Christmas. It’s bare because Shane and Tim have been so conscientious about keeping period features safe.’

He beetled his brows at her in mock ferocity. ‘The Saturday before Christmas. That’s our grand opening.’

‘The Saturday before ,’ she agreed with a grin. ‘The tiles will have been relaid and the fireplaces restored. I’ll make gorgeous Victoriana Christmas arrangements of holly and dried oranges to stand on the mantels. The Victorians loved Christmassy things made of lace and beads as well – it will look gorgeous!’

‘I knew I could rely on you,’ Gabe acknowledged, patting her shoulder. They said their goodnights and Gabe strode down the short drive.

Alexia glanced at Ben. His face, lit only by the lights of the kitchen windows, was shadowy. ‘You can go with him. I’ll finish up here.’ To give Shane and Jodie time to fall asleep she’d gladly linger to explore the newly bared Angel, excited by the metamorphosis to come. Tomorrow she’d bring her camera and take work-in-progress pictures for her portfolio. It was an important project for her and it would be good to properly capture this swept-clean moment.

Ben wiped his hands. ‘I don’t live with Gabe. I’m staying in a cottage on the Carlysle estate.’

Alexia put on an interested expression, though she’d already known. Everyone in Middledip knew everything. ‘A cottage on the home farm?’ The Carlysle estate employed many of the villagers and a few of lived there.

‘No, Woodward Cottage, near the lake. I was able to persuade Christopher Carlysle that it goes with my job. “The woodward” was the old name for someone who looked after woodlands.’

‘I haven’t been to Woodward Cottage since I was a teenager. It was so tumbledown it’s hard to imagine it as habitable.’

‘Apparently Mr Carlysle was able to get a grant to do it up. His idea was that the estate bailiff would move in but the bailiff decided to marry a woman with two teenaged kids and there’s only one bedroom. I’ve been there about six months.’

‘Six months? I’m amazed Gabe hasn’t introduced us. I haven’t even seen you around the village, except for dangling in the trees out front.’

He rubbed his nose. ‘I’ve kind of kept to myself.’

Alexia could somehow imagine solitude suiting Ben. He had the air of someone who could take people or leave them. ‘I think you were the subject of conversation at the pub the other day. Do you have a pet owl? The guys decided you’re a wizard.’

He grinned faintly. ‘Barney’s a rescue owl. Owls aren’t pets. Gabe found him on the edge of the wood. He’d fallen from the nest and damaged his wing. He’ll never fly or hunt, so I’ve given him a home. When not looking after Barney I’m a tree surgeon. I used to have my own business but I sold up when I moved here. The woods haven’t been managed as well as they could have been so Gabe put in a word for me with Christopher Carlysle and now I’m employed by the Carlysle estate. I was in the mood to be left alone to do my thing and that’s the kind of employee Mr Carlysle likes.’ Ben rose and returned his chair to the skip.

Reading this as a full stop to the subject, Alexia rose too, collecting paper plates while Ben disconnected the barbecues from their gas bottles.

They moved indoors to find that the last stragglers were ready to yawn off into the night. Alexia switched on the main lights and went round blowing out the guttering tea lights. ‘I declare the Middledip Wrecking Party a success.’

He ran his finger down a gaping crack in the plaster. ‘Does work start soon?’

‘The electricians and plumbers arrive on Monday while Shane and Tim get on with cleaning up the tiles to be reused. Luckily the windows and doors are OK and most of the plaster mouldings, too.’ She gazed around the Bar Parlour, its missing fireplace and bar making it look like a mouth with gaps in the teeth.

Ben drifted over to the mood boards still standing at the end of the bare room. ‘And this is how the place will look?’

She joined him, casting him a quick glance to check he wasn’t just being polite – not that he struck her as someone who’d bother. ‘Yes, this is the storyboard for the project beginning with photos of the building as it was when Gabe bought it, to my vision of the finished article. My 3D drawings are called rendered models and the 2D are the floor plans. The colour swatches make it look pretty.’ Her heart gave a tiny kick of excitement that the project was finally underway.

‘It’s a Victorian building and must have been quite grand for a village. When Middledip was bypassed by better roads in the eighties it couldn’t support two pubs, and the more homely The Three Fishes was the one to survive. After The Angel closed, the landlord died and the landlady lived here alone for more than twenty years. She eventually died without a will and distant cousins had to be tracked down to inherit. It was a long time before it could be put on the market and then nobody seemed to see its potential.’

She lifted her gaze to the beautiful plaster ceiling roses where big glass lights had dangled until Shane took them down to protect them. ‘I’m amazed nobody bought the place just to get the period features and sell them to a reclamation yard. The moulded brickwork on the front elevation alone must be worth a fortune. Maybe the grounds were so overgrown that everyone forgot The Angel was here.’

‘Until Uncle Gabe decided his tree surgeon nephew would love to take out all the overgrowth.’