Jake
Jake could feel the excitement from the open doors of The Clock House. With a swift glance up at the clock to make sure he wasn’t too late, he hurried across the gravel drive and in through the double doors, and as he walked into Cocktails & Chai he was met with the biggest turn-out he’d ever seen for a village meeting.
The last time Jake had seen so many people at The Clock House was summer just gone, when everyone had come to see Daniel and Kate present their ideas for themes and fundraising for the village fete.
He supposed he should be grateful for such a big crowd. Now no one could accuse him of hiding himself away and as soon as Crispin started wrapping up the proceedings, he could leave without having to endure any of the well-meaning conversations about why he should stick around for Christmas.
The question was, he thought as he edged further into the room, nodding his head and smiling at a few people, had everyone come out on this cold evening to get a good gawp at one more completed room at The Clock House?
Or, were they all here to see Emma?
At the far end of the room, Jake noticed Crispin standing on the makeshift stage in prime position by the lectern.
Tables had been neatly stacked against one wall and the chairs had been laid out leaving a central aisle.
From the assortment of colourful coats, hats, scarves and gloves reserving seats, he could tell he was going to have to pick a spot right at the back to stand in.
All the better to sneak out as soon as the meeting ended.
He picked his spot and without anything else to do, his gaze started scanning the room for a glimpse of the woman of the hour.
When he couldn’t immediately locate her, a spike of disappointment shot through him and his scan of the room became a little less patient.
Obviously seeing Emma wasn’t the reason he’d come.
He’d come to do his bit for the community and support Crispin in the telling of his plans for the annual tree-lighting ceremony. It was his land that supplied the tree, so it was important to be here.
He looked around the room, trying not to wish he was already ensconced in a cosy cottage in Cornwall, sipping a single malt. His sketch book in his hand, the grey ocean stretching out before him and nothing to remind him of where he’d gone wrong with Alice, only the space to think about where he was going with his plans for Knightley Hall.
He was only aware he was frowning when his gaze searched wider and wider into the room and suddenly collided with Oscar and Daniel’s.
Oscar, who was looking back at him and grinning from ear to ear, with a terribly knowing look in his eyes, and Daniel, who, without a shred of subtlety, suddenly started inclining his head and pointing over at Emma, who was chatting to Cheryl Brown, Juliet’s mother.
Jake’s hand went to pull at the neck of his jumper.
Was it overly hot in here, or was it just him?
Not content with the crazy head-twitching and mad pointing, Daniel then nudged Oscar and they both winked at him, making Jake wish with all his might that an alien ship would appear and hover over the village green, it’s tracker beam searching him out and dragging him up to the ship to take him to a galaxy far, far away.
It was his own bloody fault.
So he’d asked a couple of questions about Emma during poker night.
All right, a lot of questions.
Was that any reason for the pair of them to turn one alcohol-infused conversation into a step away from holding up signs and shouting clear across the room, ‘Mate, the woman you couldn’t stop talking about at poker night is standing right there.’
What happened to the first rule of poker night being not to talk/gesture/infer what happened at poker night? The next time the game got round to being at Knightley Hall, he was introducing a new rule: no women talk.
What was wrong with talking about work, anyway? The three of them all did different things.
Sport.
They could also talk about sport.
He tensed as he saw Emma spot Oscar and Daniel pointing at her, and then watched helplessly as she moved the direction of her gaze so that it bounced right into his, leaving her in no doubt he’d been staring at her.
With a bright grin, she lifted her hand and waved ‘hello’ at him.
All friendly-like.
All sexy-like.
He gave an infinitesimal shake of his head.
No.
Not all sexy-like for f—
‘All right, there, Jake?’ Kate said, stopping beside him at the bar.
‘What? Oh. Yep.’ God, he could do with a drink.
‘Thirsty, you say?’
Jake turned to find Kate looking at Emma before suddenly swinging her gaze back to him and looking at him shrewdly.
‘Huh?’ he managed.
‘I was saying that, although we can’t serve from the bar until the licence kicks in, Emma made sure to lay out tea and coffee on one of the tables over there.’
‘Oh. Great idea.’
‘She’s great, that’s for sure.’
Jake gave an evasive smile and asked, ‘So does this mean you’ll no longer be bringing along contraband to village meetings?’
Kate laughed. ‘How did you know about that?’
‘Because one meeting in the summer I was sitting behind you and Juliet and I believe I saw a hip-flask and a jumbo packet of Skittles being passed back and forth.’
Kate laughed again and looked back towards Emma. ‘I always had you down for the observant type, Jake.’
He couldn’t help following her gaze back to Emma and had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about contraband.
Stepping away from the bar, he said, ‘Maybe I’ll grab myself a quick cup of coffee before the meeting starts.’
‘Bring one back for me, too, will you? I’ll save you this spot.’ She moved slightly so that she was going to be between him and the doors.
Damn.
Now he was going to have to stand next to her for the duration of the meeting, which meant he couldn’t easily sneak away.
As he picked his way across the room to the table of refreshments, he could feel a pair of eyes on him and despite ordering himself not to, right when he got to the table he turned and found Emma looking at him.
Her grin had dropped a notch and he realised he might not have smiled back at her after the Weasley twins had done the whole gesticulating, head-twitching, winking, thing.
He felt himself frown.
That warmth that oozed out of her, that radiance … you couldn’t fake that.
Could you?
And why did he find himself so compelled to respond to it?
Rattled, he turned back to the table and with only slightly shaking hands poured coffee for both himself and Kate. He made it halfway back to where Kate was before he couldn’t help himself, and swung his gaze back to seek Emma out.
She was busy chatting with Mary, the school chaplain, and careful not to spill coffee, he turned back to Kate and pretended not to notice her keen gaze.
‘Testing, one, two, testing,’ boomed Crispin’s voice across the room, creating an instant moment of silence.
‘Dear God, who gave that man a mic and headset?’ Jake asked under his breath.
‘Do you think it’s an early Christmas present from Mrs Harlow?’ Kate asked.
‘Hey, Crispin,’ Ted, the local mechanic pointed to Crispin’s head on his way to his seat, ‘what’s with the Britney Spears setup?’
Kate choked on her coffee, and Juliet, walking up beside her, gave her a helpful slap on the back. ‘I just got here, what did I miss?’
‘Someone broke the rules and gave Crispin a mic and headset,’ Jake supplied, taking a gulp of his coffee.
‘Wait a minute, you don’t think this was what the urgent meeting with Daniel was for, earlier?’ Kate asked, looking at Juliet.
‘Where is Daniel?’
‘Conveniently absent,’ Kate said scanning the crowd for him. ‘What’s the betting he lent Crispin some of the tech from upstairs. Do you see him anywhere, Jake?’
Jake pointed to the double doors to where Daniel was hovering, thinking it served him right for being at poker night. He’d been so bloody happy to encourage questions about Emma that Jake had lost all concentration and lost big-time.
At three pairs of eyes staring at him in varying degrees of accusation, Jake watched Daniel grin back sheepishly as he made his way over to them.
‘If Crispin starts offering up info-graphics on how much bigger this year’s tree is compared with last year’s, you are going to be in such trouble,’ Kate told Daniel.
Jake grinned because it would certainly explain what Crispin had done with all the stats he’d been asked to provide on how big the tree was and how many lights were needed. ‘I bet now you’re wishing you bought contraband,’ he mentioned.
‘Let’s get started, then, shall we?’ Crispin was saying. ‘Thank you all for coming tonight. Firstly, I think we should all give Kate, Daniel and Juliet a round of applause for allowing us to move out of the foyer for our meetings and into what will be our new home, Cocktails & Chai.’
‘Oh, he’s so sweet, really,’ Juliet said as everyone turned around and clapped and cheered. ‘It’s impossible to stay mad at him for long.’
‘Your version of long sounds like it’s coming up short,’ Kate murmured. ‘My “long” is way longer than yours.’
‘Ladies, please,’ Jake inserted, ‘I’m not sure now is the time to have a dick-measuring competition. The meeting’s started.’
‘Wow, are you seriously talking about your dick right now?’ Emma asked, moving to stand on the other side of Jake, a big grin on her face as if this was payback for him not smiling back at her.
Jake’s jaw dropped open and his heartbeat went into overdrive as he followed her gaze down to his jeans and then his heart missed a beat entirely as he realised at the exact same moment as Emma, that the entire room had heard her comment and had now turned to watch her staring at Jake’s…
‘What did you say, dear?’ Crispin asked into the silence.
‘Way to make your debut, Hollywood,’ Jake whispered and then felt awful as humiliation crept into those gorgeous eyes of hers, turning them from sparkling to opaque so that he had no choice but to take pity on her and say loudly, ‘She said, she’s so nervous, she feels sick, right now.’
‘Oh,’ Crispin said. ‘For a minute there,’ he shook his head at the ridiculous notion that male appendages were somehow pertinent to the meeting. ‘Are you feeling quite all right, dear?’
‘Yes,’ Emma squeaked, her face blazing red.
‘Good, good,’ Crispin said, ‘because I was about to offer a very warm welcome to the young lady who’s going to be managing Cocktails & Chai. She’s come all the way from America to help out at The Clock House everyone, please welcome star of stage and screen, Emma Danes.’
With Crispin publicly announcing her presence Jake figured he could legitimately do some more staring at her now. Her face turned up towards his, some of the embarrassment replaced with a ‘thank you’ written clearly across her features but he also noticed she’d done something to shore up her defences so that he couldn’t see any deeper.
The other night when he’d teased her about thinking of him naked, she’d been able to laugh him off in a split-second and he remembered thinking how lucky she was to have those acting skills to hand because he hadn’t been sure he’d managed to hide what thinking about her thinking about him naked had done to him.
As he watched her now, he found himself wondering what kind of actress hated being the centre of attention?
‘Now, I know we’re all looking forward to the grand opening of The Clock House,’ Crispin continued as the applause died back down and people turned to face the front again, ‘but let’s not divert our attention from the main point of tonight’s meeting: the unveiling of the plans for the tree-lighting ceremony.’
As Crispin talked about how the ceremony this year was going to top last year’s, which is what he did every year, Jake couldn’t help thinking back to twelve months ago, when he’d stood at the side of that exact same stage. Waiting to talk about what a privilege it was to be asked to supply the tree from his land.
It had been one of his first suggestions after taking over the estate and when he’d wanted a small sign strategically placed to advertise where the tree had come from, Crispin had agreed and even suggested Jake supply the tree for the neighbouring village Whispers Ford and why not erect a sign there advertising Knightley Hall in Whispers Wood as well. Anything to one-up the village that had opened a hotel and taken some of their business away from them, Jake had understood.
Of course, he’d still had a sense of humour back then. Despite the fact that Alice had phoned him only one hour before the meeting to tell him she wouldn’t be able to get back from London in time to attend.
She hadn’t even sounded miffed, he remembered now.
He should have known then, that she’d started to realise she’d confused rural lifestyle with actual rural-life.
Maybe he had known.
Maybe he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.
After campaigning so hard to take over Knightley Hall, he hadn’t exactly been in the mood to think about any mistakes he may or may not have been on the verge of making.
At least there was no danger of him ever repeating that mistake now.
‘Aw, reindeers, how lovely will that be? I can’t wait,’ Emma suddenly said.
Tuning back into Crispin, all he could think was: Hang on … Sleigh-rides around the village green?
Didn’t you need snow for that?