Molly glanced at Chance and, as if he read her mind, he gave a slight shake of his head. He hadn’t told Terry the reason why he wanted it to be ready by then. She wondered why he had told her. Perhaps it was because of the misunderstanding. Maybe he wanted her to know he was taken and that she didn’t have a hope in hell of getting as much as a kiss from him, let alone full-on sex.
And she had hoped. Just a little. Oh okay. A lot. She’d had a crush on Chance for years and tonight, for just one brief, magical moment, she thought he was actually saying he felt the same. Or at the very least, that he wanted a holiday fling with her. But nope. That wasn’t what Chance wanted at all. All he wanted from her was her time and her talent for design.
Oh well. That was better than nothing. Wasn’t it? And Chance was an old friend. The least she could do was help him out in his time of need.
Besides, she didn’t really have a choice, did she? If she wanted to keep a roof over Miracle’s head – and she definitely did want that – she’d have to find somewhere else to stay. Chance’s offer was the best she was likely to get.
Asher would probably take her in if she asked him to, but he was expecting his sister and their parents for the holidays. He’d told her that today. His cottage wasn’t exactly huge, especially as his veterinary practice took up part of it, so it wouldn’t be fair to dump herself on his good nature. Although, if the weather continued as it was, his family might not make it.
No. It was mean-spirited to even think those thoughts. Asher deserved a good Christmas. He was such a lovely guy.
And so was Chance. In fact, Chance was more than lovely. Chance was positively gorgeous. Chance was almost god-like. Chance was … a problem.
Could she really stay with him and not be tempted to climb into his bed? Or flirt with him? Or try to get him interested in her?
Of course she could. She was annoyed at herself for thinking otherwise. She was a grown woman in her thirties, not some silly, fifteen-year-old. And she wasn’t so desperate for love that she’d actually try to ‘steal’ another woman’s boyfriend. Even if it had been a couple of years since she’d had a boyfriend of her own.
She simply wasn’t thinking straight right now. Today had been weird in so many ways, what with driving all the way from Bristol and arriving in the snow, saving Miracle, only to discover there was no room in a shelter, and inflicting mayhem and madness on her brother and Sarah one week before Christmas.
She and Miracle would go and stay with Chance. She would ensure his cottage was worthy of the cover of the best house-style magazine. She would give his girlfriend – and soon-to-be fiancée, a dreamlike place to live. She would enjoy a lovely, relaxed Christmas with her brother and Sarah, and she would find Miracle a home before she returned to Bristol in the New Year.
And she would finally get over her childish crush on Chance Warren. He was now taken, once and for all.
There were plenty more fish in the sea. She simply needed to find some new waters to swim in because all she had found up to now, was a lot of frogs.
Five
Wishing Well Cottage wasn’t at all as Molly had imagined.
For one thing, it already looked as if it had won first prize in a home refurbishment competition, and wasn’t even slightly run-down in any way. She knew Chance had been doing it up but for some reason she had assumed that would still be ongoing. She hadn’t expected the pristine, blank canvas she saw when Chance opened the newly-painted, warm-grey, front door and switched on the light in the hall.
For another thing, the place was exactly that: a blank canvas. As Chance led the way she noticed there wasn’t a stick of furniture to be seen, apart from one battered and paint-splattered wooden chair, looking somewhat lost and lonely in the middle of the sitting room.
‘It’s gorgeous, Chance. It really is. I’m truly impressed.’
He beamed at her. ‘Thanks. That means a lot.’
‘Just one tiny question.’
‘Shoot.’
‘Er. Where is the furniture?’
‘There isn’t any.’
‘None at all?’
‘Nope.’
‘None upstairs, either?’
He shook his head and his chestnut hair shone beneath the bare lightbulb hanging above his six-foot frame.
Why didn’t that seem to bother him?
‘Er. Isn’t that a problem?’
‘Yep. But that’s where you come in. I told you. I’m hopeless when it comes to interiors. I seriously need some help.’
Molly sucked in a breath.
‘I won’t argue with that. But what I meant was, I was rather hoping for a bed. Or at least a blow-up mattress. Am I going to have to sleep on the floor?’
Chance looked confused before suddenly bursting out laughing and shaking his head more vigorously.
‘I wouldn’t ask you to do that, Molly. I still remember the night we went camping. You, me and Terry, in the garden at your parents’ house. You adamantly refused to sleep on the ground. Even in a sleeping bag. “It’s hard”, you said. Nothing we could say or do would persuade you and you went back inside to your comfy bed.’
How had he remembered that?
She cleared her throat and threw him a sarcastic smile.
‘In my defence, I was only about five at the time. And I loved that bed. It was in the shape of a fairy-tale castle and the mattress was as soft as a cloud. I thought the grass would be softer, like it is in summer. Besides, it wasn’t a great idea to camp out in the middle of December. I don’t know why Mum and Dad allowed it.’
Chance grinned. ‘It was Christmas Eve. And I think they allowed it because they knew none of us would stay out there for long. It was absolutely freezing. But you’re forgetting it was your suggestion.’
‘It was? I don’t remember that.’
He shook his head again, still grinning. ‘Selective memory, I think that’s called. You wanted to see Father Christmas in his sleigh, racing across the night sky with his reindeer. We made a make-shift tent out of some old blankets, and a huge piece of plastic sheeting from the rolls that my dad used on his building sites. We sellotaped it to the blankets with your Fairy Princess tape, but that didn’t work so your dad stapled the plastic to the blankets. He made a wooden frame and voilà! One tent. We’d have got soaked if it had rained, and buried if it had snowed, but you went back indoors after five minutes and said you’d watch for Santa from the window. Terry and I lasted for about an hour. Your mum called us in for hot chocolate before you went to bed, and we caved.’
Molly laughed. ‘Wow! I can’t believe you remember all that. Although you were four years older, so maybe it had more of an impact on your memory than it did on mine.’
‘I remember a lot from those days. You were really bossy, I remember that.’
‘I was not!’
He raised his brows and chuckled. ‘The lady doth protest too much. You were, Molly, and you know it. The term, ‘high-maintenance’ was coined for you. You made Terry and me do all sorts of crazy things for you. And we did them. Willingly. You had special powers, obviously. You could get us to do whatever you wanted.’
‘I wish I had those powers now.’
Rats! She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.