Page 10 of A Very Crumbleton Christmas
She definitely had resting-guilt-face right now.
The man came to an abrupt halt. He blinked at her a few times – maybe in surprise, or possibly because salt water was dripping from the Santa hat straight into his eyes.
‘Hi!’ he said – frozen to the spot.
Was she hallucinating right now, or was she staring at Jack Jones?TheJack Jones… film star… mega-crush. Caroline cleared her throat, doing her best to keep her eyes on his face. It was averyrevealing wetsuit!
‘Hi!’ she said again, this time her voice a faint tremor.
‘You’d better come in.’
If she hadn’t actually seen his slightly blue lips moving, Caroline would have thought the words were just a figment of her imagination.
‘In?’ she murmured.
Jack Jones simply gave her a broad, slightly mad-looking grin as he headed straight past her towards the front door, the white pompom on his hat dripping as he went.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he called over his shoulder as he disappeared inside. ‘I’ll be with you in just a sec.’
Caroline blinked. This couldn’t be happening… maybe she’d slipped on the snow and banged her head? She gave the back of her hand a sharp pinch.
‘Ouch!’
Okay, so this was real, then? Jack Jones had just appeared in a wetsuit and invited her into his home without even knowing who she was?
Weird… but… okay!
Turning and getting a face full of snowflakes in the process, Caroline shook her head and hurried towards the front door before Jack Jones could come to his senses and change his mind.
The man in question was nowhere to be seen – the only sign of him was a trail of wet footprints leading inside – so Caroline stepped into the blissfully warm hallway and closed the door behind her. The sound was echoed by another door slamming somewhere overhead.
‘Okay, wow,’ said Caroline, shaking the snow from her hair and staring around the vast entrance hall.
The floor was a mosaic of colourful tiles, an old-fashioned glass lampshade hung overhead, and the staircase swept up to the first floor in a glossy wooden curve. The house had an air of grandeur about it, but not in the way she might have expected. It was more old-school charm than LA designer chic. There were a couple of slightly tatty rugs on the tiles, and a sturdy wooden bench sat against one wall. There were a couple of empty cardboard boxes piled beneath it, along with a pair of discarded Wellington boots.
Caroline was surprised. The place somehow felt more like a family home than the fancy-pants holiday pad of a movie star. She desperately wanted to have a look around the rest of the place to see if the other rooms were the same… but she reallyshouldwait here, shouldn’t she?
‘He said make yourself at home!’ she muttered.
But no… he’d probably just meant she was welcome to perch on the wooden bench so that she was out of the snow.
Probably!
Caroline shrugged. Someone was bound to be watching her every move on a hidden security camera. If she wandered somewhere she wasn’t supposed to, she was sure they’d turn up and put her straight. Besides, she was a reporter… it was practically her duty to snoop!
Before she could talk herself out of it, Caroline crept to the far end of the hallway. To the right, she could just make out signs of a kitchen through a panelled glass door – averyexpensive-looking coffee machine sat on the far side of a slate-topped island.
Hmm… maybe not!There had to be somewhere more interesting to have a nosey around than the kitchen!
‘How about in here?!’ she whispered, choosing the nearest heavy wooden door. Keeping her fingers crossed that she wasn’t about to walk in on a bunch of security guards watching her every move on a bank of monitors, she turned the handle and pushed her way inside.
Phew!
There wasn’t a security guard in sight.
‘Gorgeous!’ breathed Caroline, as a wave of warmth from a vast fireplace washed over her.
Jack Jones’s living room exuded an aura of cosiness, and sure enough, it didn’t give off designer-holiday-home vibes either. It had a high ceiling, complete with a beautiful plasterrose. Warm light bloomed from multiple vintage glass shades and twinkled off a handful of baubles that dangled from the branches of a humongous Christmas tree on the far side of the room.
