Page 108 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
“Oh.” The husband lifted a tall gift bag onto the counter, the sort that usually held a bottle. It landed with a small clunk. “Would you please give him this, with our thanks.”
Jess stared at him blankly. “Thanks?”
The girl leaned forward confidentially. “I got very drunk on our first night here,” she explained, glancing quickly around to check there was no one else close enough to hear. “I don’t usually drink very much, but . . . well, the wine was so nice. Anyway, I was outside. I’d fallen over and been sick all down my dress. I didn’t even realise how cold it was. Mr Channing found me and took me up to our room. He was so kind. I really don’t know what would have happened to me if he hadn’t been there. I could have frozen to death.”
“Oh . . .”
“So we bought him a small gift to say thank you. Does he like whiskey?”
“Oh . . . Yes, he does. Very much.” Jess blinked, bewildered. She had got it wrong —verywrong. Had Glenn curdled herjudgement so much that she had been so ready to draw the darkest conclusion?
“Well, would you give this to him with our thanks?”
“Oh . . . Yes, of course.” She took the bag and put it on the shelf beneath the reception desk. “Thank you.”
“Now we need to settle our bill.” The husband produced his wallet. “Name of Barraclough.”
“Yes, of course.” Somehow she managed to find the right place on the spreadsheet. “Debit or credit card?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alex opened the car door for Shelley. “So how do you like the new chariot?”
“It’s very nice.” She settled into the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt as he came round to slide behind the wheel. “You decided not to get an Aston Martin then?”
He smiled in dry humour. “I thought Paul might think I was copying him. Besides, having driven the rental Jag for a while, I’d got used to them.”
“This one looks as if it would be a lot faster than the one you were renting.”
“It is.”
“I like the colour better too — this nice metallic grey. More elegant. The red looked a bit flash.”
He smiled to himself. These past few weeks he had deliberately backed off, on Lisa’s advice: ‘She’s got some stuff she needs to deal with.’ He hadn’t pried, but observing her from a distance, happily working on the reception desk — a job she’d repeatedly turned down before, according to Lisa — it seemed that at least some of that stuff had been dealt with.
The wariness hadn’t gone completely from her eyes, but she seemed a lot more relaxed, more confident. And she had agreed to come with him today. That was real progress.
At the next junction turn left.
“Ah, this is it.” The satnav had guided him onto a narrow lane overhung by trees. At the end there was a five-barred gate.
“I’ll get it.”
Shelley skipped out of the car and ran to open the gate, closing it when Alex had driven through. To their left was the office, a single-storey building, to their right a row of parking spaces. Alex tucked the Jaguar into one and came to join her, and together they walked into the office.
Christmas had arrived here with even more exuberance than the hotel, with a large Christmas tree almost smothered in swathes of tinsel and shiny red, green and gold baubles, and garlands of paperchains around the walls and across the ceiling.
Above the reception desk a shiny gold banner spelled out Merry Christmas, along with another that asserted A DOG IS FOR LIFE NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS.
They were greeted by a middle-aged woman with neat brown hair and a boa of scarlet tinsel wrapped around her neck. The badge on her sweater reminded him that her name was Marion.
“Ah, it’s Mr Crocombe, isn’t it?”
“Alex.”
“So — you’ve come to pick up a dog. I think they heard you coming.” She laughed as she gestured with her hand towards the back of the building, from where a cacophony of frantic barking was echoing. She turned to her computer. “I have your home check here — everything looks fine. You’ve met with several of our mutts — is there one in particular you’re most interested in?”
“I’m thinking . . . Tyson, the Great Dane.”
