Page 75 of The Best Little Christmas Shop
‘Say hello to him for me?’ I wasn’t sure if it was just the parties keeping George away from the shop or if there’d been some extra manoeuvringfrom his father. Either way, I’d missed seeing him this past week. I’d missed seeing both of them.
‘I will. He’s been grumping about not having seen you.’ The grey gaze settled on me for a moment and we both knew there was a whole lot more meaning behind the simple phrase than there sounded.
Unable to speak for a moment, I lowered my eyes and nodded in reply.
‘OK. I might see you tomorrow then.’
I steeled myself and looked back up. He was waiting, a question in his eyes. ‘Yes.’
The flicker of a smile played around his mouth before he, broke the gaze, and turned, his long legs striding purposefully across the shop. As he pulled the door behind him, he caught me watching. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. Cal met my eyes for a moment, raised a hand in the briefest of waves, and thenhe was gone.
The woman with the pram was approaching the counter, one of the wicker shopping baskets we provided for shopping, currently decorated with tinsel, was balanced on the hood of the pram.
‘Good morning!’ I said to the young mother, taking the basket from her. ‘Did you find everything you were looking for or is there anything else I can help you with?’
She gave me a wide smile andthumbed at the door. ‘Yes, I think so. Although if you could tell me where I can get one of those for my sister’s Christmas present, that’d be great.’
I smiled widely, joining in the joke, and began mentally repeating my mantra again. Unfortunately, it definitely didn’t seem to be working.
***
The deep voice behind me made me jump and only luck stopped me banging my head on the open bonnetin a classically slapstick manner.
‘My informants tell me you’ve had your head under there for the past four hours.’
I stood up, avoiding the bonnet, and turned to face Cal, who was leaning against a long workbench to my left.
‘Sorry. Do you want to lock up? I can go. I just sort of got carried away.’
Cal gave a faint smile and shook his head. ‘No. I just came out to see how you were gettingon.’ He pushed himself off the bench and came closer to the car. He leant one arm on the wing gently and lifted the other, resting it lightly on the edge of the raised bonnet. Awkwardly, this gave me a perfect view of an ultra toned tricep muscle, and a peek at similarly toned abs as where his T-shirt rode up a little..
‘Wow. You’ve really been getting stuff done. Don’t hang around, do you?’
I wiped my hands on a rag I’d had dangling from my pocket. ‘There’s not a lot of time to hang around in the pit. I guess I just got used to working at speed. Although, I’ve been given a head start. You’ve already made good progress on her from what I could see.’
‘I was doing an order for some parts from a guy anyway. He deals a lot in Jags so it was no problem.’
I knew that being able to takeadvantage of Cal’s connections in the industry was helping me enormously with sourcing the bits I’d need to complete the restoration properly. Even with things coming to a head last week and our friendship now looking decidedly worse for wear, I knew he was unlikely to charge me what he should for any parts and labour he used, if at all. Which was exactly why I now had, in the boot of my car, twocardboard boxes full of enough Christmas decorations to satisfy even the most – or least, depending upon which way you looked at it – discerning of five-year-olds.
‘Well, thank you. I might actually get this done in time to take Dad out on Christmas Day after all.’
Cal dropped his arm from the bonnet as I reached for the stay to release it. Shutting it carefully, I rubbed a couple of greasymarks from the paintwork and stood back. Its years of sitting in the barn at the back of our house had taken its toll and the once bright red had now dulled and succumbed to the odd scratch and mark.
‘Once you’re done, a respray would finish it off.’
‘It would. But that might have to wait for a bit. Maybe that could be next year’s Christmas present.’ I wasn’t about to tell Cal that I’d had todip substantially into my savings this year. Work this past year had been fairly sporadic and not terribly well paid. I had convinced Mum and Dad and my brothers to pay me minimum wage as my parents were flat out refusing to take rent money, assuring them I could dip into my savings if necessary. They weren’t thrilled but had eventually agreed. The new job would give me a better regular income butit was still less than what I had been earning, and renting in the expensive area where the factory was located was going to take a substantial bite out of my monthly salary.
Cal looked thoughtful, running his hand over the curves, and I stared at the car, hoping it knew just how lucky it was.
‘We’ve got the spray shop here. Just pick a colour and when you’re ready, I’ll get it done.’
‘Cal,you don’t have to do that.’
‘I know I don’t. But I’d like to.’
‘Cal –’
‘Your parents, your whole family really, have done a lot for George and I since we moved here. So –’ he stood back up to his full height ‘– if your mind is doing something crazy again and going off into a panic, you can stop. I’d like to help out as a thank you for that. So I’d be doing it for them. Not you.’
