Page 14 of A Merry Little Christmas
‘That was my suggestion, I’m afraid,’ I confessed, my eye wandering over Amanda’s desk and landing on the opened desk diary.
She was right. Last night’s meeting hadn’t been entered there.
But something else had been.
It was something so surprising, I almost chuckled.
‘Can I tempt you?’ Amanda held out the tin of chocolate biscuits.
‘Okay. Thank you. I’ll scoff it on the drive over to Primrose Wood.’
‘Good idea.’ She offered me a paper napkin from the coffee station to wrap it in.
‘Thanks. Right, I’d better be going or my customers in Primrose Wood will be wondering where on earth I am.’
I left the site office feeling so much better.
The entry I’d spotted in the diary had read,Katja’s birthday.
It was quite funny, really, because that’s what Maddy had said – that maybe Caleb was planning a surprise for my special day and his assistant was in on it.
Maybe clichés happened more often than people thought. In fact, thinking about it, a cliché was a cliché exactly because ithadhappened often...
I felt the tiniest little tingle of excitement as I set off for Primrose Wood.
My enthusiasm for birthdays had waned over the years. Who on earth wanted to celebrate getting older? But maybe this year would be special . . .
CHAPTER EIGHT
Friday dawned with a lovely message from Ellie wishing me happy birthday and saying the fizz was on ice for the special birthday tea she’d arranged for once the café had closed for the day.
There was no message from Caleb yet, but I wasn’t worried. He was sure to phone me later. He might even call round.
It was my day off and I’d arranged to meet my friend Primrose that morning in Guildford. She’d just landed a part-time job at a doggy day care centre there, and she was absolutely loving it, but it meant she couldn’t make the tea party later with the rest of us girls. So we were meeting in a café for a brunch of coffee and pastries before she started her shift at twelve.
It was so lovely catching up with Primrose. She and her partner Sam seemed to have quite a hectic life these days, what with both of them working now and juggling childcare between them. Four-year-old George was the light of their lives but a proper little scamp, by the sounds of it.
I arrived first and bagged a table in the window.
I’d wait until Primrose arrived to order, and in the meantime, I scanned the board over the counter, wondering which coffee to choose and reading the entire menu, then I picked up the menu on the table and began reading my way through that as well – all so that I wouldn’t be tempted to check my phone for messages for the hundredth time since I left the flat.
Caleb was a busy man. He’d phone to wish me happy birthday as soon as he had a spare minute.
There was a young couple sitting on a table nearby, and the girl had moved her chair so that they were leaning together, her cheek nestled into the crook of his arm. They were murmuring toeach other and smiling into one another’s eyes, clearly madly in love, and quite frankly, I was finding it rather nauseating.
My hand went to my bag, and before I knew it, I was checking my messages.
Still nothing from Caleb. But maybe he had a surprise up his sleeve for later? The postman hadn’t appeared by the time I left the flat, so there was still time for me to receive a card from him.
My phone rang and I pounced on it, my heart almost leaping out of my chest.
It was my Granny Olga, wishing me a happy birthday, and I thanked her for the very generous book token she’d tucked inside her card. ‘That will keep me in books for an entire year, Gran!’ I told her. ‘Your card arrived yesterday.’
‘Oh, good. Good. Now, I have another little gift for you and I have made your birthday cake, so you must come here and sample it some time. Your father is very anxious to taste it so I am hiding it from him. I tell him he must wait because it is your cake! But I suppose you will be busy tonight with that lovely young man you are dating?’
‘Erm . . . well . . . no plans just yet.’
‘No plans?’ She sounded surprised.
