Page 78 of The Christmas Catch
“I do here.”
CHAPTER26
Driving with Morgan at the wheel was a novel experience. Throughout their journey back to Devon, Ali was in charge. Now, the tables were turned. She’d be a liar if she said she wasn’t pleased to be spending more time with her, but it wasn’t what they’d planned.
They’d agreed to have more time apart, so that Ali’s plan could bed down in her heart and her mind. Some time away from Morgan to see this as what it was. A random three days together, an illusion. Once she was back in the real world, and off to New York, she was sure Morgan would fade from reality. But that wasn’t going to happen if Ali kept looking over at her long fingers currently wrapped around the steering wheel, as well as breathing in her bergamot smell.
Moments later, they turned into Morgan’s road, the jollity in stark contrast to the tension that hovered in the car. Morgan pulled into her parents’ driveway, and they got out in silence. Ali got the pub from the backseat and slammed the door. Morgan retrieved her suitcase from the boot, then gave her a weak smile in the illuminated air as they walked across the drive and up to the front door. They stopped beside a frosted Christmas tree.
“I assume you have one inside as well?”
Morgan nodded. “Main one in the lounge, one in the dining room and a small one on the side in the kitchen. If she could, my mum would have one in every room along with a Santa’s grotto in the garden, but my dad put his foot down at that. She lets him put his foot down when she thinks he needs it.”
“Smart woman.” Ali stared at Morgan. At her smooth skin. Her full lips. Ones that Ali would not focus on one bit. However, when she glanced upwards, a sprig of mistletoe was stuck above the front door. She took a sharp inhale of breath, then let her gaze wander back to Morgan’s face.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to insist on a kiss.”
“I wondered if it was one of your many traditions.” A shimmer of anticipation worked its way from Ali’s heart to her throat. Kissing Morgan wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. But she pushed that thought from her mind.
Morgan opened the front door, and they walked into a hallway decked out in tinsel, with Christmas cards strung from the white picture rail. A wooden nativity scene was lit on a side table, and through the open door to the kitchen, Ali saw a tiny countertop tinsel tree. Morgan hadn’t been kidding when she said her family took Christmas seriously. She left the case at the bottom of the stairs and took Ali’s coat.
Ali jingled as she shrugged it off. “I swear, I’m about to murder my jumper.” She followed Morgan through to the kitchen, and they put the gingerbread pub on the marble-topped island, one of the biggest Ali had ever seen. When they turned, Mrs Scott stood in the doorway, a questioning smile on her face.
“Hello Ali, didn’t expect to see you here so late on Christmas Eve. Not that you’re not welcome, of course.”
Luckily, Morgan hijacked the conversation before too many questions were asked. “If we wanted to bake some gingerbread, do you have the ingredients?”
Morgan’s mum frowned. “You want to bake gingerbreadnow?”
It was a fair question.
But Morgan styled it out. “We had a bit of a gingerbread malfunction. Plus, it’s Christmas Eve, Ali’s never baked any, and I promised her in the car on the way down. I’m going to decorate my part of the gingerbread house roof while we’re at it, so I thought, two birds, one stone.”
It almost made sense to Ali when she put it like that.
Mrs Scott turned to Ali. “I can’t believe you’ve never baked gingerbread. You’re in for a treat. All the ingredients are in the baking cupboard in the island. There’s some icing already made in bags. Just remember to clear up after yourselves.”
Ali watched her go, then turned to Morgan. “Where’s your gingerbread house, then?”
Morgan disappeared, then came back with it. The house had a white picket gingerbread fence, gingerbread bushes in the front garden and resembled a kid’s drawing of a house. Four windows, a sloped roof, crazy luminous paving and the front door even had a wreath on. However, the roof was starkly plain, and needed some attention.
“Did you say your sister did the paving?” It was quite the statement.
“She was feeling hormonal at the time.”
“I can tell. Pollock-esque.”
“In her defence, she is very pregnant. And very mad at her husband for putting a baby inside her. You know some people say that pregnancy is just the best? My sister would disagree.”
Ali grinned. “I think every woman I know would say the same.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to show me your baking skills, then?”
Morgan held up both hands and waggled her fingers. “These hands have many uses. Prepare to be wowed.”
* * *
After checkingthem on her phone—“Look, Dave sent my phone back unscathed!”—Morgan weighed out the ingredients for gingerbread, then set about making it. She beckoned Ali over with a crooked index finger.
Ali shuffled along the counter obediently.
