Holly's Christmas Kiss (2 page)

Chapter Three

Two days before Christmas, 2013

Michelle’s taxi drew up to the drop-off point at Heathrow Airport. Snow was starting to fall as she paid the driver and stepped out onto the pavement. Michelle shivered. She’d always hated winter. Right from the point, usually sometime in the middle of October, when the first person gestured towards the darkening sky and told her it was starting to look Christmassy, she could happily avoid the whole season. Given the option, Michelle thought, she’d probably prefer to hibernate until spring. The thought that this time tomorrow she’d be sipping a cocktail on the beach in the Cayman Islands was the only thing keeping her from jumping straight back into the cab and demanding a ride to the nearest place with central heating.

Her case seemed to have got heavier since she left the hotel. By the time she’d navigated her way to the right check-in area she was sweating despite the cold. Waiting in the queue, she unwrapped her scarf from around her neck and started to undo her heavy duffle coat. At least once she was on the plane she wouldn’t have to put those back on for another two weeks.

The doubt she’d been fighting, ever since she’d clicked ‘Book’ on the online travel site, popped back into her head. It was so much money. Could she really justify it when she spent her working life telling her clients not to overspend? She swallowed. It was what her mother had wanted. A small inheritance, not much once the funeral was paid for, but enough to allow Michelle to take the holiday of a lifetime. That was what her mother, quite uncharacteristically, had instructed her to do, and it was up to Michelle to ensure that is was worth every penny.

With her coat balanced on top of her suitcase she took a moment to look around. The queue for check-in was nearly all adults. The Caribbean at Christmas must be a preference of those without young families. She glanced around again. The queue was also exclusively couples, apart from Michelle. She stood up straight. There was no shame in going on holiday alone. In fact, she’d probably have a better time than all these women with boyfriends or husbands in tow. She wouldn’t be worrying about making someone else happy.

Michelle spent the whole year sorting out other people’s problems: planning Jess’s wedding; helping Jess move; running around after her boss; running around after her clients. She remembered her mother’s instructions
: ‘Put yourself first, Michelle.’ That was the plan.

The couple in front of her embarked on a sloppy and prolonged kiss. Michelle looked away, decidedly ignoring the memory rushing into her mind of a moment that got away. She was definitely better off on her own. 

The queue inched forward, until Michelle was called in front of a smiling check-in assistant with tinsel pinned to her uniform and reindeer antlers on her head.

‘Merry Christmas!’

Michelle didn’t reply. It might be nearly Christmas. That didn’t mean she had to pander to the fact. She lifted her bag onto the conveyer and held her ticket and passport out to the assistant.

‘Thank you, Miss ...’ the woman glanced down at the passport, ‘… Jolly! Oooh, how festive!’

Yeah. Nothing beat being called Jolly at Christmastime. She caught the check-in woman looking at her full name. Holly Michelle Jolly. She could see that another set of jokes she’d heard a thousand times before were already forming in the woman’s mind.

‘I use Michelle.’

The woman suppressed a smirk. ‘Did you pack this bag yourself Miss Jolly?’

‘Yes.’

‘And has anyone asked you to take any items on the flight with you?’ The girl asked the question by rote, in the sing-song voice of someone so used to saying the words that they’d forgotten the meaning a long time ago.

Michelle shook her head.

‘Excellent. Window or aisle?’

Michelle paused. She did prefer a window seat. She remembered the one time she’d been on an aeroplane with her
dad, and how he’d let her take the window seat. She’d been transfixed by the sight of the clouds drifting below them. Knowing her luck though, she’d get sat next to someone who’d stink to high heaven, regale her with stories of what they’d got up to at their office Christmas party, and then fall fast asleep for the next seven hours, leaving her pinned in her seat. Aisle would mean she could get up and stretch her legs. She didn’t want to risk a deep vein thrombosis.

‘Aisle, please.’

The assistant tapped a few keys, before another thought struck Michelle. She remembered a documentary she’d watched about plane crashes, and how to survive them.

‘And within seven rows of an exit.’

The woman raised an eyebrow, and tapped the keys some more. Eventually the boarding pass printed out.

‘You’ll be boarding around a quarter to three. We don’t have a gate yet, but if you go through security and watch the monitors, it’ll come up about thirty minutes before we board.’

‘Thank you.’ Michelle took the boarding pass and her passport from the assistant and turned away.

‘Thank you, madam. Merry Christmas!’

Michelle suppressed a grimace. Hopefully, once she got to Grand Cayman, people would be more relaxed and not quite so irritatingly perky.

The queue for security was more suited to Michelle’s mood. By this stage, people were tired of waiting, and the ritual of removing jewellery, belts and wristwatches was being completed with bored faces and a refreshing lack of festive cheer.

Michelle stuffed her coat and belt into a plastic tray and put the rucksack she was carrying as hand baggage onto the conveyer. She walked through the bodyscan, only to hear the machine bleep. The security guard stepped forward and gestured her back through the scanner. She emptied her pockets fully, and removed the plain gold studs from her ears before walking back through the contraption.

The machine bleeped again and the red light flashed above her head. Michelle followed the guard’s instructions to stand with her arms outstretched and legs apart. The woman flicked a handheld device over Michelle’s body. Michelle’s face flushed red. She knew this was a perfectly everyday occurrence, but she couldn’t help but feel that people were staring at her.

The security guard checked with a colleague and then smiled at Michelle. ‘Ok. No problem. On you go.’

Michelle dropped her arms. She didn’t want to have to go through all this on the way home. ‘What set it off?’

The guard shrugged. ‘Sometimes it just goes off. You’re fine.’

Michelle didn’t consider that a satisfactory answer, but the guard had moved on to wave her detector at some other poor innocent. Michelle started to collect her belongings from the tray.

‘You managed to talk your way out of that one then?’

The distinctive Scottish accent made her stop dead. She turned round slowly to see Sean Munro smirking at her. Her eyes were drawn straight to his mouth, to those inviting lips that … She shook her head and forced her gaze away from his face.

‘You’re not wearing your kilt.’ She blurted the words as her glance dropped to his legs.

‘No.’

What was she saying? Of course he wasn’t wearing a kilt. Just because he wore a kilt in her imagination, didn’t mean he always wore a kilt. Not that she’d been imagining Sean. She was tired, she decided, and flustered from the security check. Yes. Flustered. It would pass.

‘What are you doing here?’ He obviously had no right to be here. This was her holiday. She was supposed to be getting away from any distractions.

The smirk extended into a grin, ‘Don’t pretend you’re not pleased to see me.’

Michelle took a breath. She’d simply run into an acquaintance. They would exchange the time of day and go their separate ways. There was no reason to be getting worked up. His deep green eyes weren’t a reason. The slight crumple to the T-shirt he was wearing wasn’t a reason. The flash of tight muscled torso she glimpsed as Sean rubbed his hand over the back of his neck wasn’t a reason. The warm intoxicating smell as he leant towards her definitely wasn’t a reason to lose her composure. Wait a minute. He was leaning towards her.

Michelle stepped sideways, away from the heat of Sean’s body. He lifted her rucksack off the table and swung it over his shoulder, raising his eyebrow slightly at her jump to the side.

‘But, what are you doing here?’ Michelle spluttered out the question again.

‘I’m catching a plane.’

‘Yes.’ Well, obviously. ‘A plane to?’

‘Home for Christmas.’

‘Home?’ Of course home. That’s where people went for Christmas, wasn’t it? They spent it with family. They had traditions, and customs that they shared with their parents and passed on
to their children. Was that what Sean’s Christmas would be like? Michelle swallowed the thought.

Sean was still talking. ‘… near Edinburgh.’

Michelle nodded, hoping she hadn’t missed anything important.

‘Are you heading home too?’

Michelle shook her head. There wasn’t really a home to head to any more. Her mother had passed away. And her father was … well, her father was not somebody she would choose to spend her holidays with.

‘To the Caribbean. On holiday.’

‘Who with?’

‘Just me.’

‘At Christmas?’

The hint of concern in Sean’s voice made the muscles in Michelle’s neck twitch. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing.’ He regrouped quickly. ‘When’s your flight?’

She paused and took a breath. ‘Three.’

Sean nodded and started striding away from the security area and into the main departure lounge. Michelle scurried to keep up with his longer legs.

‘So, what do you fancy?’

What do you fancy? Michelle opened and closed her mouth with no sound. What did she fancy? She gave up. The less she said the less likely it was that she’d see the teasing grin reappear at Sean’s lips.

He gestured towards the large, florescent-lit store in front of them. ‘We could see how many perfumes they’ll let us test before they realise we’re not buying.’

Michelle shook her head. It was a ridiculous thing for a grown man to suggest.

Sean glanced around, and pointed at a coffee shop. ‘Hot chocolate? We could get cream and marshmallows and see if we can drink it without getting cream on our noses?’

Hot chocolate had always been what her dad would bring Michelle if she caught a cold. She had a picture in her head of him sitting on the edge of her bed with a big steaming mug for each of them. If Mum was out he’d buy the synthetic cream in an aerosol can and spray that on top. If Mum was around she would shout at him for daring to bring aerosol cream into her kitchen. Apart from at Christmas. At Christmas, she used to let him have his way. That was a very long time ago, but Michelle could taste the memory of the cheap sugary cream dissolving on her tongue. She smiled.

Sean returned the smile. ‘So hot chocolate?’

‘No, thank you.’ This holiday was about time alone, not about playing like children with a man who was old enough to know better. ‘Can I have my bag please?’

Sean placed the rucksack strap into her outstretched hand.

‘Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather be on my own. I’ll be quite happy reading my book.’

His eyebrows rose slightly, but the smile didn’t leave his lips. ‘If that’s what you’d prefer.’

Michelle adopted a light tone. There was no reason not to be cordial. ‘Have a nice Christmas.’

Sean didn’t move as she walked away. He’d met this woman twice now. This time he’d even made her smile, but both times he’d ended up watching her leave. It wasn’t a situation he was used to. If Sean was honest, in recent years he’d tended to be the one doing the walking away. It was safer that way.

It seemed a shame, though, Michelle holidaying alone at Christmas. He let the thought settle in his brain. Even during his lowest moments, Sean couldn’t imagine spending Christmas away from his family and friends. That was it. He felt sorry for her being alone. Obviously if she’d told him she was flying out to meet a boyfriend he would have been fine with that. Completely fine.

Sean wandered without much intent around the departure lounge duty free stores. He remembered the first time he’d flown from Edinburgh to London, back before travelling for work had been part and parcel of his life. He’d been a twenty-year-old farm boy who’d never boarded a plane before. He remembered the shops at Edinburgh’s airport. Aisles and aisles of perfume, scotch whisky, books, scarves, jewellery, and bags, all potential gifts for his hostess. In the end he’d plumped for perfume. A bottle of he didn’t remember what, a tiny bottle, but much bigger than he could afford at the time. The assistant had smirked, and told him it was the perfect scent to get a young girl to fall in love with him. Maybe that had been his mistake all those years ago. He didn’t ask what would be the perfect scent to persuade a girl who’d fallen out of love with him to change her mind.

His phone pinged in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at the screen. A new text. He rolled his eyes at the name. Speak of the devil and he will appear. That was the saying, wasn’t it? Cora went one better. You only had to think of her and she popped up.

The text was breezy and flirtatious in tone. What part of no didn’t she understand? Sean paused as he read the end of the message. ‘Hope to see you over Christmas.’ She must think he was staying in London. No chance. He’d be safely in Scotland, and he couldn’t imagine Cora gracing the ancestral home with her presence for the holidays. She would, no doubt, have a much more glamorous option lined up.