‘No, I’m just naturally interfering.’ She gathered together the old lady’s belongings and handed them to her. ‘Hang onto these and don’t forget to dig out that list. I might add a few things to it myself. I haven’t even started my shopping yet. You can help me decide what I should be buying. And I probably ought to order a turkey while we’re at it.’
* * *
Louisa arrived home two hours later to find the house still empty. Clearly Mac was still at the hospital. Didn’t the guy ever come home?
She dropped six bulging carrier bags on the hall floor and set to work.
First she went through the pile of post she’d retrieved from his bin the day before. Then she rummaged about in the bags for the ribbon she’d found in the market and found herself a pair of scissors.
An hour later she’d fastened even lengths of red ribbon to the hall wall and carefully attached all the Christmas cards.
Once the cards were displayed, she wandered into the garden and attacked the holly bush. What was the point of having a house like this one if you didn’t make the most of it? she reasoned, admiring the clusters of scarlet berries that nestled among the shiny green leaves.
She worked quickly, snipping and arranging, occasionally pausing to stand back and admire her handiwork. Finally she was satisfied.
And her stomach was rumbling.
* * *
When Mac walked in, hours later, he was hit by delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.
His stomach rumbled and he gritted his teeth.
It was all part of her ploy to persuade him to let her stay and interfere in his life. And he wasn’t falling for it.
He’d already decided that she had to leave. And he’d found her a room in the nurses’ home.
Closing the front door, he shrugged off his coat and stopped, his attention caught by the total transformation of his hallway. It had been plain magnolia when he’d left the house that morning. Now it was anything but plain.
Somehow she’d managed to bring the garden inside the house. Prickly bunches of holly were artfully arranged around the large mirror, long sticks of twisted willow had been teased into two tall glass vases and now sparkled with tiny lights. Rows of Christmas cards fastened to strips of red ribbon fell from the picture rail and candles flickered in the window recess, sending out a scent of cloves and lavender.
The doors to his sitting room had been opened and a fire burned merrily in the hearth, casting shadows across the room.
The effect was warm and cosy.
And Christmassy.
Something lodged in his throat and refused to budge. For a brief moment the cloak he’d drawn over his emotions slipped aside and he felt a shaft of pain stab through him.
This was somebody else’s Christmas.
This wasn’t what he did.
He gritted his teeth and shrugged his broad shoulders out of his wool coat just as Louisa strolled out of the kitchen.
‘You’re so late—you must be totally knackered.’ Her dark hair had been scooped into a ponytail and her cheeks were pink. He assumed she’d been standing in front of the Aga again.
He looked at the glass she was holding out to him. ‘What’s this?’
She grinned. ‘Alcohol. I thought I’d butter you up so that you don’t shout at me for decorating your hall and throwing open your living room. It has such fabulous views across the beach, we should be using it. The tree should go in there. We could—’
‘Louisa!’ He interrupted her sharply, ignoring the glass. ‘Louisa, I don’t want a tree. I never bother with a tree.’ He waved his hand around the hall. ‘Or any of this. And I don’t want a drink.’
‘Go on—it will relax you.’ She forced the glass into his hand. ‘I go for chocolate myself after a hard day, but I know that’s a girl thing so I thought you’d prefer wine.’
Left with no choice, he closed his fingers round the glass and looked back at his hall wall, staring at the Christmas cards neatly clipped to ribbon. ‘Where did those come from?’
‘Your bin. It was full of unopened cards. Don’t you ever open your post?’