The Cottage on Christmas Gardens

Chapter 1

‘I’ve found one.’

Alex looked up from making her daughter’s packed lunch as her sister, Immy, burst in through the back door brandishing a square box in her hand. Immy’s scruffy little black Skye terrier, Jacob, ambling in at her side was clearly nowhere near as excited as his owner.

Immy yanked her hat off, her red hair tumbling out in a cascade of curls, her pale, freckly cheeks flushed with cold or excitement.

She bit the ends of her snowflake-patterned gloves to remove them as quickly as possible and then reverentially laid the box down on the table as if it was a prized treasure.

‘You’ve found what?’ Alex asked. Judging from Immy’s excitement it had to be a cheque for a million pounds, which quite honestly couldn’t have come at a better time; they had bills coming out of their ears.

‘A bauble.’

‘Oh.’ Alex frowned in confusion before the penny dropped. ‘Ohhh.’

Zara’s packed lunch momentarily forgotten, she hurried over to look at it.

Since the start of December these exquisitely hand-painted baubles had been popping up all over the little seaside town of Lovegrove Bay and no one knew who was painting them.

With only one week until Christmas, it had become the talk of the town with people desperate to find one or find out who the mystery bauble painter was.

Or ‘St Nick’ as they had called themselves.

Each one was completely unique and came in a lovely little presentation box, with a little gift tag attached that simply said, ‘Keep, re-hide or gift to someone else. Love St Nick.’

Alex looked through the clear lid at the iridescent white bauble nestled on a layer of red tissue paper.

This one was beautifully painted with a pair of roller skates.

They had gold stars painted on the side and pink wheels with purple laces.

The skates were surrounded by holly leaves, berries and pine cones and more sparkly stars.

Zara would love this. She had been roller skating ever since she was three years old and practically lived in her skates when she wasn’t at school.

‘That’s beautiful,’ Alex said.

‘It really is. I found it in Christmas Gardens. We’ll have to ask Quinn if he’s seen anything suspicious. I wonder, as it was near Christmas Cottage, whether it might be one of the elves doing this.’

As far back as Alex could remember, the cottage on Christmas Gardens, Quinn’s home, had been used as Santa’s house for the weeks leading up to the big day.

About a week before, although no one knew the exact date, a team of elves, or people from the town, would transform the outside and inside of the cottage into something magical.

The children of the town always got a big kick out of seeing it the next day knowing the elves had visited overnight and that shortly after Santa would be arriving.

‘Maybe,’ Alex mused. ‘Although that might be too obvious. Lots of people go through Christmas Gardens.’

‘Well, who do you think is doing this?’ Immy asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Alex thought about all the artists who worked alongside her at the Wonky Tree Studios, woodworkers, mosaic artists, clay.

‘None of the artists at the Wonky Tree Studios paint anything like this. Rose paints landscapes not stuff like this and she is denying it’s her.

And I know most of the artists at the craft market on the village green and none of them do anything like this either. ’

‘It’s a shame the artist isn’t more visible,’ Immy said. ‘Hand-painted custom baubles like this would sell very well. Imagine asking the artist to paint your favourite hobby or your pet or your favourite place and then getting something like this. People would love it.’

Alex nodded. ‘They obviously like the mystery and I think it’s such a lovely idea to give this to people for them to keep or pass on to someone else. What will you do with yours?’

‘Photograph it and share it on the Lovegrove Bay Facebook page and then give it to Zara of course. There’s no one who loves roller skating as much as that girl.’

‘Don’t you want to keep it?’ Alex asked. ‘You were so excited to have found it a few moments ago.’

‘Yeah, of course I’m excited. Loads of people have found one so far. I feel like I’ve found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket now I have one too. But Zara will love this and I will get just as much joy giving it to her as I did finding it in the first place.’

Alex smiled at that. She loved her sister.

But Immy was so much more than that, she was her best friend.

It had been just the three of them growing up, Alex, Immy and their mum.

When their mum had died when Alex was eighteen, it had brought Alex and Immy closer than ever.

Alex had supported Immy after her horse riding accident which had caused brain trauma and when Alex’s husband, Liam, had died, Immy had moved in with Alex and Zara to look after them both.

In the months after Liam’s death, it had been so much easier having someone to talk to about everything; her guilt, her feelings surrounding his death, Zara’s grief, Immy had been there for it all.

That sisterly bond wasn’t like anything else and, more than anything, Alex wished she could do something to thank Immy for everything she had done for her.

‘It is funny that the illustrations seem to be tailored to the people who find the baubles or at least someone close to them,’ Immy said.

‘Mrs Kendall found one with a black cat wearing a Santa hat and she has four black cats. Mr Malik found one painted with chess pieces and his son loves chess. Miss O’Connor found one with a kingfisher on it and everyone knows her next-door neighbour Bob, an amateur twitcher, has been searching for a kingfisher for months. ’

‘I don’t know. If St Nick wanted to do a bauble for a specific person, why not just leave it outside that person’s door rather than hiding them in parks and woods, on the beach, or around the town?’

‘True.’ Immy went to the fridge and started preparing Jacob’s breakfast. ‘Although a few people have found them outside their door. Not specifically on their doorstep or in their garden but on a nearby bench or on the garden wall, so maybe some of the baubles are meant for certain people.’

‘That’s true,’ said Alex. ‘I’ve been asked to write an article about it for the local paper, it’s such a heartwarming Christmas story, perfect for this time of year, but maybe I could make it more of an investigative piece and try and find out who it is.’

‘Ooh yes, I like that idea, although the mystery of it does make it more exciting. There’s a huge part of me that wants to know who it is but I’m not sure I want to ruin the secret either. It’s like Santa, I never really wanted to find out the truth about him, I even cried when Mum told me.’

‘Yet you kept the magic alive for me.’

‘Of course I did,’ said Immy. ‘I could see how happy it made you, leaving food out for the reindeer, a mince pie for Santa – when you saw the snowy footprints across the lounge you used to squeal with excitement. I couldn’t take that away from you.’

Alex smiled at that.

‘But enough about that for now. Are you ready for your date today?’ Immy asked.

Alex pulled a face. ‘No, but I don’t think I’ll ever be.’

She sighed. After Liam had made her life a living hell for the last eighteen months of his life, she had been desperate to finally move on after he’d died but something had held her back.

She knew Violet and Quinn were part of it.

She adored Liam’s mum and brother and she never wanted to do anything to hurt them.

She also worried how Zara would feel about having a new man in her life.

Whoever she ended up with had to be right for Zara too, someone who would love her as much as Alex did.

But it was more than that holding her back.

There was fear of falling in love and putting her trust in someone else after Liam had let her down so spectacularly.

And there was guilt that moving on and falling in love would mean benefitting from Liam’s death.

She carried enough guilt over his death not to want to add to it.

But it had been four years since he’d died and Immy had decided that it was time Alex started dating again.

Over the weekend, Immy had sat with her and helped her create an online dating profile.

And since then Alex had received messages from several men, and she was meeting one of them for coffee at lunch that day. She felt a bit sick at the thought.

Immy was watching her closely. ‘I know you’re nervous, and rightly so after the hell Liam put you through,’ she said. ‘But you’re a wonderful person, you deserve to find happiness again.’

‘I am happy,’ Alex protested. ‘I have you and Zara, a job I love, I live in the most beautiful part of the world. I don’t need anything more than that.’

‘I think you’d be a lot happier having a hot man take you to bed.’

The thought of that made her stomach clench with need, although whenever she thought about sex, there was only one man she could imagine that with.

As if Immy had read her mind, she smirked. ‘This dating malarkey would be a lot easier if you just told Quinn how you feel and let him take you out on a date instead.’

And there was the crux of it. How could Alex even think about dating someone else when she was head over heels in love with Quinn?

‘He doesn’t feel that way about me.’

‘He’s round here every day,’ Immy pointed out.

‘To see his niece.’

‘He moved here to Lovegrove Bay shortly after meeting you at Liam’s funeral.’

‘To get to know his niece and spend time with her.’

‘He moved his art studio into the Wonky Tree Studios when you moved in there.’

‘Well, that was because the arrangement that Luke and Flick were offering was such a good deal.’

‘His studio is next to yours.’

‘There isn’t a lot of space there.’