Chapter 2 #2
The Wonky Tree Studios would love to find out who it is as they would love to offer him, or her, studio space to paint and sell these exquisite baubles.
Maybe we can work together as a community to find them.
If you’ve found a bauble, where did you find it?
Do you live near where baubles have been found, have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around late at night?
Do you have CCTV or Ring cam footage of any mysterious people who might be St Nick?
If you have any information, no matter how small, that might lead to us finding out who it is, then please message The Lovegrove Lighthouse.
While we have no intention of revealing publicly who St Nick is, unless they wish it, hopefully we can persuade them to sell their art in the Wonky Tree Studios next year and then anyone who has not been lucky enough to get a bauble this year might be able to buy a custom-made one, if St Nick is willing to take commissions.
And if you are St Nick and would like to get in touch, anonymously, please do message The Lovegrove Lighthouse. We’d love to hear from you.
There, that should work. Alex didn’t want St Nick to feel like it was a witch hunt, not after their incredible generosity.
And no matter what happened, if she found out who it was, she would respect their need for privacy and not reveal their identity to anyone, but she really hoped she could find out who it was, especially because talent that special should be celebrated.
Getting St Nick to work in the studio, even if their identity remained unknown, would be a big boon for the Wonky Tree Studios and she wanted to be able to do that for Flick and Luke after all their help over the last year or so.
She switched on the lights in her studio and looked around.
Her little hobby of making paper sculptures out of pages of a book was something she loved doing.
She never, in her wildest dreams, ever thought she’d be doing this kind of thing full time and have her own studio selling her sculptures.
And that was all thanks to Luke and Flick.
She had around fifty smallish sculptures on shelves around the room but she knew that half of those would be sold by the end of the week so she was constantly having to replenish the shelves.
At this time of year most of her sculptures were Christmas or winter themed and a lot of them were built inside clear plastic baubles.
There were also several that depicted scenes from favourite movies that were always very popular.
She turned on the fairy lights that adorned the shelves, and the lights on the little Christmas tree in the corner, decorated with paper sculpture baubles.
Alex sat down and started work on a sculpture that depicted a scene from The Polar Express.
She had been working at the Wonky Tree Studios for around eighteen months now and she loved it.
Her sculptures sold well and, while she was never going to be going on any world cruises anytime soon and had to supplement her income by doing illustrations for children’s books and the occasional article for the local paper, she wouldn’t want to do anything else.
She adored the creative side but more importantly she wanted to do this for Zara because she wanted to show her that she could follow her dreams, have a job she loved, be who she wanted to be.
Alex wanted Zara to see her mother going to work and doing something she loved.
And working at the Wonky Tree Studios had the added bonus of working alongside Quinn every day.
She had been in love with him pretty much since she first met him.
She felt guilty even acknowledging that since she had been married to his brother and even more guilty because the first time they met was at Liam’s funeral.
When she initially met Liam they had hit it off instantly, within six weeks they were living together and after four months, he asked her to marry him.
And that was when she realised he was estranged from his family.
Whenever she’d brought up his family before, he just muttered something like they didn’t get on and changed the subject.
She hadn’t realised they didn’t get on to such an extent that they wouldn’t even come to their son’s wedding.
Alex had been in two minds whether to even let them know he had died because they cared so little for him, but she had and invited them to the funeral and that was when she found out that he’d never told them about her or Zara.
They had a three-year-old granddaughter they didn’t even know existed.
They’d arrived at the funeral and Alex had been fully expecting to hate them, but Violet and Henry, his parents, had been utterly lovely and when Quinn came over to introduce himself and offer his condolences he had given her the biggest hug that made her heart ache.
It had been a long time since anyone held her like that.
With the guilt associated with Liam’s death and all the stress of the previous year she’d ended up crying against his chest. He’d shuffled her into a secluded corner of the hotel where they were holding the wake and simply held her tight until the tears had passed.
It was so sweet and kind that she might have handed over a tiny piece of her heart there and then.
He had been there for her that day and he had showed up almost every single day since then and every time he did she fell for him a little bit more.
She’d become incredibly close to Violet over the last few years, and after Henry died, that bond had grown stronger as Alex invited her round to dinner fairly regularly so Violet wasn’t alone. Now she felt as close to her as she had to her own mum.
She still felt sad for Liam that he’d never see his daughter grow up, she felt sad for his family, his cousins who all missed him terribly, and his mum especially who talked about him all the time.
She felt sad for Zara who wouldn’t get to see her dad again.
But now, four years later, she felt cautiously optimistic about her future and couldn’t help feeling horribly guilty about that too.
With Liam gone maybe it was time she started looking for that someone who could fill the hole in her heart, the one he’d ripped open eighteen months before he died.
Although nervous about her upcoming dates, she couldn’t help feeling a little bit excited about what might happen.
Somewhere out there might be the man of her dreams.
Her thoughts immediately turned to Quinn.
It was too simplistic to think that Quinn would step up and declare his love for her when he’d never showed any signs of having feelings for her in the past. He was in their lives because Zara was his niece and he loved her and because he and Alex had become really good friends but it was never going to be anything more than that.
Just as she was cutting out a snowflake shape for her sculpture she noticed movement by the door and looked up to see Quinn leaning against it, watching her.
‘Hey, did Zara get to school OK?’
Quinn nodded. ‘I walked her right up to the gate. But you know she’s going to get wise to this soon.’
‘I know, I’m just banking on the part of her that loves spending time with you outweighing her cleverness, at least until she’s eighteen.’
Quinn laughed. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that but I will show up every day to take her to school until she figures it out.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll always be here for you. For her,’ Quinn quickly amended.
‘Being there for her is being there for me.’
‘I’m here for you too.’
‘You always have been.’
‘No, I mean, whatever you need, whatever you want, I’m your man.’
‘Anything?’
‘Of course.’
Alex considered telling him she wanted one night of hot passion. It had been so long since she’d been with a man, she’d almost forgotten which bits went where. She felt herself go hot just at the thought of him kissing and touching her in that way.
He moved closer and she could smell his citrus scent. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, softly.
She would die if he knew what exactly she had just been thinking about. ‘Oh, nothing.’
‘You can tell me.’
She frantically wracked her brain for something. ‘Oh, it’s just the toilet doesn’t flush properly, the shelf in the bathroom keeps falling down and the kitchen sink keeps clogging up.’
He stared at her and then a smile spread across his face. ‘Consider it done.’
‘No, I don’t need you to take care of that for me, I can get someone in.’
‘It’s no bother.’
She sighed. ‘I lead a glamorous life.’
‘It’s hard doing everything on your own. And you don’t have to.’
‘I’m not alone, I have Immy.’
She would forever be grateful to Immy for moving in with her and Zara after Liam died.
She’d always been close to her sister and when Immy had brain trauma after falling off a horse, Alex had looked after her.
Alex knew moving in with her was Immy’s way of repaying the favour.
A few days after the funeral Immy had turned up on her doorstep asking to move in, claiming that her landlord had doubled her rent and they’d cut her hours at work.
But Alex had known Immy was doing it for her.
It was a good job too – she would never have been able to afford to stay in her house by herself.
‘You and Zara could have moved in with me,’ said Quinn. ‘I’d have looked after you.’
Alex shook her head. ‘I love having you in my life, Zara adores you and I appreciate everything you do for us so much, but I would never want you to feel obligated to us, to help us or keep coming round. I wouldn’t want to be a burden to you.’
‘You could never be a burden to me.’
‘It’s very kind but I come as a package, and Zara comes with a lot of books, toys and games. She loves arts and crafts, everything she makes or paints has copious amounts of glitter on it. Believe me, that stuff gets everywhere.’
Quinn grinned. ‘I’m already finding glitter for most of the year after Santa leaves. She’d be right at home.’
‘And how would it look when you bring home a woman, and she finds you’ve already got another woman and child in situ?’
‘I don’t have too many women at my house and if I did I’d just explain I have a lodger.’
The thought of sitting in his lounge while he brought another woman home and took her upstairs to his bedroom made Alex’s stomach turn.
Of course she knew he had girlfriends, there was a period of time when he seemed to have a different one each week.
But it was one thing knowing he was sleeping with other women – being there while it was happening would be another kind of torture.
‘And what happens when I bring men back to yours, you’d be happy with that?’
His face darkened. ‘What?’
‘I’ve decided to start online dating. It’s time I got back on the horse.’
‘You… you’re dating?’ Quinn said, his voice rough.
‘Yes. Well, I just filled in the online application over the weekend. I have coffee with a man at lunchtime. Immy thinks I need a one-night stand, apparently they are very liberating.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he said through gritted teeth.
She felt her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. ‘What? Why?’
Quinn ran his hand through his dark hair. ‘Because…’
He clearly didn’t have a reason other than his loyalty to Liam.
‘It’s been four years,’ Alex said gently.
And it would have been much sooner than that but she had held off out of respect for Liam’s mum, who would probably never get over the loss of her son and understandably so.
But her marriage had been over long before he’d died, she certainly didn’t have any loyalty to Liam.
But Quinn and his family didn’t know any of that.
It was hard enough telling them their son and brother had died, she didn’t want to tell them he’d been a complete and utter arsehole for the last eighteen months of their marriage.
They’d never spoken about the reason why Liam was estranged from his family either.
What was the point of dragging up past hurts?
‘I’m well aware how long it’s been since my brother died,’ Quinn said.
She stared at him in surprise. Was he angry? She’d never seen that side of him before so she didn’t know what it looked like.
He shook his head. ‘Sorry. I’m just… What about Zara? I don’t think it’s good for her to see a parade of men coming through the house.’
Alex folded her arms across her chest. ‘A parade of men? That makes it sound like I’d be sleeping with a different man every night. Is that what you think of me? Besides, sleeping with a different partner every night sounds much more like you than me.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I remember working at The Frog and Lettuce, you had a different woman with you every time you came in there.’
‘That was… a long time ago. And has nothing whatsoever to do with this.’
‘This is coffee with one man.’
‘You just said you’re looking for a one-night stand.’ Quinn was scowling. ‘What if it progresses into something more? Will you be bringing him back to your house, sleeping with him in the room next to Zara’s?’
‘What I do in the privacy of my own house is nothing to do with you.’
‘I love her and I worry about her.’
‘I do too and I would never do anything to upset her or cause her harm.’
‘I don’t know if she is ready to have a new dad in her life.’
‘Who said anything about that? You’re being ridiculous. What’s the real reason behind all this? Do you honestly expect me to dress in black and live in mourning for the rest of my life?’
‘No, of course not. I just hoped you would talk to me about this first.’
‘Why?’
‘Because… I want you—’
Just then a customer walked in and started looking around at Alex’s sculptures.
Alex gave the woman a winning smile before turning her attention back to Quinn. She lowered her voice. ‘You want me to do what?’
He shook his head. ‘We’ll talk about this later.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about, I’m going for that coffee.’
Quinn let out a grunt of frustration and stormed out of her studio.
She stared after him in shock. That was the first time she’d argued with Quinn about anything. He was always so laid-back and easy to talk to. She’d kind of hoped he would be happy for her, cheer her on, give her some advice. It had been a long time since she’d gone on a date.
Should she have given him some prior warning? But surely he must have expected her to start dating at some point? She sighed and shook her head. If she hadn’t been feeling guilty before, she certainly was now.