Chapter Eight
As it turns out, it is not just her and Finn on a team.
They’re in teams of three, with Susan remaining behind as the judge.
Hattie has opted to be with Mel and Finn—meaning there is no let-up in the pretending-to-be-a-happy-couple charade.
To foster “team spirit,” Hattie insisted on driving into the village with Finn and Mel, riding in the back of the car, meaning Mel feels like she’s on display, with sharp eyes on them the whole time.
At one point in the car journey, he reached out, put a hand on hers on her lap.
She flipped her hand, dug her nails in, hard.
After that, he turned the radio up, both of them insisting they wanted loud music when Hattie complained.
Luckily, the countryside is epic enough that she can get away with staring out of the window and not look like she’s trying to avoid the man sitting next to her.
Of course it’s epic—it’s a national park—but, still, she wasn’t quite expecting the scale of it, the feeling that you could drive for hours each way and still be lost in wilderness.
High snow-capped mountains loom in the near distance, and they pass pinewood forests that look like something out of a fairy tale.
There is a river, glinting in the bright winter sunlight, which sweeps past a castle in the background.
As instructed by Susan, they stop in a car park near the center of Ballater, and Hattie informs them the village is on several lists of the most beautiful villages in the Cairngorms. Given Mel doesn’t know how many villages there actually are in the national park, she has no idea if that’s an accomplishment or not, but it’s incredibly charming—she’ll give it that.
Rolling hills span the horizon, with Highland cattle grazing in nearby fields.
The houses feel as if they’ve been untouched by time—granite stone buildings with slate roofs, all nestled on narrow streets next to small shops and at least one inviting-looking pub.
They all get out of the two cars, and Susan beckons them into the middle of the car park, holding out an envelope for each team.
Mel has a moment to admire Susan’s commitment to the whole thing as she takes the envelope, pulling out a list with the scavenger items they need to collect as well as a map, indicating the route they should take—with a café circled in green as the finish point.
“First team to find me in the café with the most items on the list wins,” Susan says, smiling at all of them.
“What do we win, exactly?” Mark asks.
“Pride,” Susan says easily.
“Bragging rights,” pipes up Hattie.
“And something special for you,” Susan says, winking at Freya, who bounces on her toes, looking up at Kristen from under a snowflake hat, complete with earmuffs.
“What about you?” Kristen asks. “Will you be okay, waiting for us?”
Susan pats her handbag. “I’ve got my cozy Christmas crime novel waiting for me—I’ll be fine. I just want to see you all have fun.”
“We are on it,” Hattie promises, then grins down at Freya. “On your marks…”
Freya doesn’t wait for the “go,” but tugs Kristen into a run, heading down past the river, with Mark reading out the items behind them both.
Mel scans their list, which includes a photo with a robin, a reindeer, an icicle, a Christmas tree, a frosted web, and a star made out of twigs. Okay, well, the sooner they get this done, the sooner she can return to the cottage and shut herself away under the guise of working.
“How on earth are we supposed to find a reindeer?” Hattie asks, peering over her shoulder.
“There are reindeer in the Cairngorms, like a whole herd of them,” Finn says. They both look at him and he shrugs. “I looked up some facts when I knew we were coming here.”
“So…what, does she want us to lasso one?” Hattie asks.
“We need a game plan,” Mel says. “We’ll do the Christmas tree first—that should be easy, given there is a whole forest of them—then we can work our way through, depending on where we are and we should be back in no time.”
Hattie glances at Finn. “Don’t you just love her ‘take charge’ voice?”
He smiles. “I do.”
Mel doesn’t quite like the softness there—or what it does to her insides.
She distracts herself by leading the way out of the car park and through a line of trees, some bare, some evergreen, so that it feels colorful, even though it’s only a mix of green and brown.
And white. Susan was right about there being snow here—not this far down, but Mel can see it farther up.
Her breath steams out in front of her as they walk, and she welcomes the warmth in her limbs, the cold on her face, as Hattie and Finn follow on the trail behind.
It’s been too long since she let herself do this, just walk in nature, given she’s bound so often by the four walls of either her flat or her office.
They pass a little loch to their left, fringed by trees, the surface sparkling in the sunlight.
A thin layer of ice hugs the edges of the water, and as they watch, a large brown bird swoops down on the other side.
“Do you reckon there are icicles down there?” Hattie asks behind Mel, referring to one of the items on the list.
“Christmas tree first,” Mel says firmly, indicating a row of pine trees farther up.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hattie pulls ahead, posing in front of one of the trees by pretending to be reaching to try to put a star on top, though it has got to be about thirty meters high. Mel clicks a photo on her phone, and finds herself smiling.
“So, Hattie,” Mel asks as they continue to walk, too aware of the quiet between the three of them, of whether she and Finn are coming across as appropriately coupled-up—and of how Finn had told her he’d drop her at the station this morning. “How’s your job going?”
“It’s great,” Hattie says easily. She does something in software development, Mel knows, though she still has no idea what Hattie’s life actually consists of day-to-day—and given how long she’s known Hattie, it feels too late to ask.
Not that Hattie is one of those people who bangs on about her job—she insists that it’ll sound boring to anyone but her whenever someone asks.
“And Dylan loves telling all the actor types that his girlfriend is in IT, so that’s a win for both of us.
When do you find out about Lillian Hart? ”
“In a few days, after the meeting.”
“You’ve got a meeting like that near Christmas? That’s harsh.”
Mel shrugs. “If Lillian Hart says jump…”
Hattie snorts. “I’ll tell Dylan you said that. And what will it mean if she’s on board?”
What will it mean? She can feel Finn behind her, letting them talk but definitely watching her, waiting for the answer too.
“More recognition,” she says, “a bigger brand, the chance for growth.” All quite vague, isn’t it?
And she’s not sure what it will mean for her, personally.
Even less time on the designs themselves, presumably.
More staff to manage. But more success, she tells herself firmly.
The type of success her mum used to promise she’d have in her future, the type of success that would make everyone proud.
“What’s next?” Finn asks brightly, pulling the list from Mel’s hands and making her realize that she’s gone silent, thinking about the future of her business. Of herself, still in her flat. Alone, working into the evenings to keep up.
“A photo with a robin,” Finn reads out loud. “Surely there are tons of robins around.”
They all look around like they are expecting a robin to immediately fly in front of them. It’s quiet, and Mel realizes she can hear the sound of birdsong, and the rustling of a nearby animal, waiting for them to pass.
“Where are the others?” Mel asks. “Surely we should have caught up with them by now.”
“Oh, they are taking a different route,” Hattie says. “Mum told me. She let them go on a shorter route for Freya. She’s properly thought the whole thing through.”
“Setting us up to lose,” Finn says sadly. Mel lets out an accidental small snort of laughter, and his eyes jump to hers. She immediately scowls, just to rectify it.
“Robin,” she reminds them—and herself—firmly. When they find a bird that Hattie declares looks close enough, Finn gets in a photo with it, pointing with the most ridiculously excited look on his face, wide-eyed, mouth open.
“Okay,” he says, clapping his hands when Hattie declares the photo a work of art.
“A kiss under mistletoe.” His gaze snags on Mel’s briefly.
Nope. No way is she kissing him. She will not let herself remember the way his mouth felt on hers.
She narrows her eyes at Finn, daring him to go there.
For one moment, she thinks he’s going to call her bluff, then he turns to his sister, grins at her.
“Give us a kiss, Hatt.” He leers in an overdramatic way and it makes her shriek, darting behind Mel to use her as a shield.
It was this that Mel found hard to get used to at first. She’d grown up in a loving household—but a relatively quiet one.
And despite declaring Priya her fake sister for about two weeks when they were at school, and trying to make her parents let her change her surname to match Priya’s, she’s never totally got the sibling thing.
“Eugh,” Hattie says. “I’m not kissing you. I’ll kiss Mel.”
Finn takes charge, going on the hunt for mistletoe, while Hattie and Mel ponder whether they definitely know what mistletoe looks like when it’s not hung in doorways—does it grow on bushes, or trees?
Trees, they decide. They cannot, however, find any in the forest, and settle for Finn holding up a twig while Hattie kisses Mel on the cheek.
“We are definitely losing points by the second,” Mel says.
“Nah.” Finn shrugs. “We’re being creative.”