Just for the Holidays Read online

‘Who said life was fair?’ Alister spun the tap to the ‘on’ position and pulled the hose trigger at the same instant as Michele stepped out from the house. The powerful jet of water met her head with an audible splat.

  ‘Oops.’ Alister took just a second too long to shift the jet away. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh –!’ Michele gasped, one side of her hair plastered to her head and the corresponding eye streaming mascara.

  Natasha screamed with excited laughter. ‘You got splooshed!’

  With a Tarzan yell, Jordan aimed his supersoaker at his mother. ‘Girls against boys! Choose your weapon.’

  For a second, Leah thought Michele would give everybody a good scolding or whirl around and retreat to her room. Time seemed to stutter while water glistened on bare skin and lush lawn.

  Then Michele wiped her face and slicked back her hair. ‘Girls against boys,’ she growled dangerously, yanking the bright green hose off the tap, leaving Alister with an altogether empty weapon. Jamming her fingers into the stream of tap water she sent it spurting in his direction with deadly aim.

  ‘Unfair!’ he bellowed, slipping on the grass as he floundered to escape at the same time as attempting to rearm himself by stealing Jordan’s water gun.

  ‘Get your own weapon, soldier,’ snapped Jordan, wrestling it back and aiming at his sister.

  ‘Eeep! Noooooo!’ Natasha flew across the garden with the water playing square between her shoulder blades. ‘All onto Jordan, girls!’

  For the next hour the air was filled with screams, protests, laughter … and a lot of water. It was sufficient to swill away the tension – temporarily at least.

  Finally, puffing hard, Michele held up her hands. ‘Enough! Ceasefire or I surrender or whatever I have to do.’ She fell onto one of the now damp loungers.

  Glad that the atmosphere had warmed a degree or two, Leah flopped down on another, wringing out her hair. ‘I’ll get drinks when I’ve caught my breath.’

  Michele closed her eyes and tipped her pale face to the sun. ‘Thanks. I think perhaps I overdid it.’ Her clothes clinging damply didn’t deter her from plummeting almost instantly into sleep.

  Alister regarded his estranged wife sheepishly. ‘Maybe she did overdo it. She’s zonked.’

  ‘It’s to be expected, I suppose. She’s very pale.’ Leah’s eyes darted towards the youngsters, their heads bent over their phones as they recovered from the water war via their world of constant communication. When were they to be told about their brother/sister-to-be? Would they leap on the news, hoping against hope that the baby would reunite their parents? Her heart twisted to think of yet another bitter disappointment to poison their young lives. Since the first shock of their parents splitting up, when Natasha had cried for days and Jordan had shut himself in his room, they’d coped almost unrealistically well. It was as if they’d been able to grow thin protective shells.

  But if those shells were put under pressure they’d surely shatter.

  Keeping these uncomfortable thoughts strictly to herself Leah managed to bask in the sun for an hour before Natasha announced herself once again to be ‘staaaaarving.’ Michele stirred but sank back into her slumbers so, stifling a sigh, Leah laid down her magazine. ‘We’ll eat out here. Lots of lovely salad.’

  ‘And cakes?’ Jordan suggested, hopefully.

  ‘With ice-cream?’ supplemented Natasha.

  ‘For afters,’ Leah agreed.

  She wasn’t sorry to go indoors and get a break from the powerful sun. The smooth tiles of the kitchen floor felt cool beneath her feet as she put eggs on to boil, then washed watercress and lamb’s lettuce for the salade verte. Humming quietly as she moved on to slicing big firm tomatoes that were so red they glowed, she became conscious of a man’s voice speaking French outside. Then Michele, evidently restored by her nap, replying. Alister joined in. Leah didn’t bother trying to follow a conversation that was way above her command of simple French phrases. Her sister and brother were Francophiles; French Language was Alister’s teaching commitment in his junior school and Michele loved to compete in airing her command of the language.

  As Leah whisked together the ingredients for a quick pecan toffee pudding, covered it with brown sugar and poured boiling water over it before sliding it into the oven, she did catch Michele insisting, ‘Oui, oui, il est notre plaisir!’ It was good that something was giving Michele pleasure because not much seemed to, these days.

  There was a little rice left from the risotto and Leah made a quick rice salad, chopping in tomatoes and spring onions with almonds while the eggs cooled, pausing only to call through the back door, ‘Could someone carry the table and chairs onto the lawn, please?’ and check that they did.

  Finally, she grabbed napkins and cutlery and stepped out once again into the shimmering heat of the garden. ‘I’m ready to bring lunch out, if someone wants to help me.’

  At the same moment, Michele called, expansively, ‘Welcome! Come and join us.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Leah halted in confusion.

  Then two figures rounded the corner of the house and a deep voice replied. ‘Thanks. This is nice of you.’

  Leah jumped as she recognised the workman and the teenager from next door. ‘Oh!’

  ‘This is my sister, Leah.’ Michele beamed.

  The workman’s dark hair looked as if the wind had just blown through it, his even darker eyes smiling from his tanned face. ‘I’m Ronan Shea and this is my son Curtis. Great to meet you.’

  ‘You’re not French!’ Leah exclaimed.

  ‘No, indeed.’ If anything, she could detect a touch of Irish in his voice.

  ‘But you spoke to me in French!’

  He grinned disarmingly. ‘I’m a big fat showoff.’

  ‘Leah, I’ve invited them to join us,’ interrupted Michele, ‘so they’ve brought their lunch and we’re all pitching in.’

  As if to prove her words Ronan opened a cool-bag to display three different hunks of cheese, a whole cooked chicken, a portly loaf of bread and bottles of wine and cola. ‘I hope it’s not too inconvenient?’ His gaze remained steadily on Leah’s face, whereas his son seemed unable to lift his eyes above Leah’s neck. Although they weren’t far below it.

  She felt colour sting her cheeks at the sudden realisation that she was standing chatting in her bikini for goodness’ sake. She forced a smile. ‘No, of course not. Just excuse me for a minute.’ Acutely aware of what felt like acres of flesh on display Leah tossed the cutlery on the table and set off for La Petite Annexe, forcing herself not to break into an undignified gallop.

  Michele, perhaps realising belatedly that Leah wouldn’t have chosen to be wearing only a purple high-leg bikini when introduced to a strange man and his wide-eyed adolescent son, called after her, ‘You take your time and we’ll bring the food out.’

  ‘Good of you,’ Leah muttered, bolting through the annexe door.

  Having let her embarrassment cool under a tepid shower before covering herself in cropped jeans and a T-shirt, Leah rejoined the party to find the table was busy with conversation and everybody had already heaped their plates. Leah quietly took the only vacant chair.

  Which was between Ronan and Curtis. It would have to be.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured, when Ronan passed her a plate and napkin. She poured herself a glass of lemonade. Only Alister seemed to be doing damage to the wine bottle in the centre of the table.

  Ronan fell into easy conversation with Alister, and as Curtis, Natasha and Jordan had found common ground in the belief that all software should be free, Leah’s residual bikini embarrassment began to fade.

  Curtis, she discovered by listening in, was, incredibly, only thirteen, despite being six feet tall and wearing head-to-toe black Goth gear. Leah wondered at a boy quite that young being allowed piercings in eyebrow, nose and both ears, and his alternative hairstyle dangling perpetually in his eyes. Whenever he was offered anything from the table he replied with an endearing ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks.’ Aside from their height
there wasn’t much similarity between father and son: Curtis sandy and hazel, Ronan uncompromisingly dark.

  Curtis politely helped Natasha and Jordan clear the first course as Leah brought out dessert. The sight of the steaming pudding with its accompanying chocolate sauce and fresh fruit silenced the gathering momentarily.

  Alister passed around clean plates. ‘Leah makes fantastic desserts.’

  Ronan turned his dark gaze on her. ‘You’re surely not baking on holiday?’

  ‘It’s something incredibly easy –’

  Michele broke in. ‘Leah only has to look at food and it jumps around and becomes something delicious.’

  ‘But still.’ Ronan smiled. ‘Surely nobody works on holiday?’

  ‘You’re painting a house.’ Leah reached for one of the local yellow plums called mirabelles and bit into its sweet juiciness.

  Ronan watched her lick juice from her lips. ‘We’re only kind of on holiday. My dad built the house when my mam was still alive and, hilariously, they named it “Chez Shea”. After she died, he and I spent a lot of time here and eventually I inherited it from him. As I’m off work for a few weeks I thought I’d come out and give it some TLC. But anyway, why does food jump around and make itself delicious for you?’

  ‘I trained as a chef but I work in chocolate products.’ Leah reached for another plum, her hair swinging over one shoulder.

  ‘She’s a chocolate taster!’ giggled Natasha. ‘It must be the coolest job in the world.’

  Curtis’s eyes grew round in astonishment. He stared at Leah. ‘Seriously? You taste chocolate? For a job?’

  Leah’s eyes twinkled. ‘Before you apply, there’s more to it than just scoffing chocolate down all day. I source ingredients, come up with new recipes or test other people’s. I’m lucky to possess the correct palate.’

  ‘So much so that when her last employer discovered she was moving to Chocs-a-million she was instantly put on gardening leave to remove her access to planned products,’ put in Michele, drily. ‘All right for some.’

  ‘Like teachers don’t get paid for taking the summer off?’ Leah sent her sister a sidelong look.

  ‘But “desk” isn’t a four-letter word for me as it is for you –’

  Jordan interrupted, evidently focused on the important stuff. ‘She can make amazing cakes, Curtis. Talk to her nicely and she might make you something.’

  Curtis gazed at Leah hopefully.

  ‘She’s on holiday,’ Ronan reminded him.

  But Leah obviously recognised suffering when she saw it. ‘Maybe if we have a bad-weather day we can have a bit of a bake off. The kitchen in the gîte has a big oven and hob.’

  ‘Yeah! Bake off!’ gloated Jordan.

  ‘Bake off, bake off!’ sang Natasha.

  Curtis switched his hopeful gaze to Ronan and Ronan softened. ‘Sounds as if you’re in luck.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks!’ breathed Curtis. ‘I like making stuff. ’Specially stuff I can eat.’

  ‘And we could have a chocolate tasting –’

  ‘I’ll get the chocolate.’ Jordan raced off towards the gîte, leaving Leah halfway through her sentence.

  Ronan felt his mouth stretch in a grin, in no doubt that she’d had no intention of the chocolate tasting taking place on the instant. Catching his eye, she managed to pull her face out of its expression of dismay, giving only a small eye roll before Jordan came loping back to the table, cradling three coloured packs in his hands.

  ‘I’ll have to move my stash to La Petite Annexe,’ she observed, drily. She set one of the packs aside. ‘This is open and, anyway, we need only two. OK, those who are taking part in the tasting, you need to drink water and eat a little dry bread to cleanse your palate.’ Alister declared himself a spectator, Michele occupied herself with her phone, but Ronan joined Curtis, Jordan, Natasha and Leah in nibbling on crusts of bread while Leah went on. ‘I’d normally taste in quite different surroundings. A product development kitchen’s a cross between a kitchen and a science lab. It’s clean and quiet and free of other tastes and smells. But this is only a demonstration so we’ll pretend we can’t see the remains of lunch or each other.’

  She picked up the first large slab, enveloped in a deep brown paper with a dull sheen. Her hands were shapely, the nails short and plain. ‘I’d normally make sure it was room temperature but France in August is hotter than I’d keep my kitchen so this has been in the fridge.’

  Ronan found himself unexpectedly engaged. He enjoyed chocolate as much as the next man but his attention was more on the subtle shifts in Leah as her professional persona took over, showing itself in the confidence in her voice and body language. ‘What difference does the temperature make?’ he asked.

  ‘Partly consistency but mainly that over-cool temperatures hinder my ability to detect flavours.’ She gave him a quick smile. He found himself watching her mouth again. ‘So here’s the speed-dating version of how I’d assess a chocolate that’s new to me, starting with the packaging because quality chocolate usually gets quality wrapping. This looks good to me.’ She slipped a finger under the brown paper and pulled back the foil beneath to expose a dark slab of chocolate divided neatly into rectangles. ‘Of the chocolate itself, I note that the surface is smooth and free from bloom – the whitish marks we sometimes see on cheap products, those that have been around too long or stored badly. The colour’s good. The surface has a sheen which, in dark chocolate like this, lets me see other colours. It’s a sort of brown rainbow visible to the practised eye.’

  Ronan inspected the slab. He saw dark brown. No rainbow. Curtis flicked him a what’s she on about? look.

  ‘The precision in the moulding is another sign of quality. Then I listen.’ She picked up the slab and broke off a rectangle, then broke it again. ‘It should resonate when it snaps. Hear it?’

  ‘Seriously?’ Curtis demanded. ‘Talking chocolate?’

  Leah laughed. ‘Buy a cheap bar and you’ll be able to hear and see the difference. You won’t get that snap and the product will be grainy and without lustre.’ She turned the pieces of chocolate in her hands. ‘See how this snapped? It has a sharp edge. That’s how it should be.’ She broke off four generous portions and handed them out. ‘Don’t eat it yet. Smell it. Enjoy the aroma and prepare your taste buds.’ She inhaled, her eyes half shut. ‘Smells good to me.’

  ‘Yum,’ agreed Natasha.

  ‘So now – being glad that at a chocolate tasting we don’t have to spit, as we would at a wine tasting – place a piece on your tongue. Don’t chew unless it needs breaking slightly to release the flavours. Letting it melt on your tongue releases the cocoa butter and counteracts any bitterness. We’re not eating, we’re tasting. Close your eyes. Let yourself experience the flavour.’

  Instead of closing his eyes, Ronan watched her close hers, observing her focused expression, and Jordan snaffling a second piece while Leah wasn’t looking, then blushing when he realised Ronan was.

  Slowly her eyes opened again. ‘A beautiful, rich flavour. This is good chocolate, high in cocoa solids, well presented, great aroma, just the sweet side of bitter. I’d expect it to temper well and I could make high-quality chocolate products from it.’

  ‘What’s tempering?’ Ronan put in.

  ‘It’s a faffy procedure involving heating and cooling the chocolate slowly to avoid the cocoa butters separating out or crystallising. A product development kitchen for chocolate products will have a machine to do it with precision because it ensures smooth glossy chocolate for dipping and coating.’

  ‘Your sensory perceptions must be well developed.’ Ronan just stopped himself from using the word ‘sensual’ instead of ‘sensory’. The sensual experience had been his, watching her.

  ‘Can we try the other bar?’ demanded Jordan.

  ‘It is interesting to compare,’ she agreed. ‘It often helps me fully explore my impressions of one product to compare it to another. We need to cleanse our palates again, though.’

  No
body objected; in fact Jordan almost knocked his glass over in his haste to co-operate. Soon they were running through the process again, everyone closing their eyes and solemnly sucking chocolate. Unanimously, they scored the first bar higher than the second and Leah pointed out economies in the packaging of the second that hinted at a slightly lesser quality.

  Generously, she let the kids ‘taste’ chocolate until it had all disappeared, then Curtis, Jordan and Natasha wandered over to the shadier part of the garden – ‘which means they don’t want us to listen in,’ observed Alister – and Michele stowed her phone and did the polite-company thing in asking Ronan all about himself. ‘So are you being paid not to work, this summer, like Leah?’

  Ronan caught the faintly exasperated look that Leah sent Michele. He’d worked out that the two were sisters but thought some of Michele’s digs were a bit uncalled for.

  Before Leah could respond, however, her phone buzzed to claim her attention, and Ronan responded courteously. ‘I broke my clavicle and had to have it pinned. Luckily it was my left side and painting uses my right.’ He rubbed the dull ache that made his shoulder heavy and stiff. From the corner of his eye he could see Leah tapping rapidly at her phone screen. The phone buzzed again almost straightaway and she snorted with amusement before resuming her tapping.

  ‘Poor you,’ said Michele. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I’m a helicopter pilot and I had a bit of an incident, but in a few weeks I should be passed fit to fly again.’ He deliberately glossed over what had happened. Those who didn’t fly treated it like a big deal to get an ailing helicopter to the ground rather than the simple good airmanship that it was. Now the op was over and the healing well under way he didn’t want to indulge avid requests for information. He just wanted to enjoy the extra time with Curtis.

  Happily, Michele seized on his job as the interesting element of his explanation. ‘Helicopter pilot? Glamorous! Makes teaching look boring.’

  Alister smacked his lips over his wine. ‘Ha! Maybe, though that depends on the teacher.’

  Michele sent him a death glare and Leah hastily put away her phone and butted in. ‘A helicopter pilot? That’s cool.’