Just for the Holidays Read online

  She had her work cut out as peacekeeper between her sister and her husband, Ronan decided as he smiled at her. ‘Flying’s my life. I work for an air tours company called Buzz Sightseer, flying tourists over London. I’m the chief pilot and helped build the company up from day one.’

  Leah found herself fascinated as Ronan talked, relaxed and easy in his chair, long legs crossed at the ankle.

  He lived on the southeastern fringe of London’s urban sprawl, was divorced, and shared Curtis’s care with ex-wife Selina. He’d been brought up in Ireland, ‘the rocky bit, right at the top’, but his dad had moved the family to England, where he helped Ronan through university and on his way to his commercial pilot’s licence before he passed away. ‘Dad would’ve been pleased that I got the career I love,’ he concluded. He gave the impression of calm control, of not wasting words, except to occasionally inject flashes of dry humour into the conversation.

  When Leah finally glanced at her watch the time had whizzed around to almost four. Regretfully, she searched around in the grass for her sandals. ‘I’d better get off to the supermarket, unless we’re eating out tonight.’

  Ronan sat up. ‘The supermarket in Muntsheim? I don’t suppose I could beg a lift? My car’s having work done and the garage said it should be ready round about now. I was going to call a cab.’

  Alister sloshed more wine into his glass. ‘You can leave Curtis here if he wants. He seems to be stopping our two from bickering.’

  Ronan grinned. ‘And miss a ride in your pink car?’

  Alister snorted. ‘Not my car.’

  ‘I did think it was a bit pretty.’ Ronan went to check with Curtis, who looked up only long enough to say that the others had given him the password to the wifi and he was quite happy where he was. Ronan going off without him was, apparently, ‘Cool beans’.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Michele began to get to her feet.

  Although she understood the eye-roll Michele directed towards Alister, Leah suddenly found she’d used up her quota of sisterly compassion for the afternoon. ‘Sorry, no room, I want to give my car a run,’ she whispered. Once she’d dropped Ronan at the garage she could blast out into the countryside, letting her satnav bring her back to Muntsheim to do the shopping when she was happily chilled. Surely she was entitled to snatch a few moments from this tense, unholidayish holiday, to open her car windows and let the wind blow it all away?

  Refusing to hear Michele’s ‘But –!’, Leah ducked into La Petite Annexe for her keys and purse then emerged with a brief ‘’Bye!’ and a hasty ‘C’mon’ in Ronan’s direction.

  Ronan, with a last word to Curtis, allowed himself to be collected up and chivvied out of the garden.

  From his position, prone on the cool grass, Curtis watched his dad follow Leah up the path beside the house.

  He turned back to his new friends. ‘Your mum’s a MILF,’ he muttered, too quietly for the adults to hear. He’d been waiting to use the line ever since he’d seen American Pie on DVD when his mum and Darren had been out one evening but, frankly, mums usually weren’t.

  ‘What’s a MILF?’ Natasha screwed her neck to try and see what Curtis was doing on his phone.

  Jordan groaned. ‘You must need your eyes testing. And don’t even think it. She’s our mum.’

  ‘Still a MILF.’

  A throaty roar emanated from around the house. Jordan cocked an ear. ‘Leah’s taking the Porsche. Hope your dad doesn’t scare easy.’

  Curtis stared. Jordan had short back ’n’ sides dark hair. Curtis wished he, too, had dark hair, like his dad, instead of being sandy with freckles, like his mum. ‘Why do you call her Leah?’

  Propping his chin on his hand, Jordan treated him to a condescending stare. ‘Because … it’s, like, her name?’

  ‘Duh! But why don’t you call her Mum?’

  Jordan frowned. Then he began to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to slap the ground making that ‘Huuuurgh!’ sound between peals that people did when they couldn’t even inhale for mirth.

  Curtis gave Jordan a shove. ‘What?’

  Although she giggled, Natasha was more helpful. ‘Leah’s not our mum. She’s our cool auntie.’ She nodded to where Michele was talking in a low voice to Alister, who was brandishing the nearly empty wine bottle. ‘That’s our mum.’

  Jordan laughed harder. ‘Do you still think our mother’s a MILF?’

  Face burning, Curtis realised he hadn’t even thought who Michele was in relation to the rest of the group. Yet Michele was much more his idea of a mother – old and a bit plump, wearing a frown most of the time. ‘Erm, sorry.’ The ‘No’ was implicit in his tone.

  ‘Leah can’t be a MILF because she’s not a mother,’ Jordan pursued, with unanswerable logic. ‘She’d have to be an “AILF”, which you can’t even say.’ His voice was rich with the superiority a fifteen-year-old reserved for thirteen-year-olds.

  Scowling, Curtis hunted for a way to redress the stupidity scale. ‘Does she ever look after you?’ He ripped up a handful of lawn to throw into Jordan’s face.

  Jordan coughed up a blade of grass before mashing Curtis’s head playfully into the ground. ‘I’m a bit old to need looking after. She used to though.’

  ‘If she’s a babysitter she’s a BILF then,’ Curtis said smugly, and got the Urban Dictionary up on his phone to prove that ‘BILF’ wasn’t something he’d made up.

  Natasha clamoured, ‘But what is a MILF? And what is a BILF?’

  In the vicious tone siblings seemed to reserve for moments of inexplicable irritation Jordan suddenly snapped, ‘Look it up, Gnasher.’

  Glaring at her brother, Natasha snatched up her phone. ‘I will, then, in the Urban Dictionary!’

  But as Curtis could see she was spelling it ‘erban’ she had no success. Soon she shoved her phone in her pocket and went off to the woman that Curtis now understood to be her mother, complaining that the lemonade was warm.

  As she drove out of the village, Leah relaxed into the driving seat of the Porsche and glanced over at where Ronan lounged in the passenger seat. ‘I didn’t want to subject you to The Pig.’ As if she would, when she hadn’t driven the scarlet Porsche Cayman since washing the dust from her after the long trek to Kirchhoffen.

  Ronan ran his fingertips over the stitching in the leather. ‘I can understand why.’

  ‘I love this car. I never get tired of driving it.’ Feeling a surge of proprietary delight to be behind the wheel, Leah began to accelerate up the lane out of the village, slotting into third gear as the engine note climbed.

  ‘And Alister doesn’t mind?’

  ‘What?’ Flicking into fourth, Leah felt the day’s irritations slithering from her shoulders, glorying in the power of the engine that thrust her back in her seat.

  ‘He doesn’t mind you driving it?’

  The irritations thudded smartly back. ‘Mind? Not at all.’ Leah kept her eyes on the road, turning over in her mind the realisation that Ronan, who handled a truly cool machine as his job, appeared to have leaped to the conclusion that the Porsche could only belong to a man. Her foot steadied on the accelerator and she reined herself in to a stately forty-five miles per hour.

  Leah butted heads with dismissive men every time she went on a track day, especially when she was the only female participant. It had created in her a burning need to prove herself in the eyes of the condescending male. In fact, most males. The need was burning particularly fiercely right at this moment, urging her to make a stand on behalf of snubbed women drivers everywhere. And though they were currently sailing past neatly laid-out fields that rose up to meet more distant tree-clothed hills she knew they’d soon come to a half-finished business park on the outskirts of Muntsheim with a very different kind of wide-open space. One that would provide the perfect arena to challenge Ronan’s assumptions.

  As she formulated her plans Ronan made up for her silence with a helpful rundown of the tram system into Strasbourg and where to find the ‘office de tourisme’, ne
ar the cathedral. ‘But perhaps you’ve visited Strasbourg already?’ he prompted.

  Leah, attention not really on city tourist traps, replied absently, ‘I expect we’ll get there but Alister’s more into cycling and active stuff,’ and Ronan retreated into silence, too. Maybe he was worried Leah wasn’t capable of talking and driving at the same time, she thought, grinning to herself.

  Ten minutes later the fields petered out and the road became broader and busier, street lighting and advertising hoardings signalling the town’s approaches. The business park came up on their left. Leah slowed to give it the once over. Work at the site looked to have halted some time ago. Red skips and depleted brick stacks were corralled behind temporary fencing but she saw no sign of a workforce.

  Would the owners mind her borrowing their big empty car park for a few minutes?

  No, she decided, as she indicated and turned across the traffic to nose the car through a drunken line of plastic cones.

  Ronan glanced across at her, expression perplexed. ‘You’ll need to go on a bit for either the supermarket or the garage.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Leah tried to look as if she were gazing about helplessly while actually assessing the area for hazards. ‘I’ll turn around.’ She straightened the car up, confirmed it was in first gear and made a last check of her mirrors. Then she stamped on the accelerator.

  ‘Whoa!’ gasped Ronan as the engine, howling in joy that it was playtime, catapulted them across the tarmac.

  ‘Oops,’ crooned Leah, relishing the feeling of acceleration. Settling her left hand on the handbrake she gathered power for another few seconds. Then she simultaneously yanked up the handbrake, stamped on the clutch and spun the steering wheel hard left. The Porsche changed direction like a dog chasing a rat.

  Flung against the door, Ronan gasped. ‘What the fu—’

  Standing on the accelerator again Leah sent the car flying back the way it had come, powered up, yanked the car into a doughnut that made her tyres screech, slammed into reverse, J-turned, and screamed to a halt neatly facing the exit.

  ‘It’s not Alister’s car,’ she pointed out, breathlessly. ‘It’s mine.’

  Chapter Three

  Ronan checked all his limbs were still attached and that his head could move from side to side. All OK.

  But his shoulder was on fire, stopping his breath. Heat was building in his temples, too, but that wasn’t medical.

  It was simple good old-fashioned fury.

  Slowly, he turned to contemplate the woman beside him. She was removing her sunglasses; grin blazing, eyes dancing, as she awaited his reaction.

  He didn’t keep her waiting for long. ‘What part of “I broke my clavicle” didn’t you understand? I’m still healing! My career is hinging on my recovery and you throw me around like an insane fucking idiot!’

  The grin flicked off and Leah’s eyes widened with horror. ‘What?’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t know you’d been hurt!’ She actually clapped her hand to her forehead like a sitcom actor.

  ‘How could you not know? You were sitting right there when I explained! And, anyway, you don’t put someone through your stupid antics without knowing their medical history. You could kill someone!’ The final two words emerged in a kind of strangled roar.

  White to her hairline, she swallowed hard. ‘I am so sorry. Should I get you to a doctor? Should you lie down? Do you have medication?’

  ‘As far as I know, I’m in one piece,’ he allowed grumpily, sliding over the peak of his anger as he eased his shoulder up, down and round, laying tender fingers on his collarbone. ‘It’s still working, which is better than I’d expect from being hurled into a series of car stunts without warning, helmet, harness or other rudimentary provision for my safety.’

  She hung her head but not before he saw tears well in her eyes. ‘I can only apologise. I was showing off.’

  Silence, apart from the smug purr of the engine, while Ronan fought with himself. Probably she had been expecting him to be impressed by her prowess but it had been an idiotic piece of exhibitionism and part of him wished the driver had been a man so he could drag him from behind the wheel and vent. Leah being female – the bikini had left him in no doubt about that – physically relieving his feelings was not an option.

  He drew in a slow breath. And then another. ‘In my job I take safety extremely seriously and to have someone do that for a joke in my current circumstances—’

  ‘—is unacceptable,’ she agreed, wretchedly. ‘Unacceptable in any circumstances. Showing off is exactly what my instructor told me never to do. I completely understand.’ Her voice had thickened. ‘Should I take you to the garage? Will you be able to drive home? Are you certain you shouldn’t see a doctor? There might be a hospital in Muntsheim or I could take you into Strasbourg.’

  At her obviously miserable guilt he felt the remains of his fury drain away. He flexed his arm experimentally. It worked fine. ‘Let’s just go. I think I’ll be OK to drive.’

  ‘Right.’ Gently, she put the car into gear and pulled away like a granny with a full load of eggs on board.

  Ronan glanced at her as she rejoined the traffic. She’d replaced her sunglasses, so he couldn’t see her eyes but he could see her hand tremble on the gear stick and he began to wish he hadn’t been such a diva. She’d only meant to have fun at his expense and when he was fit he liked fun. Every pilot had adrenalin-junkie tendencies beneath the control and precision that governed the job. If the episode had occurred six months ago he would probably have howled with laughter as she’d flung the powerful car around like a pro.

  But since he’d had a stark reminder of his own fragility and the way that his career, like a helicopter, depended on everything being in top working order, he was more cautious. ‘Left at the square, then the garage is at the top of the hill.’

  She nodded.

  He tried to think back to the moment when he’d explained his injury in the after-lunch social chatter. Alister had been soaking up the sun and the wine in equal measures. Michele had been asking Ronan twenty questions … and, damn, Leah had been texting, frowning in concentration as her thumbs flew.

  She hadn’t been listening.

  Before he could acknowledge this they pulled up at Garage Zimmermann to be greeted by a deserted forecourt and a padlock shining dully on a big blue sliding door. Ronan sighed. ‘Great. My car’s probably the other side of that. But it looks as if there’s a note.’ He left her sitting silently while he hopped out to squint at the few scrawled words on an envelope taped to the door.

  In moments he was letting himself back down into the passenger seat. ‘I think it says that they’ll be back at five but the note appears to have been written with a blunt pencil held between the toes.’

  ‘Shall we hang around?’ she queried, ultra-politely. ‘Or would you prefer to wait alone? Unless you think you shouldn’t be left alone,’ she added.

  Her woefulness made his conscience twinge anew that he’d been so heavy on the self-righteous indignation. ‘I probably shouldn’t be left alone, actually.’ He smiled, though it was wasted as she was looking anywhere but at him. ‘There’s a nice café on the square where you can keep an eye on me.’

  At least his words made the corners of her mouth relax. ‘I could use a shot of caffeine,’ she confessed.

  He directed her to the Rue des Roses where he felt sure of Muntsheim’s sometimes complex parking system and they strolled through to La Place de la Liberté, a pretty, popular square surrounded by shops. They took a table outside Café des Trois Cigognes where they could watch the sun making diamonds of the splashing water in the fountains.

  Leah ordered espresso and he was glad to see some colour return to her cheeks as she sipped the black brew.

  He added milk to his Americano. ‘Now I’ve got over myself, I’m in awe of your driving. Are you a stunt woman in your spare time?’

  Her smile was so faint that it was hardly there. ‘I like going on experience days – stunt, drifting, performa
nce, that kind of thing. I don’t usually do it in my own car and I’ve left some expensive rubber on that car park. That, as well as putting your health in danger, will teach me not to show off.’ Under the shade of the parasol she’d lodged her sunglasses on top of her head, allowing him to see the contrition in her eyes. ‘I don’t know where my brain went. Whenever I do an experience day I have to fill in a huge medical questionnaire so I know that before you start throwing a car around you have to be sure there are no issues for anyone who might be in it.’ She clattered her cup on its saucer.

  ‘If being up yourself is a medical condition, I certainly suffered a severe episode,’ he observed, gravely. ‘Honestly, I’m usually more adventurous.’ He was rewarded by a glimpse of a proper smile, a big improvement on the wretched mask she’d been wearing for the last half-hour. ‘I apologise–’

  She cut across him. ‘No, don’t. I was the one in the wrong.’

  He leaned a little closer. ‘But I could have put my objections across without being a gobshite.’

  The smile flickered again so he was encouraged to continue. ‘Here are the highlights of the conversation you evidently missed. At the beginning of July I had what’s known as “a hard landing” in a helicopter. I did my collarbone and now I can’t go flying until the doctors say so.’

  ‘When’s that likely to be?’ Her gold-brown gaze shifted to him.

  ‘Maybe September if, by then, the pain has gone, my orthopaedic surgeon says I’m OK and my Aviation Medical Examiner agrees. I’m on full pay so I expect my boss, Henry, will want me back in the air as soon as possible – as I want to be. Flying’s one of those things that isn’t so much what someone does but what they are. If I can’t fly …’ He lifted his hands in a gesture of despondency.

  At this stage, most people demanded details of the landing, whether he’d hurt anyone else and whether he’d made the news. The answers were ‘No’ and ‘Yes’. Inevitably, a fascination with the sensational would then lead them to demand to know whether it was his fault. When the answer to that was also ‘No’ it was beyond irritating to see their faces fall at discovering no juicy incompetence to chew on.