Wishful Thinking Read online

Page 2


  “Well done, Commander!” He enthused. “I could never get that myself. You’re good, you know.”

  Ben beamed at the praise and Jess’s heart filled with gratitude to this kind and incredibly attractive man. It wasn’t until he stood up that she realised how tall he was. When seated in the voluptuous armchair, he appeared smaller, but he was at least half a foot taller than her, lean and athletic looking, yet very graceful in his movements. He wore tight jeans and a light-coloured shirt, unbuttoned as far as his chest - which she saw was smooth and hairless – and over which he wore a beautifully-designed leather jacket that looked as if it had been made especially for him. She caught the faint, earthy aroma of leather, mixed with a scent of spice and citrus – sensual and expensive.

  “The snow’s starting to settle,” Mrs Goodchild said, bustling into the room. “I think it’s a very good thing you didn’t try to continue your journey, Mrs Danvers. I’m sure it’s much worse up north and I expect there’ll be a lot of people stuck in their cars tonight. Now dinner is almost ready. I was wondering if you’d mind eating with us, to save me setting separate tables?”

  “Oh, are you sure?” Jess breathed in surprise. “I don’t want to encroach on your…”

  “You won’t be encroaching on anything. It’ll be our pleasure,” Chris cut in, nodding to his mother.

  Mrs Goodchild beamed at the pair of them, before turning her kindly gaze on Ben. She shook her head very slightly, but her smile broadened as she looked at the child for a moment longer. “Good. Five more minutes then and you can come through to the dining room. Christian will show you the way.”

  As the older woman bustled out of the room, Jess turned back to face her attractive companion. “Christian? I thought it would be Christopher.”

  He shrugged slightly.

  “Christian Goodchild?” Jess mused. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

  He laughed. “I’ve no idea. But I’ll tell you what – after dinner, how would you and Ben like to take me on in a snowball fight?”

  2

  “A damsel in distress,” his father told them jokingly after Dave explained her predicament. “Well we can’t very well turn her and her child away two days before Christmas, can we? What type of people would that make us?”

  Christian could see that Dave’s account of the woman in distress had moved both his parents and saw little point in arguing. They’d closed up the hotel because of his promise to visit them for a quiet family Christmas. And this time he meant it to be exactly that.

  Two years ago he’d descended with the rest of the band and the paparazzi and fans made his parents’ life hell for the three days they were there, camping outside around the clock, ringing the bell and knocking on the door at all hours of the day and night, cameras flashing everywhere so that curtains and shutters had to remain closed for the duration. Everyone was so on edge that it had ruined Christmas. He’d planned to stay longer, but seeing the effect on them and the staff, ordered everyone out early.

  But things didn’t let up even after they’d all gone. The fans continued to plague them so much that within six months they’d sold up and left the area. Since then he’d kept his visits to them top secret. For their sakes.

  They’d always wanted to run their own hotel. His mother had been brought up in the B & B world and enjoyed fussing around people. Her own exclusive little hotel, though – that was her dream. He’d tried to offer them a taste of la dolce vita but they grew bored – insisted they couldn’t live in idleness in some villa abroad. A nice little hotel in a quiet, rural setting – that would be ideal. And that was what they got, until he went and ruined it all two years ago.

  Shortly afterwards, they found this place and named it ‘Good Rest Ye’ – a name which had taken one of London’s top advertising firms many expensive hours to think up. The hotel brought in a modest income, which made his parents happy and he intended to keep it that way. It made no difference at all to him that in real terms the place was running at a slight loss, as long as it kept them happy.

  It also gave him a bolt-hole when he needed to escape and chill with his parents – which wasn’t nearly as often as he’d like to see them, but in his line of work, he had to grab what he could get. They understood that and were always happy to accommodate him at short notice on his often flying visits.

  This wasn’t a flying visit though. He really needed to unwind after an exhausting year, in which he’d visited 23 different countries as well as spending the last three months in Hollywood. He desperately needed some down time and some of his mum’s homespun philosophy and nurturing. A few days of her special treatment and he’d be ready to conquer the rest of the world come the New Year.

  He wasn’t exactly ecstatic when Dave turned up with his sob story about some woman in a near death experience on the motorway needing a room for the night, but nor was he about to argue. One look at his mother’s face told him argument would have been pointless anyway. She’d made up her mind and it was therefore a done deed. Not that he would have said no himself, but well, he’d rather it hadn’t happened. But then he supposed that was probably what the woman was thinking too.

  He sensed her even before she had properly entered the room. There was something about her that was in one sense perfectly ordinary, but somehow, in another totally captivating. She stood on the threshold of the sitting room resting a protective hand on the shoulder of her young son, evidently unsure about whether or not to enter. And she was beautiful. When she finally did enter, her intoxicating scent wafted towards him and lingered cloud-like around him for a little while. She had dark blonde hair which curled naturally around her delicate features and cloaked her slight shoulders. It fell across her face and hid it from view as she lowered her head towards her son. Mesmerised, he wanted to reach out and tuck it behind her ears to prevent it from obstructing his view of her lovely face.

  When his phone rang again, she got up to explore the room and he watched her surreptitiously as she moved from picture to picture with all the grace of a dancer. There was a trim economy about her movements, as if she was used to occupying small spaces or remaining unobtrusive in larger ones. He found that curiously poignant. Some instinct told him she must have known great sadness and he suddenly wanted to protect her from any more, at least while she remained at the hotel. After all, it was Christmas.

  After his mother called them into the dining room, the cutest thing happened. Ben jumped up from the sofa and put his hand into his for the walk to the dining room as if it was the most natural thing in the world. There was something about that little gesture and that kid’s tiny hand reaching up to his that nearly knocked him for six. He pretended not to be surprised though and just accepted the boy’s hand as if he did it every day. Jess fell into place next to him on the other side and the three of them went into the dining room together.

  His mother had just laid the one table and it was strange eating in an otherwise empty dining room – she normally set a small table in the little sitting room off the kitchen when it was just family - but she’d made it very festive: decorations, Christmas napkins and crackers on the table. He presumed they were for the kid’s benefit. Certainly he seemed to appreciate it. His eyes opened wide with excitement and he couldn’t wait to start pulling the crackers.

  His mother seated him to her right, opposite Jess and Ben. She’d placed Ben next to her, of course, so she could fuss over him. Jess sat next to his dad. Ben chose him to pull his cracker, which surprised and secretly pleased him. He would have expected the boy to be shy and want to share it with his mother. It must have something to do with their mutual interest in video games. Respect! All those hours on the road during their endless tours meant he got plenty of practice in. The games stopped him from going insane.

  The meal was great. All his favourite dishes, of course – his mother’s specialities – she knew what he liked. Comfort foods, he used to think of them when he was on the road. He yearned for his mother’s home cooking wh
en he was touring exotic lands and eating foreign delicacies he would once never have imagined existed. He always photographed the weird and wonderful fare set before him and sent the pictures back to his parents, enjoying the thought of their expressions when they realised of what they were comprised.

  They put on their party hats and read out their Christmas cracker jokes to each other, groaning at all of them, as you do. Ben, of course, seemed to find them all genuinely funny. His laughter set everyone else off. If you could bottle up the gutsy laughter of a happy six year old and put it in a Christmas cracker, you’d soon have the whole world laughing.

  Over dinner, he managed to find out a little bit about Jess. She worked in publishing, though not, she took pains to assure them all, on any grand or significant scale, just an editorial assistant. It was a well-established but small publishing house that was seriously beginning to feel the pinch from the internet and the rapid advance of electronic media. Her boss was a woman driven by ambition and the determination to succeed – and drove Jess pretty hard too, from the sound of it.

  Jess said she’d been thinking of retraining to be a primary school teacher, and his mother raised her eyebrows in approval. In her world, teachers were up on the same high pedestals as doctors and nurses. They led worthwhile lives; not like his.

  As for Ben’s father, it appeared he was no longer on the scene. Jess seemed uncomfortable talking about him in front of the boy and after his mother’s gentle probing, the subject was quickly dropped. It baffled him how a man could give up family – a partner as sweet and pretty as Jess and such a great little boy as Ben. That laugh of his alone would be worth crossing the world just to hear.

  After dinner they looked outside at the snow-covered landscape and Ben began pleading to go out and play. He could tell Jess wasn’t too keen at first.

  “I’m happy to take him – we won’t go beyond the forecourt area,” he told her. But then she relented and agreed to come too. Who could blame her? She didn’t know him from Adam and you can’t be too protective of your children these days. He was surprised at how pleased he was that she changed her mind and had to give himself a bit of a shake when she and Ben went up to their room for their outdoor clothes. A quick fling with some stranded woman with a young child was definitely not on his agenda, no matter how pretty she might be.

  Ben shrieked with delight as he ran around trampling on the crisp, virgin snow, creating snow-art with his little footprints. He gathered up a handful and hurled it at Chris.

  “Hey, buster! Let’s establish a few ground-rules, shall we?” Chris laughed.

  “No!” Ben squealed. “This is war, now. Mummy and me against you.”

  “Two against one? And you think that’s fair? You’re a battle-hardened warrior – I think it should be your mummy and me against you.” He ducked as another soft white ball headed towards his face. It caught him on the shoulder, disintegrating against his coat.

  They romped in the snow for half an hour or so until the pristine forecourt had been well and truly desecrated and then regrouped to catch their breaths. He thought Jess looked absolutely enchanting with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes. The tip of her nose was turning pink and he had an almost uncontrollable urge to reach down and kiss it and warm it with his lips. He began to feel another urge too, which grew stronger each time she came near to him and he caught that tantalising whiff of her sensual fragrance. That needed an equal effort to keep it under control.

  “Dave said there’s a garage somewhere near when I might replace my spare tyre in the morning. Do you know where it is?” She asked, the practicality of her question breaking into his romantic reverie.

  “Sure. It’s just down the lane. We can take a walk there now and I’ll show you,” he suggested.

  They set out down the quiet road, each holding Ben’s hand and allowing him to slide and skate along between them. A nice team effort.

  “What do you, do, Chris?” Jess asked as they walked. She sounded shy, as if unsure whether she should ask. “I couldn’t help noticing your amazing tan, which I presume is real.”

  He laughed and nodded. “Most of it is real. I’m just back from L.A. actually and before that Morocco.”

  “Working?”

  “Sort of. Just putting some final touches to a job I was doing. The garage you want is down this next road. You can’t see it from the top of the lane, but you’ll see it if you turn left down here.”

  He hoped he hadn’t sounded too stand-offish. The fact that she didn’t seem to know who he was, added to her charm. He wanted to enjoy the novelty of that situation for a while longer - to spend an evening as an ordinary person, doing ordinary things. He was aware that other people might fantasise about his life and most of the time he knew he wouldn’t swap it for the world; but sometimes he wearied of it and just wanted to drop the public persona and see what it would be like if he’d taken that other road in life.

  ****

  Once they’d established the route to the garage, they turned and retraced their steps towards the hotel. On the corner a small group of children were singing carols outside one of the houses and they stopped to listen to their sweet but not terribly harmonious voices singing “Away in a manger”. Neither Jess nor Chris had any cash on them, but Ben had two pounds in his pocket, given to him by his child-minder’s neighbour for Christmas.

  “If I can borrow that from you, I promise to pay you back with interest,” Chris said.

  Ben looked puzzled, clearly not understanding but Jess nodded to him and he handed the small coins over to Chris who gave them to the carol singers, wishing them a Merry Christmas.

  “Sing with us, mister,” one of the children said cheekily, but Chris shook his head, laughing.

  “Your boy can come with us if he wants,” said a little girl of about eight or ten.

  Ben moved closer to his mother’s side.

  “I don’t think so,” Jess said. “But thanks anyway.” She wondered if Chris felt embarrassed at being mistaken for Ben’s father. It was a natural enough mistake for the children to make, but he seemed taken aback, which aroused her curiosity about him even further.

  He was extremely friendly and pleasant, yet at the same time very secretive. He clearly didn’t want to talk about himself and his work, which was a shame. It showed he had something to hide and that was off-putting. He obviously doesn’t trust me, but then why should he? But he was also irresistibly attractive and she felt herself powerfully drawn to him. On top of that, she loved the way he behaved with Ben, sharing his interests, talking to him, not down at him, and playing in the snow as if he really enjoyed himself. And Ben appeared completely at ease with him, which was a pleasure for her to watch. How could that not endear him to her?

  She’d caught him observing her over dinner – indeed every time she looked up, he seemed to be watching her and that knowledge gave her a tingling little thrill. Being admired by such an attractive man was the stuff of dreams. It was like a golden reward after their horrible experience earlier that evening. Just when she’d thought the day could not get any worse, she had stepped into a wonderful dream. Perhaps that’s what it was. Perhaps they had died on the motorway after all, or at least been severely injured and this was all a dream from which she would awaken and find herself in hospital, battered and broken.

  She ran her fingers along a low wall, scooped up a small wad of soft, clean snow and brought it to her lips. It was cold and tasteless, just as clean snow should be and it set the sensitive nerve in her front tooth on edge. This wasn’t a dream; it had to be real. She smiled and shook her head at her silliness.

  Christian saw the gesture and looked at her quizzically.

  “Did you know your mum was a secret snow-wolf-monkey?” He asked Ben.

  “A snow-wolf-monkey? What’s that?” Ben asked in wide-eyed surprise.

  “A monkey who wolfs down snow, of course. They eat it in secret and then feel very pleased with themselves and jump around going Woo-woo-woo!” Chris hopped
around like an ape, winking at the boy.

  Jess laughed. “I was just…testing something. It’s rude to spy on snow-eaters, you know. They are easily embarrassed.”

  “What do you think, Ben?” Chris challenged. “Shall we make her eat a whole snowball and watch her get embarrassed?”

  Jess scooped up a handful of snow from the wall and threw it towards Chris. It crumbled into powder before it reached his face but a few flakes fell on his dark hair and shone like glittering diamonds under the street lamp.

  “If your aim wasn’t so pathetic, I’d declare war on you,” he said with mock-derision.

  As Ben cheered her on, Jess threw another soft snowball at him which shattered in a powdery flurry against his chest. She dodged behind a lamppost as he retaliated.

  “If your aim wasn’t so pathetic, I’d be worried,” she teased.