The Christmas Swap, стр. 35
“I’ll pour, shall I?” asked Susan rhetorically, as she poured the steaming tea into three cups. “Now, Chloe love, we usually open our stocking presents first, then the proper presents from under the tree. How does that sound?”
Chloe’s eyes settled on the stockings, three of them now plump with gifts and only Lucy’s hanging limply from its hook. Was she supposed to have brought stocking presents for the Brownings? Somehow, she hadn’t thought of it until then and she felt terrible.
Susan must have picked up on that because she was quick to reassure her. “Oh, the stocking presents are just silly things, trinkets really, bits and bobs.”
“Just a bit of fun. Things we find over the year and squirrel away ’til Christmastime. And chocolates!” added Max, being uncharacteristically effusive.
“Oh, right,” said Chloe as Max pulled himself out of his chair and unhooked each of the stockings, then handed them out before settling back in his chair with an “oof”.
The sound made Chloe smile, but she hid it by biting her lip. She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him. Susan and Max had started delving into the depths of their stockings, so she did the same, more intrigued by what the Brownings had got for each other than what was in hers. At each little “oh” or other exclamation, Chloe lifted her head and watched as they shared a smile or a wink across the room.
“Oh, love, how did you know?” Max held up a Terry’s chocolate orange, and Susan dissolved into a fit of giggles. It must have been an in-joke, Chloe decided.
“Max! You went back for it, you dear man.” She held up a decorative teaspoon, which Chloe knew she’d add to the display board in the kitchen. “Look,” she held it up for Chloe, “it’s from our holiday to Cardiff, from the castle.”
“It’s lovely,” said Chloe making Susan beam even more.
“Was tricky, that was, with you nosing about the giftshop for so long,” teased Max before bestowing his wife with a loving smile.
Chloe continued to open the individually wrapped gifts in her stocking, placing each one in turn on the side table next to her. When her stocking was empty, she’d acquired quite the collection of chocolates and trinkets, including a very cute fluffy sheep with a black face that stood about three inches high.
“That there is an Oxford sheep,” said Max. “Been bred around here for nearly two hundred years.”
“It’s adorable. He shall have pride of place on my desk at work.” He seemed to like that and gave her an approving nod. Max had taken some time to warm up to her, but Chloe just adored Lucy’s dad, and she could see where Lucy got her quiet demeanour from.
“Right, more tea?” asked Susan as she stood to pour herself a cup.
“I’ll have one, love.” Max stood again and started foraging under the Christmas tree. “Here, Chloe, this one’s from Susan and me, and this one’s from Lucy.”
“Oh, thank you!” This Christmas was full of surprises. She hadn’t expected Lucy to leave something for her but, with only a moment’s thought, she realised that of course Lucy would have done that. Chloe opened that present first.
It was a photo of the three of them—Chloe, Lucy, and Jules—from their holiday to New York, the last one they’d taken together. They were in Central Park and had asked a stranger to take the shot. It had turned out beautifully with the city skyline in the background. Chloe had a digital copy, but seeing it framed in silver turned a simple photo into a treasured keepsake.
“That’s a lovely frame, isn’t it?” asked Susan.
“Beautiful.” Chloe’s eyes roamed over the faces of her two best friends and she missed them intensely. She promised herself that they would plan the next May Ladies holiday as soon as they were all back home in the New Year.
Chloe levered open the stand on the frame so she could set it on the table. The gift from the Brownings was a beautiful tartan scarf that, Susan explained, they’d got in Edinburgh when they’d been there last summer with Lucy.
For such a quiet, unassuming couple, the Brownings certainly travel a lot, she thought. She had known this about them—she’d met them when they were half a world away in Hawaii and Lucy had inherited her travel bug from them—but voracious travelling seemed a little incongruous with their life in the sleepy hamlet of Penham.
“Now my gift to you!” exclaimed Chloe as she jumped up from her chair and retrieved it from under the tree. “It’s actually two, but I wrapped them together. Who wants to open them?”
“You go ahead, love,” offered Max.
Chloe watched excitedly as Susan carefully peeled open the wrapping to reveal a bubble-wrapped blob. Taking even more care, Susan undid the wrap, then held aloft two Christmas ornaments, one made from porcelain—a spray of gum leaves with a delicate red gum blossom—and the other, a blown-glass banksia. “Oh, Max, will you look at these.”
Max popped his reading glasses on and crossed the room to inspect the ornaments. He took the banksia in his hand and turned it slowly. “That’s magnificent, that is, Chloe. It will have pride of place on the tree, I think. And that one, too. Thank you, love.”
He gave Chloe a warm smile and a wave of happiness shot through her.
Just then, there was a loud knock at the door.
The three of them looked at each other, bewildered. “I wonder who that could be,” said Max, rising and crossing the room. He opened the door to the entry and Chloe and Susan exchanged a look as they heard the front door open, then the murmur of male voices. Max appeared in the doorway. “Uh, Chloe love, it’s for you. It’s Alan—from across the road,” he added unnecessarily.
Chloe, who hadn’t planned on seeing Archer that