Footsteps in the Snow and other Teatime Treats. Trisha Ashley
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But my heart was sinking at the very thought and it suddenly occurred to me that I would miss my chat with Nick as much as the chocolate.
“Don’t be daft, how can one chocolate hurt?” she said cheerfully.
“Sometimes it’s more than one,” I confessed. “Nick saves some for me to try when he’s been experimenting with new flavours – the mohito cream one is to die for!”
She stopped piping cream onto the half meringues and stared at me. “Does he, indeed?”
“We’ve become friendly – he’s a really kind, nice person.”
“That’s more than you can say about David, giving you diet class vouchers for a Christmas present!”
“It wasn’t tactful, but his intentions were good,” I said defensively.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Katy,” she said. “I think you’re much better off in heaven from the sound of it – Nick’s Chocolate Heaven!”
*
It was inevitable that on the day I picked David up in my car while his was at the garage, the lid of the glove box should finally succumb to internal pressure and fly open, decanting an avalanche of little cellophane bags into his lap, each one betrayingly stamped in silver with ‘Nick’s Chocolate Heaven’.
I slowly turned the ignition key off again and in the resulting silence he said quietly, “If you really loved me and wanted us to get married, Katy, you wouldn’t cheat.”
“And if you truly loved me, you’d love me just the way I am!” I snapped back. “I mean, what if I said I only liked men with a full head of hair and I wouldn’t marry you unless you had a hair transplant where it’s started thinning?”
*
“And that was the end of the engagement,” I said ruefully to Nick, having gone straight to his shop after the argument. And then, since he burst out laughing, I finally saw the funny side and began to smile too.
“I’m sorry, Katy,” he said, “but you only told him exactly what I’d been thinking all these weeks.”
“What, that my fiancée should get a hair transplant?”
“No, that if your fiancée truly loved you, he’d love you just the way you were, which was perfect, as far as I was concerned.”
I blushed slightly. “So, you think I’m too thin now?”
“Nothing a chocolate diet wouldn’t cure.” He offered me his latest creation. “Passionfruit and raspberry fondants.”
“Sounds lovely,” I said, taking one. “And even lovelier is that I never have to go to Fatbusters again! I could book onto your chocolate course now, though, couldn’t I, Nick?”
He looked at me with a glint in those lovely, warm, chocolate-brown eyes: “Oh, I think we should have a couple of one-to-one sessions first, don’t you?” he suggested.
I nodded, my mouth full of fruity fondant: I’m obviously not built to resist sweet temptation!
Previously published by My Weekly
The litter of Cavalier puppies were so adorable that I couldn’t tear my gaze away until I heard the kennel owner returning. Then I looked up and was momentarily transfixed by a pair of liquid dark eyes and a warm smile in a thin, attractive face …
“This is Mr Forrest, come to choose a puppy too,” Mrs Rushmore said. “Have you made your mind up which you want, dear?”
“Yes, the one with the honey-coloured eyebrows,” I said. It had been love at first sight.
The new customer didn’t even spare me a glance as I left – he was down on his knees by then, totally entranced by the puppies.
*
When we met again while walking our dogs on Primrose Hill just before Christmas we recognised each other instantly. I’m sure the puppies did, too!
The late afternoon sky grew dark as we strolled and chatted, discovering that he’d named his puppy Spice, while I’d called mine Honey. By then it felt as if we’d known each other for ever, so I impulsively invited him back for coffee.
And that was that: a marriage made in heaven and sealed under the sparkling Christmas stars on Primrose Hill.
*
We all settled happily into my basement flat. I worked early in the mornings as a florist and Nathan played jazz in a nightclub in the evenings, the dogs were rarely left alone. Then, almost exactly a year later, we had The Argument.
“Do you have to fill the flat with lilies, when you know they make me sneeze?” Nathan snapped.
“And do you always have to make Honey and Spice yap when you come in late, waking me up?” I demanded.
The dogs, dismayed by our angry voices, came to each of us in turn, with mournful eyes and hopefully wagging tails – but then Nathan and Spice moved out and Honey and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves …
*
Honey pined so miserably that one day I couldn’t stand it any longer and we set out across Primrose Hill, taking the shortcut to where Nathan was staying. My heart was heavy and Honey, taking her cue from me, walked quietly at my side.
Then suddenly she yapped eagerly and I looked up to see a familiar figure striding towards me, with Spice racing forward, excitedly yapping. I watched the dogs meet and then Nathan was standing next to me, looking down with sad, dark eyes – and he was holding a bag almost as big as the one I was carrying!
“You were coming back?” I blurted eagerly, before I could stop myself.
“Not exactly – this is Spice’s stuff. She missed you both and it seemed selfish to keep her with me. And you?” He looked at my holdall, from the top of which peeked the fleecy end of a dog bed.
“Honey was pining too,” I confessed, “and it didn’t seem fair that just because we couldn’t live together, they couldn’t either.”
“Couldn’t we live together though, Cathy?” he said softly. “Can you even remember what we quarrelled about?”
“No – except the lilies, and I’d rather have you than a flat full of flowers!”
“And it wouldn’t hurt me not to play with the dogs when I get home late,” he said, then added, “Do you know, it’s almost exactly one year since we met here?”
“I was just thinking the same thing – and that we ought to go home and thaw out before we all freeze,” I agreed, and the Christmas stars in the sky seemed to shimmer suddenly, though that might have been the cold bringing tears to my eyes.
*
Nathan bought me a snow globe, containing the tiny figures of a man and woman with their dogs.
“As long as they stay inside their glass bubble of happiness, they’re safe,” he said, “just as we will be – you, me, Honey and Spice.”
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