Hot Revenge Box Set 2

Chapter 24 Kirstie’s Christmas

Three Days Before Christmas

The clouds, low, dull and grey, match my mood, and I stare out of the passenger window, not wanting to show my disappointment. Sleet spikes down, spitting onto the windscreen and the wipers squeak, leaving white streaks as they arc across the glass.

Ryan, from the driver’s seat, lays a hand on my thigh. “Cheer up. There’ll be others.”

“I know…” My throat is unreasonably tight. “It just looked so good in the ad. I’d thought maybe…”

He cuts in, but the cheerful tone to his voice sounds forced. “Vendors are always going to overegg the cake. It did say, Needs Renovation.”

I huff. “Needs complete demolition and rebuilding would have been nearer the mark.” Then, at his answering silence, I realise how waspish I must have just sounded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It wasn’t aimed at you.”

He squeezes my knee. “I know. Hey, tell you what. We’re not far away. Let’s go say Hi to the happy family. You can deliver your balloon and your card and whatever else it is you have stashed in the back. They’ll dose you with wine and mince pies and we’ll all get into the Christmas spirit.”

I hesitate.

Do they really want my gloomy mood there? Right now?

“I’d like that, but...”

Ryan persists. “We’ll be looking at properties again in the New Year. Who knows what we’ll find then? There’ll be something.”

smile, conscious that it’s a bit watery,

I love you…

be nice to see them. Charlotte will want

will.” My thigh gets another squeeze.

leg to steer; towards a turn-off that will take us to the home of James, Michael and Charlotte. As he drives, he casts around, craning upwards

on the low ground the road is sheened white and

it isn’t, I’ll turn around, but the salt truck should have done its

this morning, it was already cold, with the tang of frost

grass and shrubs are thick with rime. But it is stunningly beautiful. Frost picks out individual twigs and stalks,

“What have they called her? The baby.

just Cara. But when I rang and asked Beth, she said that at the last minute, Charlotte changed it to ‘Cara Deanna’, to name her after her grandmother… Her father’s

like one family

spa hotel

iced road surface, curving slowly in through the gates and past a parking lot occupied by

it. Mind you, I think he had a head-start with being able to call on Beth Haswell’s rich buddies to get it

be friends with the City High and Mighty.” He drives past the hotel and to

it is. I think Richard and Beth are here more or less permanently now. Michael said that Beth and Charlotte keep each other

sniffs. “Don’t blame him. But she’s okay

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