What Happens At Christmas... by T A Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

her standards were too high, or was there more to it than that? In a moment of honest self-analysis, she had to accept that the one thing lacking in all of the brief relationships she had had up till now had been love. With one or two, she had believed she had found it, but it hadn’t lasted. She found herself smiling weakly as she considered that the way she had hugged the Labrador on her father’s bedroom floor had been the closest she had come to a spontaneous expression of love for years. She found herself wondering, if Justin was available and if he became another of her men, how long would he last?
    Having resisted the temptation to have a pudding, Holly returned home soon after finishing her meal, vaguely worried about what the dog might be doing in her absence. There were stars in the sky and it felt like the temperature had already dropped below freezing. She was grateful she didn’t need to drive anywhere for a few days. The Porsche was a lovely car, but on icy roads, she had long since discovered, it was lethal; slipping and sliding about at the lightest touch of the throttle.
    She got a surprise as she reached Brook Cottage. It was in complete darkness. She had left the light on in the kitchen for Stirling and now it was off. For one irrational moment she wondered if the dog had found the light switch, but then common sense kicked in and she dismissed the idea. That left the possibility of a power cut or, more scarily, the notion that somebody had got into the house and had deliberately turned off the light. That was not a comfortable thought. She looked around and was disturbed to see lights in the windows of most of the houses, including her next door neighbour. This destroyed the power cut hypothesis and she was left with the notion of a break in or, more probably, some sort of failure of the aged electrics in Brook Cottage itself.
    She went up to the door and put the key in the lock. No sooner had she done so, than she heard a volley of barking from inside. This, more than anything else, set her mind at rest. If the dog was barking, it meant he was guarding the house, and so it was fairly safe to say that there wasn’t an intruder in there with him. She turned the key and pushed the door open a crack. ‘Stirling, it’s me. Shut up.’ It probably wasn’t the sort of command that a dog training instructor would have recommended, but it did the job. The barking stopped immediately, to be replaced by little whining sounds. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, pulling off her jacket as she did so. The dog stood up on his hind legs and welcomed her home, his nails no doubt inflicting further damage to her expensive belt. She closed the door behind her and stood there, taking stock, one hand ruffling the big dog’s ears as he continued to produce a series of joyful canine greetings.
    â€˜So what’s happened to the electricity, Stirling?’ She pushed the dog gently to one side and felt her way across to the fireplace. She had a vague feeling that she had seen a box of matches on the mantelpiece. She reached up and ran her hand across the stone shelf, and it was with considerable relief that she located a matchbox. She brought it down, reached inside and felt a handful of matches. She pulled one out and struck it. In the light of the match she checked the contents of the box and her heart sank. Almost all the remaining matches had already been used. There was only one other good one in there. At that moment, the match in her hand burnt down to her fingers and she had to drop it. She and the dog were returned to pitch darkness.
    â€˜Bugger.’
    She sat down at the table, the last remaining match in one hand, the box of duds in the other. She racked her brains as to what to do next. She seemed to remember having seen a candle somewhere in the house, but she couldn’t be sure. If she used this last match and still couldn’t find one, then she would be in