Page 11 of Hope and Hot Chocolate on Mistletoe Lane

‘Best raffle I ever entered. And call me Adam, please,’ he said to me. ‘I’ve collected the eggs; now I need to go into town to buy a new suit. We need to wear a suit for some of the dinners on the ship. I feel a bit nervous about how fancy it might be.’

‘It’ll be fun, Dad; you’ll have an amazing time.’

‘Just wish I didn’t feel like I’m leaving you in the lurch, love, what with Dylan and his family, the baby on the way and all this…’ He gestured to the field behind us. ‘I keep telling Willow she takes on too much on the farm.’

‘I just want it to be successful,’ Willow said quietly.

‘We will make it a success,’ I told her firmly, feeling the exact same way about my own business. I had the same fire in my belly.

‘Well, if you need me just shout,’ Adam said, giving Willow one last concerned look before heading to the farmhouse.

‘He signed the farm over to me and has to take things easy with his health but he gets frustrated that he can’t help as much as he’d like or used to,’ Willow explained once he was out of earshot. ‘Let me show you our website…’ She handed me her phone as we walked over to the polytunnels, which were securely fixed into the ground. There were five of them interlinked like one big trail for people to walk through.

I looked down at her phone.

Birch Tree Farm Winter Wonderland

Opening 1 December – order your tickets now!

Christmas shopping, Christmas trees, Santa’s grotto, a festive light trail, ice rink and much more…

‘An ice rink?’ I asked with a sinking feeling now I’d seen what Willow had promised.

She looked sheepish. ‘I may have got carried away. Dylan always says I dream too big, but wouldn’t it be amazing? I thought I’d hire one.’

‘What have you organised so far?’ I asked, thinking furiously if I knew anyone who could find us an ice rink to hire at such short notice.

‘I’ve bought Christmas trees from a farm that’s not too far away. Brian is an old friend of my dad’s and he wants to sell off his trees as he’s winding down to retirement so people will be able to buy them from us, and we can use some to decorate the wonderland too,’ she replied. ‘But I’ll be honest, that’s about it but I have done the budget with Dylan. He made a spreadsheet,’ she added with a fond smile.

‘Okay, send that over to me so I can see what we have to play with.’

‘We’ve charged more than we do for our pumpkin patch to cover my ideas but obviously, we need to take your fee out of the profits made…’ Willow took back her phone and emailed the spreadsheet to me so I looked at it on my phone. She watched my expression anxiously. ‘Our Airbnb cottages are all booked for Christmas and they get free entry whenever they want to come into the winter wonderland and that seemed to be a big draw for them. And the tickets have sold faster than our other events so I know there is a market for it. But do you think I overpromised everyone? Can we deliver what I’ve advertised?’ Willow chewed her lip. ‘Holly, your silence is killing me!’

‘Sorry.’ I looked up from my phone into her panicked face. I may have struggled with nerves coming back to Birchbrook but in my business, I was calm, cool and collected. Unlike my clients. They were allowed to be anxious but I had to reassure them. This was a big task but if we could pull it off, it would be huge for both of us. ‘We just need to plan what we need to buy or hire, what we can do ourselves, and how we can make your money go as far as possible. It’ll be tight though and we’ll have to do a lot of the work ourselves to save money…’ I trailed off, eyeing her growing baby bump.

‘I am never afraid of hard work and this baby isn’t going to stop me. I might be slower than usual but I’m determined as hell. I can’t fall flat on my face with this. It has to live up to expectations. And then I’ll hire someone full-time to help me around here and I can stop taking on too much like everyone tells me I do.’ She gave her bump a little pat as if it would help calm her.

‘Okay then,’ I said, relieved she wasn’t freaking out. ‘Let’s go back inside and make a list of what we want to do and how we can make it happen. Then we can divide up some tasks. We’ll need to go shopping, contact suppliers, gather everything we need before we can start decorating and creating the experience so the sooner we do that, the better,’ I said, already walking back towards the farmhouse keen to get the ball rolling.

‘I want everyone to find it a magical Christmas experience,’ Willow said as she followed me. ‘Festive as…’ She floundered for the right word.

‘Festive as fuck,’ I couldn’t stop myself from suggesting.

She snorted. ‘Yes! We can’t put that on any marketing materials though, can we?’

I grinned. ‘I’m not sure Birchbrook could handle it. Let’s keep it wholesome, but that can be our motto as we work on it,’ I suggested.

‘Perfect.’

I liked Willow more and more, which made this a whole lot easier. I didn’t dare hope that everyone else in town would be like her, though. The one I wanted to warm up the most was Paul, whose reception had been decidedly frosty so far. When years ago, he’d been my favourite person in Birchbrook.

10

HOLLY

Willow and I worked hard for the rest of the day, the light fading as we sat at her kitchen table with hot drinks and a plate of biscuits, which had diminished to nothing by the time her dad returned home. Dylan joined us for a bit to go through the budget, talking proudly about how she had made the farm profitable over the past two years. Both of them were keen to keep it that way. They seemed very different but I sensed that he admired her big ideas and clearly loved Willow for all her quirks. And I could by see the admiration in her eyes as he went through his spreadsheet that she loved his logical side and felt exactly the same way about him.

‘Time to stop work,’ Adam told us then, asking us to clear the table so we could eat together. ‘You too, Holly. You’re part of the farm now.’