Christmas Wishes: From the Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author of romance fiction comes a feel-good cosy Christmas read Read online

  Not wanting Albin’s hoity-toity attitude to hurt her wonderfully warm family in the exciting, loved-up run-up to Rob and Leesa’s wedding she’d told them he couldn’t get away from work. Now Nico had apparently been dispatched to evaluate her well-being. He hadn’t mentioned Albin’s existence so did that mean Rob hadn’t told him, wanting an unbiased, fresh eye on Hannah?

  Shrugging, Nico picked up his coffee, sat back and changed the subject, telling Hannah about his eight-year-old daughter Josie. ‘She lives with me but she’s with her mum Loren this weekend, using FaceTime on her tablet to catch me up on her doings. She’s a little chatterbox.’ His voice was soft and warm.

  Hannah’s heart suffered a pang at his obvious love for his daughter. ‘I’m sure you make a lovely dad.’ In return, she told him about her own baby – the shop. ‘I’m gearing up for the gift-buying period. We haven’t had Halloween yet so it’s too early for festive decorations but I’m increasing my stock for the eager beavers who come into Stockholm on October weekends to start their Christmas shopping.’

  ‘You don’t mind giving up your Saturday evening to sorting stock?’ Nico had finished his coffee but wasn’t rushing to leave.

  ‘I don’t mind if long hours bring me success. I want to expand, maybe into larger premises or a more commercial spot in Västerlånggatan or Österlånggatan.’ When she’d taken the shop the agent had insisted tourists loved wandering the narrow side streets like Köpmangatan. He hadn’t yet been proved wrong but Hannah intended to ensure lots of Swedish kronor through her till in the bumper Christmas trading season and wasn’t leaving it to chance. Even if Albin hadn’t been elk shooting in Värmland this weekend she wouldn’t have minded working this evening. Her shop made her happy and hunting made her feel ill. She continued, ‘Tomorrow, I’ll come in early to create new displays before I open at eleven for the Sunday shoppers. Gamla Stan—’ she used the Swedish for ‘Old Town’ ‘—is open seven days a week.’

  ‘Then I’d better let you get on with your work.’ His eyes were very blue in the overhead lights as he reached for his coat. ‘I’ll walk you back to the shop.’

  ‘I’ll be fine thanks,’ she answered, though touched by his thoughtfulness. Nico had always been one of those who opened doors for others.

  He looked as if he might argue as they stepped back into a chilly Västerlånggatan where most of the shops were getting ready for seven o’clock closing but his phone began to ring. He pulled it out and smiled. ‘It’s Josie.’

  Though sorry at the evening ending so abruptly, she smiled. ‘I’ll head back to the shop. Goodnight! Great to see you again.’

  Then she slipped away as he took his call. She pulled up the hood of her parka against the sleet stinging her face like a swarm of tiny insects, hurrying along the clean cobbled streets in the golden glow of lamps on the corners of elegant, steeply roofed buildings painted cream and gold, catching glimpses of the soaring green German Church tower. As she crossed Stortorget she saw a team had moved in to string lights across from the peach-toned splendour of the stock exchange building that now housed the Swedish Academy and Nobel Museum and Library.

  She wasn’t the only one looking forward to Christmas!

  Before long she was entering Köpmangatan, pausing between an art gallery and an antique shop to unlock the glass door of Hannah Anna Butik. She stepped inside, happy to spend the evening amongst the mixed smells of leather, silk and cardboard boxes.

  In fact, for her, you could bottle the scent and sell it as perfume.

  Chapter Two

  On Sunday morning, Hannah stared at her new stock. The displays she was stripping hadn’t been up to her usual standard. Maybe her creative energy had been dulled by boyfriend woes.

  She was trying to think with the kind of breathtaking imagination of form and style that would compel people into the shop when Nico Pettersson tapped on the door. ‘Hej, hej,’ she greeted him in surprise as she let him in, standing back so he could enter and close the door, making the ‘stängt’ sign swing.

  He looked a hundred per cent better today. His coat was brushed, his hair washed and combed, he’d shaved and his jeans and boots were clean. ‘I could maybe double your takings,’ he said without preamble, checking out the bags and belts ready for new displays.

  She laughed. ‘How? Doubling the prices? Magic wand?’

  ‘Better. Magic visual merchandising power.’ He winked, then gazed beyond her to the half-dismantled displays that looked as if a bear had blundered through them. ‘You need visual appeal and style. Unanimity. Dynamic use of colour.’

  Half-amused and half-annoyed, Hannah planted her hands on her hips. ‘Sorry … does my shop look in need of a consultation?’

  He ceased assessing the stands and sent her a rueful grin. ‘I didn’t mean to be presumptuous. I woke up and realised that, yesterday, though you didn’t understand why I looked as if I lived in a cobweb and we hadn’t met for eighteen years, you tried to help. To make up for being ungracious and defensive, I’d like to help you in return.’ His piercing blue eyes looked as if they were silently urging her to accept.

  It was impossible to look away. ‘How?’

  He returned his gaze to the interior. ‘My first job was in a department store chain as an assistant account manager. My training took me through various departments and I worked with an outstanding merchandiser – what people call a window dresser. We saw each other for a while. She was stellar, like she was personally in charge of the rainbow. I used to go in on my days off to learn about texture and bold form from her and I was nearly tempted into a career change. Let me loose on your stock. People will be drawn in, I promise.’

  Conscious of the jumble of scarves, handbags and belts, she protested, ‘You’re seeing it at its worst.’ But she desperately wanted the shop’s first Christmas to be a success and getting the place sorted before eleven was a big job. Even without Albin-issues on her mind she sometimes felt dissatisfied with the look of Hannah Anna Butik. She knew she could display stock well but was she ever magical? The kind of ‘magical’ that would open purses and wallets?

  Nico nudged a box of wallets with his toe. ‘If you don’t like it when I’ve finished, you can tell me what you want instead and I’ll redo it. What are you leading with? Something with a good margin?’

  ‘Åberg leather.’ She dragged the Åberg box forward. ‘They provide a display schematic—’

  He took the goods, ignoring the schematic, then produced a palm-sized speaker from his coat pocket. ‘I brought music.’ He tapped his phone and an Imagine Dragons track leaped into the air. He hung up his coat and started pacing.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Looking at the space.’

  Apparently surplus to requirements and feeling like a cat who’d had her fur stroked the wrong way, Hannah packed the pastels and delicate materials of summer into the stock room beside her office – where ‘office’ meant ‘cramped room with a table and a corner for tea making’.

  As she trekked back and forth, Nico stood at various points on the shop floor and stared hard, his head marking time as Imagine Dragons gave way to Yungblud. He frowned at the coils of belts and rivers of scarves then went outside and, regardless of the ice-edged wind whirling his hair into his eyes, stared at the window space.

  Finally, he collected the display stands, racks and hooks in the centre of the shop. This left two shelves on each long wall, one interrupted by the window. He glanced at Hannah. ‘Do you have a clean duster?’ When she’d provided one, he methodically wiped down the shelves and displays. Hannah made coffee and Nico detached hooks from a counter stand and fixed them at precise intervals onto the wall shelving. Then he started placing handbags on the shelves.

  ‘Placing’ was an inadequate word. Each handbag was wiped or brushed then positioned precisely on the diagonal. Starting with the largest and going smoothly down to the smallest he progressed through black, blues, greens, tans, browns, bronzes, reds, golds, yellows and lastly
creams and whites. On the shorter shelving either side of the window he did something similar with clutches, evening bags and purses.

  Scarves next, one per hook, each knotted in exactly the same way and dangling the same distance from the floor, the colour segue mirroring that of the handbags. The belts received a similar treatment on the shelves of purses.

  The Åberg leather goods scored a stand to themselves near the door. Each bag, purse, belt, wallet, diary, notebook, organiser, pen case, blotter, wash bag, tech case, card case, flask and passport cover had arrived in this season’s colours of burgundy and lime along with classic blacks and tans. He arranged them in tiers, stacks, fans and groups. Hannah hoped Åberg didn’t send mystery shoppers to check whether she’d followed the schematic because Nico’s arrangement was awesome.

  Evidently it pleased him too because he paused to play air guitar along to the music – Fall Out Boy now. It was a quirky moment that made Hannah laugh. Nico grinned and turned to creating monochrome counter displays and a colour wheel of hats.

  Lastly, he worked on the window, adjusting the lights, creating a swooping design of silk scarves and a contrastingly geometric design of bags. ‘Halloween decorations?’ he queried, sipping a second cup of coffee because he’d let the first one go cold.

  ‘I haven’t got them yet,’ she confessed. ‘Julia will be in tomorrow. It’ll free me up to find something.’

  He didn’t look impressed. ‘The Swedish like Halloween. Get full value out of it before you dress the shop for Christmas.’

  Suitably chastised, she watched him contrive flying bats from black silk scarves, suspending them from the ceiling with clear thread. ‘I don’t remember you being this creative.’

  ‘Late developer.’ His smile flashed and she realised how much he’d relaxed. It couldn’t put flesh on his bones but it softened the hollows of his face.

  While Hannah vacuumed the carpet and cleaned glass, Nico created artful cobwebs with parcel string that took on an ethereal shimmer under the window display lights.

  He climbed out of the window, cast a last look at each stand and shelf, then turned to Hannah. ‘OK?’

  ‘I think the word “awesome” was invented for this,’ she said frankly. She admired the meticulously positioned merchandise, the clever use of colours and hues, and shook her head. ‘I can’t thank you enough. My shop looks so high-end I can’t believe it.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And just in time to open.’

  ‘I enjoyed myself,’ he said quietly. He switched off the music, picked up the mini speaker and pulled on his coat. ‘See you at Rob and Leesa’s wedding.’

  Though thrown by such sudden departure preparations, Hannah’s attention was grabbed by his final words. ‘You’re going to the wedding?’

  He opened the door, turning the sign to öppet. ‘Rob’s been kind enough to invite Josie and me. Sell well.’ Then he was gone into the bright, freezing morning, his hair flowing like gold in the winter sun, leaving her still calling her thanks.

  Customers began to trickle into the shop as soon as Nico left.

  A couple told Hannah they’d never seen her shop before – she didn’t tell them it had been there for ten months – and one telephoned friends to abandon Västerlånggatan for the hidden gem of Hannah Anna Butik. Between ringing up sales she hurried to replace sold items with others of sizes and colours to maintain Nico’s magic.

  She wished she’d taken his phone number so she could text: Clever clogs! Things are flying off the shelves before trade slowed to its more usual pace. But the tide of customers never dried up. Her takings didn’t actually double, she saw when she finally took a reading from the till at the Sunday closing hour of five p.m., but this had been her best Sunday’s trading since Hannah Anna Butik opened its doors. Sales were up sixty-six per cent on the Sunday before.

  Sixty-six per cent!

  Her heart soared. Whether from early Christmas shopping, a cruise liner disgorging shopping-hungry passengers or Nico’s magical merchandising, sales were up. ‘Keep this up and you’ll be in Västerlånggatan in a year,’ she told herself.

  The shop bell pinged and she glanced up, formulating the Swedish to say she was sorry but she was about to close. Instead, she laughed. Framed in the doorway was Nico, orange pumpkins beneath each arm.

  ‘Finishing touches,’ he said, toeing the door closed. One pumpkin he placed carefully in the corner of the window display and the other atop the hat stand, all the time nodding along to her ravings about the astonishing day’s trading. ‘Yeah,’ he said, as if he’d expected nothing less. ‘Are you hungry?’

  Hannah paused. Was this a trick question, bearing in mind what had happened the evening before?

  ‘I know a nice little place,’ he went on.

  As he kept his gaze on the pumpkin, Hannah couldn’t gauge whether her reaction was important or not. She glanced out at the now-dark afternoon and thought of the apartment, empty until Albin arrived home late tonight, no doubt to plummet into bed, exhausted. ‘I could eat,’ she answered lightly, beginning her closing-up routine. Nico, evidently feeling at home after a morning working at the shop, replenished a few shelf spaces she hadn’t got to.

  Then they fastened their coats and Nico led the way across the cobbles of Stortorget, which were just beginning to sparkle with frost, heading downhill, crossing Västerlånggatan, passing closed shops with heavy knits and wooden clogs in their windows, taking an alley so tiny they had to walk in single file to reach the broader street of Stora Nygatan. He stopped outside a dark green frontage, the glass lettered in gold with the restaurant’s name: Hörnan – the Corner. Inside, stairs plunged steeply to a cellar bistro with a vaulted brick ceiling. Candles in bottles stood on red gingham cloths and the smell of coffee enveloped Hannah and Nico as they took a table by a panelled wall.

  Hannah was curious. Nico had brought her to a restaurant. Yesterday, in Burger Town, he’d eaten one French fry.

  Perhaps guessing her thoughts, once they were both seated he began to speak. ‘You brought me up short yesterday with your reaction to my appearance. Scruffy clothes couldn’t be enough alone to prompt your reaction so I presume I look thin to you?’

  Although her heart put in a heavy beat at the challenge in his voice she didn’t see lying would be a useful response. ‘Thin’s the right word,’ she said gravely. ‘In fact, too thin.’

  His eyes flickered. Maybe he’d been hoping for another answer but he answered honestly. ‘I weighed myself in the hotel gym. I’m ten kilos under the minimum healthy weight for my height.’

  A quick mental conversion told Hannah ten kilos was about twenty-two pounds. ‘Sounds about right,’ she said cautiously.

  His brows lowered. ‘I’ve had a word with myself. My daughter needs me healthy so I’m going to pay more attention to my eating habits. And I’m going to try not to look as if I woke up in a ditch.’ He lifted a hand, as if to stop Hannah commenting. ‘To come clean, burger bars sometimes make me uncomfortable. That’s the food I was discouraged from eating when I was playing hockey, so I craved it. I ate it. Then I … got rid of it. It was a difficult time, changing countries and school systems. Mum wouldn’t come to the UK with Dad’s job so my parents split up and my brother Mattias stayed in Sweden with Mum. I’d always spent more time with Dad because I played hockey but I missed them horribly. I guess I was eating to comfort myself then purging to control my weight.’ Absently, he picked up a pale green menu. ‘Last night, I attached the wrong reason to you wanting me to eat. Burgers and buns sent me back in my mind to those bad old days. I expect I was withdrawn.’

  Mortification dried her throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began.

  Nico’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t be! You made me see myself before I became downright unhealthy. I need to thank you.’

  She waved this away. ‘I don’t remember your dad insisting Rob follow a particularly strict diet when he was playing hockey. He didn’t eat loads of chips or ice cream but he’d have some.’

  Lines formed on
Nico’s face. ‘Dad was my dad but also my ice hockey coach. I wanted to please him twice over. He wasn’t pushy or strict – that’s not the Swedish way. But he got in the habit of holding me up as an example of athletic build and low body fat. When he discovered I was purging, he was horrified. We went to counselling together and I stopped. That my habit was relatively recent helped a lot.’ He sighed. ‘But then I compensated by cutting out entire food groups, like carbs and fats. I underate. After more counselling I learned that I wasn’t gaining power by controlling my food because it was controlling me. I had to learn strategies and use tools to eat in a balanced way.’

  ‘But it slips sometimes?’ she guessed. She only had to look at him to know that.

  He nodded, blond hair gleaming in the candlelight. ‘Under stress I return to an unhealthy relationship with food. The last three years have been … hard. Ending a marriage is crappy and my ex, Loren, resisted.’

  He flicked his hair from his eyes. ‘My relationship with food’s complex. When I come to a point where I can admit that it’s become tricky again I make bargains with myself. The current one is I’ll eat if I can eat healthily – like at this restaurant, where there are plenty of good choices. That way, the trigger goes away some.’

  Hannah’s cheeks and ears burned. ‘I’m sorry I took you to Burger Town. I didn’t even ask what you preferred to eat.’

  He made an impatient gesture. ‘My eating is my responsibility. I should be able to face the occasional burger without turning into a grouch but I’d had a bad day.’ His eyes shadowed. ‘I’d FaceTimed Josie earlier at her mum’s. When I told her I’d be spending the day with other people’s children at Skytteholmsparken she began to sob that she missed me. I wanted to jump on a plane and go to her but I couldn’t. People here were depending on me and it’s Loren’s weekend to have Josie and, although it’s difficult sometimes, I have to let them have their own relationship. I got a bit unglued. When I’m upset …’ He batted the air with his hand as if shoving something away. ‘Anyway, I’ve talked to Josie since and she was cheerful.’