Winter Wishes (4 page)

“I’ll go up if you like,” offered Issie, catching sight of Jules’s pale face.

Jules shook her head. She’d been asked do this. She had to do this because Ivy was right: it was her job. Surely now that Jules was in her thirties she ought to be over her silly fear of heights?

“I don’t care who goes up,” Ivy snapped. “Just hurry up. I’m getting cold!”

Jules placed her feet on the bottom rung, first one and then the other. Her palms were clammy and her fingers were starting to tingle. Slowly, painfully, she climbed up, one rung at a time, the blood whooshing in her ears and her heart thudding.
Just don’t look down
, she told herself.
Don’t look down, don’t look—

Oh! Too late! She’d looked down and it was such a long way that her vision turned black around the edges and her head swam. Below her, Ivy, Alice and Issie’s faces were just three pale and blurry ovals in a world that was growing ever darker. Jules clung to the ladder with all her might; her fingers tightened on the uprights in such a vice-like grip that she didn’t think she’d ever loosen them.

“Jules!” Alice cried. “Are you all right up there, love?”

Jules couldn’t answer. Her mouth had gone dry and, besides, every last bit of concentration she had was being consumed by the effort of clinging on and not passing out. The open window was just ahead of her but, now that she was closer, Jules realised there no way she could possibly fit through it. Even if she remained up here starving for a month, she’d still be too big. Her heartbeat accelerated. If she couldn’t squeeze through the window and she couldn’t move a muscle to get back down the ladder either, then she was stuck.

How on earth was she going to get down? The world began to spin around her, with the ladder as its axis.

“Jules!” Alice shouted.

“Hurry up!” cried Ivy. “My saucepan!”

“Bugger your saucepan,” Jules heard Issie say. “Can’t you see she’s stuck?”

Jules tried to speak but the only noise she made was a strangled gasp. The sensation in her hands had changed from tingling to numbness and she felt faint. She couldn’t faint. She’d fall off the ladder. How was she going to get down? Polwenna Bay didn’t have a fire brigade to execute a Trumpton-style rescue and Superman was too busy trick-or-treating to help. Time seemed to run slow, the panicky conversation of the trio below rising and falling in the breeze and washing over her in a meaningless tide of sound until Jules wasn’t sure how long she’d been up the ladder. It could have been five minutes or five hours. All she could do was cling on, as tightly as any limpet might cling to the rocks of the bay.

Help me Lord
, she prayed.

Then a voice called up to her and it really was all she could do not to pass out. Surely not?

“Hold on Jules. I’m coming!”

It was Danny, and Jules could have wept with relief. It didn’t matter anymore that she was supposed to be giving him a wide berth or that the atmosphere between them had been frostier than tonight’s weather: all that counted was that he was her dear friend and she trusted him more than anyone else.

“You can’t possibly climb up there,” she heard Alice gasp. “You’ve only got one arm.”

“One’s better than none, Gran,” Danny said mildly. “I can climb one-handed, anyway. How do you think we manage on manoeuvres carrying weapons? It’s all in my amazing core strength. Watch and marvel.”

“I can’t watch,” Alice wailed. “Hold the ladder for your brother, Issie, and let me know when he’s at the top.”

The ladder jolted and Jules inhaled sharply. Her fingers were claws now and her knuckles looked a very odd green through her white flesh. All the blood was no doubt sloshing round her head. She’d not felt this odd since the Pollards had insisted she sample their home brew.

“It’s fine, Jules. It’s just me on the first rung.” This was followed by a couple more wobbles. “That’s the second and the third. There’s the fourth. You’re doing really well.”

Jules couldn’t reply. It was taking every ounce of strength she possessed not to tumble to the ground. She was growing resigned to the fact that she might well spend the rest of her life stuck on a ladder propped against Poison Ivy’s cottage. She’d be a phenomenon, a bit like one of those mystics from the Middle Ages who’d gloried God by sitting on the top of a pole for years. Admittedly Jules had never really understood the point of this before, but now she totally got it – they’d been stuck.

“So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Danny was on the rung below her, his left arm brushing past her waist to hold the side rail. Although he wasn’t holding her, Jules felt safe. Danny always made her feel safe.

“Don’t answer that,” he continued. “You’ve taken up a shady career as a burglar to raise money for St Wenn’s, haven’t you? Was the naked calendar not risky enough for you?”

Jules couldn’t help laughing.

“That’s better,” said Danny, sounding relieved. “Just breathe as steadily and as normally as you can for a moment. In and out. In and out.”

Jules did so and, to her amazement, her heartbeat started to slow. “Sorry, Danny,” she whispered. “I don’t know what happened. I feel so stupid. I’ve never liked heights, but nothing like this has ever happened to me.”

“You had a panic attack,” Danny explained. “And I think you’ve been incredibly brave to even try to help. Just breathe a bit more for me, OK? There’s no race.”

Jules nodded. Although she couldn’t see him she knew that the uninjured part of his face would be etched with concern.

“How did you know I was up here? Did you walk past?”

“Err, not quite,” said Danny. “Jules, you’ve been stuck up here for over twenty minutes. Issie and Gran are frantic. They phoned me thinking that my hostage-rescue negotiation skills might come in handy. I thought that Poison Ivy had you gagged and bound in there. It’s quite a relief to see you up a ladder and know she’s not joined the militant wing of the WI!”

Over twenty minutes? Jules was staggered. “What about Ivy’s pot?”

“Sod Ivy and her pot. It’s you I’m here for,” Danny told her, “and it’s all going to be fine. Now, we’re going to make our way down really slowly, one rung at a time. Three points of contact at all times, OK? Which is going to be far easier for you than for me. I can’t hold you, I’m afraid, but I can talk you down. Happy with that?”

Happy wasn’t quite the adjective Jules had in mind but she nodded again.

“Great. Right then: left foot down, down, down. Perfect! Now right foot. Hey, have you lost more weight? Your bum looks much smaller.”

“You’re not supposed to be looking at my bum!” Jules said, shocked out of her fear.

“Says who? Anyway, can’t help it. I’m a guy and genetically programmed to look at sexy backsides. Left foot again. Now the right. Good girl, that’s it. Yep, all that walking has definitely toned and firmed you in all the right places. Those jeans are great. Looking hot, Rev!”

Jules was so busy blushing that she hardly noticed they’d descended three rungs now.

“Close your eyes,” she told him.

“You want me to descend a ladder one-handed and with my eyes closed? What do you think this is? The circus? Yes, right foot there. Brilliant! You’re doing well.”

“I just don’t think you should be looking at me from this angle,” Jules said primly.

He laughed. “So what angle would you like me to look at you from? I’m open to all suggestions. Left foot, lower, lower! Brilliant! You’ve got it.”

At the thought of Danny looking at her from above, his face only inches from her own and his lips just a kiss away, Jules almost had a very different kind of panic attack. One more accurately described as a surge of desire. Even the ends of her hair were blushing now.

“Right foot a little lower. Well done. We can slow down if you like? Make my fun last?”

Sure enough, Jules found that she was able to negotiate her way down more easily with Danny’s cheeky quips helping to calm her nerves. By the time her feet touched the ground, her pulse was almost steady again and the horrible whirling sensation had passed.

“The Eagle has landed!” cried Danny, pulling her against his chest and holding her close. “Well done, Jules! You were so brave. I’m very proud of you.”

“Brave?” scoffed Ivy. “She was stuck there for ages. My pan’s bound to have boiled dry by now and I’m freezing cold. I’ve probably caught a chill.”

Jules hung her head. “Sorry, Ivy. I’m scared of heights. I always have been.”

“Why on earth anyone would climb up a ladder when they’re scared of heights is beyond me,” muttered the older woman.

Danny spun around and glowered at her. “Just for once, why don’t you try being grateful? Jules risked her neck for you, although I have no idea why, seeing as you seem to make it your mission in life to be as mean to everyone as possible. Why can’t you just be nice?”

Ivy snorted rudely. “In my experience nice doesn’t get you very far.”

“It’ll get you a lot further in this village than being unpleasant,” Alice Tremaine said quietly – and Ivy stared at her in surprise, because Alice usually kept her own counsel. “People won’t keep trying to help forever, you know. We’re generally a pretty easy-going bunch here in Polwenna, but people only have so much patience with rudeness and ingratitude.”

“How dare you call me rude and ungrateful!” Ivy gasped, her mouth pursing like a cat’s backside.

“Because it’s true, Ivy, and because I care,” Alice said wearily. “I don’t know what’s happened to you in the past that’s made you so bitter, but I do know that if you carry on like this then you really will be alone. Even vicars can only have so much patience. Whatever it is with you, Jules was only trying to help. Don’t take it out on her – or Issie, or even me for that matter. We only tried to help but, believe you me, we’ll think twice about doing that again.”

Ivy’s mouth was wide open now. She looked like something Nick Tremaine would find in a trawl net.

Laying her hand on Danny’s arm, Alice added, “Come on, love, don’t get yourself worked up.”

Danny was teetering on the brink of erupting, Jules could see that. He’d worked so hard to control his anger and there was no way she could bear an old boot like Ivy spoiling things.

“It’s fine, Danny,” Jules said.

Danny looked as though he wanted to point out that Ivy’s behaviour was far from fine, and for a few tense moments he visibly struggled before exhaling slowly and nodding.

“You’re both right. It isn’t worth it. I should know that much. You might win a battle but unless you’re winning hearts and minds you’ll never win the war.” To Ivy he added, “Mrs Lawrence,
I still think the least you owe Jules is a thank you, but if you can’t even manage that then just do us all a favour and keep out of my way. I’m ‘mentally unstable’, as you know. Or at least, one of my family overheard you saying that about me in the village shop. So I guess you realise that I could explode at any moment if I’m pushed!”

“Like the hulk! Grr!” added Issie, and Ivy stepped back hastily, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like an apology. She looked very pale, and in spite of Ivy’s behaviour Jules couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. There was always more to a story than met the eye. Nobody would choose to be as sour as Ivy.

“Thanks for rescuing me, Danny,” said Jules. Her legs felt like boiled wool and she sagged against him. It was wonderful being held by him and for a moment she allowed herself to luxuriate in the comfort of his closeness.

“You don’t need to thank me. You’ve saved my neck more times than you know.” Danny said softly, into the top of her head. Then Alice was pushing him out of the way, hugging Jules and telling her off for being reckless. In the meantime Issie had scampered up the ladder and shot through the window with embarrassing ease.

“Don’t be ashamed. She was Polwenna School’s gymnastics champion when she was eleven,” Dan explained, seeing Jules’s stricken face. “She wanted to join the circus too.”

“I should have just let her go up instead.” Jules felt so stupid. “What was I thinking? I’m such an idiot.”

“You were thinking about helping Ivy and not risking anyone else. That makes you one of the bravest people I know,” Danny said firmly. “You’d have made a great army commander. Leading by example for the good of your men is what it’s all about. Even if it doesn’t always work out so well.” He touched his right shoulder and shrugged. “If you’re an idiot, then so am I.”

“You’re a hero!” Jules said hotly. She’d not hear anything else.

“Then you’re one too,” Danny countered. “OK?”

Jules was going to argue the point (after all, getting stuck up a ladder wasn’t really on a par with fighting for your country in a war zone), when Issie reappeared to announce that the door was unlocked and the pan had been removed from the stove. Without even so much as a thank you, Ivy turned her back on them all and stomped back towards her front door, muttering under her breath and looking as though she only needed a broomstick and a pointy hat to join in with the Halloween revellers marauding through the village.

“You’re welcome!” Issie called after her, and for once even Alice didn’t remonstrate about manners.

“I think after this we all need to go to Seaspray and have a drink,” was all she said. “Halloween or not, Jules, you’re coming too. No arguments.”

And Jules, too drained now that the adrenalin had subsided, simply nodded. A drink was exactly what she needed – to get her over the shock of the ladder episode and the even bigger shock that Danny Tremaine was back in her life scarcely two hours after she’d wished for him.

St Wenn’s Well, it seemed, had a magic all of its own.

Chapter 3

An hour later and curled up on the sofa beside the Aga with a mug of tomato soup in her chilly hands, Jules was starting to feel more human. The walk through the village and back up the cliff path to Seaspray had passed in a blur of subsiding adrenalin and increasing embarrassment. Whatever had she been thinking, volunteering to climb up the ladder in the first place? She’d never liked heights. She even felt light-headed sometimes looking out of the vicarage window at the village falling away below. She must have been crazy to risk her safety like that. For the first time Jules understood what she’d been taught when she was a curate: sometimes it was in everyone’s best interests for a vicar to set limits on what she was prepared to do for her parishioners. Only her sense of duty to Ivy had driven Jules up that ladder. Nothing else could have made her do it, not even if there had been a family-sized bar of Dairy Milk at the top held aloft by a naked George Clooney!