Christmas at the Café at the End of the Pier

by Helen Rolfe

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Looking for love this Christmas? You'll find it at The Café at the End of the Pier... A feelgood novella and the continuation of the Café at the End of the Pier series. With her grandparents taking a long-awaited holiday, Jo finds herself completely in charge of the Cafe over the festive season. Salthaven-on-Sea is brimming with Christmas cheer - the pier is decked with tinsel and twinkling with lights, and the Cafe is full of the delicious aromas of Jo's mulled wine and freshly-baked cinnamon rolls. Love is in the air, too, and when another mystery postcard arrives, it's finally Jo's turn for a blind date... But who will be waiting underneath the mistletoe? As the whole community is brought together on the sands of Salthaven for a frosty Christmas Day swim, will Jo finally find her own happy ever after? The perfect feel-good festive read for fans of Cathy Bramley and Holly Hepburn ******* Readers love The Café at the End of the Pier series: 'Brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye' - Goodreads reviewer 'Heartwarming and made me smile... I can't wait to read more' - Goodreads reviewer 'Perfectly charming and totally yummy' - Amazon reviewer

Release date: November 1, 2018

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 78

Sample

Chapter One

Jo had every light in the café switched on today, including the twinkly Christmas lights. Winter had well and truly set in and she’d barely been able to make out the pier on her way down the hill to work as thick fog enveloped the town and hung over the sea like a thermal blanket.

At the start of December Gramps had brought in his trusty Advent calendar and handed it over to Jo because the café was now hers. She was the boss and her grandparents had eased into retirement now they could see it was in such good hands. She’d set the calendar on the ledge near the blackboard so people could see it the second they came in, joyful with the spirit of the season, anxiously counting down the days together. With a taupe and white snowman at its centre, the calendar’s wooden cubes could be changed to reflect the number of days left, and below the numbers the wording read: Days until Christmas.

Jo turned the cubes to a two, then a one, with three weeks to go until the big day. Beside the till she set up the lamp she’d brought from home, another touch of Christmas and a touch of her personality. Shaped like a small tree, its illuminated petals added to the twinkly lights already strung around the café walls. All she wanted now was some fresh holly to fix to the corners of the menu blackboard and the postcards board. She’d already set out the finished Christmas paperweights Ben’s son, Charlie, and Matt’s niece, Poppy, had worked so hard on. They could be used at the tables she’d left outside for dry days, or simply used as Christmas décor at the tables inside. Poppy had painted a wonderful Santa on top of one stone, a snowman on another, and Ben had helped Charlie to paint reindeers on top of the largest stone they’d collected from the seashore.

Today Jo was as busy as ever, but the café was running like a well-oiled machine now. It was just her personal life that was lagging behind. It seemed to have ground more or less to a halt, apart from the odd night out at the pub with local doctor Jess and Melissa, a friend from school. Her gran, Molly, kept telling her she needed to put herself out there, a phrase which made Jo shudder, because somewhere out there, waiting in the wings, was her mystery admirer. She was beginning to wonder if he would ever make himself known, or whether the whole thing would turn out to be a huge wind-up.

She opened the door to the café when she saw Matt arriving from his family farm with today’s produce. ‘Good morning.’ She shut the door firmly behind him. ‘It’s freezing out there!’

He took the box straight through to the kitchen at the back of the café, calling over his shoulder, ‘You’re not wrong. The sun’s on its way up but I don’t think we’ll see it through all this fog.’ He left the kitchen quick enough. ‘I left something outside, hang on a minute.’

Puzzled, she followed him, and when he brought an enormous Christmas tree in a pot, through the door, a smile crept across her face. ‘You’re growing trees up at the farm now too?’

He set the tree down. ‘No, but the farm down the road from us is, and I picked up a tree for Molly and Arthur last year, so I figured you’d want to carry on the tradition. I usually add it to the next invoice, if that suits?’

‘Of course, and it’s gorgeous.’ She leaned in to smell the pine needles, nostalgia flooding through her at Christmases past. She almost opened her mouth to ask about getting another tree for her flat, but somehow it didn’t feel right. She would be on her own there and something about getting her very own tree was even worse than buying a microwave instant meal for one. It was depressing. Last year she’d been in a shared house and they’d clubbed together to get a Christmas tree from outside the local pub which had been so tall it had bent over on the ceiling, causing their inebriated selves to laugh hysterically until one of them borrowed a neighbour’s shears to take the top off. But this year a tree at the flat would just remind her she didn’t have anyone special to be with on the day. Gran and Gramps had at last decided to make the most of their retirement, as well as their reconciliation with their daughter, Sasha, and were heading off to stay with her in Majorca over Christmas and a couple of weeks into the New Year. And they’d only agreed to go because Jo had told them her best friend Tilly would be in Salthaven over the festive season and had already invited her to her parents’ for the big day. Jo was grateful to have somewhere to go, but at the same time, she’d rather have spent it with her own family – or, truth be told, snuggling up on the sofa with her own special someone, listening to Christmas music beneath twinkly lights over mulled wine or hot chocolates.

‘Jo . . . ’ Matt’s voice prompted her to stop daydreaming. ‘I was asking where you wanted it?’ He picked up the bucket at its base, his face battling the needles and branches as his arms took the strain.

‘Right. Sorry.’ She looked round. ‘Hang on, I’ll drag the middle table away from the wall and we can stand it next to the blackboard. Will you need the bucket back?’

‘No, it came with the bucket.’ He seemed amused at how scatty she was. He probably thought she was a complete idiot. She wasn’t usually this bad, but Christmas seemed to bring out the very best and very worst of her. It was a time of celebration, happiness, smiles and laughter, but also a time where you began to think beyond the bright lights and wrapping paper, to what really mattered. Still, at least her family were back together once again. She’d got something right along the way.

She helped Matt manoeuvre the tree into the space she’d made and directed him as he turned it left and right to get the best side. ‘Right a bit more . . . no, left . . . sorry, right again.’ She let a giggle escape. ‘There. Don’t move it again.’ When his head emerged, flushed from a face full of pine-scented greenery, she said, ‘It’s perfect, I really appreciate it.’

‘Glad to be of service.’

‘I’m putting the decorations up this afternoon, so your timing is spot on.’ She’d decorate the bucket at the tree’s base with some crepe paper and a bow, make it look really dazzling.

‘I’ll look forward to seeing what this place looks like when you’ve finished,’ said Matt. ‘It’s always like a little bit of treasure at the end of the pier for locals and visitors to town when so many places are shut during the winter months.’

‘I’m glad.’ She might be lonely when she was at home, but she had as much company here at the café as she could ever want, and sometimes she knew she needed to count her blessings. ‘I’m really excited about my first Christmas here.’

‘I can see that. You can’t stop smiling.’

She turned to look at the tree. ‘Do you like Christmas?’

‘I love it.’ He manoeuvred some of the lower branches of the blue spruce on one side so the tree. . .