The Great Village Show (31 page)

‘Like in that old YouTube interview?’ I ask him.

‘Yes, exactly,’ he nods quietly, ruefully. ‘Pia always wanted me to cultivate the bad-boy image because she said that’s what the public wanted. But it’s my fault, too – I was so caught up in dealing with the pressures of the restaurant that I didn’t really fight her on the PR front. I was too weak; just went along with what she said, not really thinking it through.’

I squeeze his knee. It’s hard to imagine Dan as ‘weak’.

He goes on. ‘Then, as my career took off, I just found it increasingly difficult to free myself from that persona. It was like playing a part, you know?’

I nod. ‘Like me with my scary teacher act,’ I smile.

‘Well that one never fooled me for a moment,’ he laughs. Then he looks thoughtful again. ‘I was just a small boy who loved cooking with his granny in the country. I’d forgotten that for a while,’ he says sadly. ‘And I’d almost given up hope of finding myself again. But then I came back to Tindledale.’ He takes another sip of his wine.

‘I so enjoyed the anonymity, being a normal person away from the cameras, with no fuss, having a quiet, gentle life. I loved tossing my phone into the stream that time!’

‘I just couldn’t believe you’d done that – I had you down as a madman,’ I laugh.

‘I felt a bit like one … But it was a welcome relief, and then when your mum had no idea who I was, offering to help me become a paella chef, I couldn’t help myself from going along with it.’

We laugh again, both amused at the memory. ‘God, I was mortified when she said that,’ I tell him. ‘But it seemed even worse to tell her who you really were.’

‘Absolutely,’ Dan had grinned. We still laugh about it now.

One year on, everything is different. He’s calmed down a lot: the fresh, Tindledale air has done him the world of good, and he has been known on occasion to be very relaxed and smiley. Maybe that’s because he’s doing what he loves, cooking food for people to enjoy eating without worrying about what the restaurant critics write about him, or if his Michelin stars will get taken away.

Yes, Dan sold his three-Michelin-starred restaurant, The Fatted Calf, and set himself up with a food truck. Now he travels around the villages in it, serving delicious street food alongside my home-brewed wines and cordials. Pia has gone; all the image-making and press conferences and planted stories and TV interviews are part of his old life. The life he wanted to leave behind to start afresh in Tindledale.

Dan and I are blissfully happy, and my tiny cottage has never been so busy, with me being a part-time stepmum to Dan’s two boys. Jacob and Charlie are a handful, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. They are boisterous and noisy and perfectly wonderful; they make my tiny cottage feel just like home.

We reach the food truck and, after hugging it out like they always do, Dan urges Jack to try his new dish, a minted lamb (locally sourced, of course) burger with a beetroot and tzatziki relish on a sourdough bun and hand-cut fries with a truffle oil drizzle.

‘You’ll love it,’ Dan tells Jack enthusiastically as he hands him a plate. ‘Now get stuck in.’ Jack wastes no time in doing just that. Dan gives Taylor and Lawrence a burger too, before they all wander over to the marquee, leaving us alone.

Dan turns to me. And after wiping his hands on a tea towel, he says, ‘Come here!’ in a very bossy and filthy voice. ‘You scary teacher you,’ before pulling me in close for a kiss, pressing his lips on mine and taking my breath away, just like he always does. When I manage to surface, I gasp and lift one eyebrow.

‘Err, aren’t you forgetting something?’ I smile, tilting my head to one side.

‘
Please
,’ he says, fixing his thunderous eyes on to mine, and I laugh before moving in for another breathtaking kiss from the rudest man I ever had the wonderful fortune to meet.

Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Sybil has been saved from despair by her knitting obsession and now her home is filled to bursting with tea cosies, bobble hats, and jumpers. But, after discovering that she may have perpetrated the cock-up of the century at work, Sybil decides to make a hasty exit and, just weeks before Christmas, runs away to the picturesque village of Tindledale.

There, Sybil discovers Hettie’s House of Haberdashery, an emporium dedicated to the world of knitting and needle craft. But Hettie, the outspoken octogenarian owner, is struggling and now the shop is due for closure. And when Hettie decides that Sybil’s wonderfully wacky Christmas jumpers are just the thing to add a bit of excitement to her window display, something miraculous starts to happen …

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