Slay Bells Ring (A Christmas Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) by Mona Marple

Author:Mona Marple [Marple, Mona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-21T16:00:00+00:00

11

With the painting finished, and Gilbert’s onesie on a high temperature wash, we each went off to a different bathroom and scrubbed ourselves clean.

I had splatters of paint on my hands, my arms, in my hair and even one bit on my teeth.

I enjoyed a long, hot shower and then inspected myself in the mirror until I was happy that I’d found every spot of paint and got rid of it.

Dried and dressed, I made my way down to the kitchen, where Gilbert was back in his usual working attire. It was hard to believe that he’d ever dressed in the skintight lycra, or fallen into a pot of paint, and yet I knew we’d never let him live the incident down.

“I suppose you’re on the hunt for food?” Gilbert asked.

“Not unless you’re making something,” I said.

“Of course I’m making something. What kind of establishment do you think this is? The kind where you come in and open the cupboards yourself, in the hope that a scrap of food remains? I’ve made soup. Soup and homemade ciabatta,” Gilbert said with a flourish.

I thought I saw a discarded plastic wrapper on the side, and couldn’t believe that Gilbert had had time to prepare his own bread, but I decided to let it go. He was having a bad enough day without me catching him out with a culinary shortcut.

Mrs Claus joined us in the kitchen and explained that Nick had been called away to deal with a toy emergency down at the HQ.

She joined me at the table and we gratefully devoured the soup and bread. It turned out, we were so tired from the painting that we didn’t have any energy to tease Gilbert about the paint escapades.

“What are you doing for the rest of the day, Holly?” Mrs Claus asked.

“I need to look at the photos from the Ball,” I said.

“Ooh! Can I look with you?”

“Sure,” I agreed, and we stacked our empty bowls in the middle of the table, and thanked Gilbert for a tasty lunch.

“Oh, Gilbert, dear. Careful you don’t fall into the soup pan,” Mrs Claus called as we left the room.

Gilbert huffed and clattered around by way of response, and we stifled our laughter as we walked across into the den.

The fire was roaring in there and I stood in front of it for a few moments to soak up some heat. My feet in particular had never known cold like in Candy Cane Hollow. I would have to invest in some really chunky socks and a pair of slippers too. Maybe even a spare pair for my new surgery!

I’d transferred the photos from my phone to my laptop, and I set the device up on the coffee table and opened the folder where I’d stored them.

“So, here we go. I took some photographs before the glitter ball fell. I’ll flick through them,” I said.

There was a photo of Mrs Claus and Father Christmas, both of them beaming from ear to ear.

“Goodness, doesn’t he look

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