Several people stepped forward; some held back in case there was a fatter, greener tree beneath. Isla waved at Lorna, who was buying two: one for her lovely little flat to sit on the table, and one, out of her own pocket, for the school. She and Mrs. Cook, the other teacher, came in on the second Sunday of advent and decorated it in secret, partly to give the children a wonderful surprise on Monday morning, as if it had happened by magic, and partly because if you invite thirty-five children to help decorate a Christmas tree, nothing good happens, and there’s a lot of needles involved.

Inge-Britt sidled down lazily from the Harbour’s Rest hotel. It needed a big tree, and she would only bother to decorate one side of it, because really, who would see the other side? And she’d have to make two trips up to the attic, which would seriously impinge on her afternoon nap. Inge-Britt was a brilliant person but temperamentally highly unsuited to running a clean hostelry—something Flora was very much hoping to capitalize on with the Rock.

The women clustered together, as both Lorna and Inge-Britt put their hands up for a big tree.

Lorna, however, was momentarily distracted; if little Ash was by the quayside, it meant his father, Dr. Hussein—oh, who was she kidding—Saif, the man she was desperately in love with, couldn’t be far behind.

“Hey, Lorna,” shouted Inge-Britt, holding up a hand to indicate that they would share catching the big tree as the dispatcher moved over the ten-footer, expecting her friend to catch it . . . but Lorna’s head was turned in a dream and she wasn’t there to catch the tree as it fell.

Chapter 27

I t happened very quickly. Lorna turned on hearing her name, but it wasn’t—was never, it seemed—the voice she wanted to hear her name from at all, and she was scanning the crowd even as Inge-Britt was asking her to help.

Ten-foot Christmas trees, even wrapped in netting, are heavy, unwieldy things, hard to get a grasp on, even if you are a tall, glamorous Icelandic girl.

“Lorna!” Inge-Britt yelled, but Lorna was still searching the mass of faces, looking for the one pair of dark eyes she could drown in, looking for that shaggy black hair, always in need of a haircut, that rangy frame, the golden skin . . .

The tree fell straight over, heading directly for little Ash, whose damaged leg (and wide-eyed demeanor) meant he wasn’t always as quick off the mark as he could have been.

It happened as if in slow motion: Isla looking on in concern as the tree toppled out of Inge-Britt’s arms toward the little boy, until, like a flash, the tall blond man beside her dived underneath it and pushed the boy out of the way and crashed onto the cold port tarmac, with a tree crashing down on his broad back.

“ OH MY GOD.” Lorna dashed down at once. “I wasn’t . . .”