Winter wishes, p.29
Winter Wishes, page 29
part #3 of Polwenna Bay Series
Epilogue
Christmas Day
“I hope everyone’s hungry?”
The Seaspray dining table was piled so high with food that Alice Tremaine could hardly be seen above the roast potatoes, honey-glazed carrots and mountains of Morgan’s beloved sausage stuffing. In pride of place was the enormous turkey, its skin crispy and golden. The bird was so heavy that both Jake and Ashley had been required to manoeuvre it from the Aga to the dining room.
Just looking at it was making Jules’s mouth water. She had to admit, she was very glad that dinner with the mayor up at the hotel had been cancelled because of the heavy snowfall.
“Gran, you do know that there are only fourteen of us eating? Not fourteen thousand? I’d better get stuck in,” teased Nick, gesturing at the laden platters. As his hand stole out to swipe a roast potato his grandmother slapped it playfully.
“Wait until we’re all seated, Mr Greedy! Besides, we haven’t even said grace yet.”
“I think we have the perfect person here for that job,” Danny said, squeezing Jules’s fingers, which were entwined with his beneath the table. He’d hardly let go of her since yesterday afternoon – and, he’d whispered as they’d stood outside St Wenn’s after Midnight Mass, he intended never to let her slip away again. Recalling this filled Jules with more warmth than any crackling fire or glass of hot mulled wine ever could. Danny’s kisses, the soft snow flurries and the calls of “Happy Christmas” from the villagers had made it the best Christmas Eve ever.
Jules knew she should never doubt her boss; His plans were always perfect, after all. Even so, she was amazed at just how wonderfully everything seemed to have worked out. All her prayers had been answered, and as she smiled at Danny the love she saw on his face made her heart melt like snow in bright winter sunshine.
The blizzard of the previous day had buried Polwenna Bay beneath a downy blanket, and the scene reminded Jules of the festive window display in Patsy Penhalligan’s bakery, with its cluster of gingerbread cottages topped with white. Opening the curtains on Christmas morning to find the world transformed into a living Christmas card had made Jules laugh for pure joy because it had looked so perfect. Even taking the Christmas service in a church several degrees colder than the world outside couldn’t stop her lips from curving upwards. Happiness and her new thermal underwear had kept her warm, at any rate, even if St Wenn’s heating had decided to give up.
But the snowfall hadn’t been the only magic. Early that morning Jules had phoned the bishop, and in church she had announced that she would be staying in the parish after all. Telling her parishioners this and experiencing their delighted response had been the best Christmas present ever. Or the second best, she decided, squeezing Danny’s fingers in return.
“I’d love to say grace,” she said to Alice.
“You have to wait until my mum and Richard get here,” Morgan told her sternly from his seat directly opposite the dish of stuffing. “They are seven minutes late. Fact.”
“Your mum and the doc!” Issie giggled. “I never saw that one coming!”
Morgan gave his aunt a pitying look. “It was obvious. They always look at each other just like Nick looks at dinner. So do Dad and Jules. Fact.”
Jules’s face matched the festive scarlet tablecloth. And there she was thinking she’d made such a good job of hiding her feelings. Maybe she wouldn’t be taking up poker in the New Year…
“And you look at Mo that way too,” Morgan told Ashley kindly, just in case he felt left out.
“That’s because I could gobble her up, covered in horse hair and straw or not!” Ashley said, winking wickedly at Mo. His wife rolled her eyes but her cheeks turned very pink. The electricity between those two was so strong you’d probably get a shock if you stood too close, Jules observed. It was yet another amazing Christmas gift that Ashley was with them for Christmas dinner today. Jules sent up a silent prayer of thanks. There were so many blessings to count.
Issie was busy making puking gestures. “All right, all right. I’m getting depressed by all you loved-up people. When’s it my turn? I made my wish at St Wenn’s Well too, and so did Granny. Jules wasn’t the only one. So where are our fit men?”
“Issie, that was just a bit of nonsense,” Alice chided, but Issie grinned.
“Don’t fob me off, Gran! I’m gagging to know who Lord Blackwarren really is. I know you couldn’t have made that up and I’m going to find out!”
Alice seemed very interested in the turkey all of a sudden. Since being outed as the author of the steamy Blackwarren novel, she’d achieved as much local fame as her notorious ancestor, Black Jack Jago – and although Alice claimed that this was the end of her writing aspirations, Jules wasn’t convinced. Caspar Owen had already insisted on having his copy of Alice’s book signed and was making noises about becoming her literary agent. If Caspar had his way, Lord Blackwarren’s, ahem, sword was not about to be hung up!
“Jake, carve this will you, love? The others will be here in a minute,” Alice said.
Grinning at Issie, her eldest grandson did as he was told. Soon plates were being piled high with tender slices of turkey.
“You made a wish at St Wenn’s Well? What did you wish for?” Danny asked Jules softly. His voice was light and as full of teasing fun as her champagne glass was full of bubbles, but the way his thumb was tracing circles on her palm told her that he already knew the answer to his question.
She smiled at him, remembering how the wish had floated from her heart, as natural and as pure as the cold water that had laughed and whispered over the rocks. “Something that means the world to me.”
“Good for St Wenn,” Danny murmured, leaning over to brush her lips with his. “I’d have gone to the well months ago if I’d known she was this effective.”
“Even Dad’s got a secret woman,” Issie was saying now, the full beam of her blue-eyed attention on Jimmy. “Don’t deny it, Dad! I heard you Skyping her last night. Merry Christmas! I love you, baby! Is she from your commune in California? Is that where all your money’s going? On a hippy chick?”
Jimmy Tremaine, who’d only just sneaked into the room after a merry hour celebrating Christmas in The Ship, spluttered into his Buck’s Fizz.
“Don’t be ridiculous! I was, err… watching telly!”
“Yeah right,” scoffed Issie. She waggled a finger at him. “Don’t think you’re getting off that lightly or that you’re forgiven for not taking me to San Francisco. It’s Christmas, so I won’t push it, but I think it’s high time I had some winter sun. Even bloody Zak’s jetted away to the Caribbean.”
“He is recording an album there,” pointed out Jake as he passed a heaped platter of turkey to his grandmother.
“Must be hell for him in the sunshine with all that rum and those bikini-wearing girls on tap,” grumbled Issie, tossing her blonde braids indignantly. “I’m going to make up for it after Christmas and have some adventures all of my own and find a fit guy. Just you lot wait and see.”
“Little Rog will be gutted,” said Nick, followed by “Ouch! Get off!” when his sister walloped him over the head with a cracker. “Granny! Tell her to stop!”
“Would you think they were in their twenties?” Alice sighed to Jules. “I wonder why I do this sometimes. Maybe I should have saved myself the effort and booked us all in at Symon’s?” But she was smiling as she said this and Jules knew that really Alice was loving every minute of having her family gathered around her for Christmas. Seaspray was ringing with voices and laughter, which was exactly as the big old house should be. The tree was twinkling like the sea below in the bay, and the huge pile of presents beneath it was as colourful as the Polwenna lights. There were several gifts there with her name on too, and Jules felt the wonderful glow of knowing that she was loved and accepted and part of it all.
How could she ever have survived leaving Polwenna Bay and Danny? It would have broken her heart. Sitting here now, with her hand resting in his, Jules felt as though all her Christmas presents had come at once.
Thinking of Christmas presents, Jules had already opened one earlier. It had been left for her in the vicarage porch and, like something from Alice in Wonderland, was tied up with a red ribbon and labelled Read me! Such a flamboyant gesture could only have come from one person. Once Midnight Mass was over and Danny had headed back to Seaspray after a thousand kisses, Jules had curled up in bed to open the gift. She’d been taken aback when she’d realised she was holding Cassandra Duval’s latest manuscript.
The Reverend’s Renegade Heart
Flipping open the first page, Jules had swiftly found herself transported into the eighteenth century and a small Cornish town peopled by wreckers, smugglers and feisty tavern wenches. The occupants of this oddly familiar town were the flock of the hero, who was none other than the dark and brooding Reverend Julian Matthews. With a heart full of passion, a secret and savage past fighting in the colonies and a crypt full of smuggled goods, he was as torn and tortured a hero as any reader of romance could long for. He was perhaps not quite as energetic as Lord Blackwarren, but the good Rev was soon flung headlong into a passionate love affair with the squire’s daughter, Tana, and tempted by the sultry Eleanor. Jules couldn’t help herself: she was hooked. She’d been unable to stop reading, no matter how heavy her eyes grew. By the time Santa had circled the globe, the snow had finished falling all around and the daylight had started to steal over the rooftops, Jules had devoured every page. Caspar was right – it was his best book yet. The descriptions of the “fictional” town were so vivid she could taste the tang of salt and hear the seagulls cry. The hero, an injured soldier turned vicar, was so plausible and familiar that she kept shaking her head in disbelief. That she had played a small part in helping Caspar create this was a humbling thought.
I hope you like it, Caspar had written beneath THE END, because this book wouldn’t exist without your help and friendship. I also hope you like the hero. In him two people have come together to make one perfect whole… I wonder where the inspiration for that came from? x
A war-hero vicar? Who could ever guess where Caspar got his ideas? Yet now, amidst the chatter of the excited Tremaine family, Jules glanced at Danny – best friend, hero and love of her life – and knew that Caspar was absolutely right. With Danny she felt a completeness and a peace that she could never have imagined before. Even if she spent the rest of eternity with him, it would still never be long enough.
“Here we are! Sorry to keep you waiting, but the roads have been appalling!”
The dining-room door flew open and Richard Penwarren appeared. His nose was red from the cold and his glasses were steaming up in the warmth. Laughing, Tara slipped them from his nose and wiped them carefully on her sleeve, before replacing them tenderly. She looked different, Jules thought. Softer somehow and less spiky, as though all her sharp edges had been smoothed away like sea-washed pebbles. Tara’s mouth was curling upwards rather than being set in its usual determined line, and her eyes shone. The brittle energy that Jules had come to associate with Morgan’s mum had vanished completely; instead she looked like a woman who’d let go of a huge burden.
“The path is really slippy. I thought we’d never get up. It’s just started snowing again, too.” Tara was stepping back to allow Richard to push a wheelchair into the dining room. “Jake, we’ll need a load more salt if this carries on, or else we’ll never get Ivy back. Either that, or we’ll have to borrow the quad bike.”
“I can’t possibly ride on a quad bike! I… Oh! Actually, why not? It could be fun and, anyway, what’s the worst that could happen? Falling and hurting myself?” laughed a voice that Jules recognised – although she’d never heard it sound so jovial before. No, this was a voice that was usually heard complaining, so Jules did a double take when she saw Ivy Lawrence in the wheelchair. Either the Christmas sherry was very strong indeed or Ivy was actually smiling. Surely not? Charles Dickens and Cassandra Duval combined couldn’t have made that up!
“Welcome to Seaspray, Ivy,” Alice said warmly, bending down and kissing her guest’s cheek.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Ivy said – and, sure enough, the boot-button eyes that usually glared at anyone rash enough to get close were creased with smiles rather than criss-crosses of ill temper.
Morgan, wide eyed, was hiding his camera under the table. “I promise I won’t take any pictures of you,” he said quickly when he saw Ivy looking.
“You can take as many as you like, my dear,” Ivy reassured him. “If it wasn’t for you I might not have even seen Christmas.” She winked at Issie. “Let’s see if I do break that lens. Or maybe, just maybe, I’m not quite so much of a wicked old witch as I was?”
Issie squirmed. “I’m sorry about saying that.”
“Don’t be. You were right,” Ivy said. “I was behaving like a wicked old witch and I’m sorry. I’d like to make amends, if I can.”
“Well, I certainly think people have appreciated your gifts to the village. You really were a Christmas angel,” Summer said. “My dad was thrilled with the hamper.”
“The cakes you made were wonderful,” Jules told her.
“And Polwenna benefitted a lot from your donations to the Christmas lights fund,” Jake added.
But Morgan was confused by this change.
“You’re not cross I looked in your window?” he asked cautiously, his camera still out of sight.
“Cross? You saved my life, young man,” Ivy told him. “If you hadn’t done that, who knows how long I would have been on the floor with my hip dislocated? You’re a hero. Just like your father and,” she smiled up at Tara, “like your mum is for rescuing me.”
“Absolute fact,” Danny assured his son. “It’s OK, mate, you’re not in trouble.”
“Anyway, you’re not a wicked old witch,” Tara said firmly to Ivy, helping Richard move a chair and seat their guest at the table. “Did your daughter think that about you when you called her earlier? Did your grandchildren Or were they thrilled to hear from you?”
A solitary tear slipped down Ivy’s cheek. “I just wish I hadn’t left it so long.”
“Sometimes it takes a while to say the things that mean the most,” Danny said quietly, looking at Jules as he spoke.
“But it’s never too late to put things right. Or to start again,” Tara added, reaching for Richard’s hand.
The doctor pulled her close, nodding. “And what better time to do all that than at Christmas?”
Jules nodded too. “Some secrets have to be shared and truths told if people are to be happy.”
“I don’t have a flipping clue what you lot are going on about but I’m starving. Can we please eat?” Nick pleaded, looking longingly at the food.
Alice laughed. “We’re all here now so why not? Jules, would you do the honours?”
“Absolutely,” Jules said.
She put down her glass and smiled at the people gathered around the table, people who had become so dear to her since she’d moved to the village. And, of course, Danny was the dearest of them all. Her heart overflowing with love, Jules bowed her head to say grace, and the thankful prayer came as easily as breathing.
As the snowflakes kissed the village, Jules knew with all her heart that winter wishes really did come true.
THE END
Ruth Saberton is the bestselling author of Katy Carter Wants a Hero and Escape for the Summer. She also writes upmarket commercial fiction under the pen names Jessica Fox, Georgie Carter and Holly Cavendish.
Born and raised in the UK, Ruth has just returned to Cornwall after living in Grand Cayman for two years. What an adventure!
And since she loves to chat with readers, please do add her as a Facebook friend and follow her on Twitter.
www.ruthsaberton.co.uk
Twitter: @ruthsaberton
Facebook: Ruth Saberton
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Ruth Saberton, Winter Wishes
