Page 21 of Not Just for Christmas

‘Deal,’ she replied. ‘But at least if he pulls out now, Sam won’t have had his hopes raised for nothing.’

‘True.’

By the time we’d hugged our goodbyes, a new message arrived. Caroline leaned over and read it with me.

Dates locked in, flights are booked. It’ll be tight but I’ll be there on the morning of the 19th, flying back to the US on the 27th. Looking forward to it! Thanks again, I appreciate the invitation. I miss you guys x PS in case you see it on Insta, Amelia and I have split up, so you’ve saved me from spending Christmas alone

‘Oh no, poor Dylan. I thought they were getting on well,’ I said, disappointed for him.

‘Well, would you look at that!’ Caroline’s eyes sparkled. ‘Just when we were talking about you getting back on the horse, a single, rather gorgeous man turns up in time to get in your Christmas stocking.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘Dylan is a friend. Jack’s best friend. That would be … just wrong. No. Seriously. No.’

She raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Methinks my friend doth protest too much.’

‘I doth protest exactly the right amount,’ I said crossly, getting into my car. I tugged at the seatbelt and fumbled to plug it in.

Caroline held on to my door so I couldn’t shut it.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, it’s just …’ She paused as if weighing up whether to speak or not. ‘OK, I’m going to say something. Don’t go bananas, but I always thought that in another life you and he might have hit it off.’

The thing with having as pale a complexion as me was that there was no hiding it when I blushed. Like now.

‘We get on well, that’s all.’ I stabbed my car key into the ignition. The damn thing wouldn’t fit in the hole. ‘Can’t women and men do that without it being misconstrued?’

‘Hey, I know you loved Jack to bits,’ she said gently, ‘I wasn’t implying anything.’

‘Good, because I did love him; I always will,’ I said hotly.

‘But there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Dylan.’ Her lips twitched. ‘I mean, ditto, quite frankly.’

My cheeks were probably redder than holly berries by this point. ‘Except in my case there’s nothing to admit,’ I said, aware my voice had gone up an octave.

‘OK.’ She held her hands up and leaned in to kiss my cheek. ‘Forget I said anything.’

But as I drove away, I couldn’t forget Caroline’s words, and I found myself trawling back through time, revisiting memories, dissecting old conversations and interactions.

Was this the real reason I was so on edge about Dylan coming to stay? Because I was nervous about what might happen, worried that my feelings for him might stray into forbidden territory?

Was the love I felt for Dylan purely friendship, or was there a flicker of something else, something I was ashamed of? My heart was racing by the time I reached the farm and I’d finally admitted to myself that there had been moments – fleeting, quickly buried moments – over the years of our friendship when I’d looked at Dylan and wondered What if …

Chapter 11

When the sun shone in Devon, I didn’t think there could possibly be anywhere on earth more beautiful. But this afternoon, howling wind and horizontal rain were making the drive home from school a bit of a challenge. My windscreen was so smeared that I could barely see where I was going. The approach to the farm was along a narrow lane with high hedges either side and I was keeping everything crossed that I didn’t meet a vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

‘Jingle bells, jingle bells,’ Sam and I sang loudly to keep our spirits up.

Working outside as I did meant that I was used to being mucky, smelly and windswept. But a glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that today’s extra luscious additions included a red nose that would put Rudolph’s in the dark and wet hair plastered to my face. It occurred to me that I should perhaps try and schedule in a trip to the hairdresser’s before Dylan arrived. I’d been hacking at the ends with my scissors for the last two years. Not that I was bothered about impressing him, but if any photos were taken over the Christmas period, I’d rather not look back at them and confuse myself with Gus.

I’d thought about nothing else other than Dylan’s acceptance of my non-existent invitation all day. I wasn’t at all sure I’d done the right thing and right now it would be very easy to get grumpy about it. But I was a firm believer that happiness was a choice. Focus on the chinks of brightness and eventually those little chinks would join up to make the world bright again.

Sam was my chink and watching him singing, his little chest puffed out with effort, filled my heart with joy.

‘In a one-horse open sleigh. Hey!’ We finished on a high and grinned at each other.

‘What’s for tea?’ Sam asked. ‘I’m starving.’

I racked my brains to remember what I had in the fridge. Not a lot. There never seemed to be much time for shopping, or tidying the house. Even keeping on top of the laundry seemed beyond me at the moment. The door handle of the tumble dryer snapped off a few months ago, which meant I couldn’t use it. Luckily the Aga was brilliant for drying clothes, although it did mean the kitchen was turned into a laundry on a regular basis.