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The Christmas Sisters: The Sunday Times top ten feel-good and romantic bestseller!
Sarah Morgan


�Comfort reading at its best, all wrapped up in a tartan ribbon. Sarah Morgan will make your Christmas!’ Veronica Henry* * * * *Join Sarah Morgan this Christmas and treat yourself to this feel-good festive read about mothers and daughters, romance and drama, and Christmastime in Scotland!It’s not what’s under the Christmas tree, but who’s around it that matters most.All Suzanne McBride wants for Christmas is her three daughters happy and at home. But when sisters Posy, Hannah and Beth return to their family home in the Scottish Highlands, old tensions and buried secrets start bubbling to the surface.Suzanne is determined to create the perfect family Christmas, but the McBrides must all face the past and address some home truths before they can celebrate together . . .This Christmas indulge in some me-time and enjoy this uplifting and heart-warming story from international bestseller Sarah Morgan. Full of romance, laughter and sisterly drama, The Christmas Sisters is the perfect book to curl up with this festive season.* * * * *What readers are saying about The Christmas Sisters:�Perfect to snuggle up with in front of a fire with a mug of hot chocolate’�Practically perfect in every way!’�Likeable characters, the dialogue was spot on and it's all wrapped up in the wonderful Scottish Highlands setting’�It's warm and cuddly and cosy – perfect switch-off, feel-good reading’







SARAH MORGAN lives near London with her husband and two sons. An international bestseller, her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and she has sold over sixteen million copies.

For more about Sarah visit her website www.sarahmorgan.com (http://www.sarahmorgan.com), and sign up to her newsletter. She loves to connect with readers on Facebook (AuthorSarahMorgan (https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan)), Twitter (@SarahMorgan_ (https://twitter.com/@SarahMorgan_)) and Instagram (sarahmorganwrites (https://www.instagram.com/sarahmorganwrites)).


Also by Sarah Morgan (#ulink_d85ee542-76de-5458-addd-5778f8cdae94)

Snow Crystal series

Sleigh Bells in the Snow

Suddenly Last Summer

Maybe This Christmas

Puffin Island series

First Time in Forever

Some Kind of Wonderful

Christmas Ever After

From Manhattan with Love series

Sleepless in Manhattan

Sunset in Central Park

Miracle on 5th Avenue

New York, Actually

Holiday in the Hamptons

Moonlight Over Manhattan

How To Keep A Secret








Copyright (#ulink_7aa4ce1a-b51f-5e35-bf22-25e5adb25ebf)






An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright В© Sarah Morgan 2018

Sarah Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition В© November 2018 ISBN: 9781474070706

Version: 2018-09-28


Hello!

Christmas is my favourite time of year but I’m the first to admit that reality doesn’t always meet expectation! I sometimes feel I have more turkey disaster stories than the average person, but I could be wrong (and if we meet in person and you want to compare festive nightmares, I’m sure we’ll bond for life).

Of course all of us want Christmas to be as perfect as possible and that’s the case for the family in this book. The McBrides, including sisters Hannah, Beth and Posy only get together at Christmas which increases the pressure on everyone to make it the best it can be. Add to that the fact that everyone brings their own personal baggage along with their Christmas gifts, and it’s inevitable that things will start to go wrong.

I had fun exploring the complex family dynamics in this story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and that your own celebrations, whatever form they take, go smoothly and meet all your expectations!

Love Sarah

xx


To the wonderful Lisa Milton, with love and thanks.


Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

Charlotte BrontГ«


Contents

Cover (#u71bb0d79-4325-55d6-bcab-0892c28fedc4)

About the Author (#ulink_d4a51c74-dec8-58a6-b6c6-bb5a517f2f7a)

Also by Sarah Morgan (#ulink_6515ea83-aca2-52bd-ad1b-ad6c4f3cf4e9)

Title Page (#ua9e58f9a-c5a0-5ddd-ae76-a577f17a9d7e)

Copyright (#ulink_cf21b589-f5b0-50dd-b758-5ea9be1840f3)

Dedication (#ulink_7d7bd07b-cbe2-5255-b728-074445367760)

Epigraph (#ulink_edf36bad-c84a-5778-ad2b-2a89fe8472dc)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_d0adfb94-d52d-52b5-bdc4-4bc6cba6f2b8)

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_162d5646-29d4-58f4-989b-06f1a80b2b11)

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_cec7434b-b84f-5adc-8012-970c795228a3)

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_2c0a1206-e7e1-52ab-bcd7-6d6d9084e85c)

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_20d7cd7c-35f4-598c-93aa-eaf2030f5d98)

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e99ce736-68f5-529d-8e6b-144e555c42b9)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_7b5789d8-ce1f-5540-a1e9-174068eab393)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_99b70f70-2181-5b16-85c4-dd19a92f4cd3)

Suzanne

THERE ARE GOOD anniversaries, and bad anniversaries. This was a bad one and Suzanne chose to mark the moment with a nightmare.

As usual, she was buried, her body immobile and trapped under a weight as heavy as concrete. There was snow in her mouth, in her nose, in her ears. The force and pressure of it crushed her. How deep was she? Which way was up? Would anyone be looking for her?

She tried to scream, but there was nothing, nothing…

“Suzanne…”

Someone was calling her name. She couldn’t respond. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her chest was being squeezed.

“Suzanne!”

She heard the voice through darkness and panic.

“You’re dreaming.”

She felt something touch her shoulder, and the movement catapulted her out of her frozen tomb and back to reality. She sat up, her hand to her throat, gulping in air.

“It’s all right,” the voice said. “Everything is all right.”

“I had…a dream. The dream.” And it was so real she expected to find herself surrounded by ice crystals, not crumpled bedding.

“I know.” The voice belonged to Stewart, and his hand was on her back, rubbing gently. “You were screaming.”

And now she noticed that his face was white and lines of anxiety bracketed his mouth.

They had a routine for this but hadn’t had to use it in a while.

“It was so vivid. I was there.”

Stewart flicked on the light. A soft glow spread across the bedroom, illuminating dark corners and pushing aside the last wisps of the nightmare. “You’re safe. Look around you.”

Suzanne looked, her imagination still trapped under the weight of snow.

But there was no snow. No avalanche. Just her warm, cozy bedroom in Glensay Lodge, where the remains of a fire danced in the hearth and the darkness of the endless winter night shone black through a gap in the curtains. She’d made the curtains herself from a sumptuous tartan fabric she’d found on her first visit to Scotland. Stewart’s mother had claimed it was their clan tartan, but all Suzanne cared about was that those curtains kept the cold out on chilly nights and made the room cozy. She’d also made the quilt that was draped across the bottom of the bed.

On the table near the window was a bottle of single malt whiskey from the local distillery, and next to it sat Stewart’s empty glass.

There was her favorite chair, the cushions plumped and soft. Her book, a novel that hadn’t really caught her attention, lay open next to her knitting. A new order of wool had arrived the day before and she’d been thrilled by the colors. Deep purples and blues lay against softer hues of heather and rich cream, ready to brighten the palette of white and gray that lay beyond her windows. The wool reminded her of the wild Scottish heather that grew in the glen in early and late summer. Thinking of it cheered her. When the weather warmed, she liked to walk early in the morning and see the heather as the sun burned through the mist.

And there was Stewart. Stewart, with his kind eyes and infinite patience. Stewart, who had been by her side for more than three decades.

She was in the Scottish Highlands, tens of thousands of miles from the icy flanks of Mount Rainier. Still, the dream hung over her like a chilling fog, infecting her thoughts.

“I haven’t had that dream in over a year.” Her forehead was damp with sweat and her nightdress clung to her. She took the glass of water that Stewart offered.

Her throat was parched and the water soothed and cooled, but her hand was shaking so much she sloshed some of it over the duvet. “How can a person still have nightmares after twenty-five years?” She wanted to forget, but her body wouldn’t let her.

Stewart took the glass from her and put it on the nightstand. Then he took her in his arms. “It’s almost Christmas, and this is always a stressful time of year.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder, comforted by human warmth. Not snow and ice, but flesh and blood.

Alive.

“I love this time of year because the girls are home.” She slid her arm round his waist, wishing she could stop shaking. “Last year I didn’t have the dream once.”

“It was probably that call from Hannah that triggered it.”

“It was a good phone call. She’s coming home for the holidays. That’s the best news. Not something to trigger a nightmare.” But enough to trigger thoughts and memories.

She suspected poor Hannah would be having her own thoughts and memories.

Stewart was right that this time of year was never easy.

“It’s been a couple of years since Hannah, Beth and Posy were here together.”

“And I’m excited.” Anticipation lifted her mood. “It will be all the more special because Hannah couldn’t make it last year.”

“Which increases the expectation.” Stewart sounded tired. “Don’t put pressure on her, Suzanne. It’s tough on her, and you end up hurt.”

“I won’t be hurt.” They both knew it was a lie. Every time Hannah distanced herself from her family, it hurt. “I want her to be happy, that’s all.”

“The only person who can make Hannah happy is Hannah.”

“That doesn’t stop me wanting to help. I’m her mother.” She caught his eye. “I am her mother.”

“I know. And if you want my opinion, she’s damn lucky to have you.”

Lucky? There had been nothing lucky about the girls’ early life. At the beginning Suzanne had been terrified that Hannah’s life would be ruined by the events of her childhood, but then she’d realized she had a responsibility not to let that happen.

She’d done everything she could to compensate and influence the future. She wanted nothing but good for her daughters and the burden of it was huge. It weighed her down, and there were days when it almost crushed her. And she’d made him carry the burden, too.

Survivor’s guilt.

“I worry I haven’t done enough. Or that I haven’t done it right.”

“I’m sure every parent thinks that from time to time.”

Suzanne slid her legs out of bed, relieved to be able to stand up. Walk. Breathe. Watch the sun rise. She rolled her shoulders and discovered they ached. She’d turned fifty-eight the summer before and right now she felt every one of those years. Was the pain real or a memory? “The dream was bad. I was back there.”

Suffocating in an airless, snowy tomb.

Stewart stood up, too. “It will fade.” He reached for his robe. “I’m not going to ask if you want to talk about it, because you never do.”

And this time was no different.

She couldn’t stop the nightmares, but she could prevent the darkness from creeping into her waking hours. It was her way of taking back control. “You should go back to sleep.”

“We both know there’s no going back to sleep after you have one of your dreams. And we have to be up in an hour anyway.” His hair was standing on end and his eyes were rimmed with fatigue. “We have a group of twenty arriving at the Adventure Centre this morning. It’s going to be busy. I might as well make an early start.”

“Are they experienced?”

“No. School party on an outdoor adventure week.”

Anxiety washed over her. Her instinct was to beg him not to go, but that would have meant giving in to fear. It also would have meant asking Stewart to give up doing something he loved and she wouldn’t do that. “Be careful.”

“I always am.” Stewart kissed her and walked to the door. “Coffee?”

“Please.” The thought of staying in bed held no appeal. “I’ll take a quick shower and then start planning.”

“Planning what?”

“Only a man would ask that. You think Christmas happens by itself?” She belted her robe, knowing from experience that activity was the best way to drive the shadows from her head. “It’s only a few weeks away. I want to do all the preparation beforehand so I can spend as much time as possible with our grandchildren. I thought I’d buy a few extra games in case the weather is bad. I don’t want them to be bored. They have so much to do in Manhattan.”

“If they’re bored, they can help with the animals. They can feed the chickens with Posy, or round up the sheep. They can ride Socks.”

Socks was Posy’s pony. Now eighteen, he was enjoying a well-earned, hay-filled retirement in the fields that surrounded the lodge.

“Beth gets nervous when they ride.”

Stewart shook his head. “A lot of things make Beth nervous. She is overprotective, we both know that. Kids don’t break that easily.”

“As if you weren’t the most protective father ever. Particularly with her.”

He gave a sheepish grin. “Posy was like a little ball. She bounced. Beth was a delicate little thing.”

“She’s always been a daddy’s girl. And if she is an overprotective mother, then we both know why.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t understand, but you’ve got to let kids have some fun. Explore. Make mistakes. Live life.”

“Easier said than done.” Suzanne knew she was overprotective, too. “I’ll talk to Beth. Try to persuade her to let the girls ride. And if the weather is bad, they can help in the kitchen. We can do some baking.”

“Here’s a radical idea…” Stewart picked up his empty whiskey glass from the night before. “Instead of planning everything and driving yourself crazy with stress, why don’t you keep it relaxed this year? Stop trying so hard.”

Suzanne’s mouth dropped open. “You think food magically appears? You think Santa really does deliver gifts already wrapped?”

But the comment was so typical of him, it made her laugh. To an outsider they probably seemed ridiculously traditional, but her life was exactly the way she wanted it to be.

“I’ll have you know that the key to relaxation is planning. I want it to be special.” The fact that it was the only time the three girls were together increased the pressure for it to be perfect. She walked to the window, pulled back the curtains and leaned her forehead against the cool glass. From the window of her bedroom she had a view right down the glen. The snow was luminous, reflecting the muted glow of the moon and sending flickers of light across the still surface of the loch. Framing the loch was snow-dusted forest and behind that the mountains rose, dominating everything with their deadly beauty.

Even knowing the danger waiting in those snowy peaks, she was still drawn to them. She could never live anywhere that didn’t have mountains, but she no longer did any winter climbing. She and Stewart took low-level hikes in the winter, and longer, more ambitious hikes in the spring and summer when the weather warmed and the snow receded.

“Was it selfish of us to move here? Should we have lived in a city?”

“No. And you need to stop thinking like that.” His voice was rough. “It’s the dream. You know it’s the dream.”

She did know. She loved living here, in this land of mist and mountains, of lochs and legend.

“I worry about Hannah.” She turned. “About what being here does to her.”

“I’m more worried about what her being here does to you. Maybe I’m being haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past.” He put the empty glass down and rubbed his fingers across his forehead. “You need to let her be, Suzy. You can’t fix everything, although I know you’ll never give up trying.” The light softened the hard angles of his face, making him seem younger.

His job kept him fit and lean and there were days when he barely looked fifty let alone sixty. The only clue as to his age was the touch of silver in his hair, the same silver that would have shown in hers if she hadn’t chosen to avail herself of a little artificial help.

They’d fallen in love when they’d worked together as mountain guides, when life had seemed like one big adventure. All they’d cared about back then was the next climb. The next summit. They’d been together ever since and, for the most part, their life had a comfortable rhythm. A rhythm that was rocked at this time of year.

The past never went away, she thought. It faded, and sometimes it was little more than a shadow, but it was always there.

“I’m going to make the lodge as welcoming as possible. Hannah works so hard.”

“So do you. Your life isn’t all about the kids, Suzanne. You run a successful business and this is one of your busiest times of the year in the café.”

The source of her anxiety shifted. “And now you’ve reminded me that I still have forty stockings to knit to raise funds for the local mountain rescue team. Thank you for stressing me.”

Stewart grinned and scooped up his clothes from the chair where he’d left them the night before. “Now, that’s something I’d like to see. The rest of the guys wearing stockings. I’ll be taking a photo of that and posting it on the team Facebook page.”

Suzanne pulled a face. “They’re not for wearing, you idiot, they’re for stuffing with presents. We sell them for a good profit. And before you mock, I should point out that the profit from last year’s Christmas stockings bought the team a new avalanche transceiver and contributed to that fancy stretcher you use.”

“I know.”

“Then why—”

“I like teasing you. I like the way you look when you’re mad. Your mouth pouts and you have these cute little frown lines and— Ow!” He ducked as she crossed the room and flung a pillow at him. “Did you really just do that? How old are you?”

“Old enough to have developed perfect aim.”

He threw the pillow back on the bed, tossed his clothes back on the chair and tumbled her underneath him.

She landed with a gasp on the mattress.

“Stewart!”

“What?”

“We have things to do.”

“We do indeed.” He lowered his head and the last thing she saw before he kissed her were his blue eyes laughing into hers.

By the time they got out of bed for the second time, the first fingers of weak sunlight were poking through the curtains.

“And now I’m late.” Stewart dived into the bathroom. “I blame you.”

“And it’s my fault because…?”

But he was already in the shower, humming tunelessly as the water splashed around him.

Suzanne lay for a moment, her brain fuzzy and contented, the dream all but forgotten.

She knew she ought to make a start on those stockings.

Knitting was the perfect form of relaxation, although it had taken her years to discover it.

She hadn’t knitted a thing until she was in her thirties.

To begin with it had been her way of showing her love for the girls. She’d clothe them and wrap them in warmth. When she’d picked up her needles and yarn, she hadn’t just been knitting a sweater; she’d been knitting together her fractured, damaged family, taking separate threads and turning them into something whole.

Stewart came out of the shower, rubbing his hair with a towel. “Did you want me to sort out a Christmas tree on the way home?”

“Posy said she’d do it. I thought we’d wait a few more days. I don’t want the needles falling off before Christmas. How many trees should we have this year? I thought one for the living room, one for the entryway, one in the TV room. Maybe one for Hannah’s room.”

“Are you sure you don’t want one for the boot room? How about the downstairs bathroom?”

She studied him. “There are still plenty more pillows on this bed that I can fling.”

But he’d distracted her from her nightmare. She knew that had been his intention, and she loved him for it.

“All I’m saying is that maybe you should leave a few in the forest.” He threw the wet towel over the back of the chair and then caught her eye and put the towel in the bathroom instead. “Every year you half kill yourself turning this place into a cross between a winter wonderland and Santa’s workshop.” He dressed quickly, pulling on the layers that were necessary for his job. “You have big expectations, Suzanne. Not easy to live up to that.”

“It’s true that things can be a little stressful when the girls are together—”

“They’re women, not girls, and �a little stressful’ is an understatement.”

“Maybe this year will be different.” Suzanne stripped the sheets off the bed. “Beth and Jason are happy. I can’t wait to have the grandchildren here. I’m going to hang stockings above the fire and bake plenty of treats. And Hannah won’t need to do a thing, because I plan on getting everything done before she arrives so I can spend time with her. I want to catch up on her news.” She held the sheets to her chest. “If only she would meet someone special, she’d—”

“She’d what? Eat him for breakfast?” Stewart shook his head. “I beg you do not mention that to her. Hannah’s relationships are her business. And I don’t think she’s that interested.”

“Don’t say that.” She refused to believe it might be true. Hannah needed a close relationship. She needed her own family. A protective circle. Everyone needed that.

Suzanne had craved it. At the age of six, she’d dreamed about it. Her early years had been spent with a mother too drunk to be aware of her existence. Later, when her mother’s internal organs had given up fighting the relentless abuse, Suzanne had been placed in foster care. Every story she’d written at school involved her being part of a loving family. In her dreams she had parents and siblings. By the time she was ten, she was resigned to the fact that it was never going to happen for her.

Eventually she’d ended up in residential care, and that was where she’d met Cheryl. She’d become the sister Suzanne had longed for, and she’d poured all the surplus love she had into their friendship. They’d been so close people had assumed they were related.

Cheryl’s love filled all the gaps and holes in Suzanne’s soul, like glue bonding together broken fragments. She stopped feeling lost and alone. She no longer wished for someone to adopt her because then she’d have to leave the care home and that would mean leaving Cheryl.

They’d shared a bedroom. They’d shared clothes and laughter. They’d shared hopes and dreams.

The memory was vivid and the need to hear Cheryl’s infectious laugh so strong that Suzanne almost reached for the phone.

It had been twenty-five years since they’d spoken, and yet the urge to talk to her had never gone away.

The part of her that missed her friend had never healed.

“Suzanne? What are you thinking?” Stewart’s voice dragged her back to the present.

He’d thought Cheryl was a bad influence.

The irony was that Suzanne never would have met Stewart if it hadn’t been for Cheryl. She wouldn’t have been a mountain guide if it hadn’t been for Cheryl.

“I was thinking about Hannah.”

“If you mention her love life, I guarantee she will be on the first flight out of here and we will not have a happy Christmas.”

“I won’t say a word. I’ll ask Beth for an update. I’m glad they’re both living in New York. It’s good for Hannah to have her sister close by. And Beth is settled and happy and loves being a mother. Maybe spending time with her will be an inspiration for Hannah.”

Soon, the three sisters would be together again and Suzanne knew that this year Christmas was going to be perfect.

She was sure of it.


CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_1ee0dec8-791e-5336-92f7-af82f4cb2d08)

Beth

MOTHERHOOD WAS KILLING HER.

Beth was trying in vain to extract her children from their favorite toy store when the call came. For a moment she felt guilty, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

She’d promised Jason no more toys, but she wasn’t good at saying no to the girls. Jason continually underestimated the persistence of children. No one could chip holes in a person’s resolve like a determined child. Please, Mommy, pleeeease—

She found it particularly difficult because she badly wanted to be a good mother and had a more than sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t. There was, she’d discovered, an annoying gulf between intention and reality.

She grabbed her phone and coaxed Ruby away from yet another oversize fire truck, this one with flashing lights and blaring horns that was no doubt the brainchild of a young single man with no children.

The number wasn’t one she recognized, but she answered anyway, reluctant to pass up what might be an opportunity for adult conversation. Since having children, her world had shrunk, and Beth felt she’d shrunk with it.

These days she was willing to befriend anyone who didn’t want to talk to her about problems with eating, sleeping or behavior. The week before, she’d found herself prolonging a conversation with someone trying to sell her car insurance even though she didn’t have a car. Eventually they’d hung up on her, which had to be a first in the history of cold calling.

“Hi there.” Her phone was sticky and she tried not to think about the provenance of the substance stuck to her phone. Melly’s favorite treat? When Beth had been pregnant, she’d resolved never to give her kids sugar, but that, like so many other resolutions, had evaporated in the fierce heat of reality.

“I want the fire truck, Mommy!”

As usual, the children ignored the fact she was on the phone and carried on talking to her. There were no breaks from motherhood. No commercial breaks, no bathroom breaks and certainly no phone breaks.

Her needs were right at the bottom of the pile.

Beth had always known she wanted children. What she hadn’t known was how much of herself she’d have to give up.

She turned away slightly so she could hear what the person on the other end was saying.

“Beth McBride?” The voice was crisp and businesslike. A woman with a purpose, ticking this call off her to-do list.

Once upon a time Beth had been that woman. She’d luxuriated in the glamour and glitter of Manhattan. Energized by the frantic pulse of the city, she’d thrived. It had been like trying on a dress and discovering it fitted perfectly. You never wanted to take it off. You wanted to buy two in case you damaged one and somehow tarnished the perfect look.

And then one day you woke up and discovered the dress was no longer yours. You missed it. You saw other people wearing it and wanted to tear it from their bodies.

“This is Beth McBride speaking.”

McBride.

No one had called her that in years. These days she was Bethany Butler.

“Beth, it’s Kelly Porter from KP Recruiting.”

Beth would have dropped the phone had it not been for the sticky goo welding it to her palm.

Before having children, Beth had worked in public relations for a number of beauty companies. She’d started at the bottom but had rapidly worked her way up, and Kelly had found her at least two of her roles.

“Hi, Kelly. Good to hear from you.” Beth smoothed her hair and stood a little straighter, even though it wasn’t a video call.

She was Beth McBride, someone who took calls from recruitment agencies.

“I have something you might be interested in.”

Beth was interested in anything that didn’t squeak, leak or leave marks on the floor, but for the life of her she couldn’t understand why Kelly would be calling her.

She and Jason had talked about her going back to work at some point when the children were older. Now that Ruby was in preschool, it was time to have that discussion again, but Beth usually found herself too exhausted to put together a case.

And then there was the part of her that felt guilty for wanting to leave the girls.

“I’m listening.”

“I understand you’ve had a career break.” Kelly’s tone suggested she classified such a thing in the same group of unfortunate life events as typhoid and yellow fever.

“I’ve taken time out to focus on my family.”

Beth extracted the princess outfit from Melly’s hand with a shake of her head. Melly already had a closetful of princess outfits. Jason would go insane if she bought another one, especially this close to Christmas.

“Have you heard of Glow PR?” Kelly ignored the reference to family. “The team is young, dynamic and making a name for themselves. They’re looking for someone with your profile.”

What exactly was her profile?

She was a wife, a mother, a cook, a cabdriver, a cleaner, a play leader and a personal assistant. She could clean spaghetti sauce off the walls and recite all of Ruby’s picture books without lifting them from the shelf.

On the wall next to her was a mirror surrounded by enough pink and glitter to satisfy the most demanding wannabe princess. The mirror might look like something out of a child’s fairy tale, but there was nothing fairy tale about the reflection staring back at Beth.

She had dark hair, and her few early attempts to dye it a lighter shade had convinced her that some people were meant to be brunette. Right now she had perfectly coordinated dark patches under her eyes, as if nature was determined to emphasize how tired she was.

Beth had once thought she knew everything there was to know about beauty and how to achieve a certain look, but she knew now that the best beauty product wasn’t a face cream or an eye balm—it was an undisturbed night’s sleep, and unfortunately that didn’t come in jars.

“Mommy—” Ruby tugged at her coat “—can I play with your phone?”

Whatever Beth had, Ruby wanted.

She shook her head and pointed to the fire truck, hoping to distract her younger daughter.

Ruby wanted to be a firefighter, but Beth thought she’d be better suited to being in sales. She was only four years old but could talk a person into submission within minutes.

“Ms. McBride?”

“I’m here.” The words came out of her mouth, pushing aside the words she’d intended to say. I’m a stay-at-home mom now. Thanks for calling, but I’m not interested.

She was interested.

“The company is headquartered right here on Sixth Avenue, but they have a diverse network and a bicoastal presence.”

A bicoastal presence.

Bethany’s imagination flew first-class to the West Coast. Today, a toy store. Tomorrow, Beverly Hills. Hollywood. Champagne. A world of long lunches, business meetings where people actually listened to what she was saying, glamorous parties and being able to use the bathroom without company.

“Mommy? I want the fire truck.”

Beth’s brain was still luxuriating in Beverly Hills. “Tell me more.”

“They’re growing fast and they’re ready to expand their team. They’d like to talk to you.”

“Me?” She bit her tongue. She shouldn’t have said that. She should be projecting confidence, but confidence had turned out to be a nonrenewable resource. Her children had stripped hers away, one sticky finger at a time.

“You have the experience,” Kelly said, “the media contacts and the creativity.”

Had, Beth thought.

“It’s been a while since I was in the business.” Seven years to be exact.

“Corinna Ladbrooke asked for you specifically.”

“Corinna?” Hearing her old boss’s name stirred up a tangle of feelings. “She’s moved company?”

“She’s the one behind Glow. Let me know when you have an opening. I can arrange for you to meet everyone.”

Corinna wanted her? They’d worked together closely, but Beth had heard nothing from her since she’d left to have children.

Corinna wasn’t interested in children. She didn’t have them herself, didn’t want them, and if any of her staff were foolish enough to stray into the realms of motherhood, Corinna chose to ignore it.

Ruby started to whine and Beth stooped to pick her up with one arm, automatically checking that her daughter was still holding Bugsy. Nothing parted Ruby from her favorite soft toy and Beth was careful not to lose it.

Would she worry less about the children if she had a job?

She was too anxious—she knew that. She was terrified of something bad happening to them.

“Kelly, I’m going to need to call you back when I’ve taken a look at my schedule.” It sounded more impressive than it was. These days her “schedule” included ferrying the girls to ballet class, art class and Mandarin immersion.

“Do it soon.” The phone went dead and Beth stood for a moment, her head still in fantasy land and her arm in the dead zone. How was it that children seemed to increase in weight the longer you held them? She put Ruby down.

“Time to go home.”

“Fire truck!” Ruby’s wail was more piercing than any siren. “You promised.”

Melly was rifling through the dress-up clothes. “If I can’t be a princess, I want to be a superhero.”

I want to be a superhero, too, Beth thought.

A good mother would have refused and proffered a clear explanation for her decision. The children would then have left the store feeling chastened and with a greater understanding of the value of money and the concept of delayed gratification, as well as behavior and reward.

Beth wasn’t that mother. She caved and bought both the fire truck and another dress-up outfit.

Loaded down with two happy children, an armful of parcels and a nagging feeling of maternal failure, Beth stepped out of the store onto the street.

To see Manhattan in December was to see it at its wintry best. The dazzle of lights in the store windows and the crisp bite of the winter air mingled together to create an atmosphere that drew people from around the globe. The sidewalks were crowded, the population of Midtown swollen by visitors unable to resist the appeal of Fifth Avenue in the festive season.

Beth loved Manhattan. After she’d graduated, she’d worked for a PR company in London. When they’d transferred her to their New York office, she’d felt as if she’d made it, as if simply being in Manhattan conferred a certain status. When she’d first arrived, she’d been torn between euphoria and terror. She’d walk briskly down streets with familiar names—Fifth Avenue, Forty-second Street, Broadway—trying to look as if she belonged. It was fortunate she’d been living and working in London prior to the move, otherwise the contrast between the noise levels of New York City and her home in the remote Scottish Highlands would have blown both her mind and her eardrums.

Every day she’d walk down Fifth Avenue on her way to work feeling as if she was on a film set. The excitement of it had more than compensated for any homesickness she might have felt. So what if all she could afford was a tiny room where she could touch both walls without leaving her bed? She was in New York, the most exciting city on earth.

Through marriage and two children, that feeling hadn’t left her.

Their apartment was bigger now and they had more disposable income, but other than that, nothing much had changed.

Holding tightly to Ruby’s hand, Beth called Jason to tell him about Kelly, but his assistant told her he was in a meeting.

Only then did she remember he had a major pitch that day and a busy week ahead. Would he be able to make time to take care of the children if she went to meet Corinna and the team?

“Mommy—” Ruby hung on her hand, the pressure making Beth’s shoulder ache “—I’m tired.”

Me, too, Beth thought. “If you walk faster, we’ll soon be home. Hold Bugsy tight. We don’t want to drop him here. And don’t walk too close to the road.”

She saw accidents everywhere. It didn’t help that Ruby was a fearlessly adventurous child with no apparent sense of self-preservation or caution. Melly was virtually glued to Beth’s side, but Ruby wanted to explore the world from every angle.

It was exhausting.

Beth wanted to work for Glow PR. She wanted to walk along Fifth Avenue without needing to be alert to potential disaster. She wasn’t the first mother to want both work and family. There had to be a way to make it happen.

Jason’s mother lived nearby, and Beth was hoping that if she found a job, Alison might be prepared to help out with childcare. Melly and Ruby adored Jason’s mother. Beth adored her, too. Alison defied all the mother-in-law clichés. Instead of resenting Beth as the woman who stole her only son, she welcomed her like the daughter she’d never had.

Beth was sure Alison would be delighted to help, which left the small problem of finding a job.

Did she have what it took to impress Corinna after seven years out of the game?

She felt woefully unequipped to return to the corporate world. She wasn’t sure she was capable of conducting an adult conversation, let alone dazzling people with creative ideas.

Maybe she should call her sister. Hannah would understand the lure of a career. She worked as a management consultant and seemed to spend most of her life flying first-class round the globe being paid an exorbitant amount to fix corporations unable to fix themselves.

They were due to meet up the following night, and Beth had been meaning to call and confirm.

Hannah answered in her usual crisp, no-nonsense tone.

“Is this an emergency, Beth? I’m boarding. I’ll call you when I land if there’s time before my meeting.”

How are you, Beth? Good to hear from you. How are Ruby and Melly?

Beth had always wanted to be close to her sister and wasn’t sure whose fault it was that they weren’t. It had got worse lately. Regular dinners had become less regular. Was it her fault for only having the children to talk about? Did her own sister find her boring?

“Don’t worry.” Beth tightened her grip on wriggling, writhing Ruby. It was like trying to hold hands with a fish, but she didn’t dare let go or Ruby would end up under the wheels of a cab. “We can talk tomorrow over dinner. It’s not urgent.”

“I was going to call you about that— No champagne, thank you, I’m working. Sparkling water will be fine—” Hannah broke off to speak to the stewardess and Beth tried to suppress the stab of envy.

She wanted to be in a position to turn down champagne.

No, thanks, I need to keep a clear head for my meeting where I will say something important that people want to hear.

“You’re canceling on me again?”

“I have a job, Beth.”

“I know.” She didn’t need reminding. And here she was, a stay-at-home mom with a growing complex that was fed and nurtured by her more successful sister. She tried not to think about the lamb marinating in her fridge or the extravagant dessert she’d planned. Hannah ate at all the best restaurants. Was she really going to be impressed by her sister’s attempts at Christmas pavlova? Whisked egg whites were hardly going to change the world, were they? And was Beth really so desperate that she needed the approval? “Where are you off to this time?”

“San Francisco. It was a last-minute thing. I was going to text you right after I finished this email.”

It was always a last-minute thing with Hannah. “When are you back?”

“Late Friday, and then I’m off to Frankfurt on Sunday night. Can we reschedule?”

“This is a reschedule,” Beth said. “In fact, it’s a reschedule of a reschedule of a reschedule.”

The rustle of papers suggested Hannah was doing something else at the same time as talking to Beth. “We’ll fix another date. You know I’d love to see you.”

Beth didn’t know.

What she knew was that she was the one who put all the effort into the relationship. She often wondered whether Hannah would bother to get in touch if Beth were to give up trying. But she would never give up. Even though Hannah frequently drove her crazy and hurt her feelings, Beth knew how precious it was to have family. She intended to hang on to hers even if it meant leaving fingernail imprints on Hannah’s flesh. “Have I offended you in some way? You always have some excuse not to see us.”

There was a pause. “I have a meeting, Beth. Don’t take it personally.”

Beth had a horrible feeling it was as personal as it could get.

Like Corinna, Hannah didn’t do children, but this was more than that. Beth was starting to think her sister didn’t like Ruby and Melly, and the thought was like a stab through the heart.

“I’m not overreacting. You’ve pulled away.” Corinna had been her boss—there was no obligation on her to like Beth’s children, but Hannah was their aunt, for goodness’ sake.

“We’re both busy. It’s difficult to find a time.”

“We live in the same city and we never see each other. I have no idea what’s going on in your life! Are you happy? Are you seeing someone?” She knew her mother would ask her, so she considered it her duty to be an up-to-date source of information. Also, she was a romantic. And then there was the fact that if Hannah had a partner they might see more of each other. The four of them could go out to dinner.

But apparently it wasn’t to be.

“This is Manhattan. It’s crowded. I see a lot of people.”

Beth gave up trying to extract information. “Ruby and Melly miss you. You’re the only family that lives close by. They love it when you visit.” She decided to test a theory. “Come over next weekend.”

“You mean to the apartment?”

Beth was sure she hadn’t imagined the note of panic in her sister’s voice. “Yes. Come for lunch. Or dinner. Stay the whole day and a night.”

There was a brief pause. “I’m going to be working right through. Probably best if you and I just grab dinner in the city one evening.”

A restaurant. In the city. A child-free evening.

Beth scooped Ruby up with one arm, feeling a wave of love and protectiveness.

These were her children, her kids, her life. They were the most important thing in her world. Surely her sister should care about them for that reason if nothing else?

The irony was that because Hannah rarely saw them, the girls saw her as a figure of glamour and wonder.

Last time Hannah had visited, Ruby had tried to crawl onto her lap for a hug and Hannah had frozen. Beth had half expected her to yell Get it off me! In the end she’d removed a bemused Ruby and distracted her, but she’d been hurt and upset by the incident. She’d remained in a state of tension until her sister had left.

Jason had reminded her that Hannah was Hannah and that she was never going to change.

“Fine. We’ll grab dinner sometime. You work too hard.”

“You’re starting to sound like Suzanne.”

“You mean Mom.” Beth unpeeled Ruby’s fingers from her earring. “Why can’t you ever call her Mom?”

“I prefer Suzanne.” Hannah’s tone cooled. “I’m sorry I’m canceling, but we’ll have plenty of time to catch up over Christmas.”

“Christmas?” Beth was so shocked she almost dropped Ruby. “You’re going home for Christmas?”

“If by �home’ you mean Scotland, then yes—” Hannah’s voice was muffled as she said something else to the stewardess—I’ll have the smoked salmon and the beef—

Beth might have wondered why her sister was ordering smoked salmon and beef when they both knew she’d take two mouthfuls and leave the rest, but she was too preoccupied by the revelation that her sister would be home for Christmas. “You didn’t make it last year.”

“I had a lot going on.” Hannah paused. “And you know what Christmas is like in our house. It’s the only time we all get together and the place is a pressure cooker of expectation. Suzanne fussing and needing everything to be perfect and Posy blaming me when it isn’t…”

It was so unusual for Hannah to reveal what she was thinking that Beth was taken aback. Before she could think of an appropriate response, Hannah had changed the subject.

“Is there anything in particular the girls would like for Christmas?”

The girls. The children. Hannah always lumped them together, and in doing so, she somehow dehumanized them.

Beth knew her sister would delegate gift buying to her assistant. It would be something generous that the girls would forget to play with after a week and Beth would be left with the feeling that her sister was compensating.

She thought about the fire engine currently smacking against her leg as she walked and knew she wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize anyone for overcompensating. “Don’t buy anything that squeaks or emits sirens in the middle of the night. And spend the same amount on both of them.”

She kept a mental tally and watched herself constantly to check she wasn’t showing a preference, that she wasn’t admonishing one more than the other, or showing more interest in one than the other.

Her children were never going to feel their parents had a favorite.

“I am the last person you need to say that to.”

In that brief moment, she and her sister connected. That single invisible thread from the past bound them together.

Beth wanted to grab that connection and reel her sister in, but the blare of horns and the general street noise made it the wrong place to have a deeply personal conversation. And then there were the listening ears of the girls, who missed nothing.

“Hannah, maybe we could—”

“What are they into at the moment?” With that single question, Hannah chopped the connection and floated back to that safe place where no one could reach her.

Beth felt a pang of loss. “Melly wants to be a ballerina or a princess, and Ruby wants to be a firefighter.”

“A princess?”

Beth heard judgment in her sister’s tone. “I buy her gender-neutral toys and tell her she could be an engineer and apply to NASA, but right now she just wants to live in a castle with a prince, preferably while dressed as the Sugar Plum Fairy.” She didn’t bother adding, “Wait until you have children and then you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

No matter how much their mother longed for Hannah to fall in love and settle down, anyone vaguely grounded in reality could see that was not going to happen.


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_784c01e6-40f7-5e76-a228-0924bb894af9)

Hannah

PREGNANT.

Hannah closed her eyes and tried to control the panic.

There was still a chance she might not be pregnant. True, she was five days late, but there were other things that could cause that. Stress, for example. She was definitely stressed.

She dropped her phone back into her bag, feeling guilty about Beth.

She hadn’t forgotten dinner. She’d canceled because she knew she couldn’t handle an evening in the child-centered chaos of her sister’s apartment.

Was she crazy going home for Christmas this year? Last year she’d lost her nerve at the last minute and pretended she was working. She’d switched off her phone and spent the time in her apartment numbing her feelings with several bottles of good wine and a reading marathon. By the time she’d closed the final book, the festive season had been over.

This year that wasn’t an option.

She dreaded the forced togetherness of Christmas and the pressure that came with it.

Her family thought she was a career woman, with no time for relationships.

That was going to make for an interesting conversation if she was pregnant.

She should do a test. Find out one way or another. But then she’d know, and right now she’d rather cling to the vague hope that her perfectly organized life wasn’t about to become complicated.

“Everything all right, Hannah?”

Hannah opened her eyes. Adam was standing in the aisle of the first-class cabin, stowing his overnight bag.

“Everything is fine.” Hannah already had her bag safely tucked away and her laptop by her seat. She lived with a sense that things were about to go horribly wrong, and did what she could to prevent it by planning and controlling every last detail of her life.

“Are you sure? That conversation sounded tense.” He sat down next to her. He was tall and rangy, his long legs filling the abundant space in front of his seat. “Problems?”

Normally when she was traveling, Hannah preferred to keep herself to herself. If such a thing as a Do Not Disturb sign existed for passengers, she would have been wearing it.

Today, however, she was traveling with Adam. Adam was her colleague and, for the past few months, her lover.

Turned out he might also be the father of her child, which she knew would be as much of a shock to him as to her.

“I was talking to Beth.”

Guilt pricked like holly. Beth was right that she hadn’t seen her nieces for a while. The girls were adorable, but being with them made Hannah feel inept and inadequate. She found it impossible to read fairy stories where everyone lived happily ever after. She couldn’t bring herself to perpetrate that lie. There was no Santa. There was no tooth fairy. Love couldn’t be guaranteed.

She’d tried explaining that to Beth once, but her sister had thought she was being ridiculous.

Maybe life doesn’t always end happily, Hannah, but I’d rather protect my kids from that reality when they’re young if that’s all right with you!

Hannah thought it was healthier if one’s expectations of life were grounded in reality. If you didn’t expect much, you didn’t have as far to fall when you finally realized that no amount of planning could stop bad things happening.

A few years before, after an unexpected snowstorm, Hannah had been forced to stay the night at Beth’s apartment. In the middle of the night, Ruby had crawled into her bed. Hannah had felt the tickle of soft curls against her skin and the solid warmth of the child through the brushed cotton of her pajamas as she’d snuggled close for reassurance. It had reminded her so much of that one terrible night when Posy had climbed into her bed that the memories had almost suffocated her.

The fact that her sister didn’t understand simply made her feel more isolated.

She’d left before breakfast, choosing to battle snowdrifts and bad weather to escape the memories. She’d been careful never to put herself in that position again. Until now.

She ran her fingers around the neck of her sweater, even though it wasn’t tight.

Christmas was going to be hard, but even she couldn’t find a way to evade it for a second year. The McBride family always gathered at Christmas. It was tradition. She’d resigned herself to the fact that it was something she was going to have to live through, like a bad bout of the flu. But now she had this added complication.

“She was upset that you canceled?” Adam watched her, concerned, and she looked away quickly. He noticed things. Small things that other people missed. It was one of the attributes that made him good at his job. It was also part of the unsettling attraction she’d felt since his first day at the company. Hannah had been completely unprepared for the startling chemistry between them. She was so good at controlling her feelings it had come as a nasty shock to discover they were capable of rebellion.

“I’ve hurt her.”

He removed his phone from his pocket and handed his jacket to the steward. “Why don’t you tell her the truth? Tell her you find it hard being around the kids.”

Oh the irony.

If I’m pregnant, I’m going to have to find a way to be around kids.

It still surprised her that she’d talked to him about her family, but Adam was remarkably easy to talk to.

She hadn’t told him everything, of course, but more than she’d shared with anyone else.

“It’s…complicated.” She noticed that a couple across the aisle from her were traveling with a baby. They hadn’t even taken off but already the baby was fussy and restless. Hannah hoped it wasn’t going to cry for the whole flight. Listening to a child cry made her stomach hurt.

“Introduce me to her, and I’ll do it.”

“What?” She turned back to Adam, confused.

“I want to meet your sister.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what people do in our position.”

“Our position?”

“I’m in love with you.” He said it easily, as if love wasn’t the most profoundly terrifying thing that could happen to a person. “Or are we going to ignore that?”

“We’re going to ignore it.” At least for now. She had the same control over her feelings as she did over her schedule. She’d learned to hold them back. If there was one thing she hated in life, it was emotional chaos.

“I should be offended that you’re treating my heartfelt declaration of love so lightly.”

“You were drunk, Kirkman.”

“Not true. I was in full control of my faculties.”

“As I recall, you’d consumed several glasses of bourbon.”

“It’s true that I may have needed a little liquid support to give me courage—” he shrugged “—but saying I love you is a big deal to a guy who has been single for as long as I have.”

She hadn’t allowed herself to believe that he was serious.

For Hannah, love was an emotional form of Russian roulette. It was a game she didn’t play.

Her emotional safety was the most important thing in the world to her.

She didn’t even want to think about how complicated it would be if there was a baby in the mix.

“You’re worried I’m going to strip you of your assets?” He leaned closer. “We’ll sign a prenup, but I should warn you that in the event of an irrevocable breakdown of our marriage I want possession of your books. Given time and medication, I can probably learn to live without you, but I can’t learn to live without your library. Do you know what a turn-on it is knowing that you have a first edition of Great Expectations on your shelves?”

She could barely concentrate on what he was saying. She should do a test. “We won’t be needing a prenup.”

“I agree. A love like ours is going to last forever. You could say I have Great Expectations.” He winked at her, but this time she didn’t smile.

Love was fickle and unreliable, and definitely not something you could control. If someone’s feelings weren’t right, then you couldn’t force it. She preferred to build her life on a more secure footing.

He rejected the offer of champagne from the steward and asked for bourbon instead, raising an eyebrow when Hannah refused, too.

“Since when do you refuse champagne?”

Since I might be pregnant. “I need a clear head to finish this presentation.”

“You can handle this presentation with your eyes closed. I don’t understand why you’re stressed. What happened to the woman who danced barefoot in the office around an empty pizza box?”

She slid off her heels. “Can we forget that happened?”

“No. I have photographic evidence, in case you ever tried to deny it. And I intend to show it to your sister to prove how misunderstood you are.” He dug out his phone and scrolled through the photos. “Here. This is my favorite.”

She barely recognized herself. Her hair had fallen out of the neat style she favored for work and she was barefoot and laughing. What really stood out was the expression on her face. Had she really revealed that much?

“Give me that!” She tried to snatch the phone from him, but he held it out of reach.

“I will never forget that night.”

“Because I took my shoes off and danced?”

“I was thinking more of the pizza. It was good pizza. There were other nights, and other pizzas, but that was the best. I think it was the olives.” Smiling, he leaned forward and kissed her. “I love it when you laugh. You are always so serious in the office.”

“I’m a serious person.”

Adam eased away. “Who told you that?”

“My father.”

You’re so damn serious, Hannah. Lift your head out of a book for five minutes and have some fun.

Even now there were days when she felt guilty for picking up a book, unable to shake the feeling that there was something more valuable she should be doing with her time.

“I’ve got news for your father—he’s wrong.”

Adam had gradually chipped away at her defenses, and he’d done it so subtly she hadn’t even realized she needed to defend herself.

Her work often demanded that she work late, and there had been nothing notable about that until the first time Adam had strolled into her office carrying a pizza box.

She’d raised her eyebrows.

I don’t eat pizza.

There’s a first time for everything, McBride.

Somehow they’d ended up sprawled on the office floor eating pizza out of the box long after everyone else had gone home.

Hannah had never eaten pizza out of a box before she’d met Adam.

Hannah had never kicked off her shoes or sprawled on the office floor.

She wasn’t sure she’d even known how to relax before he’d arrived in the company, but those late-night work sessions had fast become the favorite part of her day. She looked forward to being overloaded just so that she could have an excuse to stay after everyone else had left.

They’d worked, they’d shared food and they’d talked. There was something about being in the nighttime stillness of the office cocooned by the glitter of the city outside that made it easy to say things she never would have said in other circumstances.

One night he’d confessed that his aunt had insisted he learn ballroom dancing because she thought it was an essential life skill.

He’d insisted on teaching Hannah.

Everyone should be able to dance the tango, McBride.

I don’t dance, Kirkman.

But somehow, with him, she’d danced barefoot around the empty pizza boxes.

It was ridiculous, but she’d ended up laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

And that was how intimacy happened, she thought, watching as he took a mouthful of his drink. Not in a giant leap, but step by gentle step, each movement forward as stealthy as the incoming tide. One minute you were standing alone on dry land and the next minute you were in over your head and drowning.

Light wings of panic fluttered across her skin. If she could have fastened those wings to her back, she would have flown away. For some people, fear was a dark alley at night or a growling dog with sharp teeth. For her, it was intimacy.

Maybe he thought he loved her, but she knew that whatever she had to offer, it wouldn’t be enough.

A crash and a curse dragged her out of her thoughts and she saw a woman trying to wrestle her case into the overhead bin.

Adam stood up to help, using his superior height to wedge it into place.

Hannah saw the woman’s eyes linger on his profile and then slide to his shoulders. A faint smile acknowledged this prime specimen of manhood, and then she turned and registered Hannah’s presence. Her smile went from interested to resigned. Hannah could almost see her thinking all the good ones are taken.

“When are you going to tell Beth about us?” Adam sat down again. “Not that I mind being your dirty little secret, but it would be a lot easier if you told them. I could come to dinner with you. I’m great with kids.”

Hannah hoped he would still feel that way if it turned out she was pregnant.

He stretched out his legs again. “We’ve been virtually living together for the past six months. You can’t hide me forever.”

Six months? “I’m not hiding you.”

Prior to Adam, her longest relationship had been two months. Eight weeks. It was a time frame that suited her. Hannah preferred to focus her efforts on things she excelled at. Relationships fell outside that category.

With Adam, it had been different.

The connection had been so powerful she hadn’t known how to handle it. At first their only interaction had been at work. She couldn’t recall who had made the first move.

The first time they’d had sex had been in his apartment. They hadn’t made it as far as the bedroom. The second time had been at hers, and that time they’d made it as far as the floor of her living room. She’d assumed that urgency would fade, but some days they didn’t even pause for conversation. It was as if everything they held back in public during their working day demanded to be released the moment they were in private. Twice in the past week they’d made love standing up in the entryway with the lights still on. Part of her had wondered why sex with Adam always felt desperate. Maybe because in her head she believed it was going to end soon.

Everything ended, Hannah knew that, and yet here they were, six months later.

She shifted in her seat.

If she was pregnant, she’d know, surely? Weren’t women usually sick?

She didn’t feel sick.

As the plane’s engines screamed ready for takeoff, Adam finished his drink. “If you’re going home to your family this Christmas, I should be there.”

“To cause trouble?”

“To protect you.” This time he wasn’t smiling. “I hate seeing you like this. I want my Hannah back.”

My Hannah.

Her family, she knew, wouldn’t recognize the Hannah that Adam knew. She barely recognized that woman, either.

“I don’t need you to come with me, but it’s kind of you to offer.” She could just imagine Suzanne’s reaction if she showed up with Adam. She would have booked the church and bought a hat before Hannah had even unpacked.

Above their heads the seat belt light went out and Adam made himself more comfortable. “If Christmas is stressful, why go?”

“I don’t want to disappoint Suzanne.” And that feeling that she was falling short, not delivering, brought back uncomfortable memories.

“Suzanne? You don’t call her mom?”

“She isn’t my mother. My mother is dead.”

She saw the shock in his eyes and wondered what had possessed her to blurt out that fact in these stark, impersonal surroundings. She never talked about her real parents, but there was something about Adam that unraveled the part of her she usually kept tightly wound.

“I didn’t know.” He spoke quietly. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“It was a long time ago. I was eight.”

“Dammit, Hannah. That’s a difficult age to lose a parent. Why haven’t you told me this before?” He held out his hand, palm upward, and she hesitated for a moment and then slid her hand into his. His fingers closed over hers, strong and protective, and she could feel the ropes of intimacy tightening around her.

I love you, Hannah.

“It’s not the kind of thing that comes up in general conversation. We lost both our parents. They died in the same accident.”

“Car?”

“Avalanche. They were climbers.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So you weren’t always a city girl?”

She had a feeling she’d always been a city girl.

“So who is Suzanne?” His tone was neutral, as if he’d recognized her need not to be smothered with sympathy.

“Suzanne and Stewart adopted us. Suzanne is American. Stewart is Scottish. After the…accident…we moved back to Scotland to be close to Stewart’s family.” Her heart was thumping. “Can we work now?”

He hesitated. “Sure.” He retrieved his laptop and opened it. “Unless you want to finish that game of chess we were playing?”

“I captured your knight.”

“I remember.” His smile was almost boyish. “I can still take your king. Give me a chance to try. You won the last two games we played and my confidence has taken a severe blow.”

His confidence had always seemed to her to be indestructible.

“I think we should finish the proposal.”

“You’re afraid you’re going to lose.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. “I looked at your presentation. It’s brilliant. We’re going to win this business.”

Relaxing slightly, she leaned across to scan the spreadsheet on his screen. “You need to change that.” She tapped one of the numbers. “Didn’t you get my email?”

“The one you sent at 3:00 a.m? Yes, I picked it up this morning on our way to the airport, but we’re not all as lightning fast as you.” He altered the number. “You have a hell of a brain, McBride, but why weren’t you sleeping?”

“I like work.” More specifically, she loved numbers. Loved data and computer code. Numbers were reliable and behaved the way she wanted them to. Numbers didn’t wrap themselves round your heart and squeeze until the blood stopped flowing. “I wanted to finish this project.”

“You couldn’t have done that in the eighteen-hour day you put in?”

“I had things on my mind.” And not just the fact that her period was late.

She’d been thinking about the two voice mail messages that had been sitting on her phone for a month.

She’d had similar calls before over the years, particularly at this time of year as the anniversary of the accident approached. This time she didn’t recognize the name. She’d learned not to respond, but still the message sat like a leaden weight in the pit of her stomach, reminding her of things she didn’t want to think about.

She’d almost asked Beth if she’d had a call, too, but then she would have had to talk about it and she didn’t want to.

It was something she and Suzanne had in common. They both preferred to ignore the past.

Adam saved the file they were working on. “Suzanne and Stewart were relatives?”

“Friends of my parents. They adopted the three of us.” Which only served to intensify her guilt that she couldn’t be the person they wanted her to be.

“And that’s why you feel you have to be there at Christmas. Because you owe them.” It was a statement of fact, not a question, and she didn’t argue with him.

She did owe them, and she knew she could never repay the debt. “That’s part of it.”

“Take me with you.”

“My family live in Scotland, in the remote Highlands. I can’t imagine you dealing with dodgy Wi-Fi and an intermittent phone signal.” She eyed his polished loafers. “You’d hate it.”

“I would not hate it. For a start, I’m a lover of single malt. Do your folks happen to live near a distillery?”

Hannah sighed. “In fact, they do, but—”

“Well, there you go. I’m already sold. Also, I appreciate beautiful scenery. A few romantic walks in a misty glen would be a perfect way to unwind.”

“A misty glen? You’ve been watching too much Braveheart. At this time of year the glen is usually buried under a foot of snow, and if there’s mist, you’re going to be lost and die of hypothermia.”

He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I knew there was a reason I chose to live in Manhattan. Seriously though, think about it. If I was there with you, we could work on the presentation. Believe it or not, I can live without the internet. No internet might turn out to be the greatest Christmas gift of all.”

It was one thing to tell Adam about her family. Quite another to introduce them.

Champagne corks would pop.

Hannah would be swept along by an uncontrollable tide of expectation.

“You’re going to the Caribbean and that, believe me, is going to be a thousand times better than Christmas in the Scottish Highlands. It’s likely we’ll be snowed in.” The thought of it made her hyperventilate. Trapped. Unable to breathe. Buried.

She heard Suzanne’s voice, thick with tears. They’re gone, Hannah. They’re dead.

Maybe she should have invented a business trip to some far-flung corner of the globe to get herself out of it for another year. If she visited a client in Sydney, she could be on a plane for almost all of the festive season.

Last year she’d chickened out at the last minute and she knew Posy hadn’t believed her limp excuse.

Who the hell decides they need to revamp their company on Christmas Eve, Hannah?

Even Santa leaves his corporate evaluation until the New Year.

There had been a time when Posy had worshipped Hannah and followed her round like a shadow. She’d crawled into her bed and refused to be dislodged. She’d held her hand. She’d sat on her lap. She’d clung like a burr, all softness and vulnerability.

Hannah felt the tightness in her chest increase as she thought about it.

To say that they’d grown apart would be an understatement, and Hannah knew the whole thing was her fault.

Her relationship with her youngest sister was yet another piece of evidence to support her belief that she’d be a terrible mother.

So what was she going to do if she was pregnant?


CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_91a04c99-7317-505f-97e4-709313c1e91e)

Posy

IN A REMOTE valley in the Scottish Highlands, Posy McBride stood at the base of an avalanche field buffeted by an icy wind. It froze exposed skin and crept through gaps in clothing. The air smelled sharply of winter and each breath emerged as a cloud of vapor.

Snow the size of boulders lay strewn across an area that attracted climbers from all over the world. This area of the Highlands was known for its steep cliffs, challenging routes and its tendency to avalanche in the winter months.

The dog waiting next to her was tense with anticipation and excitement.

“Away find!” Posy gave the command and the dog bounded onto the debris field, weaving to and fro, nose to the snow.

Other members of the mountain rescue team had formed a probe line and were searching with slow, methodical purpose.

“She’s a champ,” Posy muttered, striding to catch up as Bonnie struggled over the huge boulders of snow, a smudge of gold in a sea of white as she searched for human scent.

Rory, the training officer for the team, walked up to her, a radio in his hand. “Phil fell over a few times. His scent will be all over the snow. That’s going to confuse her.”

“It’s not going to confuse her. She’s trained in air scent and trailing.” Posy didn’t take her eyes off Bonnie. “See? She’s showing interest in that spot right there. She’s a natural.”

“Phil would have put human scent on the surface.”

At that moment Bonnie started barking. Then she flew across the snow back to Posy.

“Show me!” Posy followed her back to the place that had caught her attention.

Rory followed at a slower pace, cursing as he stumbled. “I bet Luke a tenner she wouldn’t find him.”

“And for that lack of faith you’re going to have to pay up.” Posy reached Bonnie, who was now playing tug-of-war with a sweater. “You’re Wonder Dog. Good girl, good girl.” This, fortunately, was a training exercise, but still she made a big fuss of the dog, giving Bonnie her favorite squeaky toy as a reward. Then she grinned down at the man lying half-buried in the snow. “Hello there. How are you feeling today?”

He returned the smile, even though she knew he must be freezing and uncomfortable. Snow clung to his jacket, his jaw and his eyelashes. “I’m not sure. I might need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

“You should be so lucky.” Posy stroked Bonnie’s soft fur. Working with the dog thrilled her and she was in awe of the animal’s skills. They could do so much more than a human. “You are the best search and rescue dog who ever roamed the planet.”

Their “victim” cleared his throat. “Excuse me—I’m still in this hole. Aren’t you at least going to pull me out? Is this how you treat someone caught in an avalanche?”

“Don’t be a wimp. You can haul yourself out.”

“Wimp?” He struggled upright, wincing as snow slid inside the neck of his jacket. “Hell of a date, Posy McBride. When you said you wanted my body, this wasn’t what I imagined.”

“No?”

“No.” He removed a lump of snow from his neck. “You said, �I want your body on Saturday,’ and I was good with that. I like a woman who knows what she wants. I thought to myself, dinner and then a movie. Or maybe a cozy evening in the Glensay Inn followed by a romantic stroll. Setting the scene before we get naked together.” He levered himself out of the snowy hole and she laughed.

“You look like the Abominable Snowman.”

“Your concern warms me, which is good because I may have hypothermia.”

Her smile widened. “You think?”

“That’s generally what happens when a person lies buried by snow for a couple of hours waiting for a dog to find him.” He brushed thick layers of snow from his sleeve. “I have snow in places I didn’t even know snow could reach. Any chance of a wee warming dram?”

“Somehow that phrase doesn’t sound right spoken in a New York accent.”

“I’ll use whatever accent you prefer as long as you pour me whiskey.”

“Alcohol and hypothermia aren’t a good combination.”

She enjoyed their banter, probably more than she should.

Luke’s arrival at Glensay had calmed the restlessness inside her that always seemed to be present these days. It was as if he’d brought part of the outside world with him, quenching some of her thirst for adventure.

Bonnie was bounding in happy circles, tail wagging.

“You’re lucky she is a superstar, or you would have been lying there for a lot longer.”

“I’m supposed to feel grateful that I’m cold and wet?”

“If this was a real avalanche, you’d be falling at her furry paws and pledging lifelong love and allegiance.”

He stamped the snow from his boots. “If this was a real avalanche, I would have been wearing a transceiver and carrying a shovel and probe.”

“That assumes you would have been climbing or skiing with people who knew what to do with a transceiver, a shovel and a probe.”

“Do people volunteer to do this more than once?”

“Yes. We have a team of �dogsbodies’ who volunteer during our training exercises.”

“And they’re still alive?”

“Mostly. We don’t often do avalanche training. Sometimes you just get to lie in a soaking wet grassy hole on the side of the mountain.”

“Stop or I’ll never recover from the searing disappointment that comes from knowing I missed that experience.” He had the lean, athletic build of a climber and the rugged looks of a man who spent his life exposed to the elements.

The strength of the attraction had come as a surprise to her.

She was wary of relationships. In a small community like the one she lived in, you couldn’t walk away when a romance ended. There was a strong likelihood you were going to see the person every day. It had happened to her, and she wasn’t in a hurry to repeat the experience.

Rory called out to them. “Everything okay over there?”

Posy turned her head. “I think the victim has hypothermia.”

“Victim?” Luke arched an eyebrow. “Less of the �victim,’ thank you. It’s not how I see myself.” He bent to stroke Bonnie. “You’re the only girl for me. If I really had been buried in that avalanche and you rescued me, I’d have to marry you.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Golden Retriever. I predict many years of happiness.” Before Posy could dodge, Luke stuffed a handful of snow down the neck of her jacket.

Ice trickled over her skin and she gasped. “That’s immature.”

“But satisfying. And now you’re cold, too, which levels the playing field. We should warm each other. Hot shower. Log fire. Bottle of red wine.”

It would be easy enough to do because technically they lived under the same roof.

On their land was a barn, complete with hayloft. Her parents had cleverly converted it into two properties. Posy lived in the loft, which had sloping ceilings and views of the stars. The barn was offered as a rental. It was half a mile from Glensay Lodge, where her parents lived, and bordered by pine and birch woodland. A short walk led you to the deep loch, spring fed and stocked with brown trout.

Its isolation wasn’t for everyone, and in the summer the occupants were mostly couples seeking a romantic week in the wild Highlands. It was perfect for cycling, bird-watching, hiking and loch swimming, but the biggest draw was its proximity to big mountains. In the winter the barn was often booked by climbers.

Short rentals meant more work for Posy. With frequent changeovers, she was always cleaning, changing beds and doing laundry, so she’d been thrilled when Luke Whittaker had booked it for four months with an option to extend.

He was a climber and writer. He needed peace and quiet to finish a book, and a base that would allow him to climb. The barn offered opportunities for both.

Occasionally, when she’d arrived home late after a training session, Posy had seen his lights burning, so she already knew Luke Whittaker was a night owl.

She also knew he was good with animals. Like now, for instance, when he was sending Bonnie into ecstasy with a stomach rub.

He glanced up at her. “I’m assuming Bonnie passed the test?”

“She did. She picked up your scent right away.”

He straightened. “Are you telling me I smell?”

“Be grateful that you do. It’s how she finds you. She is trained to look for human scent. If you’re panicking and sweating, you give off a stronger smell.”

“I was buried in snow. I can assure you not a drop of sweat emerged from my frozen pores.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She sensed your fear.” She enjoyed teasing him. “And she could probably feel the vibrations in the snow where you were shivering. But seriously, thanks. It was a good thing you did and we’re all grateful.”

“She seems like a pretty good rescue dog to me.”

“Fetch is her favorite game, which helps. You need a dog who has a strong drive to retrieve. And also scenting is her superpower.”

They picked their way over the lumps of snow, back down the track to where Posy had parked her car. A fresh layer of soft powder dusted the surface of the snow and the freezing air numbed her cheeks.

“Have you rescued many stranded climbers and hikers?”

“Yes. And sometimes I’ll get called by the police to help search for a missing person. A couple of weeks ago Bonnie found an elderly guy with dementia who had gone walkabout. His family were beside themselves—apparently he’d managed to unlock the front door and wander. They were relieved when we found him.”

“Wait—” He stopped walking. “I thought a trailing dog is a different type of rescue dog.”

“More often than not it is. Dogs either air scent, where they follow any human scent, or they follow the trail of a specific scent. It’s rare for a dog to be trained to do both.”

“And she is?”

“What can I say? She’s a superstar.”

They carried on walking. “The man you found was all right?”

“He was pretty cold. Bonnie found him sheltering behind a hedge. Spent a few nights in the hospital, but doing okay now. Bonnie and I went to visit him.”

“Is there anything she can’t do?”

“She doesn’t love helicopter rides—” Posy pulled a face “—and we get a few of those.”

Bonnie jumped into the back of the car and wagged her tail expectantly while Posy changed her boots and removed the outer layers of her clothing.

She stuck out her hand. “Have a great day.”

Luke stared at her hand. “I give you my whole body, and all you give me in return is your hand? The least you could do is invite me to join you for a mug of hot chocolate in that cozy café you run with your mother.”

“Can’t. Today I’m staff, not a customer.” She slid into the driver’s seat. “But I’ll bring you home a slab of chocolate cake.”

“Dinner, then. I’ll take you to the Glensay Inn. Roaring log fire, local ale, good food and great company.”

And all the gossip you could handle.

“I’ve lived here for most of my life, Luke. You don’t have to sell the charms of my own village to me. And tonight, I’m busy.”

“You, Posy McBride, are always busy. When you’re not out tracking down lost souls with your dog or guiding someone up an ice wall, you’re working in the café, tending the sheep or collecting eggs from your hens. Which, by the way, taste like nothing I’ve ever eaten before.”

“Everything tastes better here. It’s the air. I have to go.” She knew her mother would be overwhelmed. “It’s our busy period and Mom is handling it on her own because Vicky is feeling under the weather.”

He stood, legs spread, hands on hips. “You’re good to your mom.”

It seemed like a strange thing to say. “She’s my mother. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Have you always been close?”

Posy’s earliest memory was being rocked to sleep by Suzanne. She remembered the warmth, the tightness of her arms, the feeling of comfort and security. “Yes.”

“And you’re going to take over the café from her one day?”

“That’s the plan.”

He studied her thoughtfully. “And you’re okay with that? You’ve never been tempted to travel? Do something different?”

It was as if he’d pressed down on a tender wound.

Should she admit that, yes, she’d been tempted? Should she admit it was something she thought about a lot at night and then dismissed during the day when she worked alongside her mother, who had been there for her through thick and thin? How could she ever explain the aching sense of responsibility she felt? It was an anchor, keeping her trapped in the same place. She was grateful for that anchor, but sometimes she wanted to tear it loose and set sail. There were big, beautiful mountains out there just waiting for her. A whole world of adventure.

During the day, she smiled at customers, cooked and made a perfect cappuccino, but at night in the privacy of her loft, she studied difficult peaks, ice and rock walls, planned routes, watched endless videos on the internet, until she felt as if she’d climbed those challenging faces herself.

“This is my home. My family is here and my job is here. Goodbye, Luke, and thanks for today.” Thanks for stirring up thoughts I didn’t want to have. “Rick will give you a ride back to Glensay Lodge.” She started the engine. “Don’t you have words to write?”

“Yes, but generally I need thawed hands for that.”

“I put fresh logs in the barn this morning before I left for the training session. I presume you know how to light a fire?” It wasn’t a serious question. Luke Whittaker had written a book on wilderness survival, and even had she not had that volume on her bookcase, she would have known he was the sort of man who could survive in the harshest of conditions, the sort of man who could produce a spark from two sticks before you could say flame.

“You could come and light my fire for me.”

“That is the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard. I hope you’re better at lighting fires than you are at picking up women or you’re about to suffer from a nasty case of frostbite.”

She put her foot to the floor and the last thing she saw before she drove away was the smile on his face.

Winter days in the Scottish Highlands were often gray and gloomy, but today was a perfect blue-sky day. The landscape was shrouded in white, smooth and undisturbed, like icing on a Christmas cake. The surface caught the sun and sparkled like a million crystals.

Why would she even think of leaving this beautiful place, filled with people who loved and cared about her? Being here wasn’t a sacrifice, it was a choice. She’d been four years old when Suzanne and Stewart had packed up their lives and moved from their home in Washington State to Scotland to be close to Stewart’s family.

Unlike her sisters, Posy had no memory of it.

She drove past the Parish Church and waved to Celia Monroe, who was emerging from an appointment with the doctor.

On impulse, she screeched to a halt outside the small library and grabbed the bag from the back seat.

This was a job she’d been putting off for weeks.

“I’m going to be told off like a six-year-old,” she confessed, and Bonnie wagged her tail in sympathy.

Bracing herself, Posy strode into the library. It had been threatened with closure many times, but the locals had defended it as fiercely as a clan defending their lands.

The woman behind the desk clucked her disapproval. “You have a nerve showing up here, Posy McBride. Your books are more than a month overdue.”

Posy leaned across and kissed her. “I was stuck up a mountain, saving lives, Mrs. Dannon.”

“Oh, go on with you. You were the same with your homework. Always late, and always an excuse.” Eugenia Dannon had been her English teacher at school and she’d despaired of Posy, who had spent her days gazing out of the window at the mountains.

“I probably owe you a lot of money in fines.”

The woman waved her away. “If I fined you every time your books were late, you’d be bankrupt.”

“I love you, Mrs. Dannon, and I know that deep down you love me.”

“Aye, more fool me. Now run along and help your mother.”

Run along? Did people actually still say that kind of thing?

Posy grinned. In Glensay they did, even when you were almost thirty.

“Next time you’re in the café, I’ll give you an extra-large slice of chocolate brownie.” She was halfway to the door when Mrs. Dannon’s voice stopped her.

“Did you read any of the books?”

“Every one of them. Cover to cover.” Grinning, she jogged out of the library.

She hadn’t read the books, and Mrs. Dannon knew it. Posy was willing to bet that half the people from the village who used the library didn’t read the books. But taking books out meant that Eugenia Dannon kept her job, and since her husband had died two years before, she needed both the money and the companionship the library offered. Everyone in the village had suddenly developed a serious reading habit.

When the officials looked at the statistics, they probably marveled at how well-read the people who lived in Glensay were.

Posy knew for a fact that Ted Morton used the complete works of Shakespeare to stop his kitchen door blowing shut on windy days.

Still smiling, she popped into the small store next to the library. Glensay had one general store that sold all the essentials.

“Hi, Posy.” The girl behind the counter smiled at her. “Your lodger was in here yesterday. He bought a packet of razors and deodorant.”

“Right.” Posy grabbed toothpaste and soap and dumped them on the counter. She’d often wondered if Amy and her mother kept a list of what people bought, and used it for profiling. “Maybe he’s going to help me shear the sheep.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. I was joking.” She’d been at school with Amy and the other girl hadn’t got her jokes then, either. Obviously she didn’t have a future in comedy. “Ignore me.”

“Personally, I like a man with stubble.” Amy rang up Posy’s purchases. “He’s sexy. You’re lucky having him living with you.”

“He’s not living with me, Amy. He’s in a different part of the building. Separate properties. There’s a floor and a door between us.” It seemed important to clarify that, given Amy’s tendency to draw interesting conclusions and then broadcast them widely.

“Still—it could be romantic.”

It could be, but if it was, then Amy wasn’t going to find out about it.

Trying to work out a way of keeping her private life private, Posy stuffed the toothpaste and soap into her pockets. “Thanks, Amy. Have a good one.”

She paused outside the door to read the noticeboards. They provided a fascinating snapshot into the life of the village. Pets lost and found, a tractor for sale, minutes of two local meetings and a plea for new members of the village choir. Posy loved to sing. She might have joined the choir had people not told her that her voice sounded like a cat being tortured. Her family encouraged her to find other ways to express her happiness, so these days she sang in the bath and sang to her dog, who often howled in perfect harmony.

Seeing a minibus approaching from the distance, Posy hurried back to her car.

The older members of the community who couldn’t get to the village store by other means used the minibus service. Posy tried to avoid its arrival whenever possible because greeting everyone took half a day.

Five minutes later she hurtled through the door into the welcoming warmth of CafГ© Craft. She ripped off her coat as she half ran to the counter where her mother was deep in conversation with two women from the village. Christmas music played softly from the speakers and the fairy lights that she and her father had secured around the windows shone like tiny stars. The exposed brickwork of the walls was partially covered in paintings by local artists. Posy rotated them regularly. This month she had selected those with winter themes.

As well as art, they sold pottery made locally, knitwear produced exclusively for them, locally made heather honey and a variety of crafts hand selected by her mother, who had a keen eye for what would sell.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Not a problem.” Her mother’s cheeks were flushed from the heat of the kitchen and she looked at least a decade younger than her fifty-eight years. “How did it go?”

“Brilliant. Bonnie was a champ.”

Posy was about to provide details but stopped herself. She knew her mother wouldn’t want details. There was an unspoken agreement in their family that anything to do with snow and avalanches weren’t to be mentioned.

She knew from her father that her mother had experienced another one of her nightmares a few nights before.

She wished she could help wipe out those nightmares, but she had no idea how. She didn’t really understand how someone could still have bad dreams twenty-five years after an event, no matter how terrible it had been.

She darted into the small office, wincing as she saw the growing stack of paper on the small desk. Paperwork, Posy thought, was the waste of a life. Someone needed to sort through it, or they’d miss something important, but it wasn’t going to be her.

She ripped off her outer layers until she exposed the blue T-shirt emblazoned with the CafГ© Craft logo. Then she swapped weatherproof trousers for jeans and her trainers.

If she was going to be on her feet all day, there was no way she was wearing heels.

She slipped a clean apron over her head, tied it around her waist and emerged into the cinnamon-scented warmth of the cafГ©.

Her mother had an almost-magical ability to create a welcoming, cozy atmosphere wherever she went. In CafГ© Craft you felt as if you were cocooned and protected, not only from the icy Highland winds, but from the icy winds of life. Reality was forced to wait outside the door until you were ready to let it in.

“Let me just finish this order and you can tell me all about Bonnie. Two cappuccinos and a chocolate brownie to share—” Suzanne turned to the machine, a look of determination on her face, and Posy nudged her aside.

“I’ve got this.”

“Could you deal with the paperwork later if it’s quiet?”

Posy hunted desperately for excuses. “You’re better at it than I am.”

“Which is why I think you should do it,” Suzanne said. “This place will be yours one day and you need to know everything there is to know about running it.”

Oh joy and bliss.

A lifetime of paperwork stretched ahead of her.

“Plenty of time for that. You won’t be retiring for ages.” Please don’t retire. “I took a slab of your fruitcake to the team this morning. They almost bit off my hand to get to it. You’d think those guys never eat.”

Pushing the thought of running the café to the back of her head, she ground the beans, tamped the coffee and timed the pour. The aroma of fresh coffee wafted upward and she had to fight the impulse to drink the first cup herself. There was nothing, she decided, nothing in the world better than good coffee when you’d been out in the cold and the snow.

She heated the milk and created a leaf pattern on the surface of the coffee that satisfied her artistic instincts.

“Take a seat, Jean,” she called out. “I’ll bring these to your table.”

The café was already filling up. There was a comforting hum of conversation, a feeling of camaraderie and inclusiveness. In the summer the place was always packed with tourists eager to soak up the whole “Scottish experience,” which they generally assumed to be tartan and shortbread. If they’d returned in the winter months, they would have experienced the true Scottish experience. This was a community that supported all its members through the harsh winter months. Everyone knew each other and looked out for each other.

As the last village in the valley, Glensay was sometimes cut off in the winter. For decades the Glensay Inn had been the only place to eat out, and it had been Stewart’s parents who had come up with the idea for a café. Suzanne had eventually taken over the business, and she was the one who had expanded the space and added crafts. As well as a place to sell the pieces she and her friends knitted, it was somewhere for the locals to meet on cold winter days.

Suzanne had created a place that people wrote about when they arrived home. As a result they had visitors from all over the globe. But the beating heart of CafГ© Craft were the locals.

Three evenings a week Suzanne opened up for different groups, as a way to combat the dark nights. Monday was Book Group, Wednesday was Art Club and Friday was Knitting Club.

Posy wondered how she was going to keep that part going when she eventually took over. Despite her frequent trips to the library, she never had time to read, the only thing she’d ever painted was the henhouse and she couldn’t knit.

She’d be qualified to run an Outdoors Club, but there wouldn’t be much point in holding that indoors.

Posy glanced at her mother, noticing the blue sweater for the first time. The wool had a hint of silver that sparkled under the lights. “That’s pretty. New?”

“Finished it last night. I should probably be wearing one of our shirts, but I figured as I’m the boss, I can wear what I like.”

“It looks good on you.”

“I’m knitting a few to sell in the café. I had another box of yarn delivered yesterday. I can’t wait to get started, but I have those Christmas stockings to knit first. Anytime you’d like me to teach you—”

“No, thanks. I’m scared of needles, and that includes knitting needles.”

All but two tables were occupied, and Posy knew that by the time they closed at five, her legs would be aching more than they did when she went ice climbing.

She put the cups on a tray and added a slice of perfect gooey brownie, so deliciously chocolaty that it probably should have come with a health warning. Posy had to employ every last morsel of willpower to carry it to the table and not eat it herself.

“Here you go, ladies.”

Jean took one of the coffees. “You were out training with the team this morning?”

“Yes. We’ve had people from the Canadian mountain rescue team giving us avalanche training.” Posy tucked the empty tray under her arm. “The whole community will be pleased to hear that we didn’t disgrace ourselves.”

“I hear your long-term tenant volunteered to be a body.”

“He did, and Bonnie had no trouble finding him.” Posy didn’t bother asking where she’d heard it. Jean was married to the leader of the mountain rescue team, but even if she hadn’t been, the gossip still would have spread. It was the reason Posy was reluctant to have a relationship with anyone locally. She’d done that once, and it had been a disaster. She and Callum were back on speaking terms now, but for years they’d done nothing but glare whenever they’d passed each other, which in a village the size of Glensay was often.

“I wouldn’t have had a hard time finding him, either. There are some folks I’d happily leave under the snow, but that man isn’t one of them. I’d dig him out with my bare hands.” Moira gave a laugh and Posy smiled as she cleared plates from an unoccupied table nearby.

“Moira Dodds, that is the dirtiest laugh I have ever heard. Shame on you.”

Moira sliced into the brownie. “All your girls will be home for Christmas this year, Suzanne?”

“That’s right.” Suzanne wrote a label for the St. Clement’s cake she’d baked that morning. “It’s great Hannah is able to make it.”

Great that her sister had found time in her busy life to finally remember she had a family.

Posy realized she was grinding her teeth and made a conscious effort to relax her jaw. If she ground her teeth every time she thought of her sister, she’d be reduced to chewing her Christmas lunch with her gums.

Jean beamed at Posy. “I bet you can’t wait to see your big sister again.”

Posy beamed back, although it took some effort.

She knew that by the end of it she’d want to drive her sister to the airport early.

Beth would come bearing gifts and goodwill. She’d willingly help with everything and anything.

Hannah would bring emotional turmoil.

Memories of Christmas past grew in Posy’s mind.

There had been the year Hannah had barely left her room except to eat a Christmas lunch that other people had prepared. And the year she’d spent most of the time in the café, not helping as Beth had done, but availing herself of the free Wi-Fi, which was unreliable in the lodge.

Posy didn’t really understand what it was her sister did. The conversations she’d overheard might as well have been conducted in a foreign language. She knew nothing about strategy, economics or five-year plans, but evidently her sister did and people were prepared to pay a great deal for her expertise.

Posy found Hannah a little intimidating, but the root of the problem was that her sister hurt her feelings. Posy was naturally affectionate and Hannah was distant with her.

Jean and Moira went back to their coffee and chat, and Posy strode into the small kitchen and started making up lunch items with Duncan, their chef.

“Today is curried parsnip and winter vegetable.” Duncan pointed to the board and she nodded.

“Got it.” Every day in the café they offered two soups, and they changed daily so that regular visitors didn’t end up eating the same thing.

Posy loved chopping vegetables. There was nothing like attacking something with a sharp knife to let off aggression.

Damn Hannah, she thought as she slaughtered a helpless onion. This year she wasn’t going to let herself be upset. She wasn’t going to be sensitive.

The parsnips suffered the same fate as the onion, as did the potatoes.

Duncan glanced across at her. “Promise me if I ever annoy you, you’ll tell me before you reach for the knife.”

“You have my word on it.” She’d been Duncan’s babysitter when she was a teenager, so seeing him working in the kitchen always made her feel old.

Her life was slipping through her fingers. At this rate she’d still be here when she was ninety, taking the minibus to the store.

With a sigh, she dropped the vegetables into the pot.

She would rather have been climbing a rock face than cooking, but her work as a mountain guide was sporadic, and working in the cafГ© brought in an income, as well as helping her mother. It was a family business, and family was everything to Posy. It was a warm blanket on a cold day, a safety net when you fell, a chorus of support when you attempted something hard.

The vegetables and spices were simmering when Suzanne walked into the kitchen.

“I’ve written today’s specials on the board.” She gave the soups a stir. “You should have brought Luke to the café for a bowl of hot soup, poor man.”

“There’s nothing �poor’ about him.” Posy rinsed tomatoes. “He has a log burner, a stocked freezer and the facility to heat up his own bowl of soup if that’s what he wants.” And apart from that, her feelings about him were complicated.

Still, Luke’s presence here was temporary, so if something did happen, at least she didn’t have to worry that she’d be bumping into him for the rest of her life.

Posy chopped herbs and sliced tomatoes while her mother helped Duncan with the leek and ham pies.

Suzanne rolled out pastry. “You and Luke seem to be getting along fine.”

Posy threw herbs on the tomato salad. She knew what her mother was asking, and the one thing she had in common with Hannah was that she wasn’t prepared to discuss her love life with her mother. “He’s paying us good money to rent the barn. I make sure I stay on good terms with him.”

And yes, she liked him.

Take this morning. How many men would volunteer to lie buried in snow while patiently waiting for a dog to find them? And he loved mountains, which made him interesting as far as she was concerned.

Right now, he was writing a book on the great climbs of North America.

Posy had never climbed in North America.

Once, when she’d been doing her weekly clean and bedding change in the barn, Luke had come back early and she’d asked him to tell her about Mount Rainier.

“Why do you want to know?”

She wasn’t ready to tell him that. “It’s going in your book?”

“Rainier? Yes.” He opened his laptop and hit a couple of keys.

An image appeared on the screen of a white snowcapped mountain.

She’d seen the same, or similar, before of course, but somehow the fact that it came from his own photo collection made it more real.

She stepped closer, studying the heavily glaciated faces of the mountain. She had so many questions, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer any of them. “You’ve climbed it?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own.

“Many times.”

“And it’s a volcano. Dormant, though.”

“We call it episodically active.” He saw her surprised glance. “I worked for the US Geological Survey after I graduated. Lived just outside Seattle. I could see Rainier from my bedroom window.”

She’d almost confided in him then, but something stopped her. She didn’t want to risk him raising it with Suzanne. “Which route did you climb?”

“I’ve climbed all of them, at different times of the year. In the summer you have wildflower meadows. In the winter you find yourself waist deep in snow. You’ve never climbed in the US?”

“No. Scotland, and the Alps.”

“You should come to the US.”

One day, she thought, although she wasn’t sure she was ready for Mount Rainier. Maybe she never would be. Going there would upset her mother.

Posy thought back to that conversation as she made large bowls of salad.

“Hannah emailed me last night,” Suzanne said. “She sent a list of the foods she is avoiding at the moment.”

Posy focused on the salad. If she rolled her eyes, there was every chance they’d be stuck in her skull never to emerge again.

“Right. Well, you’d better forward that email to me so I can adjust my list. What was it she asked for last time? Quail eggs? I found that deli in Edinburgh that did mail order.” And used half the Christmas budget in the process. “If I’d thought about it, I would have explored the possibility of keeping quails.”

“I read somewhere they get easily stressed.”

“And that’s before they meet Hannah.” Posy caught her mother’s eye and swiftly changed the subject. “Talking of our feathered friends, Martha has stopped laying.”

“It’s December.” Suzanne trimmed the pastry with a knife. “Not enough light.”

“I’m using artificial light. I don’t think it’s that.” Maybe Martha knew Hannah was coming home. Maybe she didn’t see the point of laying whole eggs when Hannah ate only the egg white. “I need to give Gareth a call. With a houseful of people, we’re going to need eggs. Normal eggs,” she added. Normal eggs for normal people.

Her mother wiped her hands. “I wish you and Hannah were closer.”

“Me, too.” That part wasn’t a lie. “But she lives so far away.”

That, of course, was only part of the problem.

If her sister had been a laptop, Posy would have run antivirus software because there were times when she was convinced Hannah had been taken over by malware.

Posy considered herself to be tough and hated the fact that her feelings could still be hurt.

Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to handle Hannah alone. Beth, Jason and the girls would be there, too.

Posy and Beth were still close.

There was no drama in Beth’s life.


CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_2774e235-7b4a-53c2-943e-f5606c9e4392)

Beth

BETH HAD SETTLED the girls in bed and was clearing toys out of the bath when Jason arrived home. This was her favorite time of day, when the chaos was almost behind her and the prospect of a calm evening stretched ahead. Sometimes she poured herself a glass of wine and allowed herself to read a few pages of a magazine before she started on dinner.

Tonight, she was too excited to contemplate reading anything, but she knew she had to at least let Jason take his coat off before she told him her news.

As she scooped up wet towels, Beth could hear him talking on the phone.

“We nailed it. They loved the ideas. I’m going to talk to Steve in the morning and get those figures sent over. The London office is closed now, but I’ll call first thing tomorrow. I’ll be in the office at six.”

Beth turned off the light. Six would mean a 5:00 a.m. alarm call, which also meant that if the girls disturbed her in the night, which Ruby did with frustrating frequency, Beth would be woken again predawn by her husband.

Trying not to think about her sister flying first-class with her own cubicle and champagne on tap, Beth dealt with the towels and then walked to the living room, where Jason was ending the call.

Soft light bathed the room in a warm glow. She’d cleared away all traces of the toys, tutus and tiaras that had been strewn around the room a few hours earlier. The glossy fashion magazines that were her indulgence were neatly stacked on the table. A vase of lilies added an illusion of elegance only slightly marred by the two Lego bricks peeping out from under the sofa.

Beth loved flowers. She loved their fragility, their femininity. She loved the way they transformed a room and lifted her mood. She associated them with happiness, and she associated them with Jason.

At the beginning of their relationship, he’d bought her flowers every week. Once they’d had the girls and money was tighter, it had happened less often, and the occasions when he’d splurged and brought home a bunch of blooms had been all the more special.

For this brief moment in time the apartment seemed like a child-free zone, an adult-only space, where the conversation of the occupants might revolve round current affairs, travel and Manhattan restaurant experiences rather than debates about whether the next game should be “ballerina” or “firefighter.” A tidy apartment gave Beth the fleeting sense that she was in control, even when she knew she wasn’t. When it came to the kids’ mess, there were many days when she felt as if she was bailing water out of a sinking boat.

Jason ended the call and smiled at her, his face transforming from serious to sexy.

Today he wore a bespoke suit with a black shirt open at the neck. She noticed absently that his hair needed a cut.

They joked together that as Creative Director of the agency his appreciation for design started with himself. This is a creative business, honey, and before I pitch for a brand, I have to pitch myself.

They’d met when Jason had been working on an ad campaign for one of the beauty brands she’d also worked on.

Jason’s star had continued to climb, whereas hers had fallen to earth so hard she was still stepping over the broken fragments.

For a moment she saw the businessman rather than her husband.

This, she thought, was how the people at work saw him. They didn’t see him sprawled with the Sunday papers and a severe case of bedhead. They saw the dynamic creative director of a top Manhattan multimedia agency.

Jason had done well. His boss liked him and he was due another promotion and a fat salary increase.

Beth would have forfeited the extra money to have him home more. It wasn’t only that she would have loved more family time, it was that somewhere along the way she’d lost the feeling they were a partnership, but she was about to address that.

She’d thought all afternoon about the best way to handle the conversation but in the end decided to be straight.

Jason pulled her toward him and kissed her. “How was your day?”

Beth wrapped her arms round his neck. She liked the fact that Jason was only a few inches taller than she was. They fitted perfectly.

“Hannah has canceled tomorrow. Business trip.”

“Does that mean I don’t have to rush home from work for an early dinner?” He let go of her and took off his jacket. “What’s wrong? Has she upset you? This is Hannah, remember? Her canceling is not exactly a surprise, is it?”

It wasn’t a surprise, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed.

She was about to tell him how she felt when there was a chorus of girlish screams followed by the muted thunder of bare feet as the girls pounded out of their bedroom.

“Daddy, Daddy.” They were so excited it was hard to be annoyed, even though she knew she’d have to settle them again and that meant another hour at least before she could have the conversation she was desperate to have.

“Whoa.” Jason caught Ruby and swung her up high until she squealed. “How’s my girl?”

“Mommy bought me a new fire engine.”

“She did? Another one? So I guess that means you have a whole fleet now.” His gaze snagged Beth’s and she felt herself blush.

Ruby squeezed him tightly. “I want to be a firefighter.”

“You will be a fantastic firefighter. No fire will dare to burn with you nearby.”

“Will you play with me? Can I save you from a burning building?”

“Not now because you’re supposed to be asleep. Maybe tomorrow.”

Melly pressed close to his leg, more reserved than her sister. He set Ruby down and scooped her up. “How’s my other girl?”

Melly laid her head on his shoulder. “Ruby is always telling me what to do.”

Jason laughed. “She has great leadership qualities, don’t you, Ruby? And so do you.”

“I don’t like shouting.”

“Leadership has nothing to do with shouting, honey.” He stroked her hair. “One day you are going to have a very important job and everyone is going to listen to you. You won’t need to shout.”

Beth loved the fact that he never favored one child over the other. She loved the way he was with the girls, even though she knew he got the good parts. If parenting was a meal, then Jason came straight in at dessert, bypassing all other courses including vegetables. He skipped the tantrums, the food fights and the relentless arguments. He also escaped the unique brand of loneliness that came from being at home with young children. Not that she was alone, of course. With two young children, she was rarely alone, but that didn’t stop her feeling lonely. She’d discovered it was an impossible concept to explain to people who weren’t in the same situation.

“If you want to put them back to bed, I’ll finish off dinner.”

“Daddy, will you read us a story?”

“Yes.” Jason caught Beth’s eye. “Why are you looking at me like that? What have I done?”

“I’ve already read them two stories and settled them down. They need sleep.” Also, Beth had been with them all day and she was ready to sit down with a glass of wine. She felt brain dead, which made no sense because these days her brain didn’t get much of a workout.

Jason frowned. “One story won’t hurt, surely? I haven’t seen them all day.”

Three pairs of eyes watched her hopefully. She knew she should say no.

“They need routine, Jason.”

“I know, but just this once.” He leaned across and kissed her, which basically meant she no longer had any say in it, then held out his arms to the girls and carried them back to bed.

Ruby’s voice carried from the bedroom. “Daddy, can I sleep with my new fire engine?”

Beth walked to the kitchen and checked the casserole.

She stirred, adjusted the seasoning, breathing in the cinnamon and spice scent of the warming winter dish. It was one of her mother’s recipes and it reminded her of home.

She loved this time of year. She found the lead-up to the holiday season almost as seductive as the holiday itself. She loved gazing into brightly lit store windows, enjoyed ice-skating in Central Park and their annual trip to the Christmas tree lighting at the Rockefeller Center. The previous year they’d taken the girls to see the New York City Ballet perform The Nutcracker. For once, Ruby had stopped wriggling, hypnotized by the dancers whirling round the stage. Melly had been enchanted, utterly lost in the world of Sugar Plum Fairies and glistening snowflakes, all her princess fantasies coming true to Tchaikovsky’s romantic score.

Even Jason, who had previously declared he’d rather stand in Times Square buck naked than go to the ballet, had admitted the evening had been magical. What he was really saying, of course, was that watching the faces of his children had been magical.

I love these moments, he’d said as they’d walked along snow-dusted streets to a small bistro with fogged windows and fairy lights that had been bathed in so much festive atmosphere Ruby asked if Santa would be arriving soon.

Beth loved those moments, too, but the difference was that Jason only had those moments.

He had the bathed, excited, scrubbed, fantasy version of parenthood.

She had the reality.

Was it wrong of her to want more?

By the time Jason joined her, she had laid the table and warmed the plates.

“They’re growing up fast.” He’d taken a quick shower and changed out of his suit. Dressed in jeans and a black sweater, he looked younger. Less the ambitious creative, and more the man she’d married. “Something smells good. What are we having?”

“Lamb. I was going to cook it for Hannah tomorrow, but since she isn’t coming—” She shrugged and picked up one of the plates.

“Hannah’s loss is my gain.”

Beth spooned rice onto a plate, added a generous portion of casserole and passed it to him. She didn’t want to think about Hannah.

“How was your day? How was the pitch?” She held on to her own news, wanting to pick exactly the right moment.

“It was good.” He waited for her to serve herself and then picked up his fork. “Sam called me into his office today.”

Sam was Jason’s boss. “What did he want?”

“Conrad Bennett is leaving.”

“Leaving?” Beth toyed with her food. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in his office gossip, but all she could think about was the phone call she’d had earlier. “But he’s Chief Creative Director. Why would he leave?”

“He’s setting up his own agency, and you know what that means—”

“He’s taking you with him?”

“No. Better than that.” Jason picked up his wine and raised the glass in a toast. “I’m being offered his job.”

Beth gave a squeal. “You got a promotion?” She ignored the little voice in her head shouting out that this conversation was supposed to be about her career, not Jason’s.

“In the last year I’ve brought in more clients than any other member of the agency.”

She wondered what the promotion would mean for her and felt guilty for being selfish. “Chief Creative Director. I’m proud of you.” And she was. Was it wrong that she was also a teeny bit jealous?

There was a gleam of excitement in his eyes. “Yes. It’s the best Christmas gift. And talking of Christmas gifts, tell me what you’d like and it’s yours. New dress? Coat? Sexy boots? Think about it and write a letter to Santa.”

I’d like to go back to work.

She’d counted on Jason adapting his schedule to finish work early a couple of days a week. She’d counted on him being there for the girls. It was as if he had mapped out his future and forgotten her.

“It was a shock, although a good shock, obviously—” he dug his fork in the rice “—but it got me thinking about you. About us, and our future.”

The vague feeling of resentment floated away, leaving warmth in its place.

“I’ve been thinking about us, too.” She took a mouthful of wine. “There’s something I need to say to you, and I’d like you to hear me out before you speak. We talked about it a while ago, but not recently.” Nerves fluttered in her stomach. She had no idea what his reaction was going to be.

“Stop.” Jason reached out and covered her hand with his. “I know what you’re about to say.”

“You do?”

“Yes. It didn’t seem worth mentioning again when the girls were little and such a handful, but they’re older now and you have more time on your hands.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that this might be easy. “You’ve been thinking about it, too?”

“It’s perfect timing for our family.” He went back to his food. “This is delicious, by the way. You’re a great cook, Beth. In fact, you’re great at pretty much everything.”

Did he realize exactly what it would entail? “If we did this, I’d be under a lot more pressure. I thought perhaps your mother might help out. And you’d have to help more. You wouldn’t mind?”

“We’re a team, Beth. And of course my mother will help. Try keeping her away. She’ll be as excited as I am.” He helped himself to more rice. “The timing of these things is never perfect, but this is about as perfect as it gets. We should go for it.”

She felt a rush of elation.

She should have talked to him sooner. She should have mentioned how lonely she was, and how she’d felt her skills and confidence slowly draining away. She was touched that he’d noticed she needed more. “How would this fit with your promotion?”

“Sam knows the score. I’m a father. Sometimes I need to be there for my family. I can juggle work and home. I’ve been doing it for years. It’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t leave the company. It has a great culture.”

Was juggling the right word? She knew that for her to work, too, they were going to need to display more juggling skills than a circus performer.

“It’s going to be a big change for us as a family, but I know we can make this work. I’m excited.”

“Me, too. I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too.” Tears stung her eyes. She was so very lucky to be married to him. “Do you think the girls will be okay with it? I feel guilty.” She was desperate for reassurance that she wasn’t a bad mother. “I’m worried they’ll think they’re not enough.”

“It will be great for the girls. So they’ll have a little less of you…” He reached for his wine and shrugged. “Quality, not quantity, right?”

Beth shifted in her seat.

Did the girls have quality?

There were days when she felt the best she achieved was to hold it all together, but right now she was feeling too euphoric to indulge in a session of maternal self-flagellation.

Jason stood up and cleared the plates, and she followed him into the kitchen and fetched dessert.

Was it too late to call Kelly back tonight?

“I need to arrange a time to go and meet them. Is there a day this week that you could work from home?”

He piled the plates onto the countertop above the dishwasher. “Meet who?”

“The team.” Beth carried dessert to the table. Instead of the frothy, extravagant offering she’d planned for Hannah, she’d baked plums in rum and brown sugar. Normally she was careful with dessert, but she’d managed to convince herself this was fruit.

“You want to see someone before you’re even pregnant?” Jason sat down again. “Is that usual?”

Beth stared at him. “What?”

Jason spooned plums into the deep-sided white bowls that had been a gift from his mother the previous Christmas. “I guess it never hurts to have a doctor check you out. You do look pretty tired. Maybe you’re anemic. But if you’re seeing someone, I want to come with you. I want to be there for you.” He pushed the plums toward her. “Aren’t you having any? Or are you already off alcohol?”

Beth felt as if she’d stepped off a cliff. Her stomach swooped and her head spun. “Pregnant? What are you talking about?”

Jason froze, the spoon in his hand suspended in midair. “Having another baby. What were you talking about?”

“Work.” Her throat was dry. The situation should have been comical, but she’d never felt less like laughing. Another baby? The thought of it made her heart pound with panic.

There was a long, loaded silence. “Work?”

Beth sat down hard on the chair. “Yes. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. That’s what I thought I was talking to you about.”

The spoon clattered back into the serving dish, spattering juice and rum. Neither noticed. “I thought you were talking about growing our family. Having more kids.”

“Jason, the last thing I want is more kids. How could you even think that would be a good idea?” She was almost hyperventilating and Jason looked as stunned as she felt, although for different reasons apparently.

“But we adore the girls.” He sounded bemused.

“Of course we do. I’m not saying I don’t love the children. I’m saying I can’t handle more.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re incredible. I mean, look at this—” He waved his hand in the general direction of the table and the kitchen. “You’ve been with them all day and you still manage to produce this. You’re a superstar.”

“Let me rephrase, Jason—I don’t want to handle more. At least, not more parenting. I want to go back to work. I want more from life than domestic grind.”

The warmth in his eyes was replaced by hurt. “I didn’t realize the girls and I came under the heading of �domestic grind.’”

How had this conversation gone downhill so fast?

It was like watching a spool of thread unravel, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“It’s tough being at home with kids all the time, Jason.”

“I know you work hard.” His jaw was set. Rigid. The way it always was when they had difficult conversations. “We both work hard.”

“This isn’t a competition. It’s not about agreeing who works hardest. The difference is that you’re doing what you love, while I’m losing every skill I ever had.”

He stood up so suddenly the chair crashed to the floor.

Beth was on her feet in an instant. “You’ll wake the girls and it will take ages to settle them again.”

“And that would be bad, wouldn’t it,” he said, “because you’ve had enough of them for one day?”

The injustice of his words stung. She knew she wasn’t doing a good job of explaining how she felt, but she also knew he wasn’t really listening. He was thinking about his own feelings, not hers. “I love the girls, and you know it.”

“We talked about having three kids. Maybe even four.”

“That was before we had any. I didn’t realize how much of me they’d consume.”

“Consume? You make them sound like monsters.”

“No! I—” How could she make him understand? No matter how many different ways she phrased it, he didn’t seem to hear her. Or maybe he didn’t want to hear her. He didn’t want his world overturned. “I love being with them, but I’ve been with them every day for the past seven years, and now I’m ready for something more. I can’t just be an adjunct to everyone else in the family.”

Jason lifted the chair and sat down again. “You said it was what you wanted.”

“When I was first pregnant, yes.” She thought about Melly’s first steps and the first time Ruby had smiled at her. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I know I’m lucky to have been able to be at home in the early years, but things change.”

“Family has always been the number one priority for you.” He rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “You were so young when you lost your own parents—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I know. No one in your family talks about it, but it’s relevant, Beth!”

“Something that happened twenty-five years ago has no relevance to my life today.” She tried not to think about the message she’d deleted from her phone. Had Hannah had the same phone call? She could have asked, but there was no way she’d broach that topic with her sister. Neither Hannah nor Suzanne liked to talk about the accident and Beth understood that.

She’d taken a look at news clippings from that time and had felt as if she was living the trauma firsthand.

There had been a particularly distressing one of Suzanne being hounded by the press.

It had disturbed Beth so badly she’d never looked at it again.

No doubt Hannah had her own memories about that time, but when it came to removing things from her past that she didn’t like, Hannah was like a surgeon with a scalpel. She cut it out and sutured the wound.

Beth buried it and put up with the occasional ache, but she’d been younger than Hannah.

“I’m boring, Jason. I’m a boring person. Last time I saw my sister she was talking about flying here, there and everywhere—what did I contribute to the conversation?”

“Wait… This is because of Hannah? What has she been saying to you?”

“Nothing.” Beth sat down again. “This has nothing to do with Hannah.”

“If she’s made you feel inferior, then—”

“She hasn’t made me feel inferior. I manage that all by myself.”

“You want Hannah’s life?” A muscle flickered in his cheek. “You want her child-free, commitment-free life? A life, by the way, which you’ve previously said looks cold and lonely.”

“I do not want her life.” Although it was true that there were parts of Hannah’s life she’d like—the first-class flights and the interaction with adults, the fact that she was respected by her peers and could come and go without once thinking about babysitters.

But she didn’t envy the isolation of Hannah’s life.

Hannah had closed herself off. She didn’t want intimate connections.

She hadn’t always been that way, of course.

Once, she, Beth and Posy had been close. They’d been so close that their mother hadn’t bothered to invite friends over for them because the three of them occupied each other.

It was so long ago Beth could hardly remember those days. Occasionally her mind drifted there and along with the thoughts came memories of warmth and laughter, of games played, of inconsequential fights and making up. Childhood.

She felt a stab of guilt that she’d snapped at her sister earlier.

As soon as Hannah was back from her trip, Beth would call and make amends. She’d buy a gift for their mother from both of them. She’d meet in a restaurant, or wherever Hannah preferred to meet. Beth didn’t want to lose what little connection she had with her sister. Family counted.

But now wasn’t the time to be worrying about her sister. She had worries enough of her own.

“I was an only child,” Jason said. “And I never wanted that for our kids.”

“Which was why we had Ruby.”

She’d always known how badly Jason wanted children. The moment Melly started sleeping through the night, he’d raised the idea of having another one. He’d been determined that Melly was going to have someone to play with, and turn to later in life.

Having experienced ups and downs with Hannah, Beth wasn’t sure that a sibling came with a guarantee of support and friendship, but she also wanted more than one child, so she’d tried to put aside the memory of her traumatic birth—first deliveries were often the worst, weren’t they?—and by the time Melly was three, she’d been pregnant again.

Ruby had been delivered eight weeks early as a medical emergency, and the flurry of drama and high anxiety had convinced Beth that two was enough. Given that Jason hadn’t raised the topic of having more, she assumed he’d agreed.

She wasn’t good at having babies, and it wasn’t exactly something you could perfect with practice. The mere thought of going through it again filled her with dread.

“I can feel my confidence draining away, Jason. If I don’t go back to work soon, I’ll be unemployable.”

Maybe she already was. She wondered how hard it would be to morph back into work mode. Could she project confidence if she didn’t feel it? What if she wasn’t even offered the job? Was she emotionally robust enough to take rejection? “I want this and it’s a good time to do it. Melly is in first grade now and Ruby is in preschool three mornings a week.”

“But you take them and pick them up. You do activities with them. Who would do that?”

They’d reached the “juggling” part. “I thought maybe you could leave early a couple of days a week and I thought Alison might help.”

“I’m sure my mother would help, but I have a job. It makes no economic sense for me to give that up so that you can go back to work.”

“I’m not asking you to give it up. Maybe compromise a little. This isn’t about economics, it’s about my sanity. I’ve lost me, Jason. I have no idea who I am anymore. And I’m lonely.”

“You’re always complaining you never have five minutes to yourself. That you can’t even use the bathroom without Melly banging on the door or Ruby getting into trouble. You have the girls. How can you possibly be lonely?”

She felt a rush of despair followed by another emotion she didn’t recognize.

“I want to meet them, Jason. I want to find out more about the job.”

“Who is �them’? You haven’t given me the details.”

She took a deep breath. “Corinna has set up her own company.”

“Corinna?” The word exploded out of him. “This is the same Corinna who made your life a misery when you worked for her before?”

“She didn’t make my life a misery.”

“No? You were sick with stress. She fired three of the staff in the six months before you left.”

“It was a busy time in the company. We were all under pressure.”

“And Corinna was the source of that pressure. She used to call you up and scream at you at 3:00 a.m. There wasn’t a single moment of your day that she respected as private. If you’re looking for sisterhood, and women supporting other women, you’re not going to find it in any company she’s a part of. She’s not going to cut you any slack because you have kids, Beth.”

“I wouldn’t want her to.”

He studied her for a moment. “Fine. Go and meet them. Talk to Corinna. Let me know when and I’ll cover the childcare.”

She relaxed slightly. “You’d do that?”

“Yes. When you remember what Corinna is like, you’ll probably decide you’d rather be at home with the girls.”

He thought she wasn’t going to get the job.

Even her own husband thought she no longer had anything to offer.

What did that say about him?

And what did it say about her?

It said that she had to get the job, no matter what, if only to prove that she could.


CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_0473ad64-3267-5647-bdac-66cc453383dc)

Suzanne

“CAN YOU HANG those lights a little higher?” Suzanne narrowed her eyes. “They’re too low.”

Stewart took another step up the ladder and raised the rope of stars. “Here?”

“Too high.” The man was so patient, she thought. So patient.

He sighed. “Suzy—”

Maybe not so patient.

“A fraction lower.” She watched as he lowered them. “Perfect. Don’t you love them?”

“Fairy lights are right at the top of my Christmas list. If Santa doesn’t bring at least ten sets, I’m going to break down and cry like a baby.”

“Sarcasm is unattractive. On the other hand, now I know what you want, I’ll make sure Santa returns the perfect gift he bought you and buys fairy lights instead.”

“Don’t!” He gave her a look of wild-eyed panic. “I know you’re capable of it.”

“Are you going to hang those fairy lights without complaining?”

He secured the fairy lights with exaggerated care. “Have pity. I’m a man. I can’t get excited about fairy lights, whatever shape they are. They come under the same heading as throw cushions. In other words, something that serves no purpose.”

“You think?” Suzanne flicked the switch and the stars gleamed white. “They look good. Let’s hang another set over the hearth.” Creating comfort was at the heart of everything she did, from cooking good food in the café to knitting sweaters. It was as if part of her was determined to erase the cold and loneliness she’d felt in her early childhood. She’d had no one to nurture her, so she’d learned to nurture herself. She’d been afraid of the dark, but nightlights hadn’t been allowed, so now she made up for it. Warm lights, soft cushions, family—everything she’d never had, she had now in abundance.

“Another set?” Stewart climbed back down the ladder. “How many do you have?”

“Ten. I bought them for the café, and these were left over. On the other hand, maybe candles would be better on the hearth.” Suzanne folded a throw over the base of the bed and carefully added cushions. “Do not say anything.”

Stewart looked at the cushions. “My lips are sealed, but only because I’m shallow and care about my Christmas gift.”

“I asked Posy to fetch some extra logs for the basket so we can light a fire when she arrives. I don’t want Hannah to be cold.”

“She lives in New York. Do you have any idea how cold New York is in the winter?”

“There’s a difference between Manhattan and the Scottish Highlands.”

“That’s why we live in the Highlands.”

Suzanne straightened a lamp and surveyed the room. The curtains were the same deep green as the moss that clung to the side of the mountain in the summer. The fabric was rich and velvety and fell in a pool to the polished oak floor. They were heavy enough to keep out the cold wind that sneaked through cracks and rattled the windows in the winter months. The position of Glensay Lodge, idyllic in the summer, was exposed in the winter. For that reason, Suzanne made sure there was warmth in the furnishings. She’d made everything herself, from the curtains to the soft throw draped across the base of the bed.

She’d longed for a home of her own, and there was never a day when she wasn’t grateful for it.

Stewart took it for granted, but that was because he’d always had it. She knew he was equally content sleeping on a snowy ledge, thousands of feet up a mountain.

Thanks to Cheryl, she’d experienced that, too.

The first time her friend had dragged her climbing still stuck in her mind. Would she have done it without Cheryl? Probably not. To her surprise, she’d enjoyed the crunch of snow under her boots and the icy slap of the wind against her face. It was true that she hadn’t shared Cheryl’s single-minded passion for it, but she’d enjoyed the physical challenge and the beauty of watching the sun rise above snowcapped mountains. Most of all she’d enjoyed the friendship and the teamwork that came with climbing.

“THIS IS ALL I want from life.” Cheryl lay on her back in her sleeping bag staring up at the stars. In the still of the night they could hear the glacier creak and groan. “Not a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, or a swanky apartment on Fifth Avenue. Who wants to be trapped between four walls when you can have this? It’s the best.”

Suzanne was cold and wished Cheryl hadn’t insisted on sleeping outside the tent. “Don’t you want a family one day?”

“I suppose so.” Cheryl shrugged. “I’ve never thought about it.”

Suzanne thought about it all the time. “You can’t raise a family in a sleeping bag. You’ll need a home.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll travel around. Buy a van. We can all sleep in the back, or camp out.”

It sounded exhausting and insecure to Suzanne. Before she’d met Cheryl, she’d been moved between so many different foster homes it had made her dizzy. Living out of a van didn’t sound any different, except perhaps colder in the winter months. “Is that fair on them?”

“Kids get used to whatever life they’re living. That’s their normal.”

Suzanne hadn’t got used to hers. “What if they’re not happy doing that?”

“They will be. I’ll teach them that you don’t need possessions to enjoy life.”

Suzanne frowned. “It’s not about possessions, it’s about security.”

“You mean predictability.”

Did she mean that? Suzanne didn’t think so. “Security isn’t the same as predictability. It would be nice to go out for the day and know that the things you love will be waiting for you when you get home.”

“If you get attached to things, it just hurts more when you lose them. Better to let all that go. I won’t need paintings for my wall because I’m going to be looking at views like this.”

“How is that practical? You’re going to need to make a living somehow. You still need to eat.”

“I’ve thought about that.” Cheryl sat up suddenly, as if she couldn’t possibly make an important announcement while lying flat. “I’m going to be a mountain guide. That way I can do what I love and be paid for it. How cool is that?”

It was the first Suzanne had heard of that plan. “Getting the training and qualifications will cost you a fortune.”

“I’ll find a way.” As usual, Cheryl dismissed the practicalities as nothing more than an inconvenience. “How about you? You’ll go to college and study law or something. You’ll have a house with a neat yard, a handsome husband, two point four polite children and a well-behaved dog.”

The laughter in her voice stopped Suzanne admitting that she would have been happy with all that, except perhaps the law part. But what would her life look like without Cheryl in it? Their friendship was the most important thing in her world. “I’m going to be a mountain guide, too.”

“You’re kidding.” Cheryl turned to look at her. “I thought you only did all this because I do it.”

“I love it, too.” Although until that moment she hadn’t considered being a mountain guide. But why not? She had to do something with her life. “We could do the training together. Get our qualifications together.”

“I’d love that.” Cheryl hugged her. “We’re going to be friends forever. Promise me we’ll be friends forever.”

“I promise.”

SUZANNE GLANCED AROUND the room again. “I’m not sure about the rug. Do you think we should give her the sheepskin from our bedroom?”

“What I think,” Stewart said, “is that you should stop.” He put the lights down and held out his arms to her. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“Do I need an excuse to hug my wife?” He lowered his head and kissed her and she forgot about Hannah. She was eighteen again, and in love with a man who wanted all the same things she did.

“Where do you want these?” Footsteps and the sound of Posy’s voice interrupted them.

She was carrying logs under one arm and used her other hand to shield her eyes. “Whoa. Sorry. If I’d known you were occupied, I would have sung loudly to announce my arrival.”

Stewart stopped kissing Suzanne. “Don’t sing. I beg you don’t sing.”

Posy pulled a face. “Maybe the two of you should get a room. I’m way too young to witness this.”

Suzanne eased out of Stewart’s arms. “Put them in the basket by the fire. Thank you, honey.” She watched as Posy dropped the logs into the basket. Two of her three daughters were settled and happy and she was grateful for that. Both Beth and Posy had found the life they wanted.

Posy straightened and glanced round the room. “It’s pretty, Mom. I almost want to move in myself. This turret bedroom is great. I bet we could rent it out on Airbnb and make a fortune.” She noticed the Christmas tree in the corner. “What’s Eric doing in here?”

“Eric?” Stewart adjusted the lights. “I can just about handle you naming the chickens, the sheep and the pigs, but since when have we started naming trees?”

“Trees are living things. At least, that one is. Meet Eric, the eco tree. He comes complete with roots. I repotted and nurtured him this year and look how he’s grown and flourished. Usually I put him in the barn when we have guests over Christmas.”

Suzanne added a couple of books to the nightstand. Hannah had always loved books. “Will Luke want a tree? He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who needs to be surrounded by glittery trappings.”

“Everyone has to have a tree at Christmas.” Posy unwrapped a nut bar and took a bite.

“Which is why Hannah should have one, too. Don’t drop crumbs in here. I just cleaned.” Suzanne eyed her youngest daughter, thinking once again how like Stewart she was, always on the go. It occasionally surprised her when she remembered Posy wasn’t his child.

But she might as well have been. Stewart was the only father she remembered.

“I was up at five and I haven’t had breakfast.” Posy took another large bite, catching the crumbs in her palm. “Hannah won’t remember to water him. Eric will die. And I bet she won’t even come to his funeral.”

Suzanne knew she was supposed to smile but couldn’t quite manage it.

Her stomach was in a knot. It had been two years since Hannah was home. Would it be difficult?

“I hope she doesn’t miss Manhattan. It’s wonderful during the holidays.” She walked to the window and stared at the jagged profile of the mountains in the distance. Already they’d had more snow than usual for the time of year. How would Hannah react? Would she get cabin fever? Would log fires and home baking be enough to keep her here, or would she be wishing she’d made an excuse as she had the year before?

Behind her back, Posy exchanged worried glances with her father. “You’ve never been to New York at Christmas.”

“Beth has told me all about it.” Suzanne turned. “She takes the girls skating in Central Park.”

Stewart cleared up the empty boxes. “That patch of ground in front of the henhouse often freezes over. It would work as a skating rink.”

“You’d have to pick up the chicken poo first.” Posy stuffed the empty wrapper into her pocket. “You think I should buy skates for Martha? She could be the world’s first skating chicken. Oh, and great news. She laid this morning! I’ve been over there this morning giving her love and attention. Why is the desk from the study up here?”

“Because Hannah may need to work. If something important comes up, I don’t want her to feel she has to leave.”

“She’s not the leader of the free world. I’m sure she can be spared for a few days without the economy plunging.” Posy smiled. “Relax. And now I have to go.”

“You’re working this afternoon?”

Posy exchanged looks with her father. “I’m taking Luke ice climbing.”

Suzanne felt the blood drain out of her face. The tips of her fingers tingled. “Have you checked the forecast? Leave a note of your route. Let us know what time you’ll be back.”

“I will leave my intended route with Dad, but you know what it’s like at this time of year—things change as we go along. Please don’t worry. I’m good at what I do. It’s the reason they pay me.”

“There’s not enough money in the world to make it worth you taking a risk.”

Posy crossed the room and hugged her. “We’ll be fine. Luke doesn’t know the area, but when it comes to ice climbing, the man has serious skills. Not that I intend to tell him that, because his ego is doing just fine without the boost.” She walked to the door and Suzanne called out to her.

“Thanks for the logs, sweetheart.”

“You’re welcome. Now go and put your feet up and have a cup of tea. Ho ho ho, away I a-go.” Posy left the room and they heard her feet clattering on the stairs and her voice calling for Bonnie.

Suzanne sank onto the edge of the bed. “Did you know she was going ice climbing?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t mention it to me.”

“I didn’t want to worry you. Neither did she.”

“I’m officially worried. How could I not be?”

She felt like this every time Posy went into the mountains. She couldn’t concentrate until she knew she was safely home.

Stewart sat down next to her. “Posy is a skilled climber and she’s careful.”

“She’s too much like her mother.”

“Be thankful she isn’t like her father.” Stewart stood up. “Then we’d really be in trouble.”

Suzanne didn’t argue with that. She’d tried hard to like Rob because of Cheryl, but it hadn’t been easy and Stewart had actively disliked the man.

If Cheryl hadn’t met Rob, would she be alive now?

It was a ridiculous way to think, because without Rob there would be no Hannah, Beth and Posy.

“This whole thing with Hannah—” She took his hand. “I’m overcompensating, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but I understand.”

She knew he did. She also knew that the loss hadn’t only been hers. Stewart had lost the life they’d planned together, the future they’d mapped out so carefully.

And then she felt guilty, because no matter how many compromises or changes they’d had to make, they’d lived and they had a beautiful family.

“Hannah guards herself. Shuts everyone out. And I can’t blame her. No child should have to live through what she lived through.”

“They all lived through it, Suzy, not just Hannah.”

“I know, but Posy was so little she barely remembers it. Beth remembers it, but her reaction was what you’d expect it to be. Hannah was older. It was different. More complicated. And some of that was down to her relationship with Rob.” It made her heart ache to think of it. “All I want is for us to be a normal family. But we’re not, are we? We never have been. There is so much damage.” And not just to her family. She took a deep breath. “It would have been twenty-five years this week.”

It had been a day much like this one, she remembered. Changeable weather. The mountains playing a game of hide-and-seek behind the clouds.

And then the accident.

Five people had gone up the mountain and only one had walked away.

It was one anniversary she wouldn’t be celebrating.


CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_71868c20-9cca-54b7-b3ff-334bb001c1c3)

Posy

THE GLENSAY INN was a traditional Highland coaching inn with stone floors, rustic wooden tables and a beamed ceiling. A log fire crackled and danced in the hearth and hurricane lamps hung either side of the bar. In the summer people spilled out into the garden, but on a freezing winter’s night like tonight the place was crowded, the atmosphere thickened with the smell of whiskey and locally brewed beer. A stranger venturing inside out of the cold would find warmth not only by the fire, but also in the welcome.

Posy and Luke fought their way to an empty table close to the fire.

It took about five minutes to cross the room because she knew almost everyone there and they all had something to share with her about her dad, her mom, the mountain rescue team and the weather forecast.

When they finally reached the table, a roar of laughter had them both glancing toward the bar.

“Someone is having a good time.” Luke unzipped his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair.

“I hope you weren’t expecting somewhere private.” She unwound her scarf and waved at Geoff, the landlord, who raised his hand in return. Ignoring the throng of people trying to get his attention, he walked across with two bottles of beer.

“This will get you both started.”

“Thanks, Geoff. You’re my hero. How is your knee?” Posy kissed him on the cheek and Geoff flushed to the roots of his hair.

“Playing up, but that’s the cold weather. I shouldn’t complain, but I do it anyway because this place gives me a captive audience. I hear she took you ice climbing, Luke.”

“She did.” Luke settled himself by the fire. “We climbed three long pitches of continuous ice and my muscles are screaming. And watching the way she smacked her axe into that ice—well, let’s just say I’m going to be careful not to upset her.”

Geoff put the bottles on the table. “If you want a mountain guide, you can’t do better than our Posy.”

Our Posy. As if she was somehow the property of the local community, like the books in the library.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Geoff.”

“She knows her way round these hills like I know my way round a beer barrel. There were folks who didn’t take her seriously when she first joined the team.” He rested his hands on the back of Posy’s chair, settling in to tell his story. “Back then it was mostly six-foot men, and there was Posy, this wee wisp of a thing with her hair in bunches.”

“I never wore my hair in bunches.” Posy shrugged out of her coat, showering snow onto the floor. “And the �wee wisp’ would love to be able to get to her beer, if you’ll excuse me.”

Geoff stepped to one side and let her sit down. “She’s the best mountain guide in these parts.”

“Hey! Can we get some service around here?” A man at the bar bellowed and Geoff’s benevolent expression was replaced by a scowl.

“You’ll have to excuse Callum. Why did you ever date him, Posy?”

“Lapse in judgment.” And she wasn’t ever going to be allowed to forget it.

That, she thought, was the major downside of living in a small community. You could never escape your mistakes, and Callum was most definitely her biggest one.

As Geoff walked away from them, she saw Luke glance toward the bar, where Callum was holding forth, and then back to her.

“You dated that guy?”

“What can I say? I was twenty-two. I didn’t know any better. We broke up after six months.” Thinking about it was embarrassing. Talking about it, more so.

His brows rose. “It lasted six months?”

“Half of that was me trying to work out how to break it off without having to move to a different part of the country.”

“I can imagine relationships can get a little awkward in a community of this size.”

“You have no idea. Callum was the first and only time I dated anyone from the village.”

“Who do you date now?”

“Mostly I seduce the people who rent the barn, and when I’m done with them, I drop their bodies in the loch. Slàinte!” She tapped her bottle against his, unwilling to admit how barren her love life was. “To a great day in the mountains. You’re not a bad climber, Luke Whittaker.”

“Thank you. You’re not bad yourself for a wee wisp of a thing.”

She paused with the beer bottle halfway to her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to give me problems?”

“Maybe.”

“Thanks for the warning.” She drank, and the beer was cool and delicious. All in all, she was in a good mood. Climbing did that for her. She’d inherited that love from her parents.

The focus required was almost like meditation. Out there in the mountains there was no anxiety or stress beyond the danger of the ice. There was only the thwack of her axe, the smack of the spike at the front of her boots, the flexing of muscle. Just her and the challenge. The rock. The mountain.

And, today, the man sitting in front of her.

In the center of the table a candle flickered in the jar, sending a glow of soft light across Luke’s features.

He reached for his beer. “The ice climbing here is incredible. More challenging than I expected.”

“I’m glad you didn’t fall and die.”

“Good to know you care, Wisp.” He lifted the bottle and drank.

“We need you to pay rent on the barn, that’s all it is. And don’t call me Wisp.”

They ordered food and chatted as they waited for it to arrive. He talked about the climbs he’d done in Yosemite, the Cascades and the Tetons. She listened and then pounded him with questions, thirsty for more information. What routes had he taken? How did the climbing differ from the Alps?

The conversation left her revved up and excited.

“You’re a good climber.” Luke finished his beer. “I’m surprised you haven’t been tempted to spread your wings and try some of these climbs yourself.”

She’d been tempted.

“No wings. Just my boots and my ice axe.” And a big, heavy anchor holding her in place.

He put the bottle down. “You’d like to leave, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw your expression when we talked about it the other day. And I’ve been watching you.”

She felt as if she’d been caught naked. “Are you some sort of stalker?”

“No.”

“Then you’re interested in human behavior.”

He smiled. “I’m interested in you, Posy McBride.” His confession made her heart beat faster.

Was he flirting? What did it say about her that she didn’t even know?

“I’m not that interesting.”

“I disagree. And I’m intrigued as to what makes a woman with your gifts stay in one place her whole life.”

“You make it sound as if I’ve never left the village. You should know I’ve often ventured beyond the Scottish border.” She fiddled with the bottle in her hand. “I’m happy.”

“But that doesn’t stop you wondering what it would be like to climb in other places. And live somewhere the local population doesn’t know everything about you.”

“They don’t know everything. That’s ridiculous.”

Geoff arrived at that moment and put plates of food in front of them. “I swapped your carrots for peas, Posy, because I know you hate carrots.”

Great!

“Thanks.” She waited for Geoff to walk away and shrugged. “So he knows I don’t like carrots. That doesn’t prove anything.”

Luke leaned across and stole one of her chips. “It’s not wrong to question the life you’re living, Posy. It’s understandable that someone like you would want to explore the world.”

“I don’t know why you’re eating my chips when you have a bowl of your own.” She picked up her fork but immediately put it down again. “It would devastate Mom if I left. And anyway, I’m going to take over the café one day.”

She owed Suzanne and Stewart everything.

They’d sacrificed their own plans for the future, their dreams, to take in three orphaned children.

Without them, what life would she have had? Not this one, that was for sure.

Luke tucked into his food. “Maybe you should talk to her about it.”

Mom, I’ve been thinking of leaving Glensay.

Mom, I’d like to spend some time climbing in North America.

Mom, I don’t want to take over the café.

“I don’t think so.”

She stared miserably at her plate, feeling trapped.

Luke reached across and closed his hand over hers. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not used to talking about it, that’s all. By the way, the fact that you held my hand will be all around the village by morning.” But she left her hand in his. She wasn’t sure why, given that there would be a price to pay in terms of teasing, except that it felt right.

He turned her hand over. “Your hands are pretty smooth for a climber.” He ran his thumbs over the tips of her fingers.

“I don’t climb as much as you do. Also, I have a secret weapon.”

“You avoid washing up and lounging in hot tubs?”

“That, too, but also I use a honey moisturizer that we sell at the café. It’s good. You?”

“Grapeseed oil. And I rely on athletic tape.” He let go of her hand and sat back.

She felt a pang of regret. “You’re worried about gossip?”

He smiled. “I was thinking about you. You’re the one who has to carry on living here after I’ve left.”

It was a reminder that he’d be moving on and she’d be staying here, doing the things she always did. Talking to the same people she always talked to. Climbing the same mountains she always climbed. Running the café.

She reached for her beer and took a mouthful.

The years stretched ahead of her and she caught a glimpse of her future, which looked the same as her present. No surprises. No adventure. The only change would be the patterns she created on top of her cappuccinos. Her life was depressingly predictable.

And whose fault was that?

She put the bottle down. “I feel I ought to warn you that I’m about to kiss you.”

His expression didn’t change. “Interesting. But if handholding will create gossip, what will kissing do?”

“We’re about to find out. It’s my civic duty to give the community something new to talk about.”

There was a pause. “And you’re all right with that?”

“I’m going to learn not to care. This is a good place to start.” She stood up, took his face in her hands and pressed her mouth to his before she could change her mind.

At first the kiss was slow and gentle. She controlled it, he responded, and although his mouth was warm and undeniably skilled, he was also careful and restrained as if he was holding back. And then something shifted.

She’d intended the kiss to be fun. A statement perhaps, or possibly an experiment. She hadn’t anticipated that he might play an active part in that experiment.

He slid his hand behind her head, keeping their mouths fused as the kiss turned hotter and more urgent. She felt the skill of his mouth, the slide of his tongue, and lost all sense of time and place. It was insanely erotic, her response to him shockingly raw and primal. To anybody watching, nothing had changed, but for her everything had changed. Her heart hammered against her chest. Pleasure exploded inside her and her body was saturated with need. She lowered her hands to his shoulders, no longer confident that her limbs could hold her.

When he eventually withdrew his mouth from hers, she couldn’t work out why he would end something that felt so good.

His gaze held hers, his eyes sleepy and dark with desire.

Her heart was pounding. The loud hum of background noise faded to nothing. It was only as she floated back to earth that she heard the catcalls.




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