Home for Christmas

Chapter 29

It was almost dark by the time Jude and I had finished kissing and making up in the Wishing Tree clearing and we were able to sneak away from the hall and back to the house, unseen. Having only just found our way back to each other, we weren’t ready to go public quite yet, but there was one person Jude needed to let know how the day had turned out.

‘So, how did you find it, staying in a converted horsebox?’ I asked him as he sent Bear a message, having explained to me that that’s where he’d been holed up while he tried to get his head and heart straight and his injuries further healed.

‘Now, don’t make too much of this,’ Jude said, grinning, as I negotiated the drove roads back to town, paying particular attention as we passed the spot of his crash. He didn’t comment on the location, and neither did I.

‘Go on,’ I encouraged him. ‘Tell me.’

‘I actually found it a bit lacking on the décor front,’ he admitted.

My mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

‘I know,’ Jude laughed at my response, or lack of it, as his phone loudly pinged. ‘You’ve maximized me, Bella! I prefer a full house now to a spartan one. It feels so much cosier and more lived in.’

‘Well,’ I said, finally finding my voice, ‘at least I’ve done something right since you’ve been here, then.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’ve done loads right. We both have.’

He was correct, of course. It was only our previous miscommunication about our true feelings for each other that had made a mess of things, and that was all very happily untangled now.

‘We have,’ I therefore agreed, feeling my festive spirit suddenly soar as I realized that we were both in for a fabulous Christmas. ‘And now everything’s all right.’

‘One hundred per cent all right. Better than all right, in fact.’ Jude grinned, and I smiled back. ‘Bear says he can drop my stuff at the hall tomorrow for us to pick up,’ he read off his phone screen. ‘I take it you were planning to go back again?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I always visit the Winter Wonderland on both the days that it’s running.’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’ Jude chuckled. ‘And actually, I’d like a look at it all, too, because I mostly stayed out of sight today, trying to pluck up the courage to talk to you if I saw you and not get spotted by the Connellys.’

‘Now I think about it,’ I said thoughtfully, thinking more about Bear, ‘when I saw Bear in the pub, he was keen to ask if I was going to be at the hall today.’

I wondered if Molly had had an inkling that something was afoot, too.

‘We actually have a lot to thank Bear for.’ Jude smiled. ‘Not only did he move the horsebox away from Cuckoo Cottage so I could stay in it without Holly seeing me, but he also gave me a good talking to about telling you the truth about how I really feel. He’s become a firm friend. And a straight-talking one, too.’

‘In that case,’ I responded, thinking that the two men had got to know each other far better than I had realized, ‘we really do have a lot to thank him for.’

‘And then there’s the book, of course,’ Jude said.

‘The book?’ I asked as we neared the sanctuary of home. ‘The Connelly one, you mean?’

‘No,’ he said mysteriously. ‘Not that one.’

‘There’s another?’

‘There is now,’ he said, rubbing his hands together.

‘Tell me!’ I insisted.

‘Bear has put me in touch with a family that wants me to write about the history of their historical home, just like I’m doing for Catherine and Angus,’ he explained excitedly. ‘He was talking to the owners about the idea a while ago, while restoring a part of their garden. He didn’t think he knew anyone who could do it at the time, but then he met me again and heard more about my change of direction and put me forward for it.’

‘Oh wow,’ I gasped. ‘That’s fantastic! How wonderful to have your next project lined up before you’ve finished the current one. That’s a great position to be in.’

‘It is,’ said Jude, rubbing his hands together again. ‘We sorted it all out in the first few days following the crash,’ he said. ‘We got together to talk it through and then had a few Zoom meetings with the family to firm up the details.’

‘So that’s where you kept disappearing to.’

That made total sense.

‘Yes,’ Jude said, nodding. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about it until everything was signed and sealed.’

‘And is it now?’

‘It is,’ he said happily.

‘Is the house you’re going to be writing about very far away?’

I didn’t like the thought of him disappearing so soon after we’d got together.

‘Just over the county line in Norfolk.’ He grinned.

‘So does that mean you’re planning to hang around Wynbridge for a while?’ I asked, feeling my stomach swoop with further excitement at the thought.

‘Absolutely. You won’t be getting rid of me in a hurry.’

‘It’s just as well I didn’t let your room out when you disappeared, then, isn’t it?’ I responded mischievously, feeling even happier. We both knew I wouldn’t have done that, but it was fun to tease him.

‘Actually,’ he then said more seriously. ‘I wanted to talk to you about the room.’

‘Go on,’ I said, as I turned the car onto the drive.

The porch was perfectly lit, and I couldn’t wait to show Jude the tree inside.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would love to stay at the house, if you’re happy for me to. But I was wondering if I could move into the apartment, so you could have the run of the rest of the place as you usually would at this time of year. I don’t want to put our relationship under any pressure, and I know how much you love living in the house during the closed season.’

‘Are you sure you’ll be able to manage the stairs?’

‘Absolutely.’

Given his previous athleticism in the bedroom, a single flight of stairs should prove to be no problem now, and I felt my cheeks colour at the memory.

‘All right,’ I agreed, thinking his suggestion was a good one. ‘That sounds perfect. I haven’t actually taken any early bookings for the house yet, and I can block out a bit more time to give us longer into next year to enjoy some peace and privacy. We can decide what to do after that when the spring reservations start rolling in.’

Jude didn’t say anything, and I felt my stomach lurch.

‘I mean,’ I started, and swallowed, trying to backtrack in case he thought I was looking too far ahead, ‘that is, if you think that would work. I don’t want you panicking that I’m expecting you to stay for the duration…’

Jude’s sudden smile made the words die in my throat.

‘I think it’s an amazing idea,’ he said. ‘I just can’t believe that it’s coming from the woman I love, who I thought was superglued to brief relationship encounters and all set to permanently ring-fence her heart.’

He was right. It was quite a turnaround, but I wasn’t focused on that.

‘The woman you what ?’ I squeaked.

I watched Jude’s expression as he played over what he had just said.

‘The woman I love,’ he repeated, guessing which words I’d honed in on. He clearly wasn’t afraid of saying them again, either. ‘But don’t panic, I don’t expect you to say it back.’

‘But I do love you, Jude,’ I said, without a pause. ‘I’ve loved you for quite some time.’

‘Well, how about that?’ he said, leaning across to kiss me again.

‘How about that indeed?’ I laughed when we pulled apart.

Just as she had always been, Tink was ecstatic to see Jude. And just as I had known he wouldn’t, he didn’t make it up to the apartment or into his bed in the spare room that night.

‘Do we really have to go back to Wynthorpe today?’ he asked me early the next morning as I carried a tray up to the bedroom, loaded with tea and toast.

While I had been making us breakfast, I’d tried to call Mum and give her the thrilling news that Jude and I were together, but she hadn’t answered her mobile. Given what I now knew she really felt about love and that she had wanted me to track Jude down, I couldn’t wait to tell her how everything had turned out, but my announcement would have to go unspoken a bit longer. Hopefully, she’d spot my missed call and ring back soon.

‘I’d much rather stay holed up here with you, Tink and that fabulous tree,’ Jude continued.

He loved the way I had decorated the tree and eventually said he forgave me for doing it without him. Given that he had disappeared with no hint that he was ever coming back, there wasn’t anything to forgive there, but I was delighted that he felt miffed to have missed taking part.

The Jude who had turned up with his Christmas ill-wishes just a few weeks ago wouldn’t have given a damn, but he wasn’t that man now. He’d worked through his former relationship trauma and the impact it had had on his relationship with Christmas – and I certainly wasn’t the woman he’d first met, either.

We’d both been on the receiving end of a Christmas miracle, and we were still three days away from the big day yet. And I had no intention of wasting a single second of them. Not that time spent in bed with Jude was wasted, but you know what I mean.

‘As tempting as that sounds,’ I therefore told him as I carefully set down the tray and encouraged Tink to get off the bed, so there was room for me to get back into it, ‘today is the twenty-second of December. And you may not realize this, but I have a whole lot of Christmas catching-up to do.’

‘Such as?’ Jude asked with interest, inching himself up in the bed and wincing a little in the process.

Given the stamina and strength he had again shown overnight, his discomfort was no surprise, but we’d have to be more careful going forward if we didn’t want to hinder his post-crash recovery.

‘Well,’ I said, bracing myself to reel everything off, ‘I have presents to deliver, more baking to do, the house to clean, a Christmas shop to undertake—’

‘You don’t have it delivered?’

‘No,’ I told him. ‘I prefer to shop local and that’s just as well, isn’t it, because I daresay the butcher, baker and—’

‘Candlestick-maker?’ Jude butted in.

‘Oh,’ I said, reaching to make a note on my phone, ‘candles…’

‘Go on,’ he nudged me, making everything on the tray wobble.

‘And Chris on the fruit and veg stall, I was going to say,’ I corrected him, ‘will be able to provide everything I’m going to need more easily than a supermarket with limited stock this close to the twenty-fifth and with a million online orders to try to honour.’

‘Surely you won’t need that much more just because I’m back?’

I gave him a look.

‘Fair enough,’ he said, grinning. ‘There’s something missing from your list, though.’

‘There is?’ I gasped, looking down it again. ‘What?’

‘A party, of course,’ he said, as if that should have been obvious. ‘With your hosting skills, I’m sure a festive drinks and nibbles soirée here would be wonderful.’

‘Maybe next December,’ I said, my mind already filling up with ideas for décor and dishes and the image of us hosting it together. ‘I think I’ve got enough to contend with for now, and it would be a bit short notice.’

‘True,’ Jude agreed.

‘I feel like I’m going to cram the twelve days of Christmas into far less than half that time this year,’ I laughed, looking again at my lengthy to-do list.

‘And I can’t tell you,’ Jude said, beaming, ‘how thrilled I am to be here doing it all with you.’

I was extremely happy about that, too.

We were nowhere near as early in setting off for the hall as I had been the day before, and as a result, we had to park quite a distance away from where everything was set up.

‘Well, I never,’ Archie said with a grin, as he directed me to a space and spotted who leant over and kissed my cheek as I applied the handbrake. ‘Together at last!’

I rolled my eyes at that. It didn’t turn out to be the only time we heard the comment that day, either.

‘Bella!’ shouted Holly, from her place with Bear in the queue for a sleigh ride.

Jude and I walked over to join them, and Bear had the biggest grin on his face. Holly biffed him on the arm when she noticed it.

‘I had absolutely no idea!’ was the first thing she said to me. ‘Had I known you’d genuinely fallen for each other and had an inkling that Jude was staying in the horsebox, I would have been straight on the phone to you.’

‘Which is exactly why I didn’t want you finding out,’ Bear teased, and tickled her side. ‘I was more than capable of matchmaking. Or tying up the loose ends, at least.’

‘Well,’ Holly pouted, ‘I would have liked to take some of the credit.’

‘No way,’ said Bear. ‘This was all me. Or at least, a bit me.’

‘So you’re properly together, then?’ Holly asked me, biting her lip.

‘We are,’ I said, as Jeanie came rushing up with Tim in hot pursuit and weighed down with bags, which told us that our friend had been catching up with her Christmas shopping.

‘A little Connelly bird,’ she said, beaming and pulling me in for a hug, ‘has just told me that you two are an item. A proper item. I can’t believe it! I’m so pleased for you, Bella. And Jude,’ she said, turning her attention to my beau, ‘you must be quite a guy to have cracked the lock on Bella’s heart.’

‘Oh, I am,’ he said nonchalantly, which made us all laugh. ‘And she’s quite a gal, to have helped me through some difficult stuff during these last few weeks, too.’

‘No more hating on Christmas?’ Jeanie asked in her usual blunt manner.

‘Definitely not,’ Jude confirmed.

‘So,’ said Tim, ‘are we all queueing up for a sleigh ride, then?’

We watched the sleigh return. It looked like a bit of a bumpy ride.

‘I know it looks romantic,’ Jude said to me, ‘but I think I’m going to sit it out. I’m not sure my ribs can take it, after…’

His words trailed off, and I felt a blush blooming because I knew exactly what he was referring to. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. Once the whoops and teasing had died down, Tim said he had a thirst on him and would take Jude for a drink, and Bear then suggested that he could tag along with them, too. I gave Jude the keys to my car so Bear could shift Jude’s stuff from the truck to my Fiat, and that left Jeanie, Holly and I to take a turn in the sleigh together.

‘We can go later,’ Bear told Holly, ‘and I can promise it will be far more romantic without this lot looking on.’

‘All right,’ she relented, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘Come on, girls. My treat.’

Sitting in the shiny red sleigh between my two best friends, with a vast, warming blanket stretched across all our knees, I filled them in on what had most recently happened between Jude and me. Even though Holly already knew some of it, she was keen to know all the details. Well, nearly all of them.

‘So you really have fallen for him, then?’ Jeanie asked, once I’d finished my explanation and as we whizzed along, our eyes watering because of the chilly breeze.

‘I really have,’ I said, still amazed to hear myself saying the words out loud.

‘And he’s fallen for you, too,’ Holly dreamily added.

‘How amazing is this?’ Jeanie laughed. ‘We’re all of us loved up for Christmas! Well done us! What does your mum make of it, though, Bella?’ she asked. ‘I bet she’s a bit shocked, isn’t she?’

‘I haven’t managed to get hold of her yet,’ I said, pulling out my phone and checking it again. ‘But she might not be quite as shocked as you are no doubt thinking.’

‘Oh?’ Jeanie frowned. ‘Why’s that, then?’

It was my turn to shock them then.

‘So,’ said Holly, once I’d finished telling them about Mum’s real thoughts relating to matters of the heart and what she had wanted me to do about Jude. ‘It turns out she’s not down on love, after all.’

‘Nope,’ I confirmed. ‘And now neither am I!’

For once, Jeanie looked completely flabbergasted.

Jude loved the Wynthorpe Hall Winter Wonderland experience as much as I did, and we spent hours there. We were just getting ready to go, as I was mindful that Tink was home alone, when Angus finally caught up with us.

‘I hear congratulations are in order!’ he boomed loud enough for everyone on the entire estate to hear. ‘Jamie tells me you’re together at last.’

The day before, I had predicted that Archie was turning into his father, but now I realized a fair bit of the wonderful man’s genes, generosity and love of a good gossip had rubbed off on Jamie, too.

‘We are,’ Jude and I said together, and he squeezed my fingers even tighter.

‘I had a feeling this might happen,’ Angus said, beaming, looking at our entwined hands. ‘And I’m thrilled for you both. I hope you won’t have to leave the area too soon, Jude?’

Jude then told Angus a little of what he had lined up to do after he’d finished writing the Wynthorpe Hall book, and his current employer looked thrilled.

‘And I’d very much like to show you the chapter outlines for your book after Christmas, Angus,’ Jude added, and Angus looked even more elated.

‘I can’t wait to see them,’ he said, nodding. ‘And I know you found us a lot to live with,’ he said, clapping poor Jude heartily on the back, ‘but I always felt that, deep down, you were already one of us.’

In spite of his rattling ribs, Jude looked delighted to hear him say that.

‘Why don’t you come into the hall,’ Angus then suggested, ‘and we’ll find the others and open a bottle or four to celebrate?’

‘I’m sorry, Angus,’ I apologized. ‘I really need to get back for Tink, and I need to call Mum, too. I’ve been trying to contact her all day, but she hasn’t been answering her phone.’

‘Doesn’t she know about you two yet?’ Angus asked with a grimace.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet, but fear not. Her reaction isn’t going to be what you might expect.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ll fill you in another time,’ I told him.

‘What’s going on?’ Jude asked as we went off to search for my car.

On the journey home, I filled him in on how Mum’s opinions about love were actually completely at odds with what I had always assumed she felt.

‘Oh my goodness,’ he said, letting out a breath as I finally drew one in. ‘Clearly we weren’t the only ones with crossed wires in the heart department, then.’

‘I know,’ I said, shaking my head as my phone began to chime. ‘The fact that they’re all now uncrossed is the best Christmas present ever.’

‘That’s your mum,’ said Jude, looking at the screen. ‘You’d better ring her back as soon as we get in. I’ll see to Tink.’

My boots were barely off before my phone rang again, and that time I was able to answer. Mum’s face filled the screen.

‘Mum!’ I said, as I headed up to my room and Jude let Tink into the garden. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.’

‘I’ve just realized,’ she said, looking rather flushed. ‘I was… preoccupied. So,’ she then urged me, ‘tell me.’

‘I found Jude!’ I said happily. ‘Or rather we found each other. At the Wishing Tree, of all places…’

‘And?’ Mum asked impatiently.

‘We’re together.’ I grinned. ‘We’re a couple.’

My own cheeks flushed as brightly as Mum’s when I said that.

‘Oh, my darling girl,’ she said, her eyes filling with joyful tears. ‘I’m so happy for you!’

‘I’m happy for me, too,’ I laughed, propping up my phone and shrugging off my coat.

‘I can see that.’ Mum nodded. ‘And I’m happy for me , too,’ she added intriguingly.

‘Any particular reason?’

I wondered if the ‘preoccupation’ she had mentioned was connected to her flushed complexion.

‘There is one,’ she said with a smile.

‘Go on.’

‘I’m in love, too,’ she blurted out. ‘I think Henri and I are going to go the distance!’