Page 58 of His Until Christmas

For a brief, heart-clenching moment, Gran looks so like her old self that I have to blink away a sudden sting at her getting busy.For us.“Talk me through what you have already, decoration-wise.” She gestures at the tree in the corner of the room, each bough sparkling. “Is there enough to make your castle festive?”

Arthur shakes his head. “No, I can’t say there is. I’m particularly low on lights and tinsel.”

That’s okay.

I know someone who has plenty.

One train later,I’m in Cornwall.

I only wish it was faster instead of stopping at every station. At least these extra hours give me time to plan how to thank Arthur for staying with Gran. All I hear is the happy scratch of her pencil as a train carries me even further from London. That happy scratching and Arthur’s gruff, “Hurry home,” are sung by train wheels along tracks heading southwest instead of southeast, and Iamhurrying home, only not to mine.

It still takes forever, but I’m on a trajectory that started seven days ago with Rex refusing to accept my notice.

How the hell did I ever think escaping to a bigger and brighter city was an option?

Now a taxi drives me steeply downhill, into a little village that sparkles in a new way to me. Porthperrin is a pretty setting to see stars twinkle, if faintly, over the sea. I bet there will be more once the sky fully darkens. For now, it’s laced with dusky pink and purple, and with what I’m always going to think of as Trelawney golden. That’s what catches my eye when the front door is opened at my destination.

Reece’s mother is as fair-haired as him. “Jack! Does Reece know you’re coming?” I’m not sure whether to answer as a PA or a boyfriend. Lynne makes it clear she knows the difference. “Now he won’t have any excuse not to stay for dinner.”

“He wasn’t going to stay?”

“No. He told me he’d pop in for a chat, but he’d arranged cover at the island to get straight back to London. Toyou.” Her hug could give Gran’s a run for tightness. I’m almost strangled,but that’s okay. It stops me from mentioning what is stacked behind her.

Tote after tote fill the hallway, all labelledReece’s Room, and I bet I know what they hold.

I also know he wants to have a conversation about their contents himself, and a good PA always keeps their employer’s counsel. That rule comes directly after thenever lose track of your bossinstruction, so I zip my lips and wait for her to grab her coat to show me to the pub where he’s meant to meet her.

“We were all going to eat there until he said he couldn’t wait to see you. Now he can stay, we’ll just fit an extra chair for you next to his. You’ll enjoy it,” she promises. “Friday nights are always fun at the Anchor. There’s a live band and dancing.”

We head downhill together, to where another flash of gold signals that I’ve found the only man I want to dance with in London or Cornwall.

Reece.

I’d know those wide shoulders anywhere, even if a harbour light didn’t make trademark Trelawney hair glint this brightly. I spy it gleaming at the end of a narrow alley, and I can’t help hurrying ahead, splashing through puddles left by last night’s storm, where I almost lose my footing.

I yelp, and Reece turns, only he isn’t alone—his coat is open, someone snug against him and sheltered, and I grind to a complete halt.

Tell that to my body.

Forward momentum keeps me sliding, and for one long and sickening moment, I spin on slippery cobbles. Maybe that’s for the best—by the time I face forward again, still flailing for balance, I’m close enough to see it isn’t Reece at all.

Another brother runs to catch me.

Patrick.

He needn’t have bothered—Sebastian launches like a rocket, and we all topple into another puddle, but I’ll take getting a cold and soggy bottom for this kind of welcome.

They get me back onto my feet and steer me safely, like they’ve done for the last three years in London, only now they bring me safe and sound, if damp, to a harbour where music drifts from a nearby pub. Lynne heads off to organise an extra chair and two more dinners as Patrick tells me, “We were waiting for Reece. He’s on his way now.”

“There.” Sebastian points, and it takes a moment, but each one of those faint stars in the sky seems to brighten the second I spot a boat approaching.

Sebastian has questions. “So, are you gonna stay or go to?—”

“Later, babe.” Patrick adds what he might as well have chalked onto my heart as well as onto the blackboard in our kitchen. “Jack will choose for himself when he’s ready.”

That’s what I do as soon as Reece motors through waves into the harbour, although I don’t run to meet him. I don’t slip or slide, either, or end up in another puddle. I march, as determined as any soldier, until he reaches the top of granite steps and sees me.

Forget anything I ever wished or hoped or dreamed for. Him running to meet me is everything I want this Christmas.

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