Page 44 of A Cornish Winter's Kiss

‘Can I help you put some of this away?’ Jude turned towards Emily, in the middle of a lounge that now looked as though it had been ransacked by looters.

‘Don’t you dare, you’re a guest.’ Emily’s father moved to stand up from his armchair, but his face twisted in pain. Richard was suffering his third bout of sciatica in the past year and it was part of the reason why Emily had put her foot down and insisted he wouldn’t be cooking dinner this year.

‘I thought throwing myself in to games night made me an honorary part of the family? I’m sure that’s what I signed up to.’ Jude was already busying himself with putting the cushions back where there belonged on the sofa.

‘Anyway, Dad, Charlotte will be reporting you and Mum to the elves too if you don’t do as you’re told and take it a bit easy.’ Emily blew her father a kiss. ‘You can both sit here and take it easy while me and Jude get this place straight, and then I’ll make us all another drink.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Her father gave a mock salute, but the relief on his face was obvious as he relaxed back into the chair. Not that anywhere was particularly comfortable at the moment, but it was certainly better than him rushing around the way he usually did.

It only took a few minutes for Emily and Jude to clear away the games and get the lounge looking almost back to normal. Afterwards, he followed her through to the kitchen, offering to help her get the drinks, and it was the first time they’d been alone since he’d arrived.

‘Thank you for tonight.’ She turned to face him.

‘I was about to say the same to you. I had such a great evening.’ Jude smiled in a way that lit him up from the inside out. ‘This was the kind of family I used to dream of having when I was at boarding school. I used to fantasise about something happening to make Sandra disappear, and my father finding someone who’d give us the kind of life I only ever saw in the movies, with loads of kids around and lots of fun.’

‘I’m so sorry you never had that.’ Emily couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch his face.

‘For a really long time I felt sorry for myself too, but I don’t think I’d have appreciated a night like tonight anywhere near as much if I hadn’t been through all of that.’ Jude had a way of looking at her that made it feel as if the rest of the world had disappeared. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done to me, Emily Anderson, but I like it a lot.’

‘I like it a lot too.’ She lifted her face up towards his and kissed him, not the way she would have kissed him if she hadn’t been in her parents’ kitchen, with a very good chance of one of her family bursting in at any moment. But the kind of kiss that made her feel connected to Jude in a way that went beyond the purely physical. It was hard to break away, but eventually she forced herself to take a step backwards.

‘I was thinking about you all afternoon. How did it go with your dad?’

‘Really well, better than I could ever have imagined.’ Jude shook his head, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it, and by the time he’d finished recounting the conversation with his father, Emily was struggling with her own emotions.

‘It sounds like Viv finally made your dad realise that bottling up his feelings to try and protect you was the worst thing he could have done.’

‘It seems all the Cavendish men need someone to help them realise what’s right in front of their faces. Although now you’veforced me to admit I have feelings, you’ve only got yourself to blame if I start writing poetry comparing you to stars in the midnight sky, or buying you giant teddy bears clutching red satin hearts.’ He laughed and Emily gave an exaggerated shrug.

‘I think I can live with the consequences, but if you get me a plastic rose, or a pillow with your face printed on it, I’m taking out a restraining order.’

‘Maybe I’ll just kiss you again to be on the safe side.’ Almost as soon as Jude pressed his lips against hers, Charlotte charged through the door of the kitchen.

‘Can you two stop slobbering all over each other for five minutes? Some of us are dying of thirst in there.’ Charlotte’s laughter was still ringing around the kitchen when she disappeared back down the hallway, her delight at taking the mickey out of her little sister exactly the same as it had been when they were kids.

‘Are you still enjoying the chaos of family life?’ Emily gave Jude a rueful grin, and he nodded.

‘I think I could definitely get used to it.’ As Jude took hold of her hand, Emily reminded herself to be careful. It was so easy to picture Jude as a permanent fixture, but his life had been flipped upside down since they’d got to Cornwall. Everything that happened between them might be down to the shock of discovering so much about his past in such a short time. For all Emily knew, this could just be a form of distraction, so that he didn’t have to process it all at once. She had to hold on to the possibility that when the dust settled, he’d decide he still didn’t really believe in the idea of love. All Emily could do was pray that he didn’t go back to thinking that way, because it was already too late to protect her heart from getting broken if he did.

20

On the morning of Christmas Eve, the sky was a strange mix of dove-grey clouds and streaks of pink that hung around long after sunrise.

‘Do you think it might snow?’ Emily turned to Jude as they climbed the coastal path towards the cliffs that looked down over Port Agnes. She couldn’t keep the note of hopefulness out of her voice. She knew the kids would love it if there was snow, but she wanted it too. She wanted that magical Christmas moment featured in so many of the romance novels she adored, but which in truth so rarely happened, especially on the west coast of Cornwall.

‘The sky does look like it’s promising something. Can you imagine what it would be like in Puffin’s Rest, looking out of those full-length windows as the world gets slowly blanketed by soft white snow?’

‘Oh, Jude, I don’t know what I’ve done to you, but I think I might have made my favourite crime writer into a romance author instead.’ She shook her head in mock concern, and he raised his eyebrows.

‘Your favourite crime writer? I know you’ve read the McGuigan books, but I didn’t think it was your genre?’

‘It wasn’t, but when we met, I wanted to understand you. That’s why I started to read the rest of your books too, because there’s one thing I’ve learned about authors since I started working with so many of them.’

‘Is it that we’re all mad?’ He was deadpan, but she couldn’t help laughing.

‘Well, maybe a bit, but in a good way. That wasn’t what I was getting at though. I was going to say that the more authors I’ve worked with, the more I’ve realised you all reveal a part of who you are in every book you write.’

‘Should it concern me what you’ve discovered about me?’

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