Just for Christmas - Emily Harvale Page 0,31

is ticking and it waits for no man. Or woman. Let’s make a decision and get these sofas ordered. And while you’re doing that. I’ll go and make some tea. I’m gasping all of a sudden.’

Nothing more was said about providing Miracle with a home, nor about Jolene, and as the weather had taken a turn for the worse, they hadn’t stayed at the cottage much longer.

Driving home, both were once again deep in their own thoughts and although Molly tried to make conversation about how heavy the snow was becoming and how icy the roads were getting, Chance didn’t seem to want to talk.

The drive took about four minutes, and yet again, Chance made an excuse to let Molly go indoors before him to avoid them being under that damn mistletoe together. This time he said he needed something from his boot and he’d be inside in a second.

Molly went in without him and saw that Vicky was fast asleep on the loveseat and so were both of the dogs.

‘I’ll make dinner,’ Molly offered, when Chance came in a few minutes later, and he didn’t argue with that.

She made pasta with mushrooms, walnuts and blue cheese, having checked with both Vicky and Chance that they liked the sound of that.

Afterwards, with varying amounts of input from both Molly and his mum, Chance finally made several decisions about sofas and other furniture and placed a number of orders to be delivered over the coming days and between the Christmas break and New Year. Most of the items were from local stores, and were being delivered from stock, so at least the waiting times were short.

Molly went to bed, again before Chance and his mum. It had been yet another strange day and her feelings for Chance were growing deeper.

She would have to be careful of that.

But the way he’d looked at her when she’d got upset about Miracle, made her think she wasn’t the only one who needed to take care.

Sixteen

Monday morning brought the heaviest snowfall the UK had seen in some time. It wasn’t exactly the blizzard some had predicted; there wasn’t any wind, but thick snow had fallen throughout the night and by morning there were several inches covering the ground.

Even the dogs showed their surprise. Beauty, by stopping in her tracks and needing to be coaxed into going outside; Miracle, by diving head first into the deep drift and completely disappearing, only to resurface, nose first, a few feet away from the house, like the periscope of a submarine

Chance had been the first one up, but only by a few seconds, and Molly and Vicky shrieked with delight when they saw the amount of snow outside.

‘It might look beautiful,’ Chance said, as he made coffee, ‘but it’s going to mean delays with the cottage, which is a nuisance to say the least. None of the things we ordered last night will make it through in this.’

‘We both warned you that you were leaving things very late, darling,’ Vicky said, somewhat unhelpfully.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Chance frowned at her.

‘Don’t give me that look.’ She grinned at him. ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame.’

‘Nothing is arriving until Wednesday,’ Molly said. ‘Conditions may be better by then. I can’t remember the last time we had a white Christmas, so it’ll probably melt in a day or so and life will be back to normal.’

‘I admire your optimism,’ Chance said, feeling life, at least for him, would never be normal again.

He’d hardly got any sleep last night. All he had thought about was how badly he’d wanted to kiss Molly as he’d tried to reassure her about Miracle. He’d managed to keep her at arm’s length, but the urge to pull her to him had been so strong and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could fight the intense attraction he was feeling.

He had never cheated on anyone in his life and this definitely wasn’t the time to start. He’d bought a ring, for God’s sake and was planning to propose to Jolene on New Year’s Eve, but whenever he tried to picture it, the only person he was able to visualise standing before him as he got down on one knee in the cottage, was Molly, not Jolene.

It was only because he was spending so much time with Molly. Wasn’t it? And because he and Jolene were thousands of miles apart. They video-called one another every day but that wasn’t the same.

And that wasn’t true. It was Jolene who made all