Just for Christmas - Emily Harvale Page 0,51

you today. And I have.’

‘Actually, you haven’t. All you’ve said so far is “those kisses”. I need details, like when? Where? What were you wearing, if anything?’

‘Sarah! He’s got a girlfriend.’ Molly stretched out and slapped Sarah’s hand. ‘I shouldn’t even have kissed the man. But I’d definitely draw the line at that.’

‘He kissed you more than once?’ Terry checked.

‘Yes. Once under the mistletoe. But it was a really passionate kiss. Tongues and everything. I almost melted on the spot.’

Terry grinned. ‘He clearly wasn’t thinking about whatshername at the time. What is her name?’

‘Jolene.’ Sarah and Molly laughed as they sang out the name. ‘Like in the song.’

Terry furrowed his brows. ‘Whatever. And the second time?’

‘In the hall. I was standing on the bottom stair and he came to thank me for my presents and he kissed me instead. Oh. You won’t believe what he gave me.’ She rummaged in her bag. ‘I’ve brought it with me. Look. Do you remember this, Terry? Of course you do. What am I saying?’

Terry studied the snow globe.

‘I think you had … oh my God!’ He saw the photo. ‘Sarah, look. This was taken on Christmas Day the year before Mum and Dad died. Where did he get it, Molly?’

‘He had a copy all this time. Mum or Dad must’ve given it to him, I suppose because he’s in it and they thought he might like it. And Sarah, the snow globe is just like one I had. But it got broken that year.’

Sarah beamed at her. ‘He clearly did like the photo if he’s kept it all these years. And you know what? If a man gave me a present like this I wouldn’t be worried about his girlfriend. I’d be worried about his sanity. Because a man who’s in love with someone doesn’t give another woman a present like this. To find a snow globe like one he knew you had, and to put a treasured photo in it, well, do I really have to spell it out? The man’s in love with you, Molly. He just may not realise it yet.’

‘I wish that were true.’

‘I agree with Sarah. My fiancée.’ Terry blew Sarah a kiss. ‘I would never give a present like that to a woman unless I was pretty crazy about her. And definitely not if I had a girlfriend.’

‘But you’re forgetting, Chance and I have been friends for years. That’s different.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Sarah said. ‘If my boyfriend – now my fiancé – gave another woman that present, even if he’d been born on the same day as her and they had lived next door to one another all their lives, he wouldn’t stay my fiancé. There are limits, Molly. And another thing. Chance told you himself that he’s “not a photo kind of guy”, didn’t he? He hasn’t even got a photo of his girlfriend and yet he’s kept this photo all these years. And he must’ve had it with him, either in a frame somewhere, or on his phone and he’s had it printed out. That’s a pretty big deal.’

That was true. Chance had said that. And Sarah was right. It was a big deal.

‘I don’t know. But what can I do? I can’t exactly ask him to dump his girlfriend, can I? What if he doesn’t feel like that about me? What if he does just see me as a really close friend? We’d never be able to meet again. It’d be sooooo embarrassing.’

‘But what if he does?’ Sarah said.

‘Wouldn’t he say something?’

Terry nodded. ‘If he thought there was a chance you felt that way about him. Yes. But as you just said yourself, what if he thinks you see him as merely a good friend? If he said he loved you and you said, ‘Thanks, but I don’t feel the same,’ it’d be just as embarrassing for him.’

‘I suppose it would. I didn’t think of that. And last night, he did say that he needed to tell me something. I thought he was going to tell me about the proposal and that he’d forgotten he already had. But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was going to tell me something else entirely.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Terry said. ‘And by my reckoning, you’ve got five days in which to do that. Not counting today and New Year’s Eve.’

‘And you should do it sooner rather than later,’ Sarah added. ‘You need to give him time to dump Jolene before she gets on that plane.