Page 69 of Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle

‘What about everything you’ve said? The sensible option? The daydream for another time?’

‘You were right. I knew you were right and I wasn’t brave enough to admit it. After you left, I went back inside and sat at the kitchen table, and I was holding it together, staying stoic and telling myself it was for the best. Then Nancy started playing “Coventry Carol” on her phone and casually put it down beside me and I fell apart. In one second, I realised I’d made a huge mistake, but I was too late to catch the plane.’

His eyes are welling up and there’s nothing he can do about it with his hands otherwise engaged. I reach out and hold his face, use my thumb to brush his tears away, and he turns into my palm, his shoulders straining as he automatically tries to reach out for me even though he can’t, and the sight of him so emotional makes more tears fill my eyes too.

‘Please take a chance on us – on this. The most risky thing I’ve done in fifteen years is place an ad looking for a stranger to decorate the castle, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I know this is a risk. I know you’ve got a steady job to go back to, but I am so preposterously in love with you, Lula. Even if you go back to London right now, you deserve to know that. None of it was pretend for me.’

‘None of it was pretend for me either, you know that.’ I lean over until I can press my lips to his briefly, not nearly as deeply as I want to kiss him, but the woman in the next seat is practically vibrating with anticipation and I fear she might shake the train right off the rails if we don’t get on with it. ‘I fell for you so hard, probably from the moment you held your cardigan out to me on that first evening, but I thought… I don’t know, it was all about the promotion.’

‘I wanted to save the castle. I thought that was the only way.’

‘And now?’

‘What’s the point in saving it as it is now? All the money in the world won’t change the fact that it’s a ghost. A shell of its former self. At least, it was until a few weeks ago. You are proof that putting an effort into it is what will really save it. So let’s do it properly. Let’s turn it into what it was meant to be. Let’s keep breathing life into it. But I can’t do it without you. I don’t want to do any of it without you.’

I’m crying again, tears streaming because I’ve spent the past few weeks dreaming of hearing him say those words, and never thinking he’d be brave enough to take that chance.

I lean forwards so I can kiss him again. One hand holding his face, the other rubbing the back of his neck, and he bucks up like he can shrug the handcuffs off through sheer willpower, kissing me harder than usual to make up for the lack of touch.

I’d almost forgotten the other passengers exist until they erupt into applause, and my cheeks burn as red as Ollie’s are.

‘Do you know how difficult it is to kiss someone properly when you can’t use your hands?’

‘Whose fault is that?’ the police officer grumbles back at him.

‘We really are quite late and other trains are backing up behind us.’ The conductor clears his throat and appears from behind the policeman. ‘Are you staying onboard, miss?’

‘Good lord, no!’

Ollie cheers and struggles to his feet. The police officer is kind enough to collect my suitcase from the luggage rack, and the three of us file off the train and stand back as the doors close and the engine starts up. The other passengers wave from the windows as it pulls away, and I have never been more glad not to be one of them.

‘Now what?’ I take my suitcase from the policeman and look between them.

‘When I have use of my arms again, the longest hug you’ve ever had in your life. Until then, I think you might have to wait for me in a police station for a while…’

The policeman looks at us and then at the colleague waiting for him on the platform. ‘Oh, go on, it is Christmas, after all. I’ll let you off with a warning this time. Been married for forty-three years and my wife would murder me for standing in the way of true love.’

He undoes Ollie’s handcuffs and as promised, he immediately bends until he can lift me into his arms and spins us around on the platform. I cling onto him, my hands curling into his shoulders and running over his back, trying to prove to myself that I haven’t fallen asleep on the train and this is nothing but a lovely dream.

Crowds are building around us now the next train has arrived and Ollie reluctantly puts me down. We’re giddy and neither of us can stop grinning as we sidle away hand in hand, Ollie pulling my suitcase, just like he has from the moment I met him.

‘How do we get home?’ I ask.

‘We’ve got a few hours to kill in Glasgow. The plane doesn’t leave until late afternoon.’

‘I can think of a few ways to pass the time.’

He laughs as he kisses me again, the softest and sweetest kiss, and I still can’t believe he’s here. I can’t believe he did that, and my heart is bursting with happiness and love and sheer excitement about what it will be like to have a real relationship with my pretend husband. I don’t want to take my hands off him in case letting him go is the trigger that wakes me up from this dream.

‘This won’t always be easy, you know,’ I say when we tear our lips away from each other’s.

‘It’ll be easier than the job in London. I know that.’

I know that too. No matter what the future holds, it’ll be better than grovelling at Patricia Calloway’s pointy-toed shoes and installing window displays that I had no part in creating. We’ve got an amazing family around us – pretend and real – and the most beautiful castle that people will want to visit, and more importantly than anything, we’ve got each other… and no one can ask for more than that.

EPILOGUE

ONE YEAR LATER