Cupcakes for Christmas: The most uplifting and unmissable feel good love story of Christmas 2018! (Return to Willoughby Close)

by Kate Hewitt

  “Simon suffers from depression,” Bella said quietly. “Quite serious depression. He’s struggled with it off and on since his teens, but it got worse after Andrew died. He was hospitalised for a short while, about a year and a half ago.”

  “Oh.” Olivia’s mind whirled emptily. She tried to organise her thoughts coherently, but her mind felt buzzing and blank. She hadn’t expected something like this, and yet now she wondered if she should have. Was there any way she could have known?

  “He doesn’t like talking about it,” Bella continued, “doesn’t like people knowing, because he feels like it colours their perception of him. I wouldn’t normally tell you, but I know how much he’s come to care about you, and I think it’s wrong that he’s hiding this from you…considering.” She let out a long, low breath. “He’s had a relapse over the last few days. I found him at Willoughby Close, lying in bed, practically comatose, not speaking, eating, anything. It’s how he gets sometimes. I’ve brought him back to my home, and he’s doing a bit better. He’s showered, at least.” She tried for a wry smile like Simon’s but her eyes were full of sorrow—and fear. “I don’t know what to do. He’s been on medication but he stopped it recently, and he says he doesn’t want to take it again. He won’t talk to me, and I don’t even know what set him off, if anything set him off. Sometimes it just happens.”

  Bella blinked back tears. “I’m not trying to rat him out, honestly. I’m trying to help him, and this is the only way I know how. I thought maybe if he saw you…if you talked to him…”

  Olivia’s mind suddenly sprung into gear. She still had a lot to think about and process, but if Simon needed her help, any help, then she was ready to give it. More than ready.

  “Shall I come with you now?”

  Bella nodded as she wiped a tear from her cheek. “Yes, please. He’s doing a bit better than he was…like I said, he’s showered and he ate a bit of the soup I gave him. He’s not as bad as he was, you know, before.”

  Olivia nodded, even though she didn’t really understand about before. She’d never struggled with this kind of depression herself, and already she felt out of her depth. She didn’t know what to do, but she still wanted to try.

  “I hope he’ll want to talk to you,” Bella said. “But if he doesn’t…”

  “If he doesn’t want me there, I’ll go,” Olivia reassured her. “I won’t be offended. I understand…he’s not quite himself.”

  “Except he would tell you this is himself.” Bella sighed. “At least, he would say that in the moment. It’s so hard on him, Olivia. He hates that he struggles with this. It feels like weakness to him, but it really isn’t.”

  “I know.” She knew that much, at least, about mental health issues, but not much more. And yet…things were starting to click into place.

  She remembered now what Simon had said about good days and bad days. About the value of medication and diagnosis. She recalled how Bella had hugged Simon after the Advent concert, and realised how significant it must have been for Simon to have been playing again, living again. And she thought of the days, early in their acquaintance, when he hadn’t come in for a cupcake, when he’d made what seemed like an excuse. Good and bad days. Perhaps she should have seen it, guessed it, considering the trauma he’d experienced with his brother’s death, the sensitivity he clearly showed to other people and to life itself. But she hadn’t. She’d been so concerned about her own feelings, caught up in her own fears.

  “Shall we go?” she asked, and Bella nodded.

  They drove to a modest semi-detached house on the other side of Wychwood, the part Harriet had jokingly called “the rougher side” even though there was nothing rough whatsoever about the houses there, most of which cost close to half a million pounds.

  Olivia thought about making small talk, but she couldn’t think of anything to say, and Bella seemed too tense and unhappy to talk.

  “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” she said as they got out of the car. “It’s not my secret to share, I know that.” She looked so worried and miserable that Olivia wanted to hug her.

  “I care about Simon a lot,” she said quietly. “And I mean a lot. I’m glad to know what’s going on. In some ways, it’s a relief.” Just as her mother’s diagnosis had been. Knowing was always better than not knowing…and fearing what you didn’t know.

  “A relief?” Bella looked confused.

  “When you knocked on the door, I was eating my body weight in ice cream because I was sure Simon had gone off me.”

  “I don’t think he has,” Bella said with a small smile. “In fact, I’m sure he hasn’t. He’s told me about you…about what he feels for you…”

  “Good.” Olivia smiled back, her heart feeling impossibly lighter despite all the challenges still ahead. “That’s all that matters, then.”

  “I’m glad you think that,” Bella said seriously, her smile fading. “And I hope you continue to do so.”

  A few minutes later Olivia was standing in front of a closed bedroom door, tapping on it gently. “Simon…?” she called. “It’s Olivia.” There was no answer. “Simon…” Uncertainly she pushed the door open, blinking in the gloom. She could make out a shape on the bed—Simon, sitting back against the pillows, his arms folded, his gaze distant, a cup of tea going cold on the table next to him. He didn’t speak.

  Olivia stepped into the room, praying she was strong enough for this. She hadn’t known how to handle her mum’s memory lapses, and she wasn’t sure how to handle this situation, either, but she knew she loved her mum and she was falling in love with Simon and surely, surely that was what mattered?

  “Simon.” She perched on the edge of the bed, gazing at him in tender concern. He was freshly showered and dressed in a frayed jumper and old cords, looking so wonderfully familiar and yet also so strange, for there was a vacant and desolate look in his usually glinting eyes that made her ache. “Oh, Simon.” She covered his hand with her own, having no idea what to say but simply wanting to be there for him.

  “I’m sorry.” He spoke the two words so quietly she almost didn’t hear them.

  “You don’t need to be sorry, Simon. Of course you don’t.”

  “I…I never wanted you to see me like this.”

  Tears pricked Olivia’s eyes. “Good and bad days,” she reminded him softly. “Just like you said.”

  “Yes, but…I like me on the good days.” He let out a shuddering breath. “Not like this. Never like this.”

  “You were going to have to tell me sometime,” she said quietly. “Weren’t you?”

  “I suppose. I hoped…I hoped I wouldn’t have to. It doesn’t…it doesn’t always hit me like this, you know. I can go months…even more…without feeling this way.”

  “What happened?” Olivia asked, unsure if that was the right question. “I mean, did something happen? To…set you off?” She was fumbling in the dark; she’d never dealt with depression before, not like this, and she was afraid to use the wrong words, ask the wrong questions.

  “No,” Simon said on a sigh. “Nothing did. At least, not that I know of. Sometimes it can be something on a subconscious level: a smell, a sudden memory, anything. And sometimes it’s nothing at all. I just wake up one morning and I feel it coming, like a fog I can see rolling in, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “And is that what happened this time?”

  “Yes, more or less. I was organising the house and then I woke up on the twenty-eighth and I felt as if I could barely get out of bed. As if there was no point in living.”

  Olivia caught her breath at the pain in his voice, a pain she felt in herself. This man she loved was hurting so very much. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. If it’s anyone’s, it’s—”

  “No, Simon, it’s not yours,” Olivia said fiercely. “I may not know a lot about depression, but at least I know that.” She stroked his hair, and he closed his eyes.

  “What did Bella tell you?”

&nb
sp; “Only that you suffered from depression.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her directly. “Did she tell you I was hospitalised?”

  “After your brother’s death, yes.”

  “Does that scare you off?”

  “No,” Olivia answered honestly, “but it scares me a little. Because…because I want to be able to help you, and I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing where I can.”

  “You have helped me, Olivia. Being with you…these last few weeks…it made me feel as if I’ve finally beaten this thing…which is why having it come at me again is so…so bloody difficult.” He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “I know depression doesn’t work that way, that it doesn’t follow a course, and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason, but I still convince myself that there is. That things will change.”

  “I don’t know too much about depression,” Olivia said slowly, “but I do know it’s real, not something you can just make yourself get over, or slap a smile on like a plaster. Be kind to yourself, Simon. Be forgiving.”

  “Even though I watched my brother die?” He let out a shuddering sigh. “Sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry about this. Ever.” Olivia spoke the words fiercely, and Simon gave her the barest flicker of a smile.

  “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said in a low voice. “Truly.”

  “And you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. This doesn’t change that at all. What kind of person would I be, to only take the good days and not the bad? That’s not…that’s not what love is.”

  He turned to look at her, his eyes huge and dark. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her heart beating hard. “I really do.”

  “Because I think I love you, Olivia.”

  “You only think?” she dared to tease.

  “I know, and maybe that’s part of it all. Of this. I’m scared to let you in, to let you see my darkness, especially when we’ve only known each other a short while.”

  “And I’ve been scared to let you in,” Olivia admitted with a wobbly laugh. “Because I haven’t let many people into my life. Maybe it has to do with my dad walking out, or maybe it’s just the way I’m wired. But it’s the truth. This is just as scary for me as it is for you, Simon.”

  “I’m glad, in a way. I wouldn’t want to be the only one who is struggling, the dead weight in the relationship.”

  “You aren’t, I promise.”

  He was silent, his gaze seeming to turn inward. Olivia stayed where she sat, waiting. Knowing none of this was easy, and Simon could hardly snap out of whatever he was feeling, no matter what he wished for.

  He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the bedstead as he let out a long, low breath. “How was your mum’s appointment?” he asked after a long, silent moment.

  “It was okay.” Olivia knew how much it cost him, to ask about her mum when he was hurting so much himself, and she loved him all the more for it. “We’ll get there,” she said, and Simon opened his eyes to give her a long, meaningful look.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “We will. But it won’t be easy.”

  “The best things in life aren’t.”

  He shook his head, his expression closing up once again. “You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to, Olivia. What you’re letting yourself in for.”

  “No,” Olivia agreed steadily, more sure of this than anything she’d been sure of in her life, “but then neither do you. No one does. This isn’t some social contract, Simon, weighing the pros and the cons. This is me, all in for you, and you all in for me. That’s the kind of relationship I want, not some balancing of the scales.”

  He stared at her for another long moment, his eyes full of both torment and hope. “I don’t think I love you,” he finally said hoarsely. “I know I do.”

  Olivia gazed down at this man who had come so suddenly and wonderfully into her life, this man who loved her. “And I know I love you,” she said, meaning it utterly.

  Outside, the church bells began to ring in the new year.

  Epilogue

  Three months later

  “Who is that?”

  Olivia peered outside the window of Number Four, Willoughby Close, as a navy-blue sports convertible sped into the courtyard and parked in front of the first cottage in the close.

  Simon looked up from his hand of cards. “I believe it’s my new neighbour. Tina, it’s your bid.”

  Olivia watched as a slim young woman with glossy chestnut hair marched up to number one and unlocked the door with brisk efficiency, a posh-looking leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

  “She looks very Londonish,” Olivia remarked, and Simon raised his eyebrows.

  “Perhaps that’s because she comes from London. She’s Henry Trent’s executive assistant.”

  “Is she! Alice never said anything about it.” But then Alice had been busy lately, managing the charitable foundation she and Henry had started. And Olivia had been busy, as well…

  She turned away from the window to smile at Simon and Tina, both seated at the kitchen table for their weekly Sunday afternoon game of bridge. The consultant at the memory clinic had encouraged Tina to keep playing cards, as it helped with cognitive function, and the new medication she was on had helped a bit as well. Simon was on new medication as well, a low dosage that had kept him on more of an even keel, although he still had good and bad days…just as everyone did, in one way or another.

  The last three months had been challenging in some ways, but they had also been wonderful. Unbelievably wonderful, full of discovery and fun and love—lots of love. Every day felt like an adventure, and after living life on the sidelines, voluntarily cast in a supporting role in everyone else’s lives, Olivia was glad to feel like the star of her own story. She’d gone after love and she’d found it…with Simon.

  Now crocuses and daffodils dotted the wolds, and Olivia was starting on a spring promotion of Easter-themed cupcakes, complete with baby chick toppers, as well as several orders for wedding cakes. Business at Tea on the Lea wasn’t exactly booming, but it was doing well enough, and that was fine. She had more important things to think about, anyway.

  In the last few months Olivia had joined the village’s bridge society, and had also started a baking club for kids Mallory’s age. So far she had eight girls coming in on a Wednesday afternoon. After living in Wychwood-on-Lea for over two years, Olivia was finally starting to feel a part of things…and so was Simon.

  “Your bid, love,” he said with a smile and, with her heart full, Olivia spared one last glance for the new neighbour before rejoining them at the table.

  “You’ll have to have her over for drinks,” she said as she picked up her cards.

  “You mean we will,” Simon corrected. “I couldn’t do it without you.”

  “And I couldn’t either,” Olivia agreed softly.

  They shared a lingering, knowing look before Tina interjected briskly, “Now I bid four hearts. Let’s get in the game, everyone!”

  The End

  If you enjoyed this return to Willoughby Close,

  look for three more stories about the new residents of Willoughby Close in 2019!

  The Willoughby Close series

  Discover the lives and loves of the residents of Willoughby Close

  The four occupants of Willoughby Close are utterly different and about to become best friends, each in search of her own happy ending as they navigate the treacherous waters of modern womanhood in the quirky yet beautiful village of Shipstow, nestled in the English Cotswolds…

  Book 1: A Cotswold Christmas

  Buy now!

  Book 2: Meet Me at Willoughby Close

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  Book 3: Find me at Willoughby Close

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  Book 4: Kiss Me at Willoughby Close

  Buy now!

  Book 5: Marry Me at Willoughby Close

  Buy now!

  Enj
oy an exclusive excerpt

  A Cotswold Christmas

  Kate Hewitt

  Book 1 of the Willoughby Close series

  Keep reading below or Buy now!

  “I’m so sorry. I did send you an email…” Frances Heath’s forehead crinkled with concern as she trailed off apologetically.

  Anna Vere tried for a valiant smile, the determinedly lifted chin. She felt like stamping her foot and shrieking. Or worse, bursting into tears. “It’s… fine.”

  But was it fine? The bed & breakfast where she’d booked her Christmas holiday, in this picturesque chocolate-box-worthy village in the English Cotswolds, was flooded. Or rather, her bedroom on the ground floor was flooded. The carpet had squelched under their feet as Frances had shown her the dire state of the room, the smell of encroaching mildew in the air, pointing out the damp on the walls and the water pooling in the corners as if she was afraid Anna might think she was lying.

  “I tried to find alternative accommodation for you,” Frances continued, her arthritic hands pleating together anxiously, “but it’s December twenty-second. Absolutely everything is booked, you know. People love coming to the Cotswolds for the holidays.”

  “Of course,” Anna murmured.

  She stood there staring, barely able to take in the disastrous turn her holiday had taken. She’d flown in from New York that morning, she hadn’t slept in eighteen hours, and now she no place to stay. Christmas was officially ruined, but it had pretty much been ruined already. A Travel Lodge on the M6 wasn’t really going to change all that much.

  “Cup of tea?” Frances asked with hopeful brightness, and Anna murmured a thank-you. Why not? A cup of tea was a Brit’s answer to almost everything. Too bad it wasn’t big enough to sleep in.

  She followed Frances back to the front room of the tumbledown cottage of golden Cotswold stone that she’d found on the Internet. It had looked perfect, chintzy and comfortable without being romantic. She definitely didn’t need romantic. Now a Christmas tree perched precariously in one corner and a manger scene took pride of place on the deep windowsill, its bowed glass overlooking the village green, dusk settling over it peacefully.