Christmas at Mistletoe Cove

by Holly Martin

  ‘Meteorologists are warning of a large snowstorm due to hit Cornwall on Christmas Eve night, with snowfall expecting to reach up to thirty centimetres and reaching as far west as the Scilly Isles. Experts thought at first the snowstorm would pass straight by the south-west of England but that’s no longer the case. It will hit the Scilly Isles just before midnight on Christmas Eve and then travel east covering most of Cornwall and Devon over Christmas Day. It looks set to be a White Christmas, folks, and snow unlike anything we have seen in these parts for around seventy years.’

  ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing,’ Dougie said, next to her. ‘We’ve never had a white Christmas here, have we? Not a proper one like that? Thirty centimetres, wow that’s nearly a foot.’

  Eden couldn’t breathe. The last of her wishes was coming true. The million pounds she could possibly put down to Dougie but there was no way he could have anything to do with this.

  No, this was just a coincidence, nothing more. Three coincidences that just so happened after she had wished for them. It didn’t mean anything. She abruptly grabbed the remote control and turned the telly off.

  Dougie looked at her in surprise.

  ‘I’m going to bed.’

  She quickly got to her feet and Dougie got up too. ‘Well I’d better make sure that you get there safely,’ he said mischievously.

  She went upstairs and got undressed and into bed, not ready to face the possibility that what she and Dougie had was not real. Dougie got undressed too and joined her in bed, immediately pulling her into his arms and kissing her. He rolled so he was half on top of her, and he pulled back slightly, stroking her hair from her face as he looked down at her. She could feel how ready he was to make love to her and she wanted that too, to feel that connection between them and to know how real it was.

  ‘It was wonderful to see Rome and Freya’s baby tonight,’ Dougie said.

  ‘Yes, I’m so happy for them.’

  He kissed her sweetly as he settled himself more between her legs.

  ‘I can’t wait to see you carrying my baby,’ he said softly.

  Her heart leapt and definitely not in a good way. ‘What?’

  He moved his hips against her in what he clearly thought was a playful way. ‘I want to have a child with you. Lots of children in fact.’

  Panic hit her hard in the chest and she quickly pushed him off her and scrabbled out of bed.

  ‘What is going on with you?’ Her voice was high with sudden anxiety.

  He sat up, clearly stunned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Where has all this come from? Apart from that one kiss in Mistletoe Cove twelve years ago, you’ve never shown any sign of having any feelings for me. And now you come back here, tell me you love me, want to be with me forever and that you want to make a baby.’

  ‘I didn’t mean tonight, well… unless you want to.’

  Her eyes bulged. ‘Of course I don’t want to.’ She tried to ignore the hurt in his eyes. ‘This is all so new and everything is happening so fast. You haven’t even been back here a week yet and now you’re talking about babies. We have no idea if this thing between us is going to last.’

  ‘Well that’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.’ Dougie got out of bed and picked up his jeans, pulling out a small black box from the pocket. Her heart thundered in her chest. ‘I was going to ask you tonight at Rosa’s but with Bella and Isaac having a meltdown over their wedding and Rome and Freya sharing their baby news, it didn’t seem like the right time. But I want you to know that this is forever for me. I love you and I know I’ve never acted on it before but I do. I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you make me.’ He got down on one knee and opened the box towards her. ‘Will you marry me?’

  She stared at him in shock and horror, her hands going to her face in such a way it probably made her look like ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch. He was kneeling on the floor of her bedroom, stark naked, asking her to marry him. It was the stuff of her wildest dreams and fantasies all rolled into one.

  ‘You don’t believe in marriage,’ she stammered.

  ‘I do now.’

  ‘This isn’t you,’ she murmured.

  ‘What?’ He stood up.

  She looked over at the clock on the wall and saw that it was just past half past eleven. Suddenly she knew what she had to do.

  She started throwing her clothes back on, piling on the layers as Dougie stood there with the ring box in shock.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I need to go back to Mistletoe Cove.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, before midnight.’

  ‘You have another wish?’

  ‘I need to put something right.’

  Dougie was silent for a moment before he started throwing his clothes on too. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, I’m fine, stay here.’

  Dougie ignored her as he carried on getting dressed.

  She ran downstairs and had pulled on her coat and hat and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and stuffed them in her pocket by the time Dougie appeared in the lounge, tugging on his boots.

  She grabbed a torch and stepped out onto the street. He picked up his head torch and followed her, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I will be,’ Eden said, hurrying down the street and cutting into the park. Dougie fell into step beside her.

  None of this made any sense. His feelings for her coming out of the blue, all the things on her list he was systematically making come true for her: massages, cooking a candlelit dinner for her, making love to her in front of the fire just like she had imagined. If he was going for the title of perfect boyfriend he was ticking every box. Although she had laughed and joked with him since they’d been together, just as she had always done, she hadn’t been able to escape the feeling that something wasn’t right from the very beginning. He was acting differently and, while at first she had thought he was up to something, now she couldn’t escape the fear that something else was going on here. And with her other two wishes coming true too, it was suddenly very hard to try to ignore and pass off as merely a coincidence. Something else was going on. She was going to go back to Mistletoe Cove and put this right. She would wish that Dougie didn’t love her any more. It broke her heart to ask for that when she had wanted him to love her all her life. But she had to do this. It was crazy to think that Dougie was under some magic spell and that was the only reason he loved her but three big coincidences were a bit too much to ignore. If she did this and he still loved her then at least she would know once and for all that this was real and she could stop doubting everything. And if doing this broke the spell and he didn’t love her any more… She swallowed down the pain in her chest… Well, at least she could start getting over him before they walked down the aisle and had lots of babies.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Dougie said as they climbed over the hill towards Mistletoe Cove.

  ‘I just have to do this. I can’t live in fear for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Something’s upset you, tell me what it is?’ Dougie said.

  She found the opening to the cave and slid down into it, landing on the big rock just under the entrance that they had pushed there as kids so they could get in and out easily. Dougie lowered himself into the hole too.

  She quickly picked her way through the cave, using her torch to light her way until she came to the entrance. There was no fire on the beach now, no lit fairy lights to make it romantic and welcoming.

  She quickly scrambled down onto the beach and then climbed up to the blowhole. Dougie was right behind her.

  ‘Eden, what are you doing?’ he called over the roar of the sea.

  She ignored him as she got to the top and checked her watch. It was just a few minutes until midnight. She pulled her paper and pen out of her pocket.

  I wish Dougie didn’t love me any more,

  she wrote, swallowing down the sob in her throat
at having to write that.

  She quickly folded the piece of paper so Dougie wouldn’t see as he stood there in the moonlight watching her with concern.

  She moved to the edge of the blowhole.

  ‘What are you wishing for?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Eden said, checking her watch.

  As it struck midnight and far off in the town she heard the clock chime, she threw the piece of paper into the hole. To her dismay, Dougie was quicker, snatching the paper from the air and opening it so he could read it. She reached over to grab it back before he saw the words but it was too late. She watched his face fall.

  ‘You don’t want me to love you any more? After everything I’ve done for you, you don’t want me?’

  She grabbed the paper back and before the last chime of midnight, she threw it into the blowhole.

  He stared at her and if she had taken a picture of her face when Dougie had said he was moving to America, it probably would have looked exactly how he was looking right now. He was devastated and her heart broke in two because of it.

  Had she got this all wrong? If the wishes were just a load of nonsense then she had hurt Dougie for no reason.

  The blowhole suddenly erupted spraying water up into the air and soaking them. She shook water out of her hat, wiping her face and realised that Dougie was already climbing down the rock face.

  She quickly climbed after him but by the time she had reached the bottom he was already climbing the steep steps back up to the cave entrance.

  ‘Dougie, wait!’

  He didn’t.

  She climbed up the steps after him; she needed to explain but there was no sign of him in the cave. She scrambled up onto the big rock and hauled herself out into the field but there was no sign of Dougie anywhere, no tell-tale pinprick of light to show he was walking back home.

  She called for him, casting her torch around everywhere she could, but he had gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Eden lifted her head as the door of Pots and Paints swung open, hoping it was Dougie but it wasn’t, it was Rome.

  When she had arrived home the night before, there had been no sign of him and he had taken all his clothes and bags and just disappeared. She had waited up all night in case he came back, called his phone countless times and then wandered round the island trying to find him before turning up at the ferry docks at five that morning just in case he was going to get the first ferry off the island. There had been no sign of him and she was not only getting increasingly desperate to see him, but increasingly worried too.

  She had finally come into work feeling exhausted from complete lack of sleep, hoping that he might turn up there to talk to her but it was approaching lunch time and there was no sign. It was Christmas Eve and though the pottery café was half empty, she knew a lot of families liked to come to her café the day before Christmas as part of their traditions, where they would all paint something to reflect their year or as gifts to each other. Although she had been tempted not to bother opening up and instead to continue looking for Dougie, she didn’t want to let anyone down. Clare was coming in for a few hours at lunch time to help just in case it got a bit busy and then at two o’clock the café was closing and wouldn’t reopen until the end of January after she had come back from New Zealand –something that probably wouldn’t happen now.

  It was Christmas Day tomorrow and her dreams of spending Christmas with the man she loved had disappeared as quickly as the man himself.

  Bella, Isaac and Freya were sitting at the table with her as Rome approached and sat down.

  ‘OK, I’ve asked all round the island and though he hasn’t been seen by anyone today, rumour has it he turned up at the Royal Oak Hotel late last night. I went to see him but the receptionist said she wasn’t allowed to give out information about guests staying there, especially ones that had left explicit instructions that said they didn’t want anyone to know where they were.’

  ‘Typical Dougie,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Oh god, I need to talk to him,’ Eden said, though she had no idea what she would say.

  ‘You still haven’t told us what happened,’ Bella said.

  ‘I broke his heart.’ She sighed. None of this made any sense. ‘My third wish that I made at Mistletoe Cove was that we would have a white Christmas. Did you all hear the news about the impending snowstorm?’

  They nodded. It had been all over the island that morning. Everyone was very excited.

  ‘I saw that on the news last night and the next thing Dougie was talking about having a baby and then he proposed and I just freaked out. I went back to Mistletoe Cove and wished that he didn’t love me any more and he saw my wish.’

  Eden put her hands over her eyes, trying to block out the image of his face when she had broken his heart in two.

  ‘He proposed?’ Bella said, quietly.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Isaac said. ‘You love him, why didn’t you say yes when he asked you to marry him?’

  Obviously he knew some of her situation from Bella but probably not all of it.

  ‘Because I stupidly convinced myself that his love for me wasn’t real. Everything was happening so fast and he was behaving like the perfect boyfriend, he was crossing off everything on my list of what I thought should be part of a romantic relationship, things he couldn’t possibly know because he was asleep when I told Bella and Freya. I just kept on thinking it was all too perfect. And marriage. Dougie has never been interested in marriage after his parents split in a really bad way. He even said when he first came home that he had no interest in getting married and then last night he whips out this massive diamond ring and I always hoped he would get there eventually, maybe a few years down the line he might propose to me, but not after six days. It just didn’t feel like this was the Dougie I knew and loved. It felt wrong and I got scared,’ Eden gabbled.

  They all fell quiet until the door was pushed open again. Eden looked up and saw Clare walk in with a big grin on her face. The grin fell off when she saw them all sitting around the table, looking worried.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Eden gave her a rundown of the wishes at Mistletoe Cove and bullet-pointed what had happened over the last week, Clare looking more and more anxious as she went on.

  When Eden had finally finished, Clare spoke. ‘Oh no, I think some of this is my fault.’

  That was the last thing Eden expected her to say. ‘How is it your fault?’

  Just then the phone in the shop rang and Clare rushed to answer it, no doubt so she wouldn’t have to explain herself.

  After a moment she called out to Eden. ‘It’s for you, it’s the bank.’

  Eden got up and went to take the call.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello Eden, this is Julie, from the bank. We are just packing up for the day, ready to close for Christmas, and I saw you had made an enquiry about the million pounds that was paid into your account. Well I was here when it happened. The funds for the banker’s draft came from a company called Fairy Gifts Limited.’

  ‘What?’ It couldn’t possibly be true. Then a memory jolted her stomach. When she had joked that the money would come from Fairies Incorporated, Dougie had said it was more likely to come from Fairy Gifts. That was also the name Isaac had mentioned when he was talking about the company that he was starting with Dougie.

  ‘Yes. It’s owned by Dougie,’ Julie went on. ‘I was here when he came in and asked for the banker’s draft to be made up and then, as soon as he had it, he paid it into your account.’

  Eden stared out at the cold grey street outside, not really seeing it. ‘Just to clarify, Dougie Harrison gave me a million pounds.’

  ‘Yes, I presumed you would know what it was relating to, that you were getting involved in his company now that the two of you were together. I didn’t realise—’

  ‘Thank you, Julie,’ Eden said, robotically.

  ‘Well OK, I’m sorry if that wasn’t the news you wanted to hear. Merry Ch
ristmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  She hung up and walked back around the counter to her family and friends.

  ‘That was the bank,’ Eden gestured over her shoulder, emotion and confusion swirling in her stomach. ‘They said it was Dougie who gave me the million pounds.’

  ‘Well I thought that,’ Rome said.

  ‘But how did he know that was my wish?’ Eden said. ‘No one knew.’

  ‘That’s what I was going to tell you before the phone call,’ Clare said, taking a deep breath. ‘Dougie asked me to tell you some story about my gran and wishes coming true at Mistletoe Cove. I asked him why and he told me it was a surprise for you. I didn’t think it would be this or that you would wish for him to love you and that would lead to so much stress and doubt on your part. I just thought he was going to do something nice. I’m so sorry.’

  She looked distraught about her part in this but Eden couldn’t find it in her to be angry with Clare.

  ‘Did he tell Rosa to do the same?’

  Clare nodded.

  ‘So this was all just a joke for him all along.’ Anger punched her in the gut. ‘I need to talk to him. Clare, can you watch the shop for me?’

  Clare nodded. ‘Go, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘If I’m not back at two, will you be OK to close up?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  Eden pulled her coat on and made to walk out but Rome snagged her arm. ‘He loves you, you know that. And maybe he went over the top in an attempt to show you, but he does love you, don’t screw this up.’

  Eden didn’t know anything other than that her fear that she had been the punchline in some big joke had come true.

  She walked out of the café, needing some answers, and quickly made her way down towards the Royal Oak. She walked up to the reception desk, recognising Milly, the young daughter of the mayor. She was probably only seventeen, which would hopefully make this easier.

  Eden smiled sweetly at her, even though inside she wasn’t feeling sweet at all.

  ‘Hi Milly, I need to see Dougie, can you tell me which room he’s in?’