She was shivering now, damp with melting snow from where she'd ending up in a heap a few times herself.
And then she saw a heap of something at the end of a dark alley....and an animal of some kind darting around it. "Walter! Is that you? Walter!"
She ran down the lane, her heart in her throat.
It was Devlin, sitting on the snow, gripping his ankle with both hands...a leash looped around his wrist.
And at the end of the leash, Walter wagged his tail furiously, his long pink tongue lolling from his mouth.
"Oh, my gosh. Are you okay?" She knelt beside Devlin and searched his face. A laceration trailed over one of his cheekbones, a bruise was starting to darken his forehead. "What a Christmas Eve, aye?"
"This wasn't the best move on my part," he said with a rueful smile. "I saw Walter and started to run—best I could with a cane and bum leg—and I took a header on some ice. If I wasn't so cold I think it would hurt. Quite a lot. But at least Walter came up to me, so I caught him."
Maybe Devlin wasn't hers, but her heart melted at what he'd risked for Shauna's dog. How he'd kept going despite the cold. He must have fallen several times, because his coat and jeans were soaked and icy.
"We need to get you home and into dry things," she murmured, meeting his gaze. She stilled for a moment, seeing emotion in his eyes that she wouldn't have expected from a man who belonged to someone else. The cad. "I can go get the car, or do we need an ambulance?"
"No. Just help me up. If I could hold your arm and use the cane, I think I can walk. It would be faster."
She helped him slowly ease to his feet, feeling his pain herself with every time he winced. "I still think I should go get the car. We must be at least three blocks away."
He shook his head and so they slowly made their way up the alley, then down another street toward the bookshop. When they neared the church, he stopped.
"Do you mind? I just want to hear the Christmas hymns for a moment." He shook his head with chagrin. "I'd hope to be there this evening, sitting next to you. Being a part of this special night."
"Me too."
"Maybe next year?"
Startled, she looked up at him. "With Lydia."
"Never. Apparently she didn't identify herself. She's my literary agent, and she sets up booksignings and appearances. I hate doing them, but she badgers me incessantly until I finally give in."
"I—I don't know what to say."
He looked down at her, his dark eyes warm and compelling, a faint smile on his lips. "I could tell what you were thinking and it set me back on my heels. I didn't want to think you thought so little of me...and thought I was capable of such dishonestly."
"It was her sultry voice—and what she said. As if she was making sure to mark her territory."
He laughed at that. "Maybe she was, in a way. The last thing she'd want would be for me to take off for the U.S. and not come back. She likes making her commission money on my books too much."
Eve felt a soft, warm rush of relief wash through her. "I'm so sorry for assuming the worst. I should have asked you."
"Then let's propose that we start over—new beginnings. New beginnings, for what I hope will be a lifetime of memories starting this Christmas Eve."
He enfolded her in his arms and kissed her, then cupped a hand behind her head and angled his own for a deeper, more heartfelt kiss that made Eve melt against him and wish it would never end.
When he finally released her, she looked up into his beloved face and smiled. "New beginnings it is.”
Dear Reader, I hope you enjoyed this story of overcoming the past in order to find love and happiness. I have a series of six Christmas novellas being released in October through December of 2020, and I hope you will enjoy them! Click this LINK to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, in which you can find out about chances to win monthly prizes and learn about new book releases. At that link, you can also find my blog about “life in the country,” see where to buy my books—like the rest of this series—and even find some family favorite recipes!
If you think other readers might enjoy this short novella, please consider leaving a review at your favorite online bookseller’s website. Thank you so much!
This novella is a part of my six-novella Christmas series published in 2020. The titles are:
The Mistletoe Puppy
A Montana Christmas
An Irish Christmas
A London Christmas
A Scottish Christmas
Christmas in Paris
Here’s an excerpt from A London Christmas.
Cait Walker stepped out of the cab in front of the pub and stared at the gold lettered sign over the door. Smythe & Killigan's. Established 1743.
This had to be the place, though she could hardly believe she was actually here.
Just a few blocks from Buckingham Palace, the building was built of rough stones, the glass in the mullioned windows deeply rippled with age. An Irish tune wafted out into the snowy night, ending a little shiver down her back. After waiting three long months for this, she was finally in London—excited and nervous and even a little scared. What if she didn't measure up to Derek's expectations? What if he took one look at her and backed out?
She knew she was hardly the stuff of anyone's dreams—she'd lost her job a few months ago, when the company folded, and would soon start working in a lab at the University of Minnesota. At night, she wrote poetry and short stories that no one else would ever see. She was just an ordinary woman leading an ordinary, quiet life with her cat Murphy, who was now vacationing at her mom's retirement village in Minnetonka.
But she'd never stretched the truth while filling out the dating website application. Her photo was more or less the same person she saw in the mirror every day, so it had been hard to believe that someone like Derek Worthington III had actually fallen for her. Her.
At the age of thirty-four she had no longer dreamed of white knights and fairytales, or the possibility of finding true love.
And yet...there he was, smiling at her from the photo attached to that first glorious e-mail. Charming and dashing and handsome, he'd been emailing her for months now, and they'd even talked on the phone twice. And oh, that lovely accent and deep voice...Downton Abbey and Jane Austen's heroes, all wrapped in one delicious package and tied with a perfect bow. For her.
After they'd had some time to talk for a while this evening—the first time ever, without thousands of miles between them—he was taking her to meet his family for Christmas Eve. And after Christmas Day, they would have three incredibly romantic weeks, traveling to his favorite—favourite—places in England while they planned what the future would bring.
She shivered with anticipation, knowing that her life was about to change in ways she'd never even dreamed of.
Dusting the snow from her shoulders, she smoothed a loose tendril of hair into the knot on the top of her head, took a deep breath, and dragged her carry-on luggage into the pub, her heart hammering. This was it. This was really, truly going to be the most memorable day of her life.
The heavy door was beautifully carved and felt ancient beneath her fingertips. Was it rosewood? An image of the generations of people who had touched this same door over the centuries flashed through her thoughts, the rich sense of history filling her with delight.
The long mirror behind the bar was framed in the same dark, rich, ornately carved wood as the door. It glowed under the dim amber light of the tall lamps sitting at either end of the bar, and the randomly placed stained glass lamps that hung from the ceiling.
Most of the small tables inside were occupied by couples sitting intimately close, talking over glasses of wine or those tall, trademark Guinness beer glasses with the engraved harp on the back.
She glanced at her watch and felt a flicker of alarm.
The only men sitting alone were a hefty older man who was fidgeting with his keys and scowling while he talked on his cell phone, and a scruffy guy—poss
ibly in his mid-thirties. This second fellow gave Cait a cursory glance, then turned his attention back to his fish and chips.
The young woman sitting across from him abruptly stood, slammed her hand on the table, and flounced out the door. He didn’t spare her another look.
Though Cait couldn't make out his features beneath the bill of his blue and red Chicago Cubs ball cap, his hair was much too dark and shaggy. Definitely not Derek.
Derek certainly wouldn't have been with another woman. And he wouldn't have been so dismissive at seeing Cait arrive, because of course he had seen her photograph and even kept it on his bedside table. He was all that was thoughtful, charming and kind, and his emails had proved it.
She took another glance around the room. Was she late? Early? Had she misunderstood? Oh, Lord—was she in the wrong place?
Of course, he could have been delayed at his research facility. The roads were snow-covered and slick, and the snow falling outside was growing heavier. Dear heavens—could he have been in an accident? Worry nipped at her as she settled down at a table near the door so she could watch for any newcomers.
The minutes ticked by, each lasting an hour.
Couples came and went.
She glanced at her watch again. Finally, her stomach growling, she flagged down the solitary waitress and ordered fish and chips and an ice water.
The door creaked, letting in a blast of cold air. Someone hesitated in the doorway, then cast a shadow over her table. Her heart tripped. Her hands grew clammy.
"You're Catriona Walker?"
This was the deep voice she'd heard on the phone, with a wonderful British accent. Her heart took a tiny leap of anticipation as she slowly turned. But when she looked up, a sense of disorientation swept through her.
Her Derek was tall and broad-shouldered, with sharply cut, patrician features and thick blonde hair swept straight back, revealing a high, forehead, sweeping eyebrows and piercing blue eyes. One of his photos on the dating website showed him in a beautifully cut suit, leaning against a sports car, with a sexy half-smile on his lean face.
This man was decades older—probably as old as her dad—with a heavy belly, thick jowls and thinning dishwater blonde hair coiffed into an ornate comb-over that did nothing to camouflage his shiny scalp. He was eyeing her with a calculating look that made her skin crawl.
He had to be a messenger, sent to explain Derek's delay. Her rising tension eased. "Y-yes, yes I am. And you are...?"
He had the audacity to look affronted. "Derek."
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An Irish Christmas Blessing Page 6