Page 43 of A Cornish Winter’s Kiss

‘We should be so lucky, Viv. Right, I’ll come and grab the suitcase so that I can get Emily home in time for her family thing.’ Jude got out of the car and was back within a couple of minutes, heaving an oversized suitcase into the boot, before getting back inside.

‘Viv seems lovely,’ Emily said as she waved goodbye to the woman now standing outside the front door of Jude’s family home, furiously blowing kisses at them.

‘She is. I just wish Dad had met her first instead of Sandra and then maybe I… Oh, I don’t know, maybe things might have been different.’

‘Some people would say it’s never too late to change them.’ Emily stole a glance in his direction, just in time to spot him shaking his head.

‘And sometimes you just have to accept that the moment has passed.’ The silence hung between them for an uncomfortable moment, and then Jude leant forward to turn up the radio. ‘Come on then, let’s hear some more of your best karaoke, and if you’re really lucky, I might even join in.’

It had surprised Emily when Jude had invited her to his place for dinner and she wasn’t sure he’d expected her to say yes. But her parents were going out to a Christmas get-together with some friends and she’d said as long as she could bring Gary Barlow, she’d love to have dinner with him.

‘Thank God you invited me over, otherwise it would have been beans on toast in front of re-runs of the Gavin and Stacey Christmas specials. Not that I don’t love them, but I’m starting to think it’s a bit embarrassing that I know all the lines off by heart.

It suggests I might not have much of a social life.

’ Emily wrinkled her nose. ‘Anyway, after tomorrow, Charlotte and her family will be coming down, then I’ll be on full-time auntie duty. ’

‘I can offer you a takeaway and a rummage through a suitcase full of old stuff.’ Jude gave her a wry smile, but his words took her by surprise for a second time.

‘You want me to look through your mum’s stuff?’ She been certain he’d want to do that by himself.

‘I do.’ He held her gaze, and the butterflies she’d had on the night of the bookshop event were back with a vengeance.

‘Why?’

‘Because you have a way of making me look at things from a different angle. I think you’re a lot less jaded than I am, and I need that. Otherwise I’m just going to end up chucking out everything that’s in the case, and there’s a chance I might regret that later on if I do.’

‘I think I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘You should, because it was meant that way.’ Jude smiled again and she wished she didn’t find him so attractive.

She liked this, being his friend and someone he could lean on for support, because she had a feeling there weren’t many people he felt that way about.

The trouble was, she couldn’t just switch off the part of her that was whispering in her ear how much better it would be if there was more than friendship between them.

She needed him to stop looking at her if she was going to silence that voice, but there was only one excuse she could think of to put a bit of space between them.

‘What do you fancy for dinner? I don’t mind going to pick it up.’ Emily would have been halfway out of the door already if she could have been.

‘I don’t want you to have to go out. There must be some places that deliver, but if not, I can go.

Let me check online.’ Within a couple of minutes they’d reviewed their options and made a choice.

They’d gone for Indian food, and Emily had deliberately ordered the kind of dishes she’d never have gone for if this had been a date.

The knowledge that she’d demolished a garlic naan should be enough to stop her from doing anything stupid like trying to kiss him again.

He’d made it clear, the first time around, that he thought it was a mistake and he was almost certainly right, but that didn’t stop her wanting to do it again every time she looked at him.

‘It’s going to be a while; about ninety minutes they said. I’ll feed the dogs and get us some drinks, and then shall we open the suitcase?’

‘Sounds like a plan.’ It was strange how natural this felt, as if this kind of everyday domestic bliss was their norm.

She felt so comfortable with Jude in some ways and yet so jittery in others, but it was scary how easy it was to envisage this as a part of her life.

She had no idea if Jude would still want to be friends when they got back to London and his book was finished, but it was already hard to imagine not seeing him any more.

Ten minutes later, they were on the sofa side by side, with the suitcase open on the floor to one side of the coffee table in front of them. The first thing Jude pulled out was a bag of baby clothes, with a tiny pair of shoes on top of the pile.

‘Do you think these were mine?’ Jude held them up and Emily leant forward.

‘There’s a label attached to one of them.’ She read the words out loud. ‘Jude’s first shoes, aged eleven months.’

‘I can’t believe these great big feet ever fitted into anything that tiny.’ Jude grinned. ‘Or that Mum kept them. Although maybe I should have guessed.’

‘There’s a note on all the clothes she kept.’ Emily turned over the label on one of the Babygros, reading it out loud again. ‘Jude’s coming home outfit. Best day ever.’

‘I wish I could tell her how lucky I felt to have her as my mum. I took it for granted back then, because I never even contemplated that she’d be taken away from me.’ Jude took hold of the Babygro. ‘I’m an idiot, aren’t I?’

‘Of course not. How could you have known what was going to happen?’

‘No, I mean I’m an idiot for doubting that love was a thing. How could I have the arrogance to believe that the love I had for Mum, and that she clearly had for me, isn’t something other people feel?’

‘I thought you said romantic love was different.’ Emily couldn’t believe she was playing devil’s advocate, but she needed to know what Jude really meant.

‘I always knew that being a mother was my mum’s biggest wish, because she told me, but I never really thought about just how much it meant to her until I started looking at all of this.

What I didn’t find out until Dad was with Sandra was that it was him who couldn’t have biological children.

She screamed it at him once during an argument about me, something about at least there was no chance of her ending up with another one of his screaming brats, seeing as he was firing blanks.

’ Jude shook his head. ‘She was such a horrible person. What he saw in her after being married to Mum I’ll never know, but this has reminded me that Mum chose Dad, and stayed with him even after they discovered he wouldn’t be able to give her the one thing she wanted most. She must have loved him, and it blows all my theories about love being a transaction out of the water. ’

‘It kind of does. Here’s to one hell of a week of revelations for you.

’ Emily chinked her glass against his, trying not to read too much into the implications of Jude’s change of heart, as he lifted a thick scrapbook onto the table.

‘I remember this from when I was little. She saved all sorts of things in here, everything from spelling tests to my swimming certificates.’

‘That’s so lovely. Do you mind if I have a look through this photo album?’ Emily asked, picking one up from the suitcase.

‘Go for it.’ For a few minutes they sat in companionable silence, with just the odd exclamation on her part about the photographs.

Jude had been a beautiful child and even in the earliest baby photos she’d have been able to tell it was him.

She was staring at a photo of him, when he was about six, with his two front teeth missing, when Jude suddenly spoke.

‘The scrapbook doesn’t stop.’

‘What do you mean?’ Emily furrowed her brow.

‘There are memories in here from after Mum died. The first thing after her death is my Year Seven school report from secondary school, but it goes right up to an offer letter from the university I went to. That must mean Dad put them in there.’ He shook his head, seeming to dismiss the idea.

‘Unless Viv found all of this stuff in his office at some point and decided to add it to the book. One thing I know for sure is that Sandra didn’t do it. ’

‘Do you really think Viv would do that?’

‘I bet she’s got ten of these for Fiona and, like you said, she’s a lovely person. So if she thought I’d appreciate it, I think she’d do it. It certainly makes more sense than my father having done it.’

‘You should talk to him; you might be surprised.’ Emily was getting close to overstepping the mark again, but Jude had asked her to go through the suitcase with him, because she made him look at things differently. ‘What have you got to lose?’

‘Do you think it’s always worth taking a risk, even if there’s a chance of being disappointed? Or getting hurt?’ He was looking at her again, and she was trying to work out what she was supposed to say, but she couldn’t. So she just had to be honest.

‘Yes, I do, because you could be disappointed, or get hurt, but the risk could also pay off in the best possible way. Things with your dad might get better than they’ve been in years.’

‘I’m not talking about my dad, I’m talking about us.

’ Jude was still looking at her, and all the things she’d told herself about not making a move went out of her head.

The garlic naan that was supposed to remind her that kissing him again was a stupid idea probably hadn’t even made it to the oven yet.

‘I’m willing to take a risk if you are.’ Emily held her breath, wondering just how quickly she could scoop Gary Barlow up and run out into the night if Jude told her she’d got the wrong end of the stick.

But when he moved towards her, she couldn’t have stopped herself from leaning into him if her life had depended on it.

This time, nothing interrupted the kiss, and she didn’t want it to stop.

Her hands were in his hair, and then suddenly they were moving down to the buttons of his shirt.

‘We don’t have to rush any of this.’ Jude put his hand over hers for a moment, and it crossed her mind that he might be trying to stop things again, until he made it clear how he felt. ‘I mean, I want to. God , I want to, but I want to be sure that you do too.’

‘I couldn’t be more certain, but I think we should stop talking now that we’ve cleared that up.

’ There were other things she’d far rather do with her lips, and she pulled his face towards hers again, kissing him in a way that would leave him in no doubt that she meant what she’d said.

He was right that there was a risk to what they were doing, but some risks were worth taking and she was certain this was one of them.