Page 60 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Fred yawned and stretched, feeling grateful for the elasticated waistband on her brushed-cotton pajama bottoms. Christmas songs belted out around the kitchen and, despite how full she was, she couldn’t help wiggling her hips to the music.
It had been a day of feasting and merriment, and it wasn’t over yet.
The timer on the oven beeped and she removed a tray of sausage rolls and another of mini pancake rolls, and placed them on wire racks to cool beside plates of prawn toasts, samosas and savory tartlets.
“That’s the last of the hot stuff,” she said to Bella, who was making potato salad in a bowl the size of a bass drum.
“Fabulous,” Bella replied. “They’re due any minute.”
It was almost six p.m. on Christmas evening, dark and snowy outside but positively balmy in the kitchen at Hallow House.
The large table that ran down the center of the room showcased a buffet so bounteous Fred had worried the legs might give way; and there would be more food coming when the Frost family arrived.
The aunts had declared that this year’s buffet theme would be “Around the World in Eighty Carbs.”
The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was dressed in swags and garlands of greenery, much of which Liam and the aunts had sourced from the garden.
He had officially moved in at the end of September when the renovations on his new workshop—one of the old stone buildings near the woods—were finally finished, and the last bits of his life in Windermere were safely ensconced within Pine Bluff.
In the last year, Fred had watched her mum experience her own renaissance as she embarked on her second life with Liam.
Everything about her seemed to be in full bloom, which was demonstrated not only in her new designs for the cracker papers but also in the way she managed to make the very air around her shine, as though her happiness simply couldn’t be contained.
Things had changed for Fred too. She had moved into a flat above Meg’s Coffee Cup Café, which was only a few doors down from Ryan’s place, and they enjoyed lots of sleepovers.
Sometimes, on nights when they hadn’t planned to see each other because of work or family commitments, he would throw stones at her window, and it thrilled her now, just as it always had, to look out of her bedroom window and find Ryan Frost gazing up at her from below.
The infectious beat of Sia’s “Santa’s Coming for Us” began to play, and mother and daughter danced as Bella snipped chives and Fred built a tower of rocky road.
From outside in the garden there arose a clatter followed by laughter, and a moment later, Liam and Ryan burst through the door holding a handle each of an old tin bath that was filled almost to the brim with the aunts’ Christmas punch.
The aunts followed behind them, clucking and shouting orders that the men obligingly obeyed.
The crimson liquid sloshed dangerously close to the rim as the two men hoisted the bath up onto a side table that had been erected in its honor.
Slices of orange and apple—turned pink—bobbed on the surface.
Aunt Aggie hooked a large ladle over the side, and Aunt Cam gave the punch a final flourish of mint leaves.
The doorbell chimed.
“Just in the nick of time,” said Liam, pulling Bella in for a kiss before going to answer it.
“Hold on to your hats!” said Aggie, as the front door opened, and Hallow House exploded into noise.
The Frost family shucked off their coats to reveal a kaleidoscope of Christmas pajamas.
The children—running on sugar and adrenaline—scampered through the house, excited to show off their new toys, and the adults greeted each other fondly, congregating in the kitchen as each household added their contributions to the banquet.
The beds in the spare rooms had been made up, and the study had been turned into a makeshift dormitory of air beds so that all the cousins could sleep together.
With nobody needing to drive again this evening, the Christmas punch was the first port of call.
An hour or so later, when the initial excitement had died down to a mere hooley, Ryan came over to Fred holding a metal strongbox.
“Sorry, Mum,” he said to Martha, who had been filling Fred in on the latest PBJ suggestions for next year’s charity fundraisers: skydiving and a sponsored naked cycle, to name but two. “Can I borrow Fred for a few minutes?”
“Of course, my love,” Martha said, giving his cheek an affectionate pinch. She looked at the strongbox and gave a knowing smile.
“You’ll need a coat,” Ryan told Fred.
“Why? What are we doing?”
“I want to show you my latest additions to our new time capsule, but it’s too noisy in here and I don’t want everyone hearing us.”
She shook her head, laughing. “You can’t still be worried Rab and Benj will try to dig it up if they know where it’s buried?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” he said, squinting his eyes in the direction of his older brothers. Rab was making a cocktail under the watchful instruction of the aunts. Benj was on all fours, with three children on his back, all shrieking as he gave them a donkey ride around the entrance hall.
Nobody noticed as Fred and Ryan stole to the back door and slipped into their winter coats and boots.
Outside was a stark contrast to the heat indoors, and Fred shivered and pulled her hood up as she allowed herself to be led through the vegetable patches, boots crunching on the fresh snow, and over to the aunts’ favorite bench that looked out to sea.
In the thick night the only hint of the ocean laid out below them was the whooshing of waves against the rocks and the occasional glint of dark water when the moon peered out from behind the clouds.
Ryan swished the snow off the aunts’ bench, and they sat illuminated only by the fairy lights twirled and twisted between trees and around hedgerows in the busy garden.
He opened the strongbox and placed it on her lap.
A photograph of her name scrawled across last year’s Naughty List lay face up on top of the contents, and she sniggered.
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Keep going,” said Ryan, grinning.
There were sachets of coffee beans and an A5 notebook containing carefully cut and stuck samples of every Hallow-Hart cracker paper since the business began.
Small trinkets they’d each collected on their life’s journey lay together in a hotchpotch of memories: the champagne cork she’d kept after she’d got her first job; a sugar flower from her thirtieth birthday cake; a tiny model of a temple from Ryan’s time in China.
Mostly there were photos: Fred in cap and gown at her graduation; standing beside her first car; proudly holding up the keys to her new flat.
Ryan stood on a mountain; crossing a half-marathon finish line; stood outside Coast Roast. And then there were pictures of them together during their first year as a couple.
She smiled as she flicked through them. As she reached for the next stack of photographs she noticed a small blue box.
She picked it up. “What’s this?”
“Open it,” he said, smiling at her.
She lifted the lid, and her heartbeat picked up pace. Inside was a gold ring set with a dark opal that sparkled with green and orange rainbows in the lamplight.
“It’s called a chocolate opal,” said Ryan, sounding a little hesitant. “It has the colors of our auras in it, and the base color is brown, like the color of our two auras mixed. Do you like it?”
“I love it.” Her words came out in a rush. She looked up at him; his eyes searched hers, and she could see he was nervous. “I absolutely love it,” she said, breaking into a smile. He seemed to relax a little. “You’re not going to make me bury it, are you?” she asked, and he laughed.
“No, I was rather hoping you would wear it. For the rest of your life.” He paused and took a steadying breath. “In fact, I was rather hoping that you might like for us to become Mr. and Mrs. Frost-Hallow-Hart.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
Ryan took the ring out of the box and held it up, looking deep into her eyes as he asked, “Will you marry me, Fred?”
She felt as though she must be dreaming. “You want to marry me?” she whispered.
He smiled. “Of course I want to marry you. I realize now that it was always going to be you. Always was, always will be.”
Her whole body was infused and pulsating with love as she reached up to cup his face and repeated his words back to him.
“Always was, always will be.” Tears of joy pricked at her eyes as she lowered her hands, holding her left one out to him.
“Yes, please”—her words came out choked with sobs—“I would like to marry you. Very much.”
Taking her cold hand in his, he slipped the ring onto her finger. “I love you, Fred Hallow-Hart.”
They kissed then, with the moon and the stars and the sea as witnesses to their promise.
Soon they would go back inside to join their perfectly bonkers noisy families, and share their happy news.
But for now, they sat, arms wrapped tightly around each other against the cold, looking out over the cliff into the vast expanse of the black velvety night.
It felt as though they were sitting at the edge of the world.
Soft white snowflakes swirled down and disappeared into the darkness.
And when Fred sent out a silent thank-you, she felt the universe smile back and knew that she was precisely where she was meant to be.