Julia Williams - Coming Home For Christmas - Warm, humorous and completely irresistible!

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014

Copyright © Julia Williams 2014

Cover illustration © Adrian Valencia 2014

Cover design © Debbie Clement 2014

Julia Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847563583

Ebook Edition © September 2014 ISBN: 9780007464494

Version: 2016-02-17

To Ann Moffatt, my wonderful mother. With love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Christmas Day

Part One: It’s Been Too Long

My Broken Brain

20 Years Ago

This Year: January

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

My Broken Brain

February

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

My Broken Brain

March

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

My Broken Brain

Part Two: It’s going to take some time

15 years ago

April

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

My Broken Brain

May

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

My Broken Brain

June

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

My Broken Brain

Part Three: A thousand memories

Nine Years Ago

July

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

My Broken Brain

August

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

My Broken Brain

September

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

My Broken Brain

Part Four: Got my feet on holy ground

Last Year

October

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

My Broken Brain

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

My broken brain

December

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

My Broken Brain

Epilogue

About the Author

By the same Author

About the Publisher

Cat Tinsall was standing by the window, stirring the Christmas pudding, looking out as dark clouds rolled over the hills, threatening a cold and rainy night. The kids would be in from school soon, and her granddaughter Lou Lou was upstairs having a nap. She was glad to be in her cosy warm kitchen, with a cup of tea, and her husband, Noel, who was working from home today, sitting at the table on his laptop.

‘Bugger!’ Noel was angrily staring at his computer screen as if by some miracle it could tell him some happier news.

‘Problem?’ Cat asked.

‘Not sure,’ said Noel. ‘But it looks like we’ve been gazumped again on some land to the north of Shrewsbury Ralph and I have been looking at. We were planning to build affordable starter homes, but this firm, LK Holdings, seems to have got in there first. That’s the second time in the last few months. They’re acquiring a hell of a lot of land in the area. We’ll have to look for somewhere else. Damn. That was such a good spot, and so needed.’

Cat smiled fondly at her husband, his fair hair might be greying now, but his eyes were the same dazzling blue, and thanks to a strict gym regime, Noel was still as attractive to her as the day they met. And bless him, he was always saying the same about her, though her figure wasn’t quite as trim as it once was, and her own fair hair was going to need some help from the hairdresser soon.

She wandered over, still mixing her pudding, to see what had fired him up now. Noel was at his most passionate when talking about sustainable development, a subject he cared about deeply. And so much happier here in the picturesque village of Hope Christmas, working for Ralph Nicholas, a local landowner who ran a small family business, than when he’d worked for a big engineering firm in London and felt all his principles being compromised on a daily basis. One of the many good things about making a home, here, was the new lease of life Noel had gained from the move.

‘Never mind,’ she reassured him, ‘I’m sure you’ll find something else.’

‘It’s not just that,’ said Noel, looking pensive. ‘I’ve heard a rumour that LK Holdings are sniffing around Hope Christmas. They’re big in the leisure business, and want to build a luxury development here.’

‘Really?’ said Cat surprised. Hope Christmas was the kind of place that supported upmarket B&Bs, rather than big hotels: the last of which had long been sold for a nursing home.

‘Really,’ said Noel. ‘There are one or two large bits of land on the market at the moment. I’d say they’re ripe for the picking. I believe Blackstock Farm has been for sale for several months. I know it’s been empty for a while.’

‘Isn’t that the one opposite Marianne and Gabriel?’ said Cat. Marianne was one of her best friends in Hope Christmas, and partly the reason they’d come here. She’d entered a magazine competition that Cat had run to find the perfect Nativity, when she was still a magazine editor in London. Cat had ended up not just finding that, but when she came up to meet Marianne, she’d also found the perfect place to bring her growing family, and hadn’t had a day’s regret since. ‘They can’t build there, it would be a travesty.’

‘Wouldn’t it just?’ said Noel. ‘I think I’d better contact Ralph. He’s already gone away for Christmas, but he’ll want to know about this.’

Cat stared out at the darkening sky, towards the hills of the town she loved. She hoped that Noel was wrong. Hope Christmas was perfect the way it was: small enough to have a really strong community, big enough that you weren’t living in anyone else’s pockets. The last thing it needed was a major development, and she and Noel would do anything to protect the place they loved so much.

A chill wind blew down the valley, as Marianne North struggled up the lane from the village with the double buggy. Her three-year-old twins, Harry and Daisy, were perfectly capable of walking, but they were jacking up today, and it seemed easier to push them. As a few icy raindrops started to fall from a dark, angry sky, she was glad she’d wrapped them up warm. Pausing to tighten her coat against the wind and tucking her dark curls under her hat, Marianne swore crossly at a big dark car driving too fast past her, spraying a cold and dirty puddle up her legs. Thoughtless idiot. Couldn’t be a local, no one drove up here that fast. She wondered where the car was going; once you got past Pippa and Dan’s farm at the end of the road, there was nowhere else to go. She only understood when she saw the car stop and pull in on the right verge, by the gate of Blackstock Farm, which had stood empty for months. A woman Marianne vaguely recognised as a local estate agent leapt out of the passenger door, and fumbled with a key at the gate. Aah, that explained it. Dark car driver must be a potential buyer. She hoped whoever it was showed more sensitivities to the locals, if they did decide to buy.