Page 33 of A Cornish Winter's Kiss

‘That’s a complicated transaction that I’m not sure even you really believe.’ Emily raised her eyebrows, and she had a feeling from the look on Jude’s face that she might be right. He’d been so certain of his theory about love when they’d first met, butshe’d seen the edges of that start to soften a bit, even if he was nowhere near ready to admit it.

Emily could have taken her argument further and asked Jude about his dad. Did he love Charles despite his failings and, if so, was it only because he was hoping his father might change? But they’d come so far since they’d got to Cornwall and she didn’t want to push things any more than she already had. Not today at least. She just hoped she’d done enough to give him a new perspective, one that could help him finally finish his edits. Either way, she’d find out when she read his pages.

Not mentioning his father ensured that the conversation flowed easily. Jude had made a pasta dish that smelt delicious and tasted even better. Gary Barlow sat by her feet on one side, with Rufus on the other, both of them staring up at her and waiting for something, anything, to be dropped.

‘Can I interest you in dessert?’ Jude asked as he cleared away the dishes from lunch. She’d been about to answer when his phone started to ring.

‘Sorry, do you mind if I get this? It’s the intermediary agency. They probably just need some more information.’

‘Of course not. I’ll finish clearing the dishes.’ Jude didn’t have time to object if he wanted to take the call before it went to voicemail. Emily felt suddenly awkward in the open-plan space, and she didn’t want him to think she was eavesdropping, even though it was impossible not to. Clearing the plates away was the next best thing to being in another room. It was still impossible not to hear Jude’s side of the conversation, and even if she hadn’t been able to, she’d have known something was wrong by the look on his face.

‘Right… so you were able to verify that for sure?’

‘That’s good, at least I haven’t had the wrong name all this time.’

‘That makes sense… Okay, so you found her name there?’

‘Really? When? Thirty-four years ago… I’d thought about the possibility, but I didn’t really think it would be the case. I’ve got to admit I’m a bit shocked.’

‘Okay, I understand. I don’t know, I’m just… I need to think about it… Yes, I’ll let you know… That’s okay, thank you.’

As Jude ended the call, Emily balled her hands into fists, digging her fingernails into her palms. She wanted to ask him if everything was okay, but she already knew it wasn’t. And the truth was she had no right to ask him anything. It was up to him whether he wanted to tell her.

‘My biological mother died just after my first birthday. From meningitis.’ Jude didn’t look at her as he spoke, but she could see the tension in his jaw as he struggled to process what he’d just been told.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Emily had no idea what to say to help, so she just went with her gut.

‘Me too. I never really thought about it ending this way. Courtney said they were able to verify that her name was Patricia Judith Johnson from the record of my birth they were able to access online. She told me when I first got in contact that they always run some initial checks to see whether the person they’re trying to find is still alive. Apparently the first stage is an NHS check, alongside a review of the register of deaths, because the last thing they want is to give a client false hope. I didn’t expect to hear anything for weeks, but the fact that she’s dead made the search easy. I can’t believe she’s been gone for almost my entire life.’ Jude’s voice cracked on the final few words, and he took an audible breath before continuing. ‘They told me they could try to trace other members of her family, but I don’t know if I want that. I don’t think there’s any way it can give me the answers I need.’

The look he gave her was one of such utter desolation that she couldn’t do anything except cross the room to hug him. Partof her expected him to pull away, regain his composure and try to convince her that it didn’t really matter, but to Emily’s surprise he held her close.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She was repeating herself, but she didn’t know what else to say.

‘Me too.’ He moved back just enough to look at her, and time seemed to stop altogether for a moment before he closed the space between them, his mouth finding hers, their bodies pressing together again as she responded to his kiss. Her brain was still trying to override the desire pulsing through her body, but it had no chance. This was what she’d wanted, deep down, almost from the first moment she’d seen Jude. Except it was more complicated now. The physical attraction had given way to something far deeper, and the kiss took that to another level. It was exhilarating but terrifying too, because she knew, after this, that if he walked out of her life, it would hurt her even more than before. Despite all the emotions racing through her head, the kiss was incredible and she wasn’t sure how she’d ever have stepped back from him if Jude hadn’t pulled away first.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.’ His hands dropped to his side, his face suddenly blank, as though the moment they’d just shared hadn’t happened, and then he changed the subject in such a drastic way that it took Emily’s breath away. ‘Did you say whether you wanted some dessert?’

‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’ It was the biggest lie Emily had told in a long time; she was anything but fine. She was going to have to find an excuse to leave, and take Jude’s pages with her. There was no way she could sit in the same room as him and read the words, or take the dogs out along the coastal path together afterwards like they’d planned. She had to get out of there and away from Jude as soon as possible, before she made an even bigger a fool of herself than she already had. She was so confused, certain that she hadn’t read the situation wrong, butJude was acting like it was the kind of mistake he couldn’t wait to move on from. Embarrassment mingled with a disappointment she didn’t want to feel. He’d told her from the start where he stood, so allowing her feelings to deepen as much as they had was incredibly stupid. Emily only had herself to blame for the crushing sense of regret that came from wanting something that had never been an option in the first place.

15

Jude didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d been so certain that finding his biological mother would finally allow him to fill the void in his life, one he hadn’t fully realised was there until he’d met Emily. But the void felt even bigger because it could never be filled now. He’d reached the point where ignorance about his birth story was no longer bliss. He couldn’t remember feeling true contentment since his adoptive mother’s death. But even not knowing had been better than this; the absolute knowledge that he would never know how the woman who’d given birth to him felt about handing him over to someone else.

Jude had tried to convince himself that Emily’s theory had been rubbish. He didn’t want to believe that his inability to write about love was down to his desire to protect himself from the consequences of the truth. But she’d chipped away at the barrier he’d built around himself, and he’d finally decided he needed to test her theory. After discovering that Patricia was dead, he realised how right she’d been. She was the one person he wanted to talk to about what had happened, but he couldn’t. Emily had got under his skin and made him feel things he hadn’t ever felt before. If he saw her now, he wouldn’t be able to stop himselffrom opening up to her again, and it was safer to keep some feelings boxed up. He’d already paid the price for forgetting that. Jude had pulled out of going to her parents’ house to watchElf, and he’d fobbed Emily off when she’d texted him about meeting up with the dogs. He just couldn’t face seeing her.

He couldn’t deny that he’d wanted to kiss Emily from the first day he’d met her, and that desire had deepened as he got to know this bright, insightful and beautiful woman who made him look at the world differently, even when he didn’t want to. It was hard to believe he’d only known her for four weeks. But as much as Jude had wanted to kiss Emily, and as amazing as it had been, he shouldn’t have done it. He’d crossed a boundary he’d been determined to maintain, but far worse, he’d allowed her to see him at his most vulnerable, in the wake of the news that his biological mother was dead. The news had hit him like a sledgehammer, and he’d been shocked at just how devastated he had felt.

He should never have listened to Emily in the first place and allowed her to convince him that finding his mother was the key to connecting with his characters on a deeper level. Jude should have kept in mind what life had taught him – that people always let you down in the end, one way or another. Whether that was through deliberate action, like his father, or by dying, like both his mothers. If Emily managed her usual trick of getting him to talk, it would just rake over pain he couldn’t do anything about, and all he wanted was to bury it along with every other bad thing that had happened to him. He doubted very much there was anything she could say that would help him sort out the mess his head was in, let alone his book.

The novel was far worse now than before he’d started the revisions; he knew that without having to show Marty the changes. Jude had felt he was getting somewhere, but now, as he reread it, the story seemed completely unbelievable. Whywould McGuigan risk his career, his life even, for someone who’d just let him down in the end, whether she meant to or not? And how could McGuigan’s girlfriend love such a flawed and complex man? Love couldn’t be worth that kind of sacrifice; it took far more than it gave and set you up for so much hurt. It was illogical, a game you couldn’t win. Everyone lost in the end, one way or the other. Except when he thought about Emily, a tiny part of him could acknowledge something stronger than logic. A pull between them that couldn’t be explained. If their professional relationship was over, why did it feel like something was missing when he wasn’t with her?

Jude couldn’t give Emily what she deserved, even if she wanted to be with him. She deserved what her parents had, and Jude was far too broken to be able to offer her anything close to that. Since his adoptive mother had died, every lesson he’d learned had reinforced the belief that he was unlovable. His father’s disinterest, Sandra’s blatant hatred, and a string of relationships that had never felt right, as if somehow they weren’t enough. Mia had been the only one he’d got as far as living with, and it was probably the only relationship that could be called serious, but looking back, even then, he’d been holding a part of himself back. He’d blamed the ending on Mia and the fact she’d left for someone else, her disloyalty making the relationship fail, but it hadn’t been that. It had been set up to fail from day one, because of Jude’s inability to allow himself to fully invest in the relationship and put his heart on the line. It was almost certainly why Mia had been so open to Bexter’s advances. He might never have realised it if Emily hadn’t made him see that he was the one who wasn’t enough. It wasn’t some failing on the part of the women he’d become involved with. He’d been so busy trying to protect himself from getting hurt again that he’d closed a big part of himself off. Emily had made him open up and admit that he did want to know his biological mother’s story.

What he hadn’t acknowledged was the hope he’d felt; hope that finding her would stop him feeling like that little unwanted boy, whose father, stepmother and birth mother hadn’t loved him. Any concept of love had died along with his adoptive mother, but Jude had felt the embers of it reigniting since meeting Emily, and now they’d been snuffed out again. He missed her, just as much as he missed the hope he’d secretly been nurturing since adding his name to the adoption contact register, and he hated how out of control those emotions made him feel.

Jude snatched up his phone when it began to ring, the hope that it would be Emily rising and falling as he looked at the display. It shouldn’t have been any surprise that she wasn’t calling. After all, when she’d texted about meeting up to walk the dogs, he told her he was busy with edits and couldn’t make it. She’d followed it up by wishing him luck with it, and telling him to message her if he wanted to meet up once he had time. All he’d texted back in response was ‘will do’. He was an idiot, but he couldn’t risk giving the feelings he had for her any more power; they were already taking over his subconscious.

When he was writing the new scenes, the only way he could buy into the story was to imagine Emily as the person McGuigan was falling in love with. He’d even changed the description of McGuigan’s girlfriend so that she had the same dimples as Emily. He could imagine loving her, and that scared the crap out of him, because the one thing he absolutely couldn’t imagine, the same thing that was blocking him from being able to write McGuigan’s relationship in a believable way, was the idea of Emily falling in love with him.

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