Page 86 of A Summer of New Beginnings
He grabbed her and pulled her into his lap and stopped her words with his mouth. When he pulled away, he smiled. ‘I can’t believe you just did that.Why didn’t you just come right out with it? You’re a strong, independent woman, aren’t you?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, God, I really amnevergoing to live that down, am I?’
He sighed as his shoulders relaxed and relief flooded his features. ‘So… when can you move in?’
*
Christmas morning Zara awoke to the smell of bacon cooking and her stomach grumbled in anticipation. She climbed out ofbed and wandered into the living room where Slade were informing everyone, in no uncertain terms, what day it was and the tree lights were twinkling away. Bess greeted her with a wet nose to her bare leg, which made her squeal. The dog thought this was some kind of a game and fetched her Santa toy.
‘Bess, youarebonkers.’ She wrestled with the collie for a while until Lachy brought through aplate of bacon sandwiches.
‘Good morning, sexy,’ he said as he planted a kiss on her head and the sandwiches on the coffee table.
‘Good morning. Mmm, they smell delicious.’
‘Tuck in before they go cold. The coffee’s on.’
She grabbed a sandwich and took a huge bite. ‘So today’s the day you meet my folks,’ she said through a mouthful of bacon.
Lachy laughed, his shoulders bouncing as he did.‘You do know that saying it with a mouthful doesn’t make it any less scary, don’t you?’ Zara grinned. ‘Anyway, should I expect your dad to punch me for taking his little girl away to Scotland?’
‘Actually no, they were surprisingly accepting of it all when I mentioned it. It was a relief. Dad’s looking forward to coming up to visit. He says he wants you to set him to work.’
Lachy raised his eyebrows.‘Well, that can easily be arranged but he might regret it. You never know, they might just relocate themselves.’
‘Funnily enough, Will has applied to two universities in Scotland, so you never know.’
They finished their sandwiches and, of course, Bess got one of her own. As the collie lay munching happily on her breakfast Lachy pulled out a small box from under the tree.
‘Now, this may comeas a surprise to you but I brought this gift with me from Scotland, ready wrappedbeforewe had our conversation about you moving north. I was super organised for once.’ He handed it to Zara and she chewed on her lip. It was ring-box-sized. She tore off the paper and sure enough there was a little hinged box inside with a decorative bow on top. Her heart hammered at her ribs as she put her fingerson the lid and lifted it.
Inside was a little silver key. Zara took it out and looked up at Lachy with a question in her eyes.
‘Remember when you left the croft after the accident and I gave you the keyring?’ She nodded. ‘I hoped, even way back then, that one day I’d be able to give you the key to go with it. And here we are. I knew as soon as you shouted at me outside your tent, when I foundyou illegally camped, that I’d fall for you. And it happened fast. And I knew from the moment I kissed you that I’d do everything I could to make you mine. It may have been a rocky road to get here, pardon the pun, but you’ve had my heart since the day I met you. And now you have the key to our home.’
Zara’s lip began to tremble and she crawled into his lap and kissed him with every ounce oflove she felt for him. She knew that the symbolism behind it meant that this was it for them. He might never lock the door to his home, but she knew that this was the key to his heartandto his life. And now they were hers.
One month later
The last of the boxes had been unpacked and Zara stood in the lounge at Scouriemore Croft as Lachy put the last of their photos up on the wall. It was reallyfeeling like home since little bits of her furniture had arrived in her dad’s van when they’d visited. The fire was blazing and there was an aroma of freshly made hot chocolate wafting in from the kitchen. Snow blanketed the ground outside and the sheep were safely in the barn now that winter had really set in. The freezer in the barn closest to the house was stocked to the brim and the fibrebroadband was up and running, meaning she could have video calls with Noah, her agent or her publisher whenever she needed to.
The old antique desk by the window had been cleared of Lachy’s and his father’s paperwork and her laptop sat there now, with book three open at chapter one. She would never get used to people wanting her autograph in their copies of her books, but at least she could escapeto this beautiful croft when she wanted to shut out the world and spend time with Lachy and, of course, Bess too.
She sat down at her desk and peered out of the window at the beach below; the icy-cold water lapped at the shoreline and she knew that later, regardless of the cold, she would be down there, wrapped up like an Eskimo, with Bess, throwing her favourite ball. But for now her new bestfriend walked over and snuggled by her feet, just as she did every time Zara sat to write.
Lachy came over, wrapped his arms round her and kissed her temple tenderly. ‘I’ll go warm some stew on the range for dinner whilst you finish that chapter. Then later we can snuggle up and watch a movie before bed.’
‘Mmm, sounds perfect,’ she told him as she nuzzled into his embrace.
As she gazed outat the view before her to the snow-capped mountains in the distance, she thought back over the past twelve months and all that had happened, from the NC500 that had brought her to Scotland in the first place, to the book that had changed her career dramatically and to meeting the love of her life. She knew she could have been forgiven for expecting to wake from a vivid dream to find none of it wasreal. But this was her life now. Her reality. And it couldn’t have been more perfect.
Who could have predicted, when she finished her novel the previous summer, that the most incredible ofallthe new beginnings she would experience would be her very own?
