Page 108 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘I didn’t mean that,’ Ermin blustered. ‘I just meant—’
‘Don’t listen to her.’ Fiona patted her husband’s arm. ‘She’s run rings around you since she arrived, and I doubt it’s going to change any time soon.’
‘Not a chance,’ Jazz said with a grin.
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ Ermin looked over at the young woman, and Sophie’s heart squeezed at his tender expression.
There was a loud bang from outside, and all four dogs pricked their ears up.
‘What’s that?’ Sophie asked. ‘Not another storm?’
Harry slid his arm out from around her and stood up. He held his hand out, and she took it and let him pull her to her feet. ‘Jason and Simon said they were going to do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Fireworks on the green. If we go outside, we should see some of them above the treeline.’
‘Let’s go, then.’ Fiona pulled Ermin up, and Dexter waited for Lucy to put her book down, sighing heavily as she abandoned her fictional world for the temporary delights of the real one. Jazz helped Birdie up and everyone followed Harry onto the front steps.
The fireworks were louder out here, and Sophie saw a bright spark, a pink flash followed by a bang and the sound of scattering rain. Everyone stared up, waiting for the next mini explosion, and Harry stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her against his chest.
‘I never imagined I’d end Christmas Day like this, with my arms around you,’ he said into her ear. ‘I never imagined my Christmases would be this good again: that my life could be this good.’
‘It’s only been a day,’ Sophie said, but only because it was easier to be flippant than serious. She didn’t know how to tell him that this day, this Christmas, had outstripped her previous ones by an almost incalculable amount. She promised herself she would find the words, embrace the emotion that would no doubt accompany them, when they were alone together, later. ‘Anyway, there’s more to come. It’s not over yet.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Harry said, sliding his hand under her jumper again. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you said to me out there on the lawn.’
‘Which bit? About how we’re going to celebrate, or that I realized I loved you?’
‘That one,’ he murmured.
‘Harry!’
‘All of it,’ he said, his fingers drifting round to her belly button while everyone was focused on the fireworks. ‘Everything you said to me, Soph. But mostly the part where you said you didn’t want to live your life without me.’
‘I don’t,’ she said, simply. ‘Not ever.’
The last firework filled the night sky over Mistingham with the glamour of festive lights set to twinkle mode, and Sophie felt something cold land gently on her nose. As she looked up into a dizzying swirl of snowflakes, and realized her perfect Christmas Day had one more trick up its sleeve, she leaned back into the arms of the man she loved, and knew that she was here to stay for good.
In Harry’s bedroom on the first floor of Mistingham Manor, a gust of wind slipped through the cracked-open window and ruffled the pages ofJane Eyre. The section it fell open on proved, perhaps, that May was right to believe in the magic of the books he’d given a new lease of life to.
‘Thank you, Mr Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you; and wherever you are is my home – my only home.’
The End
