Happily Ever After This Christmas by C.K. Martin

Author:C.K. Martin [Martin, C.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rogue Hedgehog Media
Published: 2017-11-28T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kayleigh’s eyes felt as though someone had tried to glue them shut in the night while she slept. As she let herself in through the front door of the bookstore and flicked on the lights, all she could think about was getting her hands on another cup of coffee.

She thanked gods she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore that Emily had gone to sleep quickly after her breakdown. The excitement of seeing the big man himself, followed by the crushing fear that he might not find her again this year, had led to her crashing out before the tears had finished drying. Her heaving sobs had turned into deep breaths and Kayleigh had, after what felt like a lifetime, found the courage to ease her arm out from underneath the small sleeping form and sneak back downstairs.

The cold tea had mocked her. As if chamomile was the thing she needed in that moment. No, she had needed wine, and as she glugged down the first glass, the tears had begun to fall for her too.

Experience should have taught her not to drink on the night of the anniversary, not to excess at least. The whole bottle hadn’t disappeared, but she’d had more than her customary two glasses. The dehydration, combined with the floods of tears had left her with a thick tongue and a banging head when the alarm had jolted her from sleep.

Even Emily had moved around quietly. She could sense the caution in her steps. Clearly Aunty Webby had looked under the weather. Today was not the day to open the shop later, but she was seriously considering taking an hour to herself in the storeroom and either drinking coffee until the caffeine flooded her veins or just closing her eyes and getting some extra sleep.

Her hands shook as she spooned instant coffee into her mug, spilling half of it onto the work surface. ‘Shit,’ she swore, throwing the spoon into the mug. How could she possibly face the day when spilling coffee could reduce her to such a broken state? She needed more than the three hours of sleep she had managed to get. Three hours, caught in snatches. She had tossed and turned for hours, watching the numbers change on the clock next to her bed. Sleep felt like stolen moments from the night, filled with dreams she did not want to be dreaming. Her sister, trying to tell her something. Her sister, lying there dead in the morgue. Emily, in the hospital, lost in amongst the tubes and wires that would keep her alive over the next few days and ultimately save one of her limbs but not the other.

Every moment she hadn’t wanted to relive had come to visit her that night. No wonder she felt like death itself.

Emily hadn’t raised the prospect of the name change again that morning. Despite lying awake most of the night, thinking about the long term implications of a question asked with such innocence, she still didn’t know what the right thing to do was.

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