Once Upon a Christmas by Darcie Boleyn

Author:Darcie Boleyn [Williams, T. A.; Boleyn, Darcie; Joyce, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474048514
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I raised the glass to my lips and sniffed.

‘Go on, Katie, try it. You might like it.’ Sam grinned and gestured at me to take a sip of the eggnog he’d just made. It didn’t smell too bad but I couldn’t believe that it had eggs in it. I mean, a drink with eggs in?

‘You use eggs in your cakes. Go on, don’t be a baby. I dare you.’

Dammit! Why’d he have to dare me? He knew I couldn’t resist that. I took a big swig and… ‘Yum!’ Warmth and cream filled my mouth and trickled down into my belly.

‘See. I knew you’d like it,’ Sam said as he swigged from his own glass. When he lowered his drink, he had a white moustache. For a moment, I considered telling him, but changed my mind. It would be more fun not to.

‘Yes, that’s good, Sam,’ Karl said as he glugged back his eggnog, then used the glass ladle to refill his cup. ‘Katie?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s time.’

‘Time for what?’ Sam asked.

‘Time for the Christmas Eve movie, of course,’ Karl announced.

‘Do you remember, Sam?’

‘Yes of course, Katie. Esther makes you all a carpet picnic and you snuggle up to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I can even remember the first year that I experienced the Warham Christmas Eve tradition.’

I stared into my drink. I remembered that year too. I’d been seventeen and Sam and Karl had come home from university for the holidays. Sam’s parents had gone away but he hadn’t wanted to go with them, so he’d stayed with us for a few days. I’d been thrilled to have him there. He’d gone away to university in London as a slightly geeky teenager but returned a young man. Not the man he currently was, of course, but taller and more confident. It had established my crush and I’d mooned around after him for the duration of his stay. I’d agonised about whether he could be interested in me and my daydreams had centred around him taking my virginity in a New Year’s Eve embrace. I’d replayed that fantasy until it had become a wonderful reality not long afterwards.

‘You were sweet seventeen then, weren’t you, Katie?’

‘And she had the BIGGEST crush on you, Sam!’ Karl grinned.

‘I did not!’ I blurted, suddenly seventeen again.

‘Yeah you did, Katie. Why deny it?’ Karl teased.

I shrugged and finished my drink but, as I glanced up, I found Sam’s eyes on me and what I saw there made me feel all warm inside. He’d later told me that the crush had been mutual and we’d laughed about that one wasted Christmas when we could already have been making love and enjoying being together.

Esther appeared in the kitchen and started pulling platters out of the fridge.

‘Have you brought the picnic rugs, Mum?’ Karl asked.

‘Of course.’ She flashed him a smile, then started taking things to the drawing room. We loaded up the eggnog and the rest of the platters, as well as some dips and crisps, and carried them all through.

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