Sealed with a Christmas Kiss by Rachael Lucas Read Free Book Online

shooed Bruno off, happy to hand her phone – and her mum – over so she could focus on the more important task of having breakfast. She’d left Roddy at home puzzling over
paperwork and escaped to her favourite spot. Bruno’s cafe was a gem. Genuine 1950s Formica tables, cosy booths with red leather padded chairs, a jukebox which had Elvis’s Christmas
album on repeat at this time of year, and the best breakfasts she’d ever known. Roddy had spent his teenage years working here behind the counter, where Bruno treated him as another member of
staff rather than the laird’s son. Bruno had been over the moon when Kate and Roddy finally got together after months of skirting round each other, and he’d fallen head over heels for
her mum. The feeling seemed to be mutual, the only trouble being that Elizabeth lived 400 miles away in the pretty English market town of Saffron Walden. A long-distance relationship seemed have
worked so far for the two of them, though, Kate thought, watching Bruno laughing down the phone to her mum. She’d noticed that the gaps between her mum’s visits to the island were
becoming shorter, and her stays at Duntarvie House were getting longer.
    ‘Anyway, here she is back.’ Bruno handed Kate back her mobile, looking very pleased with himself.
    ‘Kate, I’m sorry, I’ve got to rush out. I’ve got to be in Cambridge for eleven. You can catch me up on all the news about this wedding later.’
    ‘There isn’t a wedding, Mum, that’s what I was trying to tell you—’
    ‘Later, darling. Love you!’
    Kate looked down at the silent phone. Her mum would be here in a few days, anyway, and she’d hear all about it from Bruno, no doubt. Meanwhile, there wasn’t much else she could do
but leave it with Sian and keep her fingers crossed.

4
Roddy’s Mistake
    Full of breakfast, Kate climbed back into her battered little car. She had every intention of driving straight home to get on with some boring paperwork that was waiting for
her, but something pulled her in the opposite direction from Duntarvie House as she started the car. Waving goodbye to Bruno, she turned the car up the hill out of Kilmannan and towards the west
coast of the island.
    She parked the car in the layby which stood next to the path down to Selkie Bay. Looking up the hill, she could see smoke curling from the chimney of one of the cottages. There was a group of
university students staying in the bunkhouse this week: marine biologists, surveying the local pod of seals. Zipping her coat up to her nose, Kate secretly hoped that they wouldn’t be down on
the beach. Their plans for a wildlife observation unit had been a huge success, but more often than not she found that Selkie Bay had one or two waterproof-clad observers, binoculars and notepads
in hand, whenever she went there. She still considered it to be
their
beach: the place where she’d first fallen in love with Roddy. She slipped through the wooden gate and made her
way down through the field, carefully sticking to the well-trodden path. Cows observed her mildly, looking up from their grazing. At times like this, Sian’s insistent calls, the demands of
paperwork and real life seemed miles away.
    Kate sat down on her favourite rock, gazing across at Eilean Mòr. The hills there were still tipped with snow and the morning sunlight filtered across the sea mist, casting an eerie glow.
She had a ridiculously busy three weeks ahead: her mother was arriving imminently, there was Christmas to prepare for – her first at Duntarvie House – and this blooming wedding. There
it was again, breaking through the silence. She was beginning to loathe weddings, and everything they stood for. Realizing that she wasn’t going to find any peace, she trudged back up the
path to her car. If breakfast hadn’t cheered her up, and the silent space of Selkie Bay hadn’t done it, perhaps the answer was tea and sympathy.
    Arriving back at the Duntarvie Estate, Kate turned