Winter Wishes

Winter Wishes

by

Ruth Saberton

Copyright

All characters, organisations and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The opinions expressed in this book are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and / or legal right to publish all materials in this book.

Copyright © 2015 Ruth Saberton

Cover illustration copyright © Carrie May

Editor: Jane Griffiths

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Also by Ruth Saberton

Escape for the Summer

Escape for Christmas

Dead Romantic

Hobb’s Cottage

Weight Till Christmas

Katy Carter Wants a Hero

Ellie Andrews Has Second Thoughts

Amber Scott is Starting Over

The Wedding Countdown

Runaway Summer: Polwenna Bay 1

A Time for Living: Polwenna Bay 2

Writing as Jessica Fox

The One That Got Away

Eastern Promise

Hard to Get

Unlucky in Love

Always the Bride

Writing as Holly Cavendish

Looking for Fireworks

Writing as Georgie Carter

The Perfect Christmas

A note from Ruth

Welcome to Polwenna Bay! Watch fishing boats dance in the harbour, hear waves breaking on the beach and explore the pretty village where new friends wait and there’s love to be found, warmer than the summer sunshine!

I’ve loved meeting and writing about all the characters in the Cornish fishing village of Polwenna Bay and escaping into their stories, romances and adventures. I really hope that you’ll enjoy them too and share in their laughter, loves and tears. I have lived in Cornwall for twenty years and it’s a place very dear to me, and one I miss whenever I am far away. Writing about Polwenna Bay has been a joy and when I type I can almost hear the seagulls calling and smell the pasties…

Polwenna Bay is a magical place full of big-hearted families, colourful characters, handsome heroes, feisty heroines, myths, legends and beautiful locations. I’m really looking forward to sharing all the excitement and stories with you all as the series unfolds.

Enjoy the book!

x Ruth x

Chapter 1

The Reverend Jules Mathieson was exhausted. A violent gale had howled through the village all night, keeping her up until the small hours. She’d barely had an hour’s sleep before the alarm had roused her for an early-morning prayer group meeting. Feeling like something that had been dug up from the churchyard, and no doubt looking like it too, Jules had led the session. Next, she’d dashed over to Polwenna Bay Primary School for an assembly. After that, she’d manned a bric-a-brac stall at the WI fundraiser – an experience that had made her understand just how Harry Styles must feel when mobbed by fans. When that was over with, she’d gone back to the vicarage to trawl through St Wenn’s depressing accounts for the umpteenth time.

And she’d been worried that life in a rural Cornish parish would be dull? These days Jules counted herself lucky if she had so much as five minutes to herself; her mornings and afternoons flew by in a blur. By night she was usually out cold within seconds of her head hitting the pillow, and before she knew it the alarm was ripping her from sleep and hurling her into another day, just as busy as its predecessor. Jules couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired.

It was probably better this way, Jules decided. At least when she was flat out working, there was no time to dwell on the dull ache in her heart or to miss those special conversations that had once flowed as easily as the River Wenn. Nor was there time to daydream about what could have been…

She wasn’t going to allow herself to do that, Jules told herself sharply. Instead she was going to focus on all the wonderful things in her life and enjoy the autumnal beauty all around her. If she was becoming increasingly melancholic as the nights drew in, then Jules was determined to shake it off somehow. Perhaps she was suffering from seasonal affective disorder, or something of the sort. After all, it wasn’t as though anything had actually happened between her and Danny—

Oh Lord, here she went again, starting to think about things she’d promised herself would remain out of bounds. Danny Tremaine was just a friend – and that was all he could ever be. He was married and, whatever he said about the marriage being over, that bond was a sacrament all the same. Apart from anything else, he’d never been able to give Jules a valid reason for the marriage breakdown, and she knew that Danny’s wife still hoped they would manage to make it work. It was Jules’s duty as their priest to help them mend their marriage, regardless of how she felt about Danny. Stepping away from him had been the right thing to do, no matter how painful it was for them both.

Nothing had happened between them and nothing ever would. Fact, as Danny’s son Morgan might say.

It wasn’t easy in a small fishing village to avoid somebody, though – especially not one of the Tremaines. They were the foremost and oldest family in Polwenna Bay, and were pretty much involved in all areas of village life. Still, Jules was working on it. She was professional and polite whenever she saw Danny, which was most days; even if the hurt on his face sliced her heart as sharply as the fishermen’s knives gutted their catch, Jules was getting good at hiding it. Instead of their walks together over the cliffs or long chatty hours drinking coffee in the harbour tearoom, she’d changed her route to the wooded valleys behind the village and thrown herself into her work. Her waistbands were certainly looser as a result of taking a detour every day, and the bishop was delighted with the increased activity in the church Jules devoted so much of her time to. She supposed she had to accept her broken heart and Danny’s reproachful looks as collateral damage, for the greater good. The future of his marriage was up to him and his wife now; Jules would have no bearing on any choice Danny might make. At least her conscience was clear, even if her heart felt as though it would never mend.

Why hadn’t anyone told her that being a vicar would be this challenging? Would she have continued with her vocation if she’d known that it would come at the cost of losing the man she was in love with? She would have been answerable to God either way, of course, but the situation seemed so much more complicated because of her calling. It was a conundrum Jules wrestled with daily and was praying very hard about. She’d never realised until now how tough it could be to do the right thing.

Her friends in Polwenna Bay had spotted that Jules was unhappy and, although they had no idea why this was so, they were keen to cheer her up. Jules was touched by their extra efforts to fundraise for St Wenn’s – the church’s finances being an obvious cause of vicarly woe. Even Sheila Keverne, Jules’s very difficult verger, had mellowed and now dropped by for a cup of tea on a regular basis. The Pollards had mowed the vicarage lawn for free, Kursa Penwarren had offered a discount hair-colouring session at the salon, and Chris the Cod had taken to dishing up vast portions of fish and chips whenever Jules called in for supper. Jules was starting to feel a bit like Polwenna Bay’s care in the community project; besides, she was concerned for her crowning glory (given that Kursa’s hairstyling skills were notorious), not to mention her rocketing cholesterol levels. She knew she had to get a grip and keep her game face on.

This afternoon Alice and Issie Tremaine had called at the vicarage, convinced that fresh air and exercise were the answer. Jules, who’d previously had great faith in the restorative powers of the jam-filled doughnut rather than the five-mile hike, had found herself being bundled into her coat and frogmarched out into the autumnal sunshine. Her protests about having to write a sermon or prepare for the Parochial Church Council meeting had been ignored. This didn’t surprise Jules in the least. Individually, each Tremaine family member was a force of nature; when they got together they were unstoppable. Canute had probably had more luck telling the tide to back off than Jules would ever have trying to say no to a Tremaine.

Now, as she followed her friends through the woodland, she smothered a yawn and tried to feel grateful she was so busy. Even though the storm had blown itself out hours ago and the day was now as warm and as golden as the pasties in Patsy Penhalligan’s bakery shop, all Jules really wanted to do was burrow under her duvet for an hour or two. Stomping through the countryside might be good for her figure, but her eyelids were becoming so heavy that she was considering snapping a couple of twigs from out of the hedgerow to prop them open.

“You’re even slower than me today, my love,” remarked Alice Tremaine, who’d paused and was waiting for Jules to catch her and Issie up. Jules didn’t feel too shamed by this, however. Alice might be in her late seventies, but a lifetime spent walking the cliffs and steep lanes as well as running around after her brood of grandchildren had kept her fitter than most people half her age.

“I’m exhausted. My kitchen roof was leaking terribly last night and I was up for ages trying to catch the drips in saucepans,” Jules explained.

“Can’t you get the Pollards to patch it?” Alice suggested. The wily father-and-son builder team generally had the village sewn up; there weren’t many jobs they didn’t take on.

“They’ve given me a quote but it’s pretty substantial. It would take quite a big chunk of our funds and I’d far rather we spent those on the church than the vicarage,” Jules sighed. She’d pored over the books for at least an hour that morning trying to comprehend the accounts, before giving up. She could pay for some emergency repairs, but she feared it would be a false economy: she’d be better off waiting until the full job could be paid for. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough money for that, though. Or at least, she supposed there wasn’t. Right now the books didn’t make sense. First an extra ten thousand pounds had appeared in the church’s funds and then there had been several deposits of a thousand pounds each, made over the past two months. Neither Jules nor her treasurer, Dr Penwarren, could account for any of this. Handy as the extra cash would be, until she knew for certain that the money really did belong to St Wenn’s and wasn’t some banking anomaly, Jules didn’t feel right about spending any of it.