Christmas in Bluebell Cove Read Online Free PDF Page A

on it.
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    When the four of them were seated around the table for what Francine was expecting to be a travesty of a Christmas dinner, Ethan produced the gifts that he’d told her about earlier, and with Kirstie and Ben watching intently she unwrapped them slowly.
    The belated birthday present was a book that she’d once said she would like and she thought how achingly different it was from the lingerie that he usually chose with care.
    There was an unwritten, unspoken message in the gift he’d given her and she understood it all too well. It was the same with the Christmas present, an exquisite gold bracelet decorated by a jeweller with tiny shells that he’d gathered from the beach. It was another reminder of what she was missing, she thought, beautiful Bluebell Cove with its golden sands and breathtaking countryside—and him.
    â€˜Thank you Ethan,’ she said in a low voice and when Kirstie insisted on her wearing the bracelet she slid it carefully on to her wrist.
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    That night, sleepless once more in the spare room, Francine’s mind was going over the day just gone and the strange mixture of it. The children’s pleasure had been the highlight, and the giving and accepting of giftsbetween Ethan and herself bizarre and hurtful when she thought of how it had once been. Yet she was still wearing the bracelet, couldn’t bear to take it off.
    New Year’s Day was going to be strange too with the visit of Jean and Lawrence Lomax planned. At the beginning of the marriage break-up Ethan’s father had told her angrily that a wife’s place was with her husband and if this was where he earned his living it was where she should be prepared to stay.
    The dread of meeting him again was still with her, but he was the last person she was going allow to tune into the state of panic-stricken indecision in which she was floundering.
    In the meantime there was a week’s grace before she had to face them. She was going to keep a low profile where Ethan was concerned, spending all her time with the children or on her own. The feeling of panic was still with her, the choking sensation every time she thought of the years ahead without him.
    If she were to tell him that she’d changed her mind and was going to forget about the house in Paris, would it make any difference? she wondered. The scars on their relationship were not going to heal overnight, if ever.
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    When she discovered that the children had been invited to the home of one of their friends for Boxing Day she decided to spend the time they were absent walking along the coast road and stopping off for lunch somewhere.
    As soon as they’d left she went to get ready and came down within minutes dressed in a warm jacket, jeans and her boots. Ethan was reading a medical journal inthe sitting room when she appeared and asked, ‘Where are you off to? There’s still a lot of snow around after the heavy fall on Christmas Eve.’
    â€˜I’m going to walk along the coast road and will eat out at lunchtime.’
    He nodded and went back to his reading. There had been a time when he would have been beside her, she thought, happy that they were spending some time alone together, but not now. He was probably feeling relieved that she was going to be out of his orbit for a while as her role in his life had changed from cherished wife to intruder.
    Outside there was a cold wind that stung her cheeks and the snow that had been there on the day of her arrival in Bluebell Cove still lay thick and crisp beneath her feet. Down below she could see the beach and the cold blue expanse of the Atlantic surging in once more.
    In past summers when Ethan had finished at the surgery they’d spent lots of time down there, with the children fishing in rock pools and playing in the sand, and all of them swimming when the sea wasn’t too rough.
    It was far too cold for that sort of thing now, but she hoped he would still take