Free Winter Wishes by Ruth Saberton Page A

That’s all very convenient, isn’t it?”
    Jules opened her mouth to say that carrying two heavy suitcases halfway up a cliff on a freezing cold October night looked the very antithesis of convenient to her, but then thought better of it. Something told her Danny wouldn’t appreciate that comment right now. Besides, why was she sticking up for Tara? The woman might have looked exhausted and unhappy but she had a track record of hurting Danny – and at the end of the day he was Jules’s friend. She didn’t have any loyalty towards Tara.
    The problem was, Jules couldn’t help feeling that Tara Tremaine really was desperate. The confidence and the gloss Jules had been so struck by the last time she’d met Tara had vanished entirely. Jules reflected that if she had to sum up Tara’s demeanour this evening in a word, then that word probably would have been broken. Tara looked like a woman who’d lost everything and, even worse, realised it too.
    “Don’t look at me like that, Jules,” Danny snapped. “I’m not the bad guy here. You have absolutely no idea what that woman is capable of.”
    He was right: Jules really did have absolutely no idea. As far as she was concerned, the whole Danny-and-Tara relationship was an enigma right up there with Stonehenge. She knew the bare bones of it and had gleaned enough over the past few weeks to have put some of the pieces together, but there still seemed to be a substantial chunk missing somewhere along the line. Danny’s smouldering anger towards Tara seemed out of proportion at times. Yes, his wife had let him down when he was injured, but Jules understood that things must have been difficult for her too. They’d both had enormous changes to adjust to. As much as she adored Danny, Jules wasn’t blind to his faults. He was stubborn and single-minded and hugely proud. These were all qualities that must have made him an incredible officer – but also, she suspected, an appalling patient. How would Tara have handled witnessing her husband suffer? And Danny would have bitterly resented anyone seeing him in what he’d consider to be a weakened state.
    “You think I’m exaggerating,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
    As she searched for the right words, Jules watched their breath cloud and rise into the starry sky. She felt torn. Was she speaking here as Danny’s friend or as his vicar? As his friend she was wholly on his side and could have throttled the woman who had given up on him when he’d needed her the most. Yet as a vicar Jules had been touched by Tara’s side of the story, and she wasn’t oblivious to Danny’s shortcomings. Tara and Danny were both human and, as such, fallible.
    As was she, of course.
    Jules bit her lip. This kind of situation was the very reason why she’d been warned during her training about getting too close to her parishioners. It was also yet another reminder of why she had to fight her growing feelings for Danny. How could she possibly give him the right advice about his marriage when she was falling in love with him? She hadn’t a chance of being objective.
    “You have no idea what being near that woman does to me,” Danny continued bleakly when Jules didn’t answer. “I can’t stand having her around. It makes me feel sick; everything comes flooding back when I look at her. You probably think I’m exaggerating, Jules, but just the sight of her kills me inside.”
    There was a tight feeling in Jules’s throat, as though somebody had taken the ends of the scarf that was wrapped snugly round her neck and given them a sudden yank. If she’d ever wondered whether Danny still had feelings for his wife, then he’d just provided the answer she needed. How could she tell Danny that she understood completely the pain he was feeling? That every day, having to acknowledge that she couldn’t be with him, a little piece of her died too? It was as clear as the night sky that he still had very strong feelings for Tara, no matter what he