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Christmas Is Cancelled
Aurelia B. Rowl
It’s impossible to forget…Matilda ‘Tilly’ Carter has had the week from hell – and now, with all trains cancelled, it looks like Christmas will be too! With a mascara-streaked face, a broken heel and nowhere to go, there’s never been a worse time to run into the man who once broke her heart. Especially when he looks better than ever.The one that got away…For Dean, Christmas has always been hard. The Tilly standing before him is no longer the firecracker of his memories—even if the way she makes his heart race hasn’t changed at all. He is determined to uphold the promise that kept them apart nine years ago. But spending a cosy Christmas with Tilly would break a better man and each accidental touch, heated look and stolen kiss is taking its toll on Dean.After all this time, can the magic of Christmas bring Tilly and Dean together at last?
It’s impossible to forget…
Matilda ‘Tilly’ Carter has had the week from hell – and now, with all trains cancelled, it looks like Christmas will be too! With a mascara-streaked face, a broken heel and nowhere to go, there’s never been a worse time to run into the man who once broke her heart. Especially when he looks better than ever.
The one that got away…
For Dean, Christmas has always been hard. The Tilly standing before him is no longer the firecracker of his memories—even if the way she makes his heart race hasn’t changed at all. He is determined to uphold the promise that kept them apart nine years ago. But spending a cosy Christmas with Tilly would break a better man and each accidental touch, heated look and stolen kiss is taking its toll on Dean.
After all this time, can the magic of Christmas bring Tilly and Dean together at last?
Also available by Aurelia B. Rowl: (#u3888a3f5-dcfd-5ff5-9690-9030397bba01)
Popping the Cherry
A Girl Called Malice
Christmas is Cancelled
Aurelia B. Rowl
Copyright (#u3888a3f5-dcfd-5ff5-9690-9030397bba01)
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Aurelia B. Rowl 2014
Aurelia B. Rowl asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781474008440
Version date: 2018-07-23
AURAURELIA B. ROWL
lives on the edge of the Peak District in the UK with her very understanding husband, their two fantastic children, and their mad rescue mutt who doesn’t mind being used as a sounding post and source of inspiration. She regularly wows them all with her curious, hastily thrown together meals when she gets too caught up with her latest writing project… or five!… and she has developed the fine art of ignoring the housework.
Aurelia writes young adult, new adult and contemporary romance. To find out more about Aurelia, or to check out her latest news, you can visit her website: www.aureliabrowl.com (http://www.aureliabrowl.com)
This book has had quite a journey.
In October 2011, I decided to try my hand at writing. In spring 2012, I saw a call-out for Christmas stories and set about writing Tilly’s story. Despite being the first story I ever completed, Christmas is Cancelled was snapped up and released back in December 2012, receiving wonderful feedback. During 2014, my debut story found a new home with Carina UK and I had the enviable task of being able to make improvements and put the text back into my native British English, ready to be re-launched.
The acknowledgements from that early edition still ring true today:
“Although they are unlikely to ever read this, I dedicate this book to my husband and my two incredible children; without their love, support, and understanding, it would never have been possible. Huge thanks must also go to my ‘ABCs’ – you know who you are, and you’d better read it! – for keeping me on track, for supporting me, and for never failing to answer my call.Thank you to everyone who believed in me… I did it!”
I would now like to add to this though, and offer my thanks to my editor, Anna Baggaley, for helping to enhance my debut story and make it shine even brighter. I would also like to thank Carina UK for accepting a previously published story and giving it a new lease of life.
It’s been a crazy two years, during which I have been fortunate enough to meet (in the virtual sense) some wonderful readers and book bloggers, many of whom have since joined my merry troupe of ‘Antics’ along with those ‘ABCs’ that have been with me since day one. Thank you for seeing something in my stories and my writing and for sticking with me, I truly appreciate it.
For my family…
Contents
Cover (#udd8e3c27-5f36-5d61-95fd-de3663c0e9e4)
Blurb (#uf4f1c73d-60bd-5912-b1b9-3a63e8f0eded)
Book List
Title Page (#uc75bbd26-3848-5eba-93a8-a62e1a647407)
Copyright
Author Bio (#u7d8d4cea-6edc-5c72-be38-f3b8f45973f2)
Acknowledgements (#u785143fb-c5a0-5c5f-89d2-32eb89a325af)
Dedication (#ua088a509-9325-5eab-abf7-c81f8e13f02c)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Visitors’ Book
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher
Chapter One (#u3888a3f5-dcfd-5ff5-9690-9030397bba01)
‘You have got to be kidding me?’
Out of breath, Matilda Carter hunched over and panted, yet kept her gaze glued to the departures screen. There had to be some mistake. She read the screen for the third time, willing the word to change, but it continued to flash at her…
Cancelled.
Just when she thought her day couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Betrayed, homeless, out of a job and now stranded in a train station. All on the same day. And not just any day – oh no – it had to be Christmas Eve! As if she could forget. Christmas songs were belting out from every vendor, garish lights twinkled, and the smell of hot chestnuts squeezed her famished stomach. When had she last eaten? She’d been too distressed to contemplate food after……
Tilly groaned and bit back the urge to scream like a wild banshee. Envious of all the happy travellers making their way home for Christmas, she scowled at anybody who happened to look her way. They gave her a wide berth, maybe sensing that she was about to lose her very last shred of control and rip somebody’s head off. Not literally, of course, that would just be gruesome – but the man in a rail uniform foolish enough to walk into her line of vision didn’t know that.
The instant he noticed her heading towards him, his eyes widened. He flicked a glance left and right in the obvious hope that she was charging towards somebody else. Or at least she would have been charging, had she not snapped the heel off one of her shoes in her mad dash to the station. Instead she lurched clumsily, her face burning from both exertion and embarrassment, dragging her battered wheeled suitcase behind her.
One suitcase: all she had to show of her life.
It wasn’t even a very big suitcase.
His gaze swept over her, no doubt noticing her dishevelled appearance, then he bravely took a step in her direction. ‘Can I help you, miss?’ he called across to her.
Miss?
Did she have a sign above her head flashing the words, ‘I am single again’ to the world? Okay, so she was being unreasonable; the man was only trying to be polite, but so what? Not even a saint could cope with the day she’d had to endure. ‘Bad’ didn’t even come close. Neither did ‘hellish’. With her jaw tensed and her teeth gritted, she stalked right up to him.
Older than he’d looked from a distance, he had kind eyes with those little lines creasing the corners suggesting he smiled a lot. He wasn’t smiling now though; his face was a picture of concern. How could she possibly scream and rant at this man? Just like that, the fire inside her fizzled out. ‘The train to Southampton, is it really cancelled?’
‘Yes, miss. Unfortunately, you are quite correct.’
‘What time is the next one, please?’ Tilly knew from poring over the timetables all afternoon that there wasn’t another train leaving today but it didn’t stop her hoping for a miracle. Wasn’t that what Christmas was all about? ‘I need to get to my brother’s house. For Christmas…’
‘Ah.’ He said it in such a way, her stomach plunged to the floor. ‘Not in time for you to get to your brother’s, I’m afraid. A goods train came derailed and damaged the track along with a signal box. All of the main lines headed south have had to be closed. The engineers are working as fast as they can, but it’s going to take a few days to repair – what with it being the holidays.’
‘A few days?’ Trapped in a vicious nightmare, Tilly considered pinching herself in a bid to wake up. ‘Isn’t there a replacement bus? Anything –’
Her throat closed up, unable to say another word at the sight of him shaking his head before she’d even finished asking.
‘No, nothing. It’s local journeys only,’ he said, dashing her final glimmer of hope.
‘Great. Just great.’ Tears welled in her eyes and clouded her vision. ‘I can’t even hire a car since the place is all closed up for the night.’
The kindly old man reached across to pat her arm gently. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I hope something comes up for you.’
Not bloody likely.
Unable to force a sound past her throat, she nodded and turned away. She’d barely taken a step before the first disloyal tear forged a track down her cheek for the rest to follow. With her suitcase tucked in behind her, she wandered blindly towards the exit.
Crowds swarmed around her, threatening to swallow her whole as they rushed en masse in the opposite direction. Men and women of varying ages jostled past, using their briefcases and suitcases as battering rams. Clusters of students and family members presumably heading home for the holidays added to the usual rush-hour melee of commuters and forced her to take refuge behind an advertising board.
Tilly sucked in a lungful of air. Then another. Neither one helped. Suddenly claustrophobic, the noise and chaos left her dizzy. Painfully aware that she’d made a spectacle of herself once already, she really didn’t want to be the cause of yet another scene but she had no choice. She had to get out of the station before the bloodcurdling scream building in her lungs could claw its way free.
Broken heel or not, she launched into a run and forced her way past startled passengers. The exit blessedly in sight, she raced through the glass doors and out into the biting December chill. Glad to be out of there, her waterlogged eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, dreary sky after the bright station lights. She didn’t dare slow down, desperate to escape the throng of festivities and merriment.
Right on cue, the carol singers assembled outside burst into a jovial rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” full of joy and happiness.
Fools.
Didn’t they know Christmas had just been cancelled?
‘Ooof!’ Tilly smacked her shin against the edge of a low bench, too dark to see in her attempts to dodge the growing audience. She ended up sprawled across the seat and dropped the handle of her suitcase with a loud clatter. At least the pain shooting down her leg gave her an excuse to be crying. Unfortunately, it meant she had to stop running too.
Not good.
Whenever things got too tough, too intimate, or too confrontational, you could rely on Tilly to make a run for it. Running away was what she did best. Call it her M.O. In truth, she’d been a fugitive for almost ten years: on the run ever since her world had come tumbling down on the night of her eighteenth birthday. The night that Dean, her brother’s best friend, had told her he didn’t want her – that she didn’t even register on his radar – although he hadn’t put it as brutally, but she’d got the message.
Tilly sighed and shook her head to clear the memory. With no place to go, she sat and stared blankly at the world going about its business until a tall figure loomed in the edge of her vision; something vaguely familiar about the man’s loping gait.
In an effort to see him more clearly, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands then cringed inwardly at the black streaks now etched all over them. Super, she could add impersonating a panda to her day from hell as well then. Instead of helping, the mascara stung her eyes and rendered her unable to focus properly. She blinked furiously and studied the man striding towards her, trying to work out if she knew him.
Unaware that he was being watched, he talked into a mobile phone. He drew alongside her and then spoke again in a deep voice that resonated throughout her entire body. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. A surge of adrenaline rushed to her legs, numbing the pain, and her subconscious screamed at her to run.
Now!
The cloaked figure stopped mid-stride as if he’d heard her gasp. ‘Mike, I’ve gotta go,’ he said gruffly. He hung up the call instantly then backtracked until he stood directly in front of her. ‘Basmati?’ His tone had changed from a growl to one of surprise. ‘Is it really you?’
Bugger.
