If Only Forever - страница 12

Emily was looking up at Charlotte as she placed the angel they’d spent all day making onto the tree. Her dad was holding Charlotte aloft, who at this point in time was a chubby toddler, and he wobbled slightly from the numerous sherries he’d drunk that day. Emily remembered a sudden, overwhelming emotion of fear. Fear that her tipsy father would drop Charlotte onto the hard hearth. Emily was five years old and it was the first time she’d really understood the concept of death.

Emily returned to the present day with a gasp to find her hand pressed against the wall as she steadied herself. She was hyperventilating and Daniel was there beside her, his hand on her back.

“Emily?” he asked with concern. “What happened? Another memory?”

She nodded, finding herself unable to speak. The memory had been so vivid and so terrifying, despite her knowledge that no harm had befallen Charlotte that winter evening. She cherished most of her recovered memories but that one had felt sinister, ominous, like a sign of the dark things to come.

Daniel continued rubbing Emily’s back as she made a concerted effort to slow her breathing back to normal. Chantelle looked up at her, worried, and it was the child’s face that finally brought Emily out of the grips of her memories.

“I’m sorry, it’s fine,” she said, feeling a little embarrassed to have worried everyone so much.

She looked up at the angel, at the sequined dress she wore. It had taken her and Charlotte hours to glue all those individual sequins onto the fabric. Now, with the ebbing firelight coming from the living room, they sparkled like rainbows. Emily thought it almost looked as though they were winking at her. Not for the first time, she felt Charlotte’s presence close by, communicating love, peace, and forgiveness. Emily tried to hold onto the feeling of her spirit, to take comfort from it.

“We should head off to the town square,” Emily said, finally. “We don’t want to miss the tree lighting.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Daniel asked, looking concerned.

Emily smiled. “I am. I promise.”

But her assertions didn’t seem to wash with Daniel. She could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye the whole time they were wrapping up in their warm clothes. But he didn’t question or challenge her further, and so the family got into the pickup truck and headed into town.

Despite the biting cold, the whole of Sunset Harbor had congregated in the town square to watch the tree lighting. Even Colin Magnum, the man who was renting the carriage house for the month, was there, enjoying the festivities. Karen from the convenience store handed out freshly baked cinnamon rolls, while Cynthia Jones walked around with flasks of hot chocolate. Emily took the drinks and food gratefully, feeling the warmth seep into her stomach as she consumed them, and watched Chantelle playing happily with her friends.

Amongst the crowds, Emily spotted Trevor Mann. Once, the sight of him would have filled her with dread; they had been enemies the moment Trevor had decided to make it his life’s mission to kick Emily out of the inn. But that had all changed over the last month when he’d discovered he had an inoperable brain tumor. Far from being Emily’s enemy, Trevor was now her closest ally. He’d paid all of her back taxes – hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth – and now welcomed her into his home on a regular basis for coffee and cake. It pained Emily to see him suffering. Every time she saw him he seemed more frail, more in the grips of illness.