Christmas at the Edge of the World

he’s not home?” Laurel said in a panic. “What if I can’t find him?”

“He’s somewhere,” Abby told her. “We’ll find him.”

“What if I do find him?”

“Then tell him how you feel.”

“How do I feel?”

“You haven’t figured that out yet?” Abby turned to her, as no-nonsense as she’d been when Laurel had been little, and she’d been telling her to do her homework or eat her peas. “Laurel, you don’t have to say anything that isn’t true. Don’t make this more than it is, and don’t make it less. You aren’t in love with him, you don’t him well enough yet, but you know him well enough to take a shot at happiness, so here you are, lining it up.”

“You make it sound so easy…”

“No, not easy. Crazy hard, with emphasis on the crazy. But worthwhile.”

“This is crazy,” Laurel muttered for about the twentieth time. “Utterly mad.”

“Yep,” Zac said cheerfully. “Wait, I think I see someone I know.”

It seemed like everyone in Stromness was out on the streets. The pubs had all closed at eleven, and everyone was gathered in Graham Place, one of the town’s main squares, to hear the bells ring in the new year. It was ten to eleven. Laurel searched the crowds for Archie, sensing that he must be here. Wanting him to be, and yet terrified that he was.

Should she head to his farmhouse? Keep searching the crowds? Or run back to the harbour, and jump in the first boat she saw?

And then she saw him, and felt as if everyone crowding around her fell away. She walked towards him on feet that felt as if they were separated from her body, her mind buzzing blankly as she kept on going, one step after another. The crowds, the noise, the cold, all of it disappeared and all she saw was Archie.

He was chatting to someone she didn’t recognise, which wasn’t really a surprise, but he was wearing her sky-blue jumper, and it made her smile. It made her hope.

She kept walking, and then she was in front of him, feeling as if her whole heart must be visible in her eyes, and he turned and saw her, and his mouth dropped open.

“Laurel… I thought you’d gone.”

“I did. I left three days ago.” Had it only been three days since she’d last been here? How many lifetimes could she live in the space of a few weeks?

His forehead crinkled. “What…”

“I came back.” She let out a trembling laugh, feeling her whole world teeter on this moment. “I’ve been to London, and then to Scarborough, and now I’ve come here.” She gulped. “I came back because of you.” Archie looked confused, and Laurel’s heart lurched sickeningly. What if this was all a mistake? What if this wasn’t at all what she wanted?

What if it really had just been a kiss?

But even if it was, Laurel knew she still had to try. To risk. As much for her sake, more for her sake, than for Archie’s. To prove she could, to finally take a chance with her life. With her heart.

“It wasn’t just a kiss for me, Archie,” she said in a rush. Her voice was shaking. “Not even close. It was so much more.”

He stared at her, his mouth gaping open, looking gormless and confused and wonderful. “You want Mr Darcy.”

“What?”

“I watched that blooming film. Colin Firth.” He practically spat the words. “I’m naught like him.”

“Oh, you silly man,” Laurel cried. “I don’t want Colin Firth. He was just a fantasy—a foolish fantasy I held onto because the real thing scared me so much. And it still scares me, but now I want to take a risk. A chance… with you.” She let out another trembling laugh. “I want you, Archie. That’s why I’m here. I know we don’t know each other all that well, and we need time to just… be, I suppose, and I’m not asking for a proposal or something ridiculous like that, but just a chance to try. To see. Because, like Abby said, I don’t want to spend the next twenty years wondering what if.” She straightened her shoulders and stared him straight in the eye, wishing she could tell what he thought, but his face, that lovely, craggy face, was completely inscrutable. “That is, if you’d be willing to. If you want to.”

“With you in York and me in Orkney?”

“Well, no.” Laurel let out a shaky laugh. “I rather thought I might move up here for a bit. If that isn’t too… much. Too crazy.”

“Too crazy?” Archie raised his shaggy eyebrows. “It’s utterly mad.”

“Is it?” Laurel said in a small voice. Oh no…