Read From The Heart for Free Online Page A

being away at all, but if it’s awful . . . well, you don’t want to have a bad experience at Christmas.’
    ‘Bloody Christmas,’ said Jim. ‘Honestly, you’d swear it’d blight your life for ever if everything isn’t perfect.’
    ‘I know. I know.’
    ‘It will be perfect,’ Jim promised. ‘Don’t worry.’
    Easy to say. Not entirely easy to do. Laura wondered how much they’d pay for Jim’s decision in the future. And not just in monetary terms, either.
    He was right about it, though. It was perfect. The room was warm and toasty and had a wonderful view over the rolling gardens. When they arrived on Christmas Eve, there were carol singers around the piano and a happy buzz of conversation in the bar. Because they’d had to wait until both of them finished work, it was late in the evening before they reached the hotel, but the charming woman behind the desk told them that the dining room was still open, or if they preferred, she could arrange for them to have dinner in their room. And she’d smiled at Kirstie and told her that she was the loveliest baby they’d ever had in the hotel, which, although Jim and Laura knew was just being polite, was still nice to hear.
    They decided to have dinner in their room, and Laura nearly cried with delight when a waiter arrived with an extending table and proceeded to lay it perfectly. There was a half-bottle of wine ‘on the house’ and some puréed fruit to go with the jar that Laura had asked them to heat up for Kirstie.
    ‘The thing is,’ she said when they’d finished and were sitting on the enormous bed watching an Indiana Jones DVD on the flat-screen TV, ‘I feel as though I should be doing this at home. But it’s wonderful to be looked after.’
    ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And we’re away from the warring parents, so that has to be a good thing.’
    ‘We haven’t even had a row ourselves yet.’
    Jim nodded. ‘It’s been stressful,’ he said. ‘Everything has over the past couple of years, but these last few weeks have taken the biscuit altogether. I’m sorry if I snapped at you.’
    Laura smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry too. Christmas is supposed to be a relaxing time. Why does it have to get so bloody complicated?’
    ‘Relaxing?’ Jim laughed. ‘Everyone gets stressed out at Christmas. We’re not the only ones, I promise you.’
    ‘True,’ said Laura as she stretched her feet out in front of her and closed her eyes. ‘But nobody in the whole world is more relaxed than me right now.’
    They stayed relaxed. On Christmas morning they opened the small gift boxes of chocolates that had been left in their room, then brought Kirstie for a walk through the grounds of the Sugar Loaf Lodge in her pram. They passed a couple on the frosted pathway pushing a top-of-the-range stroller in which an absolutely divine Asian baby was bundled up in a red woollen jacket and matching hat. Laura smiled in acknowledgement at the woman, who beamed back at her, sharing a connection that all mothers with babies had. When they came back to the hotel, they had hot chocolate with rum, which, according to Laura, made her feel as though she’d died and gone to heaven.
    ‘I know we’ll be broke after this,’ she told Jim as they sat in the lounge together before they went to dinner that evening. ‘And I know that our parents will be mad at us. But it’s so, so worth it. Oh my God!’
    ‘What?’ For a moment he thought that either his mother or hers had turned up. It had been a possibility that had worried him ever since he’d told them both that he and Laura were going away for Christmas and that they’d been forced into the decision by their incessant bickering and pressure.
    ‘I’ve just seen a guy who works in the Department of Finance,’ she said. ‘I know him because he often drops into the office and I’ve seen him at one or two of our nights out. He’s quite senior there.’
    ‘See, now you’re hobnobbing with the high-ups.’ Jim