Page 66 of Starry Nights over Dragonfly Lake

Beth and her friends shook their heads at their friend’s cynical attitude towards relationships and giggled to themselves.

But glancing back at the mistletoe that they had just hung around the café, Beth was transported back to the sweet memories of Noah’s kisses once more before she pushed the idea from her mind, no matter how tempting.

35

The wind had been whipping up all morning so Noah and Ben had to give up working on the lodges, such was the intensity of the storm that had swept in.

Ben headed into the office to do some paperwork whilst Noah wandered into the kitchen to make himself a coffee before heading to the barn to work on his boat.

He found Faye and Dotty surveying lots of boxes piled up on the kitchen table.

Dotty looked up as he walked into the room.

‘Noah, be a dear and switch on the lights, would you?’ she asked. ‘We can’t see a thing over here it’s so dark today.’

Noah flicked the switch and walked over to the table. ‘What is all this?’ he asked, looking into the box that Faye had just opened.

‘Christmas decorations,’ she told him. ‘Hannah’s already finished the Boathouse Café ones and we need to get going on decorating the hotel.’

‘You should see the tree that we put up in the entrance hall,’ said Dotty, with a grin. ‘Great big one. Walter moans every year that it’ll ruin the floorboards but it never does.’

‘These are ones that we’ve collected over the years,’ Faye told him, bringing out a plastic box full of baubles.

‘Or rather decades,’ added Dotty, in a wistful tone. ‘Some of them are from when Walter and I first got married.’

‘I’m going to make a coffee,’ said Noah. ‘Does anyone want one?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Dotty.

‘That would be great,’ added Faye.

As he walked over to the kitchen counter, Noah thought about the Christmases that he had had in the past. Growing up, he and his dad had always gone to the pub. After he had moved away, Noah had pretty much spent Christmas by himself, always refusing offers from any work colleagues who had been kind enough to extend an invitation to him.

This year, of course, he would be spending it at Maple Tree Lodge for the first time. He still felt a bit overwhelmed by them all at times but the family didn’t overpower him as they had done when he had first arrived.

He made the mugs of coffee and carried them over to the table.

‘I knew it was in here somewhere,’ said Dotty, pulling out a blue shiny bauble decorated with blobs of paint.

Noah stared down at it, thinking that he hoped they hadn’t paid much money for such an ill-decorated ball.

‘Don’t you remember?’ asked Dotty, placing it in his hands.

Noah was puzzled. ‘Remember?’ he asked.

But as he turned over the bauble in his hand, he realised that a name had been painted on the other side. His own name. Noah.

‘You came here early December one year with your dad,’ Dotty told him. ‘We had all the decorations out like today and you wanted to help out so I let you loose with the paint tin. Seem to remember you enjoying yourself.’

Noah heard his aunt’s words but he continued to stare down at the ball with his name on it.

‘We’ve always put it on the family tree here in the kitchen,’ said Faye softly. ‘You might not have been with us in person but you were always in our hearts.’

Noah gulped back the emotion he was feeling, unable to speak and only able to nod his reply. Something of him had remained at Maple Tree Lodge all these years. He felt overwhelmed with a mix of emotions, mostly a sorrow that he had missed out on so much so far in his life.

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Faye suddenly.

Noah looked up to see that she had been carefully unwrapping a rather ancient-looking nativity scene.