For a moment he thought – man though he was – that he was going to faint.
He whispered her name. “Carrie!”
She was suddenly still as if turned to stone. Then slowly, as if almost afraid it would not be true, she turned her violet eyes upon him.
He wasn’t conscious of having moved towards her, but the next instant she was reaching up to touch his face, leaving traces of flour upon his cheeks too.
Wonderingly, her hands passed over his face, his chest, his waist, unable to believe he was real, whilst he stood drinking in the sight of her.
“I – thought you were – dead!” she breathed and then with a sigh of thankfulness she laid her head against his chest and wound her arms tightly around his waist. “What kept you away from me so long?” she murmured.
Jamie shook his head but could not speak. The time for explanations was later. Without asking, he knew why she had come back here. Back to Abbeyford. All roads led back to Abbeyford.
Now his mouth was hungry for the taste of her lips. His one arm held her close and they clung together, swaying slightly, lost in the ecstasy of their reunion.
He had come home – and so had she. Home to Abbeyford, home to happiness and to the hope of a new tomorrow.
And the ghosts of unhappy lovers past finally found their long-sought peace.
It had begun in Abbeyford and it ended in Abbeyford. And yet, it was not really the end, rather a new beginning.
Copyright
First published in 1999 by Severn House
Originally published 1981 under the title Carrie
This edition published 2014 by Bello
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Copyright © Margaret Dickinson, 1981, 1999
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