Chapter Eight – Sorcha
What just happened? Or what nearly happened might be the more accurate question!
Sorcha really needed to get started on her article about the joys of the holiday season in Bear Creek, but all she could think about was her near kiss with Christopher.
He had meant to kiss her…hadn’t he?
Sorcha covered her face with her hands as she leaned back against the cabin door. Had she read too much into it? But the look in his eyes, the way he’d lowered his head…
Dammit! How was she meant to write a single word, when all she could think about was how much she’d wanted him to kiss her?
She pressed her fingertips to her lips. She could almost feel his lips against hers. Could almost taste him.
If only she had…
Heat rushed through her, pooling low in her belly, making her skin prickle under her sweater. If she were being completely honest, she’d wanted more than a kiss!
Sorcha pushed away from the door, her legs unsteady as she crossed to the kitchenette. The cabin’s wooden floor creaked faintly under her boots. She needed to shake off these feelings. To ground herself somehow.
The kettle sat on the counter, and she filled it with water from the tap, the cold stream splashing against the metal, helping to steady her hands.
She set the kettle down on the stovetop, and as the burner clicked to life, she drew in slow breaths, forcing her mind away from that almost-kiss, away from all thoughts of Christopher.
Instead, she needed to focus on work. That would keep her mind occupied. She had an article to write and a deadline that didn’t care about holiday distractions. But Christopher was more than a distraction. So much more.
But he was not hers. Her feelings were not real. But her job, her ambition was.
She breathed in slowly through her nose and let it out through her pursed lips. It was a trick she’d used plenty of times to calm herself, to get a grip on her nerves. And it did not fail her now.
By the time she poured the boiling water over a tea bag, the steam rising with a comforting chamomile scent, her pulse had slowed, and her thoughts were back on the task at hand. Her article about Christmas in Bear Creek.
Mug in hand, she moved to the living room, where the fireplace waited dark and empty.
She set the tea on the side table and kneeled before it, stacking kindling and logs the way she’d seen Christopher do it so effortlessly in his own cabin.
Her fingers fumbled with the matches, striking one after another against the box, only for the flames to sputter out before catching.
Frustration built in her chest, tightening like a knot.
Why couldn’t she get this right? Part of her imagined calling him, hearing his voice through the phone, watching through the window as he strode over to light the fire with that quiet competence.
But no, that would just be an excuse to see him again, to risk another moment like the one in his kitchen. Would that be so bad…?
Yes.
She struck another match and held it steady this time as she touched it against the kindling.
Finally! The kindling caught, and flames licked upward until the logs crackled to life.
Satisfaction bloomed in her chest, the same quiet triumph that washed over her whenever she hit send on a finished piece, knowing she’d shaped chaos into something coherent.
She held onto that sense of satisfaction as she fetched her notepad and laptop from the bedroom, then settled into the armchair facing the fire, the heat radiating against her legs as she pulled a blanket over her lap.
The article’s outline flowed easily now, her pen scratching across the paper: the town square’s massive tree with its handwritten wishes, the sanctuary’s gentle reindeer, the unexpected joy of sledding with strangers who felt like friends.
She typed up the notes, losing herself in the rhythm of recalling the day, with the crisp bite of snow in the air, the children’s laughter echoing off the hills, and the breathtaking vista from the sleigh.
Her phone lay beside her, and she picked it up to reference the photos, swiping through images of the decorated square, the animals, the endless white landscape.
Then there he was, captured in a candid shot she’d snapped during the sleigh ride.
She sighed as she stared at the photo of Christopher against the backdrop of mountains, a charismatic smile on his lips.
There was nothing staged about the photo, just her rugged mountain man in his natural surroundings.
Her stomach twisted, a giddy flip that she couldn’t ignore. Fine, she had a crush on him. A silly holiday crush, born from too much time in this winter wonderland. But oh, what she wouldn’t give for it to spark into something real, something that lasted beyond her departure date.
She set the phone down and stared out the window, where fresh snow drifted down in lazy spirals, blanketing the world in quiet white.
Could she actually be happy here, trading her suitcase for roots in a place like this?
She sighed, the sound heavy in the empty room.
Or would the charm wear thin, leaving her pacing these cabin walls like her mother had in their old hometown, resentment building until it poisoned everything, including any chance of happiness with a man like Christopher?
She didn’t want that invisible weight pressing down, the kind that had seeped from her mother’s every weary glance, every clipped word about dreams deferred. Better to keep moving, to avoid the trap altogether.
She swiped through the remaining photos, pausing on one of Teddy and Maisie from the sledding hill, their faces alight with pure, unfiltered joy.
Her heart squeezed, a sharp ache spreading through her chest. Not for Christopher this time, but for that, a family of her own, children to bundle up and chase through the snow, a real home that echoed with more than her solitary footsteps.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat and blinked hard, then looked back at her laptop screen, the words blurring through a haze of unshed tears.
The phone’s ring shattered the silence, jolting her upright.
Her editor’s face flashed on the screen…
Doreen, with her perpetual no-nonsense grin.
Sorcha wiped at her eyes quickly, sniffed back the emotion, and tapped to answer.
“Hi there,” Doreen said, her voice crackling with energy. “Just thought I’d check in.”
“Hi, Doreen.” Sorcha matched the bright, breezy tone as best she could, forcing a smile into her words even if her chest still felt tight. “Perfect timing.”
“How’s the article coming along?” Doreen asked, straight to business as always.
“It’s good,” Sorcha replied, glancing at her outline. “I was just working on it when you called.”
“And how are you finding small-town life?” Doreen’s laugh carried through the line, light and curious. “Not too claustrophobic for a city girl like you?”
Sorcha hesitated, her gaze drifting back to the window and the falling snow. “It’s…surprisingly charming. More than I expected.” She shifted in the chair, the fire’s warmth seeping deeper, chasing away some of the chill in her bones.
“Really,” Doreen drawled, with more than a hint of amusement, understandable since she was well aware of Sorcha’s history with small towns. “I never thought I would hear you say that about anywhere…small.”
Sorcha felt a sudden heat rise in her chest that had nothing to do with the fire crackling in the hearth. She’d spent most of her adult life running from small towns, and here was Doreen with that knowing tone, as if she’d caught Sorcha contradicting herself.
“Yes, there is something so…cozy about a small town at this time of year,” Sorcha said carefully, tempering her unexpected defensiveness. “As for Bear Creek itself, you should see the mountains and the forests…”
And Christopher, her mind added automatically. The thought of him sent a flutter through her stomach that she couldn’t ignore.
“Mountains and forests, huh?” Doreen asked, her voice lilting with suspicion.
Had Doreen somehow developed mind-reading abilities? Sorcha shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable. “Yes, and the activities,” she replied, keeping her tone even. “Today I went on a sleigh ride at the local animal sanctuary.”
“A sleigh ride,” Doreen repeated, and Sorcha could practically hear her leaning forward at her desk. “And was the driver of the sleigh ruggedly handsome?”
Sorcha chuckled nervously, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “I don’t know, I’m not here for ruggedly handsome.”
Doreen’s laugh burst through the phone. “You know I love you and your work ethic, but sometimes you have to stop and admire the scenery…and I don’t just mean the mountains and forests.”
Sorcha closed her eyes, Christopher’s smiling face appearing immediately in her mind. Her stomach did a flip. “I know.”
“But talking of work ethics,” Doreen said, her tone shifting to something more businesslike.
“Yes?” Sorcha asked, nervousness threading through her voice.
“There’s an opportunity that’s come up, and I have put your name forward,” Doreen said.
Sorcha sat up straighter. “What kind of opportunity?”
“It seems that the rumors were true,” Doreen continued. “Dominic is looking to settle down. He’s met someone…”
“He has?” Sorcha asked, a wave of envy sweeping over her. Not because Dominic had her dream job of traveling all over the world to exclusive resorts. But because he had found someone. His dreams had changed.
“Sorcha?” Doreen’s voice cut through her thoughts. “This is what you’ve always wanted.”
“It is,” Sorcha replied. But the words sounded hollow, like a line from a script she’d rehearsed for years but no longer believed in.
She stared into the dancing flames, suddenly seeing not her future globe-trotting adventures but Christopher’s kitchen, the way they’d moved around each other with such natural ease, as if they’d been doing it for years.
“You don’t sound very excited,” Doreen observed, her voice gentler now. “Is everything okay?”
Sorcha pressed her fingers to her temple. “I’m just tired, I think. It’s been a long day.”
“I understand,” Doreen said, though her tone suggested she didn’t quite believe it. “We can talk details when you get back. The position wouldn’t start until after the holidays, anyway.”
“Right,” Sorcha murmured, her mind already racing ahead, calculating what this would mean. More travel, more exclusive locations, more prestige. Everything she’d worked toward since she’d left home to fulfill her dreams.
So why did it suddenly feel like a burden rather than a triumph?
“Well, I should let you get back to your article,” Doreen said. “And maybe get some rest. You sound…different.”
“Do I?” Sorcha asked, forcing lightness into her voice. “Must be the mountain air. Or the hot chocolate with candy-cane spoons.”
But she knew the truth. Knew what had changed her. Or who. Christopher.
After they said their goodbyes, Sorcha set her phone down and stared out the window again. The snow continued to fall, each flake unique and perfect, covering the world in clean white possibility.
Dominic had found someone who made him want to stay in one place. The thought circled in her mind like the snowflakes outside, refusing to settle. She’d always pitied people who “settled down,” seeing it as giving up rather than gaining something precious.
But what if she’d been wrong?
She picked up her phone and scrolled to the photo of Christopher against the mountains. There was something in his expression, a contentment, a belonging, that she’d never found despite all her travels.
The job offer should have thrilled her. Instead, it filled her with a strange emptiness, as if she were standing at a crossroads where both paths led somewhere unsatisfying.
Sorcha set the phone down and returned to her laptop, staring at the half-written article. The words that had flowed so easily before now seemed distant, disconnected from the turmoil inside her.
She began to type anyway, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. The article wouldn’t write itself, and she still had a deadline to meet, regardless of her confused feelings.
But as her fingers moved across the keyboard, describing the magic of Bear Creek at Christmas, she couldn’t help wondering if she was writing about a place she might never see again—or one she might someday dare to call home.