Cookies & Eggnog from Welcombe Bay: Sweets By The Sea, #0

By Kate Darroch

Have you wondered why Lily is so jumpy and distracted in Thanksgivng in Welcombe Bay, or why she is so terrified of Gary?

Cookies & Eggnog from Welcombe Bay is the Prequel, in which we learn how Lily became who she is.

A short Christmastide visit to her grandparents in Welcombe Bay becomes literally life-changing for Lily.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Darroch
• Release date: May 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9781944690434

Kate Darroch

Enjoying a placid life in coastal Devon, Kate brings her love of reading Cozy Sleuths, her 30 years writing experience, and her knowledge of foreign climes, to writing her quirky Travel Cozies. Kate hopes her readers will find as much joy in Màiri Maguire Cozies as she finds in reading Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, Ellery Queen Magazine, and Steve Higgs’ Patricia Fisher. The colossal sense of community in the hamlets of Devon took Kate back in spirit to the Glasgow of her childhood, and that's how Màiri was born. Màiri is a Scots Irish teacher whose hometown is Glasgow as it was in the 1970s, an era Kate fondly remembers. In Britain, the Seventies ushered in a time of huge ideological change. The world opened up and class barriers were vanishing. It was an exciting time to be a woman. Kate hopes to bring a sense of that excitement to you now, with a soupcon of women's lives during that epoch of upheaval, together with a little of the culture of Europe; all wrapped up in fun, frothy, fast paced Cozy Mysteries, with just enough clues and twists to keep you guessing until the end.  Kate believes that Reading should be a pleasure available to all, and so she is passionate about Accessibility. All her fiction is published in Large Print and Dyslexia Friendly editions, standard print, eBooks and audiobooks.

Book preview

COOKIES & EGGNOG

from

WELCOMBE BAY

Cookies & Eggnog from Welcombe Bay 

Sweets By The Sea Christian Second Chance Romance, Prequel

Author: Kate Darroch

Ad Astra Press Inc

Copyright © 2024 Darroch Family Trust All rights reserved

The Moral Right of the Author has been asserted

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, institutions and organisations is coincidental or entirely fictitious.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-944690-43-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Published in United Kingdom: 2024

Published in United States of America: 2024

Publisher:  https://adastrapress.co.uk

This story is the Prequel to

Thanksgiving in Welcombe Bay

available from major online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc,

and at

https://katedarroch.com

Download More Books as a Gift to you from Kate at

https://books.katedarroch.com

Dedicated with love and gratitude to my darling Matt, without whose selfless love, caring, and generosity, I would not still be alive to write this book or any other

Chapter 1

Ten sleeps until Christmas . A big smile paints itself on my face as I think that. Christmas is such an exciting time. My favourite holiday is Harvest Festival, but Christmas... unbidden, my thoughts fly back to the first Christmas that Gary and I spent together.

My smile vanishes. I move briskly across to the cupboard where I’ve put all the decorations, trying to win back the fluttery anticipation and happiness of just a moment ago. But it’s no use. All my joy and excitement had vanished when I thought of Gary. Maybe it’s a sin, to get upset every time you think of your husband, but I can’t help it.     

I wish he were here to help me put up the decorations, that we could get back the excitement I’d felt anticipating our first Christmas together, as newlyweds. Well, not quite newlyweds, but newly sharing a home together. I’d moved in when I discovered our baby was coming, because Gary, who doesn’t believe in God, had said casually, ‘Move in, babe. What does a piece of paper matter?’                

And he was right, of course. A piece of paper doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the piece of paper that I’d wanted, it’s all the things that come with it. Your families happy for you. Your friends all excited about the journey you’re embarking on. Father Tom standing smiling at the two of us as he blesses our union. The joy of knowing that Lord Jesus has reached down from heaven to bless the love we share. The giant party that Grandma and Granda would have wanted to throw for us in Sweets By The Sea, the café on the sands at Welcombe Bay that’s been owned by my family for over 100 years.            

How my Granda loved to joke that the café was full of bakers and our home, a little three bedroom flat over the café, too full of Bakers. Even though that had only happened when he married Grandma. Her mother had been a Mrs Higgins, famous for her mouth-watering pies. Her mother’s mother had been a Mrs Higgins, too, the first in the line of café owners. She’d bought the almost-derelict house on the sands late in life and devoted herself to fixing it up.

But my mother had been a Mrs Baker, because my dad was Grandma’s son, and I’d been a Miss Baker. So it was true that when I was growing up, our home was full of Bakers.

I always loved it when Granda said that, because right after he’d said it, he would hug me and then say, ‘But it can never be full enough of beautiful flowers like our Lily, right, Mother?’

And Grandma would pat my head if it was within reach. If I was outside patting distance, she would smile and blow me a kiss. ‘One day our Lily will be a baker,’ she’d say.

I smile again now at the bittersweet memory of baking with Grandma all afternoon on my eighteenth birthday. I’d been so excited because for the first time she’d shared one of her secret pie recipes with me.                

We’d baked a strawberry shortcake together, and we’d laughed together when she said, ‘You’ll be the baker in Sweets one day, Lily, but not a Baker, eh?’          

I was on top of the world a minute later when she said, ‘Now that you’ve grown-up, Lily, I’ll teach you all my recipes.’                

I’d been so excited, but it was nothing compared to what I felt when I first saw Gary. One of his mates brought him to my birthday party. When I saw him gazing quizzically at me from across the room, one eyebrow quirked above black, black, eyes that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe, well, I know it’s a cliché, but I swear my heart turned over.  

I knew right away that he was The One. The only boy in the world for me.

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS we moved in together. I hadn’t even been kissed before Gary came into my life. But somehow I could never say ‘No’ to him, even although I’d tried, because I didn’t always want the same things he wanted. I’d wanted to wait to make love until after we were married. But we didn’t wait. And so I was about to become a mother before I was nineteen, with no sign of a wedding on the horizon.

GARY TOOK IT HARD WHEN I lost the baby. It was the first time he hit me. Afterwards he was sorry, and he explained that he’d been too upset to control himself because he’d wanted our child so much.

Somehow I hadn’t been surprised when he hit me. It felt as if he’d been fighting the impulse for a while. It sounds crazy, but knowing that he’d tried hard not to hurt me made me love him even more.

After that, I walked on eggshells around