When Winter Comes

This amazing online love story starts here… Samantha thought the summer would never end. Long golden days merged into one so that she couldn’t remember where she and Luke had been on any particular day. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday they’d gone to the beach party? Who knew? Who cared?

She awoke each morning to a room flooded with sunlight and, while she dressed, watched the boats already at sea. They bobbed across the bay, where the turquoise waves were fringed with frills of white surf. The whole scene was topped by the blue, the never-ending blue of the sky, where the sun, like a blinding jewel, shone day after day.

The visitors kept coming, and Samantha’s mother was still busy providing bed and breakfast and evening meals weeks after the season usually ended. Sa- Samantha, who had finished university in July, stayed at home to help instead of going off into the great, wide world to seek her fortune.

It was really for Luke she stayed. He had finished a three-year contract in oil-rich Saudi Arabia earlier in the year and, being free, had offered to look after his aunt’s tiny antique shop near the quay. Samantha had met him when she went in to ask the price of a small painting of the town at the turn of the century.

The figure had dismayed them both but they laughed about it, and he had asked her out and they had kept on laughing about something or other for the whole summer.

They went swimming in the sea at midnight, the warm waves lapping over their brown bodies danced on the pier, at clubs, in discos went to shows, watched dolphins, rode in seaplanes and sailing boats, and life became one long web of magic that consisted only of Luke and herself and sunlight, music and laughter.

Soon it would end, in one way or another. One morning she would awake to find a clouded sky, a chill in the air and winter on its way.

But not yet. Samantha refused to think about it. Tonight they were going to a party. They had become a pair. Samantha and Luke.

She made beds in a dream, helped her mother wash dishes, making mechanical conversation. Her mother gave her a sharp glance.

“You’re going to come down to earth with a bump, my girl,” she said dryly.

Samantha glanced at her in amusement. “I shall come down to earth on top of you,” she answered, smiling at her mother’s ample form. “And you shall cushion my fall.”

Her mother couldn’t resist smiling back. Samantha’s happiness was infectious.

“Will you go to the library for me this morning, dear?” she asked. “Your father wants that new book on the Duke of Wellington, and you know how he must get his request in before Mr. Courtney.”

Samantha’s father was a keen amateur historian and vied with another inhabitant of the town with the same interest in being the first to get newly published books from the library.

Tying a scarf over her long tangle of nut-brown hair, Samantha stepped out into the sunlit street. It was still early enough for the air to smell salty, and she could hear the faint hiss and rustle of the tide coming in.

She swung her bag of books as she walked along to the library, unconscious of the admiring glances at her lithe, slim figure in T-shirt and jeans. Her blue eyes glowed with happiness, and she wanted to laugh aloud for no reason at all.

Through the small thick panes of the antique- shop window, she could see Luke dealing with a customer, an old lady examining china. He saw Samantha and waved and blew kisses over the old lady’s head. His brown eyes gleamed with merriment and love.

She imagined his sunburned hands holding her that night when they danced. Afterward on top of the hill, they would stop the car as they always did, and look down at the town lights and the moon reflected in the still, still ocean, and he would kiss her and the moment would become sheer bliss.

In the library, Samantha met Donald Mackay, the new librarian. She had come to know him quite well in a short time; he was unmarried, she knew because he lodged with one of her mother’s friends until he could find something more permanent. He was fair-haired, and when he talked about his beloved books a boyish grin would light up his face.

“You’re too late,” he said when she handed in a request card. “Will Courtney’s already asked for it.” He knew about the feud between the two men.

Samantha grimaced. “Never mind. Dad just can’t bear to think of another person learning something new about history before he does.”

“Are you doing anything tonight, Samantha?” Donald asked shyly. “There’s a good film on at the Piaza.”

He didn’t mix with the local young crowd much. Didn’t know about Samantha and Luke, who were a pair.

But something stopped Samantha from mentioning Luke. She could never, in a million years, have said what it was.

Instead of refusing outright as she knew she should have done, she said, “I’m frightfully busy this week. Besides, I’ve already seen the film. But maybe some other time.”

Donald Mackay looked pleased and vaguely wished he was dishonest enough to put Samantha’s father first on the list for the book on the Duke of Wellington. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t think Samantha would appreciate the gesture anyway….

The party was marvelous: lights softly dimmed, sweet music, lots of friends and Samantha and Luke, the perfect couple, locked in each other’s arms, dancing as one person for most of the evening.

Samantha, eyes closed, though, this will go on forever and ever and ever. I shall not forget this moment as long as I live. But then, she had said those same words to herself so many times during that wonderful summer.

They stopped on the hill outside town. Luke leaned over and took her in his arms, and she caressed the dark curls on the nape of his neck. Their lips met, and Samantha’s heart gave its old, familiar lurch.

The next night there was a champagne supper with some other antique dealers. The night after that, she and Luke went to dinner, just the two of them, to a little Greek restaurant. They ate moussaka and sipped unfamiliar retsina, accompanied by haunting music from a group of musicians.

“Samantha, Samantha,” whispered Luke as he kissed her that night. “I love you, darling.”

And Samantha replied with fervor, as she usually did, that she loved him, too.

The following morning, Samantha had no idea what day of the week it was.

“When does Luke go back?” her mother asked.

“Back where?” her daughter asked dreamily.

“To wherever he comes from,” her mother snapped.

“He comes from nowhere, really. His parents are dead,” Samantha explained softly. “He was at school and university until he was twenty-one, then in Saudi Arabia for three years. He can stay wherever he likes. Here, if he wants to.”

“Does he want to?” her mother asked, frowning. “And do you want him to?”

“I don’t know.” Samantha’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “I don’t suppose he knows, either. We hadn’t thought about it.”

Her mother looked worried. “Isn’t it about time you did?” she asked. “Everything’s been too perfect for you. Love is one thing, marriage another. Marriage isn’t perfect. Marriage is comforting someone when they’re ill, wiping their brow and washing their clothes.”

Her mother was upset, concerned lest her daughter plunges into marriage believing it would be a continuation of the fairy-tale relationship she’d basked in all summer. “Marriage is changing diapers and crying children. How would your Luke cope with them?”

“I’ve no idea,” Samantha admitted honestly. She sat down at the kitchen table and thought deeply, and her mother said nothing more.

It was impossible, absolutely impossible, to envisage Luke ill in bed or struggling to change a baby’s diaper. She remembered the way her own father had walked the floor at night with her young brother when he was a baby and had awful teething trouble. With Luke you laughed and sang, swam in a moon-gilded sea, danced and kissed, you didn’t do the….

Samantha stopped herself. She had just been about to add the “real” things in life. But everything was real-in its own way. Could she and Luke help it that things had not gone wrong? Besides, they hadn’t mentioned marriage, either of them. There’d been no need.

She shook her head impatiently. Why bother to think about it? Tonight was yet to come, and that was all that mattered. She laughed aloud when she thought about it.

Upstairs, her mother heard the laugh and sighed.

The jazz club was in the cellar of a pub in the next town. They met stacks of people they knew and stayed until the early hours of the morning.

Luke stopped the car in the usual place on the way home and reached out his arms for her.

“Don’t!” said Samantha, surprising herself.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, bewildered.

“I don’t know.”

She shivered, then said, “Luke, the water isn’t so blue.”

“It was bound to change sometime.” He shrugged.

Samantha turned and buried her head in his shoulder, and he held her tightly for a long time.

The next morning she awoke and sleepily wondered for a few seconds what was wrong with her bedroom. Her heart sank when she realized the sky was gray, and the room looked strange without the sunlight streaming in. It seemed as though the whole world had changed.

As she dressed she watched one lone fishing boat struggling across the choppy brown water of the bay.

Her mother looked sad as she put her daughter’s breakfast before her. “Where are you going tonight?” she asked.

“We were going to a barbecue at Wrentford, but it’ll be canceled if the weather doesn’t improve,” Samantha said with a sigh.

It didn’t improve. In fact, it got worse and when Luke called for her that night it was raining and he looked unfamiliar in a rather crumpled old raincoat.

They went for a drink in a local pub, which was nearly empty because it was Friday, and the remaining holiday visitors had decided to go home instead of hanging about in the wet until the following day.

Samantha and Luke were strangely silent. Everything that had been between them seemed to have belonged to the sunshine and the warm sea, to joy and laughter.

But, in this shabby little pub, what was there to say to each other? Samantha could think of nothing, and she was glad when Donald Mackay walked in, a couple of books under his arm.

He grinned when he saw them and asked if he could sit at their table. Samantha was ashamed of the alacrity with which she agreed and couldn’t help noticing Luke looked relieved at the arrival of the newcomer.

“I expect you’ll be picking up soon,” Donald said after a while, and Luke nodded.

“This weekend, probably,” he said.

Samantha felt her heart miss a beat. She tried to look politely interested.

“Where will you go?” asked Donald.

Luke toyed with the handle of his glass and looked vague. “I’ve no idea. It depends on a lot of things.”

The pub wasn’t far from Luke’s shop. All three left together and when they were outside, Samantha said, “There’s no need to walk home with me, Luke. Donald lives only a few doors away.”

“As you wish,” he answered stiffly, and turning abruptly, he walked down the street, shoulders hunched against the rain, looking downcast and miserable-nothing like the dashing, romantic young man who had wooed her all summer.

Why had she done that? Deliberately hurt him? Samantha was angry with herself but knew it was because she didn’t want to be alone with him. Somehow it was easier to talk to Donald.

Back home, all the family were in bed and she sat in the kitchen until the early hours of the morning, drinking endless cups of coffee, eyes burning, wanting to cry, yet not able to.

How would she feel if she went to Luke’s shop in the morning and he’d gone? Her breath drew in sharply at the mere thought. Surely, it would break her heart. Would it? She didn’t know.

Rising from the table to make yet more coffee, she was startled by the ringing of the phone and rushed into the hall to answer it before it woke her parents.

“Samantha?”

It was Luke.

She mumbled something incoherent. “Samantha, I’m sorry to ring at such a stupid time, but I can’t sleep.”

“Neither can I,” she confessed.

“Look, I’ve been thinking. I was going to pack tonight, and leave first thing in the morning.” His voice cracked a little. “Samantha, are you listening?”

“Of course,” she almost sobbed.

“But I don’t want to. At least, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. Do you want me to leave, Samantha?” How different was his voice from the firm, laughing tones she’d heard all summer?

“I’m pretty sure I don’t want you to,” she answered softly. “But we’ll have to meet and talk and then, maybe…

“I’ll come first thing in the morning. Well, today, in fact. It’s nearly two.”

“Today. Yes, come today,” she said, and put the receiver down and leaned back against the wall with a sigh of relief. Maybe they’d just got off to a more marvelous start than most people.

Maybe they’d have to get to know each other all over again, in the ordinary way other people did. He would come tomorrow, no, today. Then, maybe….

Her eyes glowed, and she went upstairs to bed with a light step, murmuring to herself, “Maybe.”

This is one of the best online story of love stories to read. We will come up with a more romantic story like this. This online story is from an online storybook romantic story book. This is written by Elizabeth Case. Reading romantic stories online is a different experience than reading a romantic story from the book.

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