Until Fountain Bridge, стр. 1

Until Fountain Bridge

(an On Dublin Street novella)

By Samantha Young

without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or

transmitted save with the written permission of the author. This work is registered with and

protected by Copyright House.

A Note to Readers

After the publication of On Dublin Street I was not only overwhelmed by the many readers who contacted me to tell me how much they enjoyed Joss and Braden’s story, but also by

how many that expressed their love for Ellie and Adam, and requested to read more about

them. Until Fountain Bridge is an answer to those requests and a thank you to my readers for their unwavering enthusiasm and support.

Readers should note that the Fountainbridge area of the city is actually spelled as one word

but I’ve taken artistic license and separated it into two words for series title continuity. Just thought you should know in case you try to look for it… I don’t want to get anyone lost on

the streets of Edinburgh. That would be bad.

Anyhoo, this is Ellie and Adam…

Happy Reading!

Chapter 1

It was always the same when you were looking for something in amongst a big pile of some

things—the something you were after was at the bottom of that big pile of some things. I finally dropped the last box on the other side of the room and wiped a streak of sweat from

my forehead.

When I’d moved in with Adam three months ago I’d promised him that all the boxes of

junk that I put in his spare room would be sorted out and tidied away within a couple of

weeks. I’d unfortunately reneged on that promise and wasn’t ashamed to say I was still

leaning on my tumor scare to get me out of the admonishment that should have followed. I’d

been diagnosed with my benign—and yet still terrifying—brain tumor eight months ago, a

diagnosis that not only traumatized my family and friend, Joss, but had kicked Adam, my

brother’s best friend, swiftly up the behind. He’d finally admitted to everyone he was in love

with me, and we’d hardly spent a day apart since. Although our relationship had changed, we

were still us and Adam tried not to treat me like I was made of glass. However, I’d noticed he

let me away with things he wouldn’t have before—such as cluttering up his clutter-free,

swanky duplex with all my rubbish—and I didn’t know if this was because of the scare or

because we were a couple now and he was compromising.

I swooped down on the last box with a grunt of triumph and ripped off the packing tape.

Inside I found exactly what I was looking for and smiled. I’d already upended the box and

sent my old diaries cascading across Adam’s hardwood floors before it occurred to me that

upending a box of diaries might cause scratches. Wincing, I did this silly little dance over the falling journals as if this would somehow, magically, soften the impact of their rapid descent.

It didn’t.

I dropped to my knees and picked up the books, checking the floors. Nothing. Thank God.

Adam was an architect and that meant he liked his space a certain way, and he liked that

space in pristine condition, especially when it cost him a fortune. Hardwood flooring wasn’t

cheap. Adam had already changed his life for me, doing a three-sixty from the ultimate player

to devoted boyfriend, from bachelor and proud clutter-free homeowner, to doting partner and

proud owner of a stylish duplex covered in weird crap his quirky, overly-romantic girlfriend

picked up in random places, including charity shops. He’d allowed me to put my stamp in

every room, so damaging his floors wasn’t exactly a nice way to pay him back. I kissed the

tips of my fingers and pressed them against the floor in a gesture of apology.

“Els, what was that noise? You okay?” Adam’s deep voice could be heard from across the

hall. He was in his office working on his and Braden’s current project.

“Uh-huh,” I called back, flipping through the diaries to make sure I had every single one

of them. I was so lost in what I was doing I didn’t hear Adam’s footsteps.

“What are you doing?” His voice was suddenly right above me and I jumped, startled,

only to lose my balance, falling onto my bottom with an “oof.”

I heard him smother a snort and glared up at him. “I need to get you a bell.”

Ignoring me, Adam crouched down onto his haunches, his eyes taking in the diaries. As

always when I studied him I got a little flutter in the pit of my stomach, and my skin tingled.

With his thick, dark hair and great body (honed from daily visits to the gym) Adam was a

good-looking guy but the kind of good-looking that immediately transformed to hot when you started to talk to him. He had a toe-curling wicked smile, intelligent dark brown eyes that twinkled when he was interested in what you were saying, and a rich voice that took direct

pathways to a woman’s erogenous zones. Those gorgeous eyes of his lifted to smile into

mine. “I haven’t seen you with one of these in a while.”

“My diaries?” I nodded, trying to sort them into chronological order. “I stopped writing.”

“Why?”

“I stopped after we got together. There didn’t seem to be any point in them any more since

they were basically just an outlet for my feelings for you.”

His lips quirked up at the corner. “Baby,” he murmured and reached over to tuck a length

of short hair behind my ear. I frowned at the reminder my hair was short. Before the tumor, I

had a head of long, pale blonde hair. I’d loved my hair, and I knew Adam had loved my hair.

But the surgeons had shaved a patch of it off my head to cut into my brain unobstructed. I’d

covered the patch with a headscarf but had eventually stopped wearing them as the hair grew

back out, and I allowed my mother to talk me into getting “a chic pixie cut”.

I was horrified when I walked out of the hair salon, and only somewhat appeased when

Adam told me he thought my new hair was sexy and cute. I was completely appeased when

Joss told me anything was better than a tumor.

She was right. If my tumor had taught me one thing about life it was to not sweat the small

stuff. That didn’t mean it wasn’t damn annoying waiting for my hair to grow back in. At the

moment it was barely to my chin.

“So why are you looking at these?” Adam asked, picking one up and absentmindedly

flicking through it. I didn’t mind. I was a pretty open person anyway, but especially with

Adam. I wasn’t embarrassed by anything I wrote. I trusted him with the very depths of who I

was.

“For Joss,” I replied brightly, feeling giddy about the whole thing.

Last night, Joss and I had been hanging out at her and Braden’s flat—my old flat on

Dublin Street—and she’d told me her manuscript was coming along nicely. Joss was

American, a writer, and she’d come to Edinburgh to escape a tragic past. Her story broke my

heart. When she was fourteen she’d lost her entire family in a car accident. I couldn’t even

begin to imagine what that must have been like for her. I just knew it had a left a deep mark.

I’d liked Joss immediately when I interviewed her to be my flatmate, but I’d known then

there was something broken about her, and I’d decided I wanted to help somehow. She’d

been pretty closed-off but when she started dating my big brother, Braden, I watched her

slowly change. She said Braden and I both changed her, but really it was him. He’d helped

her so much that she’d even begun to write a story based on her parent’s relationship. That