arm. He pulled the quilt over the pair of them and they lay in the silence, staring into the fire and drawing strength and warmth from where their bodies made contact.
Louise’s eyelids flickered. Her head was filled with crackling fires, spiced wine and silver boxes wrapped with ribbons. She yawned and stretched one arm. That was the best night’s sleep she’d had since…
She wasn’t alone.
Foggily, she tried to decipher what her senses were telling her. There was a warm body wrapped around her, breathing rhythmically…a strange bed…and a
The Christmas tree!
Her eyelids pinged the rest of the way open and, suddenly, she was very much awake. That warm body tangled with hers belonged to Ben Oliver. She didn’t dare move, just in case it was all just another delicious dream.
Slowly, she made herself relax back against him. He mumbled something in his sleep-nonsense-and hugged her tighter. She smiled.
This was what contentment felt like. She’d forgotten its taste, its flavour.
Her eyes scanned the room once again, this time taking in the details. The fire was out, as were quite a few of the candles, but even with the flickering yellow glow from the few that were left, there was an odd silvery-blue light bathing the room.
Mind you, she’d never been in the boathouse this early in the morning before and she had no idea what time it was. Perhaps this was the colour of dawn down here so close to the river.
No, that wasn’t it. Gut instinct told her to go and look out of the window. She dropped one leg over the edge of the day bed and started to move, but Ben grumbled again and pulled her back, nuzzling into the side of her neck.
Half-asleep, he was adorable, but whether he’d feel the same way when he was fully conscious was another matter. She’d humiliated herself last night and the atmosphere between them was bound to be awkward. Things often looked different in the cold light of day. And, thinking about cold light, her curiosity got the better of her and she wriggled out of his arms, wrapping the patchwork quilt around her and leaving him covered with the goose down duvet.
As she stood, and could see out of the window, she gasped. Even a tug at the trailing quilt couldn’t stop her running to the door, flinging it wide and walking out on to the balcony.
Snow.
Fresh and white and everywhere. It weighed down the bare branches of the young trees and topped the large stones on the beach so they looked like giant cupcakes. It seemed as if the whole world was buried under a blanket of purity, the past forgotten, everything new.
She twirled around in amazement, taking it all in, then reached for the layer of snow, only an inch deep, that topped the balcony railing. The icy crystals crunched under the weight of her fingertips.
A floorboard creaked behind her and once again she was wrapped up in Ben Oliver. He’d brought the duvet with him and he folded it over them both. She held her breath. She’d thought that maybe he’d been giving her the brush-off last night, but the way he was holding her now, as if he wanted to seal their bodies together, laid those fears to rest. He rested his chin on her shoulder so his head was right next to hers and kissed her cheek near her ear.
‘Merry Christmas, Louise.’
She twisted her head to look at him, her eyebrows raised. She’d been so caught up in the magic of last night, the beauty of this morning, that she’d completely forgotten that it was Christmas Day.
‘Merry Christmas,’ she whispered back, suddenly feeling very shy. But, as she went to shake her fringe in front of her eyes, he stopped her with a gentle hand.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said, moving so they were now facing each other.
She wasn’t foolish enough to say,
‘That’s better.’
He smiled and, just like that, any residual awkwardness she’d been feeling evaporated. There was such warmth and light in his eyes, so many possibilities, that she felt an answering smile spread over her own face. So they stood there like that for goodness knew how long, grinning stupidly at each other, saying nothing and everything.
Then his eyes sobered and began to communicate all sorts of other things. Louise didn’t wait for him this time. There wasn’t much of a difference in their heights, and she reached up behind his neck and pulled him closer, lifting her heels off the floor just slightly.
Kissing Ben Oliver on a snow-dusted balcony on Christmas morning had to be one of the most romantic things she’d ever done. Not only were the kisses perfect, but the crisp cold air on her cheeks and the chill in her toes only seemed to increase the heat spreading from her core. She felt as if she was glowing from the inside out, so much so that shivers rippled through her.
Ben pulled away, just enough to focus on each other without going cross-eyed, and tucked the quilt tighter around her.
‘How do you feel about cold curry for breakfast?’
She grinned. ‘My absolute favourite.’
And, as he playfully pulled her back inside the boathouse, she took one last look at the picture-perfect scene outside. The river reflected the colour of the iron sky perfectly and smoke puffed from the chimneys in the village across the river. As far as the eye could see, the rolling hills were bleached and frosted like the icing on a giant Christmas cake.
It didn’t matter to Louise if winter had stolen all the shades and tones and left everything monochrome. To her, this morning, life was very much in Technicolor.
Ben ran up to his bedroom, slammed the door open and stripped all his clothes off in under a minute. The last sock still hadn’t hit the floor when he’d run into his bathroom and jumped in the shower.
He felt like a man possessed. Like a man with too much adrenaline coursing through his system, who was about to spontaneously combust. Realising he had just started to wash himself with conditioner, he forced himself to stand still and take a few deep breaths.
No good. He still felt like whooping aloud, or running down the street and knocking on every door just to tell them he’d kissed the most astounding, marvellous, complicated woman in the world and, once he was clean and changed, he was going to go back and do it again.
He yelled as shampoo got in his eye.
Slow down!
This time he was more successful. He managed to rest one hand against the tiled shower wall and watch the rise and fall of his chest slow a little. Relax. You can do it.
He finished his shower in a speed that could be classified more as ‘brisk efficiency’ than ‘mania’, cleaned his teeth and wandered back into the bedroom, whistling, a towel slung round his hips.
What time was it? He checked the digital alarm clock on his bedside table. Ten.
That meant he’d been gone about forty-five minutes. And it would probably be another hour until he saw her again.
Without really paying attention to what he was rummaging for in his chest of drawers, he pulled out clean clothes and got dressed. One last look in the mirror. He ran his hand through his wet hair, then stilled. Was this what Louise saw? A thirty-six-year old with dark hair and brown eyes? That description could probably fit hundreds of thousands of men up and down the country. Apart from the insane grin he just couldn’t wipe away completely, he was just an ordinary guy.
Okay, he wasn’t desperately bad-looking, but he’d be kidding himself if he thought he could compete with the men in Louise’s world. A world in which he clearly didn’t belong.
At that point he told his male pride to get a grip.
Even so, the unquenchable grin widened.
He grabbed his watch, fastened it on his wrist and jumped down the stairs only two at a time. But when he got
