stepped into the cabin. He played out the memory of her touch, the way she made him feel, and then, so gradually he hardly noticed that he was doing it, he started to play the strange feeling of liberation that morning, that sense of being dropped into a different world, isolated by the snow, where all the usual rules were suspended.
And after a while, the tune changed again, to echo old Scottish folk songs that he had once learnt, and to play out the glittering morning and the air and the hills and the water, and Romy, laughing in the snow.
Lex played on, absorbed in the music, unaware of anyone else until a movement from doorway made him look up. Willie was there, listening, and the grief in his eyes made Lex’s fingers still.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have asked if I could use the piano.’
Willie waved the apology aside. ‘I’m glad you did. I haven’t heard it since Moira died, but I can’t bring myself to get rid it.’
He asked if Lex would play again that evening, and Lex was glad to. He didn’t normally like performing for an audience, but playing was better than sitting next to Romy and feeling his hands itch with the need to touch her. Better than having to pretend to her that he didn’t want her, while pretending to Willie that he did.
He found some music in the piano stool, and played the most battered scores, which he guessed would have been Moira Grant’s favourites. Romy sat next to Willie and held his hand while the tears rolled down his face.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply when Lex had finished. ‘I’m glad you came. I’m glad my store’s going to be run by a man who can play like that.’
The thaw had set in already. By lunchtime, the glittering morning had vanished beneath the cloud cover, and the temperature had risen with remarkable speed. Tomorrow, it was clear, they would be able to leave. Lex lay in the dark and listened to the steady drip, drip, drip of melting snow outside the window.
Get through tonight, he told himself. That’s all you have to do.
Beside him, Romy was concentrating on breathing very quietly. The curtains hanging round the bed smelt musty, but the sheets were clean and faintly scented. The mattress was comfortable. It was dark. She had hardly slept the night before and now she was very tired.
There was no reason why she shouldn’t be able to sleep.
Except the memory of that kiss that had been thrumming beneath her skin all day. And then Lex’s playing had stirred up emotions Romy had rather left buried. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off his hands while he was playing, hadn’t been able to stop remembering those long, dextrous fingers smoothing and stroking, exploring her, unlocking her.
Stop thinking about it, she told herself. Get through tonight. That’s all you have to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFRAID to move in case she disturbed Lex, Romy stared into the darkness and told herself to be sensible while the silence lengthened, stretched, and at last grew so painful that she couldn’t bear it any more.
‘Lex?’ she asked quietly, just in case he was asleep after all.
There was a tiny pause, and then he let out a breath. ‘Yes?’
‘You’re not asleep?’
‘No.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘I gathered that.’ Lex sounded resigned. Or amused. Or exasperated. Or maybe all three.
Romy sighed and rolled onto her side to face him through the darkness. ‘I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about that kiss this morning.’
‘That was a mistake,’ he said after a moment.
‘Was it?’
She could just make out his profile. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking up at the ceiling. ‘I’ve spent twelve years trying to forget Paris,’ he said. ‘Trying to forget
He sounded bitter, and Romy bit her lip.
‘I think about that time too,’ she said quietly. ‘I think the reason I can’t forget it is because we never ended it properly. You just…left. We never talked about it, never had a chance to say goodbye.’
‘What was the point of talking?’ asked Lex. ‘You didn’t want to be with me. You wanted to make a life on your own, and you were right. There was no point in me staying. It was over.’
‘It didn’t feel over,’ said Romy. ‘It didn’t feel over this morning when we kissed.’
There was a silence, loud with memories. Then Lex turned and lay on his side so that they faced each other at last. ‘Do you remember what you said out there in the snow? You said that I wasn’t afraid of anything.’
‘I remember,’ she said softly.
‘I’m afraid of how I felt about you. I’m afraid of feeling that way again.’ The words came out stiffly, forced through tight lips as if against his will. ‘I don’t want to fall in love with you again, Romy,’ he said.
Romy drew a breath, heart cracking at the suppressed pain in his voice. ‘I don’t want to fall in love with you either,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want to need you. I don’t want to need anybody.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m not suggesting we try again. It didn’t work twelve years ago, and it’s not going to work now. We both know that.’
She could feel Lex’s eyes on her face through the darkness, sense the tautness of his body. ‘What
‘That we have one more night,’ said Romy. ‘One last time together and, this time, we’ll end it properly. Tomorrow, we’ll say goodbye and draw a line under everything we’ve had together. We can get on with our lives without wondering how it would have been.’
Hardly able to believe how calm she sounded when her pulse was booming and thumping, she edged towards the middle of the bed. ‘We could think of it as closure.’
Lex shifted over the mattress and laid his palm against her cheek in the darkness, feeling her quiver at his touch. ‘Closure,’ he repeated, as if trying out the word.
He liked the idea. One last night. No more wondering, no more regretting. Just accepting at long last that it was over.
‘It’s just been such a strange day,’ said Romy, lifting her hand to his wrist, unable to stop herself touching him in return. ‘I’ve felt unreal all day, as if I’ve stepped into a different world.’
‘I know what you mean.’ They were very close now. Lex let his fingers slide under her hair, curl around the soft nape of her neck, and her hand was drifting up to his shoulder. ‘As if the normal rules don’t apply today.’
‘Exactly,’ she said unevenly.
‘Tomorrow, we’re going back to the real world.’ Already he was unwinding her sarong, his hand warm and sure, curving now around her breast, dipping into her waist, over her hip and then slipping possessively to the base of her spine to pull her closer. ‘Tomorrow, we go back to normal.’
‘I know.’
Romy’s senses were reeling. She had a vague sense that they should be talking this through properly, but how could she talk when he was smoothing possessively down her thigh to the back of her knee and up again, gentling up her spine, making her gasp with the warmth of his hand? When he was rolling her onto her back, when she was pulling him over her? When he was pressing his mouth to the curve of her neck so that she sucked in a breath and arched beneath him.
‘It’s just tonight,’ she managed, barely aware of what she was saying, loving his warm, sleek weight on her, loving the feel of his back beneath her hands, the flex of response when she trailed her fingers up his flank. It felt so right to touch him again that her heart squeezed and she could hardly breathe with it.
‘Just tonight,’ Lex murmured agreement against her throat.
Beneath his hands, beneath the wicked pleasure of his lips, Romy felt all thought evaporate. There was only Lex and the heat and the rush and the wild joy, so she didn’t even hear when he said it again. ‘Tomorrow, it’ll be over.’
The car was packed. Freya, strapped firmly in, was kicking her heels petulantly against the car seat, her face screwed up in sullen protest. When Willie waved through the window, she refused to smile back at him.
The crispness of the day before had vanished under thick grey cloud. There was still snow, but it was slumped
