How could I have forgotten how perfect it felt to kiss Aiden Waites?
Somewhere behind me, a phone rang, then stopped abruptly. I barely registered the sound. Until…
‘Freya!’
I stumbled backwards, wrenching myself away from him at the sound of my mother’s horrified cry.
‘Oh hell,’ I murmured, my gaze still fixed on Aiden’s face, on the way his lips looked too red, at the resignation in his eyes. The way he was stepping away from me, too.
Good. That was the right thing to do. So why did I hate it so much?
‘You’re back early,’ I said brightly, turning around to face the door. Oh God, it wasn’t just Mum. It was all of them. Isabelle, Sally, Tony, Saskia – and Edward, of course. Therese must have gone back to her cottage already. But the rest of them… they were all staring at me, with varying degrees of surprise and astonishment. Or, in Saskia’s case, none at all.
I glanced quickly at the clock. Quarter to one. How had it got so late? I must have been longer getting Max to bed than I’d thought. Or else that kiss had been going on forever…
‘Well, I think we’d all better get off to bed, hadn’t we?’ Tony said, jovially. ‘Big day tomorrow. I’ve got to get the turkey in the oven in a few hours…’
‘Not until we’ve filled the stockings,’ Mum said, her voice hard. ‘Freya. Why don’t you go get the presents from the car?’
Relieved by the reprieve, I did as I was told. And once again, I didn’t look back.
I didn’t want to know what I might see in Aiden’s eyes.
Chapter Six
‘I don’t know what you were thinking,’ Mum whispered fiercely, as she shoved badly wrapped presents into Max’s and Edward’s stockings. Isabelle and Sally were filling the other family ones, and as far as I could tell I didn’t even get a stocking any more. Which seemed about right. ‘Kissing a man you’ve barely just met. What if I’d been Max, walking in on that? What would your son think?’
A chill settled through me that had nothing to do with the dying fire. God, what if Max had walked in? This is why I had to stay away from Aiden, from any ideas about my future. Max was confused and angry enough as it was. The last thing I wanted was to make that any worse.
I’d already decided that any bright new future had to wait until Max was settled. But seeing Aiden again had messed with my convictions – and I couldn’t afford that. Not with Max to think of.
This time around, I knew I had to make my decisions carefully – not rush into things. That was how I’d ended up agreeing to marry Darren in the first place. How could I be sure that falling back into an old relationship – that had only lasted two weeks anyway – wouldn’t end just as badly?
‘It was a mistake,’ I mumbled. ‘Too much Irish coffee.’
‘Well, I’m cutting you off. Orange juice only tomorrow,’ Mum instructed, and I nodded.
She was probably right. Maybe that would be safest.
Then she sighed. Tucking the last present into the top of Max’s stocking, she turned to me, crumpling the empty present bag in her hands. ‘Look, Freya. I know the last few months have been hard. And I understand, really I do. You’re on the rebound. You’re hurt, and you’re just looking for love wherever you can find it. But really, you need to take the time to properly work through everything that’s happened. You’re still in love with Darren, I know that. You know that.’ Did I? Right then, I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure I’d ever been in love with him.
And I’d sure as hell never wanted him the way I wanted Aiden.
But then, I’d known that fourteen years ago and still thought I could make it work. Why was now any different?
If I’d never had those two weeks with Aiden, maybe I’d have been truly happy with Darren. Maybe I’d even have been enough for him. But knowing what was possible… maybe Darren would never have been enough for me.
Where the hell had Aiden disappeared to, anyway? Bed, I assumed. Alone. Damn him.
No, this was for the best. Mum was right. What the hell had I been thinking? Where did I think things would have gone, if she hadn’t come home when she did? The last thing I needed was my son walking in on an ill-advised one night stand on Christmas morning.
‘Well, I think that’s all the presents,’ Isabelle said, far too cheerily to not have been eavesdropping the whole time. ‘I think we’d better call it a night.’
‘Definitely,’ Mum said, giving me a stern look.
I trailed behind them up the stairs, turning off towards my yellow room with a whispered ‘Merry Christmas.’ I shut the door behind me, and stared at the bright walls in the lamplight, wondering what it was about Christmas that turned me into a different person altogether.
Except it wasn’t Christmas, I knew. It was Aiden.
And I still had another full day in his company before we could all go home and return to life as normal. A life in which my husband had left me, my son was angry and confused, and my mother knew I’d kissed another man the first chance I got. Perfect.
I dropped, face first onto the bed, and wished I’d thought to smuggle the whiskey up to bed with me.
Rosewood clearly required alcohol.
***
‘Max. Max!’ I whisper-shouted at his bedroom door, hoping not to wake anyone else. Then I gave up and opened it, letting in the light from the hallway, and watching as he blinked himself awake.
‘Mum? What’s happening? Is it morning?’
‘It is. Merry Christmas.’ I let myself in and switched on the light, pulling the door to behind me. ‘It’s also snowing.’
‘It’s been snowing since yesterday,’ Max pointed out.
‘Yes, but now it’s really snowed.’ In fact, it must have been snowing heavily ever since everyone made it home from Midnight Mass. The grounds outside were at least a foot or so deep in the stuff. ‘And you know what that means…’
Max’s face split into a wide grin that made him look six again. ‘Snow animals!’
‘Exactly!’ Every year since Max was tiny, when and if the first snow fell, he and I would dive out into it, wrapped up in our warmest clothes, and build a menagerie of snow animals until our fingers froze, and we had to retreat to the kitchen for hot chocolate. It was the one tradition that was wholly ours – Darren had never really liked the snow.
‘Brilliant!’ Max threw off his covers and bounced out of bed.
‘Get dressed and meet me downstairs,’ I told him, and headed down to dig out our gloves, scarves and hats, plus some spare veggies for animal beaks, eyes and so on.
Tony was already in the kitchen, humming Christmas carols as he prepped the turkey. He willingly handed over some suitable vegetables, and a basket to
carry them in, and promised to have hot chocolate waiting for us when we were ready.
‘Thank you!’ I called, as I opened the back door and stepped out into the bright white wonderland of Christmas Day at Rosewood.
All around the main house, snow spread out over the lawns at the back, leading down to the woods. The crisp white surface lay fresh, untrodden, and I had to hold myself from racing out into it before Max joined me.
Fortunately, he didn’t take long.
‘Ready, Mum?’
I nodded, returning his grin, and reaching out to hold his gloved hand. ‘One, two, three –’ Before I could even finish the count Max dragged me out into the white field, the snow crunching under our boots, and our laughter ringing out like the Christmas bells in Nathaniel Drury’s story.
Bent double, I tried to catch my breath, while Max began packing snow between his hands.
‘What are we making first?’ I asked.
Max considered, passing his snowball from glove to glove. ‘Penguin, I think.’
I nodded. ‘Then let’s get started.’
By the time Aiden and Caro appeared, both wrapped up in bobble hats and woolly scarves, Max and I had built two snow penguins, a snow cat and a possible snow elephant.’
‘Those are the weirdest snowmen I’ve ever seen,’ Aiden said, surveying our handiwork, while I tried to persuade my heart that it didn’t need to beat quite so hard, just because he was standing nearby.
‘That’s because they’re not snowmen,’ I explained, trying not to stare at how bright his eyes were in the winter sun. ‘They’re snow animals.’
‘Even that one?’ He nodded at the possibly-an-elephant. His carrot trunk had fallen to a rather unfortunate angle.
‘Maybe not that one,’ I admitted. ‘But I’d like to see you make a better elephant.’
‘Is that a challenge?’ Aiden asked, and I nodded, grinning. ‘Right then. Max, mate, I need you. Clearly you’re the artist here. Ready to make a real elephant?’
Max nodded, racing over to join him. ‘Caro? You gonna help?’ he asked, and Caro rolled her eyes, but agreed.
I brushed the snow off a low wall at the edge of the lawn, and took a seat to watch them. After a few minutes, I had to admit, their elephant looked a lot more elephantine.