‘Oh, yeah, absolutely.’ I paused by their snowman and helped as he struggled to dump the large armful on top. ‘We have special instructions for when children are staying. All you have to do is make sure you put out something for him, just like you would at home and write a note and we post it up the chimney and then he knows to bring your presents here. Y’know—’ I beat the snow off my big blue ski gloves by smacking my hands together ‘—as long as you’ve been good.’
‘Isn’t that a bit short notice?’ another girl asked. This one was older – maybe old enough to start thinking there was something fishy going on.
‘To me or you, I guess it would be. All I can tell you is: he’s never forgotten a child who stayed here over Christmas.’ I stepped back from the snowman. ‘If you need a carrot or tangerine for a nose, just knock on the kitchen door and tell Neeta, our chef, that Beth sent you okay?’
The kids chorused some thank yous and I led Nick around the corner of the hotel and across the lawns.
‘When did you stop…’ I lowered my voice ‘…believing?’ The ground was a perfect blanket with the exception of one set of paw prints from a fox or a cat, cutting diagonally across it.
‘Stephen told me when I was five,’ he admitted.
‘Oh no, the rotter. Is he much older than you?’
‘Five years.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘What about you? When did you find out?’
‘When I was seven. I wanted to talk to him face to face because I figured if he had the kind of power to get presents to all the children in the world, surely, he should’ve been doing something about sick kids and famine and war. I hid under my bed on Christmas Eve and waited until he came in to do my stocking and tried to lasso his ankles – except obviously they weren’t his, they were my dad’s and he almost broke his neck.’
He laughed out loud, head tipping back as he looked at me with crinkled eyes. I felt it like a kick in the chest.
We came to a large outhouse at the back of the property and I pulled the massive bunch of keys from my pocket, sorting through them until I found a small silver one and slipped it into the padlock on the door. It turned but when I tugged nothing happened. The cold had frozen it shut.
‘Oh great,’ I muttered and started looking around the front of the building for an alternative means of entry. There were small windows along one side, but I didn’t fancy breaking one and having to wriggle through.
Nick stepped up and gave the padlock a test tug to verify that it was, indeed, very stuck. ‘Can I give it a try?’
‘Sure, knock yourself out.’ I moved back a pace as he propped his boot up against the wooden door to give himself some leverage and then yanked. Hard. It gave but he lost his grip and landed on his arse in a pile of snow. I turned my head away to try to hide my amusement.
‘I know you’re laughing.’
‘Well, I didn’t mean knock yourself out literally.’ I looked down at him. The fact that he was laughing with me, at himself, and his eyes were so blue against all the white…it just made me want to join him in the snow and make very non-angelic shapes. ‘I bet you never expected the hotel business would be so glamorous.’ I offered him my hand. He grabbed it, springing up a lot more quickly than I was expecting. We were face to face, warm breath mingling, and the humour dropped away slowly as we locked gazes. I couldn’t help but look down at his mouth. I swayed towards him, but he stayed very still.
‘Am I allowed?’
‘Yes.’ The misty cloud of my answer drifted over to him and his mouth met mine.
In just over twelve hours, I’d somehow forgotten how good it was. How good he was at this. Lips brushing and teasing and I was the one licking at his mouth, begging for more. His stubble grazed my cold skin as he changed angle and gave me just enough of what I wanted to make me throb but nowhere near enough to satisfy me. He was tormenting me, and I loved and hated the agony of it. The need drew out further and further until I was desperate, and I bit his bottom lip. He made a surprised, ragged noise in the back of his throat. I smiled; eyes still shut. His next kiss was deeper.
Standing up gave it a whole new squirm-worthy factor because I could appreciate the size of him, six-foot-something of man, and I remembered the shape of him, which was now hidden under those bulky outer layers. Lord, I wanted to unpeel him like a chocolate orange and tap him hard.
When I could feel a moan building up that I wasn’t going to be able to suppress, I forced myself to take a small step back and broke away, gasping: ‘Butcher.’
He blinked and a smile nudged at the corners of his talented lips. ‘Is that a critique of my kissing technique?’
‘No.’ I gave a wobbly laugh. ‘The butcher will be waiting.’
‘Oh yeah, right.’
I unhooked the padlock and pushed the door open with shaky fingers. If it was possible, it was colder inside than outside, which was handy really, as I needed to bring my core temperature down by a few hundred degrees. There was barely enough light to see the jumbled mess of tools and old decorating supplies, but I plunged straight in, knowing what I was looking for while Nick hung back, eyeing the spider webs.
‘You’re not scared of creepy-crawlies are you?’
‘I wouldn’t say scared exactly.’
‘Weren’t you just in Australia? How did you cope?’
‘I wasn’t in the outback. I spent most of my time over there in a hotel room trying to sleep.’ He gave a rueful chuckle. ‘I spend most of my timeanywherearound the world in hotel rooms trying to sleep.’
‘Oh right.’ That mention of frequenting hotels disquieted me. I was ready to berate myself for letting a couple of make-out sessions erase my suspicions about him being the Hotel Hopper but as I watched him my mind immediately disregarded the hotel bit again and pondered his trouble sleeping. His jaw was set as he inspected a particularly large cobweb draped along the top of the window frame. With the thick black frames of his glasses surrounding his eyes, I couldn’t tell whether he had smudges of fatigue beneath, but it wasn’t unlikely.
