Page 20 of Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle

He beams at that and his smile makes my heart skip in my chest because it’s so bright, and I feel that familiar sense of ease with him. It’s such a little thing to have in common, but it’s somehow important too, and I once again feel like I can be completely myself around him, which is something I almost never feel around anyone.

* * *

By the time Ollie comes back, I’m in the kitchen, trying to remember which cupboards are which as I find bowls, spoons, and mugs, while surreptitiously making sure the dust bunnies are out of my hair and I don’t have some unidentifiable grime smeared across my forehead and brushing as much glitter as possible out of the cream cardigan I’m still wearing.

I turn around when I hear him come in and can’t help smiling at his appearance. He’s changed into black jogging bottoms and the most oversized blue hoodie that’s ever been invented because it looks like you could fit three of him in it and there’d still be room for a small car too. His hair is wet and looks like he’s done nothing more than run a towel over it, yet he somehow manages to look far sexier than he did in the suit just now.

‘You look nice,’ I say without thinking, and then wonder if I should have said something like that. I’m his wife in a professional capacity only. I shouldn’t be commenting on his appearance, should I? ‘Better,’ I correct because this has inadvertently turned awkward. ‘You look better without the suit. More relaxed. I like the hoodie.’

‘If only loungewear was deemed appropriate for an investment accountancy firm’s office.’ He laughs a little awkwardly and continues hovering by the chair he sat in last night, right at the opposite end of the long dining table in the kitchen, like he’s trying not to crowd me. While I appreciate the way he’s hyperaware that we’re strangers, he doesn’t need to be quite so much of a gentleman.

Instead, I take across the two mugs of tea I’ve just made and place one in front of my chair from last night, and one very deliberately at the chair nearest to it, so we’ve got a corner of the table between us. ‘You can’t eat soup and have to shout to be heard from all the way down there, it would get messy.’

He smiles when he thinks I’m not looking and his feet pad across the kitchen in the same slipper boots as last night, and if nothing else, I appreciate his dedication to cosiness. I’m cutting the loaf Nancy has made and inhaling the scent of freshly baked bread, while he dishes out two generous helpings of chestnut and apple soup from the slow cooker and we go back to the table together.

Ollie tears into his bread and dips it in his soup, and I do the same. The self-consciousness about making a mess in front of him is gone. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was, and Nancy’s soup is as good as it looks. Neither of us hold back the noises of appreciation.

Mealtimes in Mira’s house are awkward. There’s only one kitchen so I don’t want to encroach on their family dinners, even when she makes a point of inviting me to join her, Brian, and Rocco. I usually end up either grabbing a shop-bought sandwich on the way home from work, or making something fast and easy so I can vacate their kitchen as soon as possible, but here, everything feels so easy.

When we’re both stuffed, Ollie sits back with his mug of tea, and I pluck up the courage to mention what Nancy said earlier. ‘Nancy told me about your parents… I’m sorry, it must’ve been indescribably awful to lose them both so suddenly.’

He lets out a sigh, looking like he was expecting this topic at any minute. ‘Aye. I probably should have explained last night, but we’d only just met and existential trauma isn’t always the best conversation starter.’

He says it flippantly, but existential trauma can’t even begin to cover what he must’ve dealt with. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

He leans further backwards and runs a hand through his damp hair, looking like he’s not quite sure if he wants to talk about it or not, but he will anyway. ‘It was in March, fifteen years ago. We’d been for lunch with one of Dad’s colleagues. I was sitting in the back of the car, still nursing a hangover from the night before. Mum was trying to persuade Dad to detour to the garden centre on the way home, and he was saying that it would be too busy on a Sunday afternoon, and… bam. A car hit us head on. I…’

‘You were in the accident too?’

He lifts a finger towards his face. ‘That’s where the scars come from. You were probably wondering. Most people do.’

‘Oh, God, Ollie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. Nancy didn’t mention that part…’ I feel like I should have put two and two together, but nothing Nancy said earlier suggested that he was in the accident as well. That’s worse than anything I can imagine.

‘She must’ve been leaving me the choice to tell you myself.’ He lets out a shuddery breath and sits forward. ‘Are you sure you want to hear it?’

I nod, so unsure of what to do with my hands that I end up wringing my fingers together, because it’s easy to forget he’s my employer and this is supposed to be a job.

‘Mum died at the scene. Dad in the ambulance before it reached the hospital. And me… I was fine. I had to be cut out of the wreckage, but I didn’t have much more than cuts and bruises. My most severe injury was a broken nose. Nothing but memories of the sound of Mum’s pain. Dad’s hand reaching back, trying to reassure me that everything was going to be okay.’ His eyes are welling up and he looks away, shifting in his chair like the memories are making him uncomfortable.

His hand is on the table, his fingers turned inwards, and even though I barely know him, I reach over and curl mine around them, because even with a stranger, it’s impossible to see someone upset and not try to comfort them. It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself, you’d do the same with a stranger on the bus if they were talking about something that had had this much of an impact on their lives.

‘The people in the car that hit us died too. In an accident involving five people, I was the only one who walked away.’

It’s my turn to let out a breath. ‘That’s a heavy weight to carry.’

‘Aye, it is.’ He looks over at me with so much pain in his damp eyes, and his fingers squeeze mine in return. ‘No one’s ever phrased it like that before. I got a lot of “you’re so lucky to be alive”, but I didn’t feel lucky. I just felt numb for a really long while. Living in this place full of old ghosts and feeling like I was one of them.’

I’ve got my lip clamped between my teeth and from the taste of copper on my tongue, I know I’ve broken through the skin.

‘Sorry.’ Ollie takes a few deep breaths, but doesn’t attempt to disentangle our fingers. ‘I don’t know why I’m getting emotional. Usually I can recite what happened like a robot, but you… looking at me like that…’

‘How am I looking at you?’

‘I don’t know. Like you want to hug me. Like you care.’

‘I do want to hug you and I do care.’

His fingers give mine another squeeze. ‘I’m fine. It was fifteen years ago. Grief still hits me out of the blue sometimes, but mostly, I’m a decently functioning adult human nowadays.’