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‘Then hand it over,’ she said with a smile.
As she took the cup from him, her fingers brushed against his wrist, and she felt him freeze at the exact same moment she did. He looked up and found his gaze on her face, and she was reminded of that spark she’d felt yesterday, when they’d been cocooned in a candlelit house, cut off from the world. But it seemed that spark hadn’t died when the fires had burned down to embers last night. She’d half wondered if it had been summoned by the sh
eer quantity of fairy lights, but here they were in bright daylight and it was definitely still there.
She drew her hand back, because as delicious as sparks could be, they had to be handled with care. Sparks, all too often, led to feelings. Feelings led to relationships, and relationships led to heartache. She’d experienced and witnessed it enough in her life, and had precisely zero interest in exposing herself to any more.
She’d acted on sparks before. In controlled circumstances, when she’d been absolutely certain that she knew how she was getting in and when she was going to be getting out. Right now, these circumstances were anything but controlled. They’d been thrown together, entirely unexpectedly, with lashings of Christmas and adverse weather conditions thrown in for extra pressure. So she was going to back the heck away, and pretend that she hadn’t noticed anything concerning in the first place.
‘I need to get my coat and my hat—’ Which she’d last seen on his head yesterday. Fortunately he produced it from the pocket of his jacket without comment and she pulled it straight onto her head. ‘Right, then. I’m ready.’
She pulled aside the heavy brocade curtain that covered the front door and felt an immediate blast of cold air from the draughts finding their way around the ancient oak panels. When she opened it, snow had accumulated in the porch, and she was glad of her snow boots as she crunched slowly out, testing her footing to see if she was going to suddenly slip.
But the snow was deliciously soft and powdery underfoot, and she felt a huge smile spread across her face as she took in the great expanse of white all around her. All across the landscape, as far as she could see, was virgin, untouched snow. The trees were heavy with it, icicles hung from the entrance to the porch, and a spider’s web glistened with tiny crystals. She grabbed her phone from her pocket and snapped a couple of pictures, the natural light meaning that even her junky old phone could capture something quite beautiful.
‘Pretty,’ Rufus said, coming up behind her and looking at her phone screen. ‘But Lara wants faces, remember.’ He lifted his phone and fired off a shot before she had a chance to disagree.
‘Pretty,’ he said again, looking at the photo, where he had captured her in profile, the light glinting from the cobweb making a bokeh effect behind her. He was probably just complimenting himself on the composition, Jess told herself, feeling colour rising on her cheeks. It would be so much more convenient if he was.
‘Uh, nice one,’ she said, before stomping off through the snow, glorying in each crunch of the snow underfoot as she crossed the drive and turned back to look at the house. ‘It’s like something out of a fairy tale,’ Jess said as Rufus came to stand beside her and followed her gaze to the big old house.
‘That’s the problem, though,’ he said. ‘It looks like a fairy tale, and people don’t believe that it’s real. That’s it’s warm and has a personality of its own. That’s what I want to show people.’
She took a picture of him looking up at the house, the yearning in his face for his home. Lara was going to eat this up, she thought, uploading her last few photos to her friend’s cloud account.
‘Come on,’ Rufus said. ‘I just want to check there’s nothing I can do about the power out here, check the place is secure. Then I’ll get some more logs from the outhouse and we can get you back in by the fire. That sound okay?’
‘That sounds...efficient,’ she answered. ‘Um, any chance of, say, some fun?’
He frowned. ‘You were all I’m only staying out for half an hour...’
‘Precisely. I want to have half an hour of fun. Taking photos. I heard no snowmen, snowballs or snow angels in your plan. This is a shocking oversight.’
‘You think I want to lie in the snow after yesterday?’
‘Good point. You are exempt from snow angels. You are not exempt from the rest of it. I thought you wanted to show that this place has personality. That might involve, you know, you having a personality.’
‘I’m trying really hard to see how that can be anything but an insult. I’m coming up with nothing.’
‘I’m just saying that this house doesn’t have a personality all on its own. You love it because you grew up here with the people that you love. You’re going to have to show some of that if you want other people to see it.’
‘Fine. I get it. There will be fun in the snow. Just as soon as I’ve checked the fuse box.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. Now—snowman. I’m going to warn you—I have a problem with half-arsed. I’m expecting great things of myself, and of you.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you this competitive about everything?’
‘Generally, yes.’
‘Then I’m glad we never got to Scrabble last night. I suspect you would have been vicious.’
She shrugged. ‘I guess you’ll never know if you’re too chicken to try. If your masculinity is too fragile to lose to a girl, there’s not much hope for you.’
‘Fragile...wow.’
Jess shrugged, trying to hide a smile. ‘I guess you’ll just have to prove it.’
‘You’re on. Scrabble later, snowman competition now.’
