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Chapter Twenty-Five
The Stowaway
Magnús had kept the fire burning all night. The shop was warm, even if there was no electricity to light the place. In the middle of the night he’d climbed the stairs looking for blankets and they’d made a makeshift bed by the hearth.
Alex stirred first. ‘Happy Christmas Eve,’ she told him, placing a kiss on his chest where she lay wrapped in his arms.
Magnús smiled lazily and slid down the sheets so he could kiss her mouth. ‘Good morning.’
‘Do you hear that?’ said Alex. ‘The wind’s dropped. I think the storm’s over.’
Rain pattered softly on the cobbles outside, nothing like the torrents of last night, like a kitten following in the footsteps of a lion. Distracted by the need to kiss him again, she let herself ease into his arms, reaching for his mouth.
When they pulled apart, Magnús let his eyes rove over her face like he was seeing her for the first time.
‘You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever met,’ he said, all the air leaving his lungs with the force of feeling behind his words. ‘This thing between us,’ he told her, pressing kisses to her mouth as he spoke. ‘Do you feel it too?’
‘I feel it,’ she told him.
‘I’ve never had this before,’ he confessed.
‘Me neither, but I like it.’
Everything was so easy between them. All he had to do was rake his fingertips softly over her back and she would melt into his body. She needed only to smile and he could forgot his own name.
Neither of them spoke again about what would happen at the end of next week. It was too soon for all that, so they stayed together, kissing by the hearth until the watery winter sun came up.
Eventually, Alex told him with a grin that she had something for him. ‘For Christmas Eve.’
A few moments later Magnús was standing before her, modelling Alex’s oversized ‘Crocombe’s Ices’ T-shirt and nothing else.
‘New clothes. To keep the Yule Cat away, remember?’ she said.
Magnús looked down at the ice-cream sundae in pastel colours across his chest. ‘Do I look good? I think I look good.’ His face was serious, even as he turned his hips from side to side, posing like this was a photo shoot.
Alex’s laughter filled the shop and Magnús ended up on his knees by her side once more. She thought again how the light shone from him, incandescent on the inside.
After making coffee on the gas ring and sharing a breakfast of bread and the last of the café’s cheddar, Alex surprised Magnús by announcing she was nipping out for a while.
He held onto her arm, burrowing his face into her neck and kissing her on the spot which, he’d learned last night, made her close her eyes and her breathing accelerate. ‘Stay,’ he whispered, kissing a low trail across her jaw towards her lips.
‘I’ll only be ten minutes,’ she told him, kissing him back but extracting herself from their spot by the fire. ‘Shouldn’t you phone the power company or something?’
When she pulled on her jeans and jumper, he knew she was serious.
‘What are you doing with that?’ he asked as she folded her ferryman’s coat into a neat bundle.
‘I’m giving it back to the boat,’ she said, and he seemed to understand in an instant.
‘You want me to come with you?’
‘No, I’m going to do it on my own. Wait for me here.’
He waved her off from the shop doorway. The last he saw of her, she was blowing a kiss and turning for Down-along, wearing Magnús’s jacket and pulling on her pink beanie and her gloves.
Magnús set about tidying the shop, wondering if he could sell books by candlelight today.
Clove Lore had resisted the storm as best it could, but as Alex picked her way Down-along, its impact was evident everywhere.
