When his friend Paul from university had recently lent him a key to his wife’s cottage, Nick couldn’t believe his luck.
‘It’s rarely used once the summer’s through,’ Paul had told him. ‘But don’t say anything, okay? I’m not sure what Rachel would say. And tidy up after yourself.’
Nick came down off the mountain, following the track carefully, ice axe in hand. His father had bought him the ice axe for his eighteenth birthday. It had been the best present ever; he couldn’t have been more thrilled if he’d been handed the keys to a kingdom because, in a way, he had. Nothing was now unscalable, he’d remembered thinking. No sort of weather could stop him.
Once he was back at his car, he pulled out his phone and tried to get a signal. It was a habit of his to ring his dad once he’d finished a hike, to share the moment. Only there was no signal. Even if there had been, his father probably wouldn’t have picked up. Nick had been worried about that. His father was usually very good at responding to things like texts and emails, but that had stopped since the stroke.
‘It’ll take time for things to get back to normal,’ the doctor had told him.
Nick had made sure that his father kept his mobile with him at all times. It was important that he could contact Nick if he needed to. But he never did. It was Nick who did all the running.
He left Wasdale behind him and followed the directions Paul had given him. He wanted to the cottage before dark so he could bring some logs into the house and get the wood burner going. Paul had warned him that the cottage would be freezing.
‘This must be it,’ he said to Harley as he turned off the road onto a bumpy track that led into the valley. Paul had promised that it was beautiful and he wasn’t wrong. With its fields and fells, it was the perfect place to restore the soul after the chaos of life in the city, but there was something else about the place too – a feeling of other-worldliness as if it had taken a step back in time perhaps. It was a landscape he loved and he sorely missed the grey slate cottages, the great scree slopes, the stony footpaths and the soaring fells when he was away from it. But what could he do? His job was in London.
He’d recently been head-hunted by a company that was looking to expand and, when offered the job, had made it a condition that Harley could come to work with him. They hadn’t been keen at first but, now, it was hard to imagine the office without Harley’s gentle presence. Nick loved it. He loved being able to get up at lunch and venture into the local park for some exercise and air. A London park would never be quite the same as the open spaces of the Lake District, of course, but he made do. It was why he valued his time in Cumbria so much now, he thought, wishing he could spend more time in the county he’d grown up in. Harley loved it too. He seemed to know that this was his natural environment – that somewhere in the distant past – his ancestors might have roamed these hills and fells.
Nick had read somewhere that domestic dogs were ninety-nine percent wolf and, whilst that was hard to believe of the French bulldogs, pugs and poodles that populated his local park, he could believe it of Harley with his massive paws, his thick pelt and that long, vulpine nose. There was something almost prehistoric about the animal and how he adored him.
The only trouble was, Harley wasn’t really his dog.
*
The sun set early in the valley and it was just beginning to get dark when Rowan let out a weird cry from where she was standing by the living room window.
‘What is it?’ Rachel said, looking up from where she was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a heap of gold and silver baubles. She’d chosen a place by the wood burner and she was finally nice and toasty and was loath to move.
‘Oh, my God! I’ve just seen a wolf!’ Rowan cried.
‘What?’ Rachel said. ‘There aren’t any wolves in the UK, are there? Not wild ones, anyway.’
‘I swear that’s what I saw. It trotted up the track and went behind the cottage. It was enormous.’
Rachel frowned. It didn’t sound very likely. Still, it was as well to take precautions.
‘Paul?’ she called through to the kitchen where he was making tea.
‘What?’
‘Rowan just saw a wolf!’
He was in the living room in a flash. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘Oh, my god!’ Rowan exclaimed, keeping up the strange commentary from the window. ‘There’s a man out there with an axe!’
‘Oh, Rowan! This isn’t funny. Stop messing around. It’ll be dark soon and you’re spooking me.’
‘I’m serious, Rach. Come and see for yourself.’
Rachel left her baubles and got up from the floor.
‘Paul,’ she said a moment later, ‘there is a man out there. And a wolf.’
‘Oh, you two are the limit,’ he said as he joined them by the window.
‘Look,’ Rowan said, pointing quite unnecessarily at the man whose back was to them.
‘Who is he?’ Rachel asked, turning to Paul as if he would have the answer.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Paul said as he squinted out of the window. ‘It’s Nick.’
‘Nick?’ Rachel said.
‘Nick Madden – Nick.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ Rachel asked.
Paul suddenly looked shifty. ‘I – erm – lent him a key?’ He said it as if he was asking the question of himself.
‘You lent him a key? To our cottage?’
‘Sure, why not? You know he’s loves hiking. He said he’d keep an eye on the place if he was ever passing and you know as well as I do that it’s hardly ever used out of season.’
‘But this is my place, Paul. Mine and Rowan’s. You should have told me.’
Paul looked suitably guilty. ‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t. I just never thought we’d be in this situation.’
They didn’t have time to discuss the issue further because it was then that Nick Madden turned around and noticed the three of them looking out of the window directly at him. He waved a gloved hand at them and walked towards the front door.
‘Please tell me he isn’t staying,’ Rowan said, her face now quite pale.
‘He isn’t staying,’ Rachel said.
‘He’s staying,’ Paul countered, moving towards the door and opening it. A moment later and he was backslapping his old friend.
‘Nick!’ he cried jubilantly.
‘Hey, good to see you,’ Nick said. ‘All of you.’ He moved forward and gave Rachel a kiss on the cheek and then nodded to Rowan. Rachel grimaced at the obvious awkwardness between them. She could only hope that Nick wasn’t staying for long.
‘Come in, mate,’ Paul told him, ushering him into the cottage.
‘Okay if I bring Harley in?’ Nick asked, nodding to the dark hairy beast who was hovering outside.
‘Sure,’ Paul said. ‘The more the merrier.’
Nick whistled and the dog trotted inside, immediately making a beeline for Rowan.
‘Oh!’ she said in surprise as the big animal shoved its head into her hands.
‘He likes a pretty lady,’ Nick said. ‘Got good taste, our Harley.’
Rachel watched as Rowan blushed.
‘He’s – er – very friendly,’ Rowan said.
‘Cup of tea?’ Rachel said, remembering to be polite even though Nick was probably the last person she wanted to welcome to the cottage.
‘Love one,’ he said. ‘I finished my flask hours ago. Been hiking in Wasdale.’
‘Nice,’ Paul said.
‘You been up there today?’ Nick asked.
‘Not for years,’ Paul said and Rachel noted a twinge of regret in his voice. She knew that Paul and Nick had been great walking buddies since their university days in Newcastle, but that lifestyle had been left behind once full-time jobs had taken over.
‘You should, you know. Beautiful. The light on the water was something else. Had the place to myself for most of the day.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s freezing.’
‘Not o
nce you’ve been walking for a few hours,’ Nick told her. ‘That’s one of the things I love about getting up into the mountains. Your whole body seems to turn over. The heart gets pumping and the circulation gets going. I feel like I could run a marathon right now. Although I might just sit down with this promised cup of tea in front of your wood burner if I may.’
‘Of course,’ Paul said.
‘Oh, mind the baubles,’ Rachel said, quickly tidying them away before Harley’s huge paws trampled on them.
‘Sorry,’ Nick said. ‘He’s a little on the big side, isn’t he?’
‘A little?’ Rachel cried. ‘We thought he was a wolf!’
‘They thought you were some kind of mad axe murderer too,’ Paul said, earning himself a glare from Rachel.
‘What?’ Nick said incredulously.
‘That axe you were carrying,’ Paul said.
‘That’s my ice axe,’ he explained.
‘What were you doing swinging it around out there?’ Rachel asked.
‘I wasn’t,’ he said. ‘I was just going to bring it into the cottage with me to clean.’
‘And where is it now?’
‘I’ve left it in the car.’
‘Good. I don’t really want that thing in here,’ she said, as she left the room to help Paul with the tea things. She felt decidedly ruffled by Nick’s arrival and was ready to give her husband an earful.
‘But I don’t see what the problem is,’ he whispered, obviously all too aware of his guest in the next room. ‘I told him to tidy up after himself if he ever used the cottage.’
‘The problem is that we’ll all be trapped here together now, and, in case you don’t remember, my sister has a problem with your good friend Nick.’
‘I know, I know. But it’s Christmas so let’s all try to get along, shall we?’
‘This place just isn’t big enough for a six foot four trouble-maker and his wolf of a dog!’
‘Of course it is,’ Paul said. ‘We’ve each got our own beds. What more do you want?’
‘I wanted to be here alone with you,’ she said, her voice sounding petulant even to her own ears. ‘I wanted it to be just the two of us.’
‘I know you did, sweetheart.’ He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose, ‘But we don’t always get what we want, do we?’
She frowned at his glib tone. He was enjoying this, wasn’t he? He hadn’t been at all happy to find Rowan at the cottage on their arrival, but it seemed that everything was hunky dory now that his mate Nick was there.
CHAPTER 4
Deciding that she didn’t want to be left alone with Nick in the living room, Rowan went upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door. She couldn’t believe what was happening. Nick Madden was here. Not only was he here, but he was going to be sleeping only a stone’s throw away from her in the room across the hallway. She took a deep, stilling breath as she tried to calm herself. Nick Madden. Maddening Nick Madden. She’d never told her sister the truth about what had happened at the wedding. She hadn’t even really admitted it to herself because it was so awful. But she was going to have to face it now. Just when she thought her Christmas couldn’t get any worse. A break-up, her sister and husband muscling in on a holiday she’d so desperately wanted to spend alone, and now Nick turning up to torment her.
For a moment, she wondered if it was too late to leave and return to her home in Penrith, but she knew she’d just brood there. As much as she hated to admit it, it was probably best to have people around her at a time like this, to bring her out of herself, back into the land of the happy, however reluctant she might be to join it. But how was she going to face Nick?
She thought back to the day of Rachel and Paul’s wedding. She had been her sister’s chief bridesmaid and Nick had been Paul’s best man. She and Nick had been forced together in that horribly unnatural way that had crippled her with embarrassment. Nick had been everything she thought she didn’t want in a man – loud, over-confident and full of bad jokes. The perfect best man, perhaps, but far from the perfect man. Not like her sweet and gentle Chris.
She shook her head. Her sweet and gentle Chris had proved far from perfect, she reminded herself.
Rowan had never been keen on big gatherings and had sneaked away from the dance floor at the earliest opportunity, walking out of the marquee and across the lawn to a terrace overlooking Ullswater. The light was fading in the summer sky and the air was full of swifts and swallows, their high shrieks doing their best to drown out the noise of the wedding party.
‘Hi,’ a voice had said behind her. She’d turned to see Nick standing there. Now she was female enough to realise that a six foot four guy with dark hair, clear grey eyes and a devilish smile wearing a dapper suit was all too easy to succumb to and he seemed to know the effect he was having on all the ladies at the wedding which annoyed her intensely.
‘I’ve come out to find a space of my own,’ she told him, turning back to the lake.
‘I came out to find you,’ he said.
‘Why?’ The question was out before she could play the indifference card.
He shrugged. ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said and she noticed that he was holding a glass of champagne in each hand. ‘Here.’ He offered one to her and she took it, deciding it would be churlish not to.
‘You didn’t enjoy our dance?’ he said.
‘I never said that.’
‘Not in words perhaps.’
‘I don’t like being watched by everyone. With them all making assumptions.’
‘You mean that the chief bridesmaid and the best man get it together?’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘It’s embarrassing.’
‘I agree.’
‘It’s a cliché.’
‘Yes.’
‘And it’s never going to happen.’ She made the mistake of looking at him then, at his handsome face. Oh, how easy it would have been to have fallen right into that cliché.
It was then that the photographer showed up.
‘Ah, there you are!’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you both. Let’s have a little photo of you there. Move in, now. A little closer. That’s it. Lovely. Now, how about a little kiss, eh?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Rowan said.
‘Oh, go on,’ Nick said. ‘One for the photo album.’ He leaned in towards her and she felt the heat of his mouth on hers before she could protest again and it lasted a little longer than was strictly necessary.
‘Got it!’ the photographer said, scuttling back to the marquee.
‘Wow,’ Nick said. ‘That was very nice.’
‘Forced,’ she said, which had been true for the first part of the kiss, but she could have easily ended it. Only she hadn’t.
‘Perhaps,’ Nick said. ‘But not wholly unenjoyable, I hope? I mean, with the champagne and the sunset over the lake and everything.’
Rowan hadn’t replied. She hadn’t trusted herself to.
‘I’ve got to get back.’ She slipped away from him and, when she next saw him, it was obvious that he’d downed more champagne.
‘Dance with me!’ he’d shouted across the dance floor, grabbing her and spinning her around so fast that one of her satin shoes had flown off. He’d skidded across the floor to retrieve it and had tried to cram it back on her foot like a very clumsy sort of Prince Charming. Everyone had laughed and Rowan had been mortified when he’d tried to kiss her again in front of everybody.
That was the Nick Rachel had witnessed with her sister. Rowan hadn’t told her about the Nick in the garden who had kissed her so gently with champagne-stained lips and swept her off her satin-wrapped feet under a golden sunset. Rachel had seen the photo which had been taken, of course: it was displayed in her much treasured wedding album, and Rowan had been mercilessly ribbed about it at the time, but her sister had never suspected anything.
Rowan wished she didn’t remember it quite as vividly as she did. But she was probably getting herself worked up over nothing. Nick would have had
hundreds, thousands – hundreds of thousands of kisses since that evening eighteen months ago. He wouldn’t even remember theirs. It was a moment only a silly woman would have locked away in her memory, wasn’t it?
Steeling herself because she realised that she couldn’t hide in her bedroom forever, she made her way back downstairs to the living room. The curtains had been drawn against the dark now and the wood burner was throwing out its heat. Rachel had put her tiny tree up and it was sparkling with lights and the gold and silver baubles which had been littering the floor when Nick had first arrived. How pretty they looked in the light given off by the fire and the lamps around the room. Rowan remembered that her mother had always detested main lights in a room, preferring the softer glow of a lamp, and Rowan silently threw up a prayer of thanks to her now as she took in the gentle splendour of the simple cottage living room with its beams and beautiful fireplace.
‘There you are,’ Rachel said from the sofa where she was nursing a cup of tea. ‘Can I get you anything? We’ve all got tea.’
‘No, thank you,’ Rowan replied, sitting on a chair close to the wood burner. Harley got up from where he’d been sprawling at Nick’s feet and settled his huge head on Rowan’s lap.
‘He likes you,’ Nick told her, ‘and he’s a picky fellow.’
‘He just wants to get closer to the heat,’ Rowan said.
‘He doesn’t need to,’ Nick said. ‘Not with that great coat of his.’
‘It is splendid,’ Rowan said, letting her fingers stroke the thick fur.
‘Hey, Ro, I was just remembering when Nick spun you across the dance floor at our wedding,’ Paul said with a laugh.
‘Paul!’ Rachel admonished. ‘I’m sure Rowan doesn’t want to be reminded about that.’
‘Nick probably doesn’t remember,’ Rowan said, looking at him for the first time since coming into the room. ‘You probably can’t remember much about that day, what with all the champagne you drank, can you?’
‘I remember enough,’ he confessed.
The Christmas Collection Page 15