by Kitty French
What did Dan want with her? Their marriage had finally concluded in a grimly disjointed back and forth between their solicitors to untangle their lives, because they didn’t want to see each other and discuss it civilly.
Tempted as she was to just shove the card back in her bag unopened, she found her fingers ripping it open in a daze of morbid curiosity. Perhaps it was to prove to herself that he couldn’t touch her heart these days. She never thought of him fondly, nor did she ever wonder if he was happy. She didn’t miss his little ways, his laugh, or his touch; in truth he’d spent more of the latter part of their marriage with his mistress anyway, so she’d grown accustomed to being without him long before their final separation had actually happened.
She’d worked hard not to hate him; for herself though, not for him. She wasn’t prepared to spend her days consumed by it, and she’d done a pretty good job of getting him out of her system. Or actually, Lucien had. He’d come into her life when she’d needed him most of all, and he detested Dan enough for the both of them.
Sophie pulled the Christmas card free of its envelope, hoping her ex wasn’t at death’s door and in need of her kidney or anything so bizarre or drastic, because if he was she wasn’t entirely sure she’d be charitable enough to help him. Hmm. Maybe she did hate him just a little bit, after all.
It was a fairly ordinary sort of card, the kind you might find in a supermarket variety pack. She was glad. Any hint of hearts or flowers and she’d have ripped it up before reading it.
Opening it up, she looked down and read his words.
Hey Soph,
Hope you’re well and happy. I’m doing okay, still miss you every day though. Give me a call if you’re ever in town and we can, I don’t know, grab a drink or something.
Dan x
Sophie threw the card down in disgust.
What in God’s name was he thinking, writing to her now? Last she’d heard he’d settled and had a child. Her heart sank in unexpected sympathy for the woman with whom Dan had wrecked her marriage; poor cow. She’d made her adulterous bed with him and now she was lying in it with a leopard who would never change his cheating spots, along with a battery of sleepless nights and dirty nappies.
This unpalatable train of thought was stopped in its tracks as Sophie was brought back abruptly to the present moment. She jumped as the front door slammed, shoving the card and the rest of the mail hurriedly under the covers to tidy up later as Lucien called out her name and swung open the bedroom door.
‘Sophie, I think you have some explaining to do,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at her.
He wasn’t alone. In his arms he held the most adorable husky pup.
Chapter Five
Sophie jumped out of bed and shot across the room, not even bothered for a moment that she was naked.
‘Oh my God! He’s early!’ she said, wrapping herself quickly in her toga sheet from earlier before taking the sleepy pup from him. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow morning.’
‘So I gathered from Henrik,’ Lucien said, his face unreadable. ‘He delivered him tonight in case the mountain is impassable by morning. It seems that the wonderful English woman made quite the impression on him. It must have been one hell of a trek to reach us out here.’
Sophie and Henrik, a local husky breeder, had been in regular, if somewhat difficult, contact to arrange the delivery of Lucien’s Christmas surprise. She wanted to thank him personally for his help, but maybe not dressed only in a sheet.
‘Has he gone?’
Lucien nodded.
‘In a flurry of dogs. Except… he left this one behind for you.’
Sophie nodded, burying her face in the dog’s teddy bear fluff and inhaling deeply. She looked up, meeting Lucien's blue-grey stare directly.
‘He’s not mine. He’s yours,’ she told him, then placed the puppy back in the arms of his new master. ‘Merry Christmas, Lucien.’ Sophie remembered the Norwegian phrase he’d said to her earlier. ‘God Jul.’
Lucien looked down at the by now wriggling puppy, and when he looked up again at Sophie, she saw something in his eyes that threw her completely. Tears.
‘Lucien, I…’ she said, stricken, and then he thrust the dog back into her arms and backed out of the room.
Lucien stood at the kitchen window, his hands braced on the surface, his eyes on the dark outlines of the mountains and alpine forests. Breathing steadily, he slowly pulled himself back together.
Today had been so very different from how he’d pictured it. He’d imagined bringing Sophie here and the place being virtually unrecognisable as his childhood home, thinking that the designers would have swept away all traces of the past. It wasn’t that way, though.
Maybe if he’d taken charge of the renovation himself it would have been so, but he’d given Sophie the reins and she’d chosen to keep the cabin cosy and traditional. So much of her subtly feminine stamp evoked memories of the style his mother had favoured too. Yes, it was more exclusively furnished now and fitted out with the latest tech and toys, but they blended seamlessly with the rustic Scandinavian style that so typified cabin homes all over the mountains. She must have asked the designer to stay quite faithful to the original cabin, because it was almost as if it were the same, only better.
Memories had unexpectedly assaulted him today from all angles; the sight of the cabin outlined against the dark sky as he’d hauled the Christmas tree home through the snow, the familiar fireplace he’d sat beside to drink hot milk as a child, his mother’s lovingly crafted advent calendar decorations.
Lucien didn’t consider himself a sentimental man, yet nostalgia for the innocent days of his early childhood had hit him more than ever on this journey back to Norway, like being caught in a Yuletide time slip.
His mother had stood in this exact spot and looked out over these same mountains. Her spirit was here in the very fabric of this place, and he deliberately hadn’t been back in over twenty years because he’d imagined it would hurt, not heal his heart. And in some ways being here had hurt him, because remembering the good times also meant having to remember she wasn’t here any more.
But seeing the things she’d made for him… this place was sending him a little crazy, because it felt almost as if she was here, that her decorations and her Christmas card were her gifts, her seal of approval of his life with Sophie, and her way to say, enough now, let go of the past.
And now, on top of all of that, there was the damn dog.
Sophie couldn’t have known it, but it wasn’t the first time Lucien been given a husky pup for Christmas. He’d been just six years old last time around, but he vividly remembered his parents’ hushed, excited whispers as they came into his room early in the morning with the bundle of fur, a purple ribbon tied around his neck. Lucien didn’t have any siblings, but he’d never been lonely from then on, because Ivar had been his playmate, his guardian and his secret-keeper.
Turning away from the window, he went in search of Sophie.
Sophie sipped the measure of brandy she’d poured herself and watched the puppy sleep in the basket Henrik had left with him, his paw over his face. He really was the cutest little thing, a ball of velvety, silver-tipped fur with dark ears and a stripe running down his back to his bushy tail. His eyes, when he opened them, were clear marine blue, and his huge paws suggested that they might have quite the dog on their hands when he was older.
If he stayed, that was. Had she overstepped the mark? Lucien had once mentioned that he’d had a husky as a child and she’d hoped that this little guy would be a welcome addition to his adult life, but it felt horribly as if she’d misread the situation completely.
She looked up when Lucien came into the room, and watched him glance first towards the dog basket and then come and take a seat beside her on the sofa.
‘Thank you,’ he said, a simple phrase that was frustratingly difficult to read.
He wasn’t angry; that was a start.
Though they’d been to Norwa
y several times and Sophie was growing to love both the country and the person it revealed to her in Lucien, being here in the cabin had rendered him somehow more difficult to gauge all over again.
‘He doesn’t have to stay,’ she said, softly. ‘Henrik knows he was going to be a surprise, he's already agreed that he’s able to take him back if needs be.’
Lucien studied the pup and sighed heavily, shaking his head.
‘He’s not going anywhere. His home is with me now.’
Sophie almost envied the ease with which the dog had won his place under Lucien’s protection; she’d trodden a far more difficult path herself.
‘With us,’ he said, correcting himself and warming her soul by gathering her into his circle too. Sophie was touched, honoured even. She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder when he settled back into the sofa.
‘Okay?’ she asked, her hand smoothing over his bicep, giving him an in to talk if he needed to.
He didn’t answer immediately, and even in his profile it was obvious that he was a man with things on his mind. He shrugged a shoulder.
‘Being here…’ He shook his head, and when he turned to look at her his eyes expressed more than he ever would in words. ‘It’s not how I thought it would be.’
‘Is that such a bad thing?’
He frowned, as if he were unsure.
‘No. It’s just… it’s still home, and I didn’t expect it to feel that way anymore.’
Sophie didn’t speak, just rubbed his arm, giving him time. If she’d learned anything about this man over the last year, it had been that words didn’t come easy for him when it came to expressing emotion.
He had the biggest of hearts and the truest love, but he’d become so used to hiding his feelings that letting them out was like wrestling a bear. It was testimony to the depth of his love for Sophie that for her, he tried.
‘My mother loved it here. Most of my memories of Christmas have been built in this cabin. I don’t know what this is…’ he said, his hand on his chest, as if he were describing a physical pain rather than a feeling.
‘I feel…’ he tried again and then shrugged, helpless. ‘Happy, Sophie. I feel happy. Part of a family again.’
He made the simple emotion sound as if it were totally alien to him.
‘Our family. You, me, and that damn cute bloody dog,’ he said, shooting a look towards the flaked-out puppy. ‘This place has suddenly become about my future, not my past. I never expected that.’
The words seemed to rush from his mouth, as if they needed to get out even though he’d commanded them to stay put inside his head. Sophie didn’t know whether to cry, or hug him, or kiss him. He frustrated the hell out of her and she loved him all the more for it.
She was distracted from replying by the stirring of the pup in his basket. He opened one blue eye and then the other, regarding them solemnly from the safety of his bed. Sophie went to get up, but Lucien stilled her with a hand on her knee.
‘Let me.’
He crossed the room and dropped to his haunches beside the basket, stroking the dog’s pointed little ears.
‘So, Heathcliff,’ he said. ‘We need a serious conversation about who’s going to be the boss around here.’
‘Heathcliff?’ Sophie said, laughing.
Lucien came and sat down beside her again, the puppy curled happily into his chest.
‘My dog, my rules.’
Sophie watched him with amused eyes, sensing that regardless of Lucien’s big talk, there was only going to be one boss in that particular relationship, and it was definitely the one with four legs and a cute pink tip to the end of his nose.
Lucien slid into bed just after midnight while Sophie turned out the tree lights. Something scratched his back as he settled on the pillows.
Reaching beneath him, he pulled out a bunch of envelopes, just as Sophie appeared in the doorway and then froze. She saw that Dan's Christmas card lay on the top of the pile and he flipped open, letting the other items fall. His manner was light-hearted. She knew he was not prepared for what lay inside.
Lucien scanned the message lazily at first, then sat up abruptly.
‘What’s this doing here?’ he said, keeping his voice low and steady, even though finding a card from Sophie’s ex in his bed had made his heart pound unsteadily in his chest.
‘God, I’m sorry,’ she said, her eyes contrite. ‘I didn’t mean to leave that there. It was in my bag, and I…’
Lucien held up his hand.
‘Why would you bring this here of all places, Sophie? Help me out here, because all I can think is that you have it because it means something to you.’
Lucien’s tone was cool, belying the anger and hurt behind it. He felt winded. After everything they’d done together today. The confidences he’d shared. The physical intimacy. And yet she’d brought this… this thing with her. Into their bed. He feared what it meant.
She crossed to the bed and sat down. When she reached for the card he let her take it, offended enough by it to shove it towards her in quiet disgust. He was still as stone, staring at her.
‘Don’t do that, Lucien. Please don’t turn away from me.’
‘You miss him.’ Lucien stated flatly. He felt as if a million meteorites were crash landing inside his head, explosion after red fireball explosion, hitting their targets, making him flinch with almost physical pain. ‘You’re thinking of him.’
‘No,’ Sophie said, suddenly forceful. ‘No, I don’t. I’m not. Look at me.’
When he didn’t, she touched his jaw, then grasped it and turned his face to hers.
‘It was in amongst the forwarded mail. Remember that brown envelope from my parents’ house?’
She paused to reach down for the other letters he’d discarded beneath the card, then searched under the blankets before pulling out the envelope and another handful of junk mail and flyers.
‘See? I’d stashed it in my bag at mum and dad’s and forgotten about it, and I opened it this afternoon to pass the time when you were outside with Henrik.’
She stared into his eyes, direct, clear and urgent.
‘Do you honestly think that I could miss him after what he did to me? After everything we’ve shared?’ She broke off, lowering her hands to cover his.
He was still looking at her warily, and Sophie found herself suddenly furious with him.
‘Lucien, wake up. How can you even think that? I don’t miss one damn thing about him. You’re better, sexier, kinder. You’re more, Lucien. You’re more in every last way.’
He searched her face for any sign of deception and found only honesty and love.
‘No one’s ever loved me the way you do,’ she said, half laughing and half crying, incredulous. ‘You make me believe in fairytales, and in happy endings. There’s no room in my heart for him, Lucien. You fill it up.’
She ripped the card into pieces as she spoke.
‘This has no place here. I’m so sorry it was in the envelope, and I’m even sorrier it was in our bed.’
Lucien’s breath shuddered out, and his eyes found hers for a fistful of heartbeats. Wordlessly, he took the torn card from her trembling hands and stalked from the room, flinging the pieces into the embers of the fire in the living room before going back into the bedroom and sitting down with his head in his hands.
‘This place is making me fucking crazy,’ he said, lifting his gaze to look at her.
She reached out and held his face in her hands, kissing him as she rested her forehead against his.
‘I love the crazy bones of you,’ she murmured. ‘You’re allowed to be sentimental sometimes, Lucien, and you’re allowed to be jealous.’
He thought about denying both counts, but knew that she saw straight through him and sighed.
‘Fine,’ he said, exasperated by his own vulnerabilities as far as Sophie was concerned. ‘I’m just the jealous, sentimental man who loves you.’
‘You can be him. You can be that man, without it compromisin
g what you show to the rest of the world. I love that this side of you is for my eyes only. And Heathcliff’s, now,’ she added, after a pause, laying her fingers over his lips when he opened them to answer.
‘Don’t even try to deny it, iceman. I know he’s made his way under your skin already.’
Much later that night, Sophie and Lucien lay tangled up in each other and the soft blankets of the big sleigh bed, Heathcliff snoozing contentedly in the warm crook behind Lucien’s knee.
Snow drifted silently down outside the picture window, and a bright shaft of moonlight fell across the peaceful room, illuminating the calendar now hanging in its rightful place.
Lucien looked at it as he drifted towards sleep, at his name picked out amongst the stars, and he offered a silent, wishful God Jul to his mother. Coming back to the cabin had brought back so many memories, memories he’d suppressed for such a long time that he thought they’d left him altogether.
Sophie stirred beside him, throwing her arm over his chest when he gathered her in. Wedged between the woman who loved him and the dog who was already developing a serious case of hero worship, Lucien closed his eyes, contented.
Mine, he thought, as he drifted towards sleep. My girl, my dog, my tribe.
My family. The word would have terrified him before he met Sophie. Maybe it was because two had become three that afternoon, or maybe it was because he was tired and overcome by the sentiment of Christmas, but for the first time ever, Lucien allowed his thoughts to rove into the future.
What lay ahead for them? Before he'd met Sophie he'd scorned domesticity, but little by little she'd shown him that ordinary could actually be rather extraordinary with the right person at your side.
Would their children one day discover the delights of their grandmother's beautiful advent calendar for themselves, laughing with gleeful wonder as they unearthed each lovely new thing she'd made?
He was almost asleep, dreaming for sure now, of Christmases to come, and of beautiful blonde children running in the snow with Heathcliff tumbling at their heels.