His eyes gleamed. “Fairy princess crossed with drama queen.”
“So what does that make me? A fairy queen or a drama princess?”
“I don’t know. I’ll let you know after we’ve spent a few days together.”
A few days.
Yesterday she’d been getting ready for her exhibition and now here she was with a bruised head and a bruised heart, going home with a man with whom she’d always had a difficult relationship.
Which all went to prove that whenever you were anticipating a happy ending, life was guaranteed to mess it up.
THEY CRAWLED OUT of London and gradually the congestion eased and the roads opened up. It was still snowing heavily and Alec knew the country lanes around his parents’ house would be difficult to navigate.
In the seat next to him Skylar slept, her hair a halo of silver-gold around a face almost as pale as the snow.
Concerned by the long silences from someone who usually talked enough for six people, Alec glanced at her from time to time. In daylight the bruising looked worse and her sleepiness worried him. He contemplated calling Michael again, but reassured himself with the knowledge that she’d had a disrupted sleep the night before and was probably just tired.
Maybe her pallor was the result of stress.
He didn’t know what had shocked him most, the absence of any evidence of concern on the part of Richard Everson or the cold, unemotional message from her mother.
He couldn’t help comparing it to those months after the breakdown of his own marriage when his family had been in constant contact. At the time he’d been exasperated by their refusal to leave him alone, but now he felt grateful that they’d cared enough to bother.
Skylar had close friends, but they were far away on Puffin Island.
Here, she was alone.
Alone, except for him, and he knew without her having pointed it out that he was the last person with whom she would have chosen to spend her lowest moment.
He turned off the main road, driving through untouched countryside, past woodland and fields coated in a thick layer of snow.
The closer he got to home, the more uneasy he felt.
What the hell had he done?
The only woman he’d ever brought home was his ex-wife and the memory of how that had played out was permanently embedded in his brain.
Sweat cooled his skin.
He didn’t want to be trapped with Sky. He didn’t want to be trapped with any woman who was emotionally vulnerable.
He wasn’t fooled by her constant quips and cheery humor.
She was hurting and he didn’t want to be within a million miles of a woman who was hurting.
He drove in silence, brooding on the weekend ahead.
Somehow he had to find a way of keeping his distance.
Finally, as he approached the market town near his parents’ house, she woke.
She stirred and turned her head, absorbing her surroundings.
Tiny lights glowed in shop windows, illuminating honey-colored stone. Glossy green wreaths studded with plump red berries decorated the doors and a large Christmas tree dominated the village square.
“It’s the prettiest place I’ve ever seen.” She stifled a yawn. “Where are we?”
“The Cotswolds. We’re about two hours from London. This is the village of Brockburn-on-the-Water. My parents live about five minutes from here, although it might as well be a million miles if they haven’t cleared the road.”
He waited for Skylar to flip down the mirror and start applying makeup but instead she shifted in her seat and gave him her full attention.
“Tell me about your family. What does your father do?”
“He’s a GP. A family doctor. He came over to England straight after medical school, met my mother and never went back. He’s senior partner in the village practice. My mother works in the renal unit in the hospital.”
“Are you an only child?”
“Two sisters. One older, married with twins, the other younger. Olivia is sixteen.”
“Sixteen? That’s a big age gap. I bet you freaked out when you discovered your mom was pregnant.”
“Why would you think that?”
He’d been completely freaked out.
Her insight was unnerving.
“Because when she was born you would have been—what? Sixteen? Seventeen? No teenager wants to be faced with tangible evidence that their parents still have sex. So you’re an uncle and a big brother. I have older brothers, too. They spend the whole time telling me what I should be doing. Are you like that?”
“There would be no point because Liv wouldn’t listen.” He drove down the lane toward his parents’ house, past trees laden with soft snow and fields dotted with animal footprints. The winter sun was low in the sky, sending light shimmering over fields of white.
“So both your parents are in medicine, but you didn’t want to be a doctor?”
“No. When I was five I wanted to be an Arctic explorer. My uncle gave me an explorer’s kit for Christmas and I remember taking it down the garden and camping out in the shed. Took them two hours to find me and by then I’d almost frozen to death.” Mindful of the icy surface, he eased the car round the last bend and turned into his parents’ drive. “We’re here. This is it.”
Honeysuckle Cottage stood as it had for several centuries, its stone walls glowing a soft gold in the sunshine. A large evergreen wreath studded with berries hung in the center of the door and two large bay trees placed on either side of the stone steps sparkled with tiny lights.
“This is your home?” Sky stared at the house. “It’s the most idyllic cottage I’ve ever seen, apart from Brittany’s. It reminds me of the house in that movie The Holiday. You’ve probably never seen it.”
“I’ve seen it. Liv tortured me with it a few years ago. I’m still scarred. My revenge was to force her to sit through a turgid documentary on Napoleon.”
She laughed. “One of yours?”
“I aim for several steps up from turgid.” Before he could even switch off the engine the front door opened and he saw his family crowding into the doorway to welcome them. His mother snatched her apron over her head, evidence that she’d been in the kitchen when she’d heard the car. Behind her was his father with the phone in his hand and next to him his uncle, wearing a pair of flashing reindeer antlers. Alec felt a rush of affection for them and then remembered Sky. He could imagine what she was thinking. “I probably should have warned you that my family loves Christmas. Most of the year they’re relatively sane, but there’s something about this time of year that sends them over the top. Even my father, although for him the mulled wine probably has something to do with it.” He slid out of the car, tense, knowing that this place wasn’t going to suit glitzy Skylar.
His ex-wife had hated the rustic country life his parents led. An invitation to join them for the village pub quiz had been met with disdain and a stony refusal, as had all activities that involved the wearing of sturdy boots. Everything had been wrong. The weather too cold, the people too loud and tactile, the food too full of carbohydrates and fat. The final straw had been the animals. On the last occasion they’d visited, Alec had been forced to shut the