Fuck!My eyes shot open, arm flailing out to the last place I remembered Charlie being—fast asleep next to me, snoring like his Uncle Paddy after ten pints.
But Charlie wasn’t there. The space beside me was empty and I bolted upright and charged out of the room without giving a single fuck that I was dressed in the jeans I’d passed out in—no socks or shirt.
I flew down the stairs, heart in my mouth, a dozen scenarios playing out in high definition, none of them good.
He’s wandered off and fallen down a well.
I forgot him altogether and he’s alone in Manchester.
Fen really was a figment of my imagination and the weirdo who lives here has kidnapped my infant nephew.
I reached the kitchen as the last, most ridiculous alternative reality flared in my imagination.
Fen was there, naturally, standing at the kitchen counter, guarding Charlie who sat in front of him eating toast.
Relief swamped me as fast as terror had ten seconds ago. I blew out a breath and leaned hard in the doorway. “I thought he liked square pieces.”
At the sound of my voice, Charlie jerked around, dropping the tiny, crustless triangle. “Rama!”
Fen lifted him down from the countertop. Charlie’s feet hit the floor and he ran at me like a midget rugby player, tacking my legs with enough force to send me reeling back if I hadn’t been smashed in the nuts enough times to be anything other than ready for him.
Laughing, I scooped him up, sensing Fen’s gaze all over me as I swung my nephew high, then settled him against my chest. “Where did you go? I thought monsters had eaten you.”
Charlie laughed. “Rama!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I set him down.
He toddled right back to Fen. “Toast!”
Fen shrugged and hoisted him within reach of his plate. The action seemed easy for him, natural, and with the only light in the room coming from the approaching dawn and his sparkling Christmas tree, he was more beautiful than ever.
“I have bad news for you,” he said when my fixation with his soft grin rendered me mute.
“Oh yeah?”
From his resumed post guarding Charlie with his strong arms, he gave me a steady look. “The snow is set in both ways on that road, up and down, so whatever your plans were, you’re stuck with me for a while.”
“Stuck with you…” The words left my lips like a prayer. I pursed them shut and drifted to the window, but it was murky enough outside that I couldn’t see shit.
“If you want to see for yourself, I put your coat by the back door. Do me a favour, though, and take my boots. Those trainers you rocked up in will give you frostbite.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t dress for mountaineering, so…”
“Maybe you should’ve, considering you were driving up, I don’t know, amountain.”
Sarcasm usually made me want to throat punch people, but Fen spoke so entirely without malice that it was cute on him. I took his advice about the boots and stamped into the pair nearest the door before I remembered I wore no shirt.
Fen laughed and peeled his thick sweatshirt off his broad, warm body. He held it out. “Don’t worry about the boots on the floor. I’d rather a bit of muck on my tiles than drop this bairn.”
His Cumbrian accent felt brand new to me, velvet and sweet. It reeled me in. I crossed the kitchen and took the sweatshirt from him, already knowing it would feel amazing against my bare skin.
I wasn’t disappointed, but being swamped in his scent left me dizzy.
And perhaps he knew it. He said no more and turned his attention back to Charlie, leaving me to my outdoor recce in peace.
I returned to the back door and put my coat on. It helped with the Fen overload, and I stepped outside with a clear head.
Frigid cold hit me, my borrowed boots crunching on the kind of icy snow I never saw in the city. Pure white and a foot deep, it was almost as pretty as Fen.