I followed his footsteps to the gate he’d led me through in the dead of night, gathering my bearings as my geographical memories came back to me. This magical place was a Christmas tree and timber farm that had been in the same family for generations. Until five years ago, they’d owned all the property on Durdle Fell, then they’d sold the land at the very top to my sister after the death of their patriarch. Fen’s father, I presumed, though I wasn’t about to ask. On the list of questions I had for him, property dealings between our families were somewhere near the bottom. At the top, was what thehellhad happened to him to bring him home, but I’d pick my moment for that, and if it never came, that was my problem, not his. I’d die of curiosity before I upset him.
I reached the gate. As promised, the snow was as thick on the road as it was on Fen’s property, and my car was still buried and useless.Fuck that car. Piece of shit. But even my brother-in-law’s truck wasn’t making it through the current blizzard, so I was being a little harsh.
Not that I cared. It was a car, not my fucking dog. I trudged all the way to it, swinging my gaze up and down the road as if I could shift an entire weather system with my discontent. Obviously, nothing happened. I didn’t even get cold, thanks to Fen’s sweatshirt and I walked back to his house warmer than I’d been inside. On the way, I passed a series of gates and paths I now remembered led to the forest, the timber yard, and the big barns. There were snow-topped trees everywhere. A sweeping horizon. Endless skies. It was breathtaking. Beautiful. If I didn’t stop to consider that the sparkly aesthetic had taken me hostage it was almost paradise.
Beyond the farm in the distance, lay a bigger house. I wondered who lived there now, or if Fen was an orphan, like me.Maybe that’s why he came back here. But as logical as that was, I knew there was more to it, and only the fact that my own life had imploded stopped me ruminating my nosiness into a migraine.
I need to call Safia.
I stepped back into Fen’s cosy kitchen, and because he was a fucking psychic, he handed me my charged phone.
“You left it on the counter last night. I figured you’d need it this morning.”
I grunted my thanks.
Fen laughed. As much as I sensed something different about him, he still did that a lot—laughed with this warm, infectious joy that needled its way into even the moodiest man’s personality. I’d seen it in action on the prison wings, the way his presence could make a dangerous landing a safer place just because he smiled like the sun.
I’d missed that. I didn’t know much right now, but that I couldn’t deny.
“Hey.” Fen broke the daze I’d drifted into with a soft elbow to my ribs. “You okay? You never did get around to telling me how you came to be halfway up Christmas Mountain with this little guy.”
Charlie was now on the floor, on the rug by the armchair I’d laid him on last night, playing with a felt set I vaguely recognised, which made no fucking sense at all. “Yes, I did.”
“Nope. You told me you were headed to Safia’s place. Not why you were doing it in the middle of the night with no overnight bag or supplies that weren’t for the bairn.”
“So, you’re a proponent for medoing itin the middle of the day?”
Averyfaint flush stained Fen’s cheeks, and I smirked. My style of flirting had always been dirtier than his, which was why he’d rarely seen it, as we’d spent the entirety of our friendship at work.
“It wasn’t exactly planned,” I admitted.
“Sounds like the kind of opening we’re gonna need a cuppa for.” Fen lit the flame beneath the kettle. “Go on.”
I sighed. “You really want to hear my family drama?”
“Course I do. I’m stuck with you for the next twenty-four hours, so you may as well entertain me.”
Twenty-four hours. “Dick.”
“Ouch. You’re a grumpy dude, eh? I always wondered.”
“What else did you wonder?”
Fen’s smile was…sweet. “Lots of things. Right now, I’m wondering if you slept okay, if you’re hungry, and if you want to use the landline to call your sister as the phone signal up here is pants.”
“Pants,” Charlie echoed.
“It is,” Fen agreed. He held my gaze for a moment, then turned to Charlie and wiped his sticky face with a damp cloth. “Do you still want to see the biggest Christmas tree in the world?”
Charlie’s eyes grew round. He clapped his hands.
Fen laughed and faced me again. “Is that okay? It’s not far from the house and I’ll keep him wrapped up in my coat like a newborn.”
Every instinct I had told me Charlie was safer with Fen than he was with anyone. More than that, Charlie washappywith Fen, after he’d spent the last year screaming every time a stranger had looked his way, a belated realisation that should’ve occurred to me the moment I’d come downstairs to find them together in the first place. But the fact that I’d spent his entire life trying to keep him safe from other people-induced disasters betrayed me.
I hesitated, and Fen saw it.
With Charlie on his hip, he rounded the counter and came to stand close to me. “Tell you what, why don’t you go take a shower and make whatever calls you need from my bedroom. Me and the bairn can watch cartoons until you get back.”