Hal felt a sense of peace settle over him. The fairy lights glowed around the windows, and the tree sparkled in the corner. It was nearly Christmas, a time for miracles, and he couldn’t deny there was a buzz of excitement deep in the pit of his belly.
Not that he was expecting anything to happen. Angel had said she was here to escape and to heal, and she’d implied there was some tragedy in her recent past that she needed to recover from. He was sure the last thing she needed was to complicate her life with... what? It wasn’t as if they could have a relationship, because she lived six hours’ drive away. A fling? He frowned, embarrassed at the thought. It was hardly fair to assume that because the woman had called in for pizza, she was interested in getting naked.
Although that would be fun. His gaze went unfocused at the thought of slowly removing Angel’s clothing and covering her soft skin with kisses...
No! That wasn’t on the table.
On the floor, then?
Angel glanced at him, and for the first time in about twenty years, he thought he might be blushing.
“Your turn,” she said, passing him the controller.
“Thanks.” He took it, trying not to laugh. He had to give himself a bit of a break. He hadn’t slept with anyone for years. There would have been something wrong with him if he hadn’t pictured Angel naked.
But that didn’t mean he’d act on it. Oddly, he was enjoying just having another adult in the house, even though at the moment most of the talk was revolving around whether they should change Harry’s wand to a carrot or not. He’d like to have a proper adult conversation with her. Would she stay for a drink after the kids had gone to bed?
At six thirty, after they finished a level of the game, he told Brenna it was time for her bath.
“I should go,” Angel said, putting down her controller.
“Aw.” Jamie looked disappointed. “Can she stay, Dad, while Brenna gets ready for bed?”
Hal looked at Angel, who met his gaze, smiling just a tiny bit. “It’s entirely up to you,” he said, “but I wondered whether you’d like to stay for a drink after the kids have gone to bed.”
She held his gaze for a moment longer than was necessary, and a tingle ran down his spine.
“Sure,” she said, picking up the controller. “Okay, Jamie. I’m happy to thrash you for one more level.”
Jamie laughed, because he’d wiped the floor with all of them, and Hal left them playing as he took a protesting Brenna up for her bath. She soon quieted though, as she splashed around and drew on the tiles with sparkly bath crayons, and then he read her a story while she had a glass of milk and a biscuit. He left her curled up with her bear, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“It’s nearly Christmas, Daddy,” she whispered.
“I know.” He smiled. “Santa’s checking his list, seeing whether you’ve been naughty or nice.”
“I’ve been nice. I promise.”
“I know. You’re such a sweetheart. I’m sure Santa has lots of lovely presents for you.”
“I wish you could be there when I open them.”
His throat tightened. “Me too. I’m sorry I won’t be.”
“Can’t you come over and have dinner with Mummy and Charles?”
“Not this year,” he told her gently.
“Is Mummy going to marry Charles?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I don’t want her to,” she said.
He stroked her hair. “He makes her happy. That’s what’s important.”
“Didn’t you make her happy?”
“No, honey, I didn’t. It’s nobody’s fault. It just happens sometimes.”
Brenna slid her thumb into her mouth. He tugged it out, knowing she’d slide it back in once he left the room.
“Sleep tight,” he said, going out and pulling the door to.
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” she called out.
Smiling, he walked along the corridor, back to the living room.
Jamie had just beaten Angel again, so they turned off the PlayStation, and Jamie went for his bath. Hal went into the kitchen to make him his supper, and Angel followed and leaned against the doorpost, watching him.
“We normally watch part of an episode of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth before he goes to bed,” Hal told her as he put some bread in the toaster. “We’ve got about thirty minutes of the last one to finish. Would that be okay?”
“Of course.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. Her eyes were warm, her lips curved in a smile.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, getting out a glass and pouring some milk into it.
“Much better, thank you. I’ve finally defrosted, I think.”
He chuckled. “You were doing a rather good snowman impression.”
“Seems like we make a good pair. Didn’t you say your ex compared you to Mr. Frosty?”
He gave her a wry look. “Are you mocking me?”
“No. Of course not. Okay, maybe a little.”
He turned and leaned against the counter, folding his arms. For a long moment, they just studied each other, smiling.
“Bit odd, this,” she said. “I didn’t expect to meet a gorgeous Viking lookalike when I came here on vacation.”
He recalled Brenna’s slip about Angel saying she thought he was yummy, and grinned. “And I didn’t expect to be visited by a real-life angel.”
She looked down at her feet and flexed her toes in her socks. “Hal...”
“I hope we can be friends,” he said. “I’m not expecting anything else.”
She lifted her gaze to his, and the warmth in her eyes told him she’d been worried about it. “You’ve been so good to me,” she said. “I hope Santa puts something extra special in your stocking.”
There was something about the way she said it that made his heart beat a little faster.
“Hey,” he said, “anything that turns up in stockings is okay with me.”
They both laughed, and he gestured to the living room with his head as he picked up Jamie’s supper. “Come on, let’s get the TV ready.”
He put in the DVD, and by the time Jamie came down squeaky clean and in his Iron Man pajamas, they were ready to watch.
They all sat on the sofa, Jamie in the middle, and watched the last part of the final episode of Planet Earth, talking about the whale sharks and dolphins and how sad it was that there used to be 300,000 blue whales and only three percent remained.
When the episode finished, Hal took Jamie to bed. Technically, now Jamie was seven, Hal knew the boy was old enough that he didn’t need his father tucking him in, but those last few minutes with his son were precious to him, and he also knew it wouldn’t be that long before the boy wouldn’t want him to do it.
Jamie read a little of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to him as part of his homework, and then Hal read a chapter too. Finally, he gave the boy a kiss on his forehead, leaving the light on.
“Thirty minutes,” Hal instructed him. “No more.”
“Yes, Dad.” Jamie was already settling down with his book. “Night.”
“Night, son.” Hal pulled the door to, and headed back to the living room.
He discovered Angel curled up in one of the armchairs, a tumbler in her hand filled with a deep amber liquid over ice—brandy. A glass of whisky sat on the coffee table, waiting for him.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I helped myself.”
“Not at all.” He went over to the speakers on the mantelpiece, plugged in his phone, and started a playlist he’d put together some time ago with slower Christmas songs and carols, and Nat King Cole began singing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Hal lowered himself onto the sofa, turned to stretch his legs out, and picked up the glass. “What shall we drink to?”
Angel thought about it. “To Santa,” she said, raising her glass.
“To Santa,” he said, toasting her. And he sipped the whisky, letting it sear down inside
him. It gave him a warm glow all the way through—or was it the whisky? Angel had hooked her legs over the arm of the chair, and she looked pleasantly relaxed.
He was looking forward to finding out more about her. She’d said she was here until the second of January—that was ten days they’d be on the island, both on vacation, because Hal didn’t have to go back until the sixth.
“Is the tide in now?” Angel asked.
He glanced at the clock—it was nearly eight p.m. “Not quite. Safe crossing is until around nine.”
“Are the tides, like, in your blood or something? How can you remember the times?”
“Instinct,” he said. “Today’s crossing times will be around an hour later than yesterday’s. It’s fairly easy to work out, and everyone on the island has a current tide table somewhere in the house.”
“It’s strange,” she said, “being cut off from the outside world. I know it’s not, but it’s kind of magical, isn’t it? Like Brigadoon. We don’t disappear for a hundred years, do we?”
He laughed. “No, although sometimes I can think of worse things.”
“Mmm,” she murmured. Her eyes met his, and suddenly he could think of nothing he wanted more than to be isolated with this woman, and drift away from the real world, to a place where it was always a magical winter wonderland.
Chapter Thirteen
Angel sipped her brandy, and gave a sigh of pleasure as the liquid threaded through her, warming and relaxing as it went.
Hal was watching her, and she couldn’t deny that her pulse had sped up a little since he came back into the room.
“So what did you get up to today?” he asked, sliding down the sofa a little so he could rest his head on the back.
She told him what she’d done, from washing her clothes to visiting the church and priory.
“I used to be a choir boy,” he said.
“That explains a lot.” She smiled.
He chuckled. “What did you think of the priory?”
“I thought it was beautiful. I’ve wanted to see it for so long. Tell me, did you have a hand in the information boards around the site?”
“I did. One of my proudest moments.”
“I can understand that. I’d feel the same if it were me.”
He sipped his whisky. “So you’re planning to look for another job?”
“That’s at the top of my wish list for next year,” she admitted. Mentioning the wish list reminded her that it had magically reappeared. “By the way, was it you or Ian who took the sheet of paper out of the glove box and put it in my case?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but met her gaze before he could reply. She could see instantly by the way his lips curved a tiny fraction that he’d read it—especially the last item.
“Jesus.” She tipped her head onto the back of the chair, her face burning.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Ian asked me to clear out the glove box, and I glanced at the paper to see whether it was rubbish or something you would want to keep.”
She sighed and looked back at him. “It’s okay. I hope it gave you a laugh.”
His expression softened. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
She studied her glass. “The last item was a joke. Kind of.” She smiled. “The rest of it was an attempt to think about tiny steps toward being happy, you know?”
“I get it.”
She nibbled her bottom lip. How much should she tell him? The room was so quiet, the mood relaxed and warm. Hal’s eyes were gentle, and she felt an urge to open up to him.
“The thing is,” she said hesitantly, “I suffer from depression.”
His brow flickered with a frown. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’ve had it a long time. I think it started when my father died, on Christmas Eve.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. I was only eight, hardly older than Jamie, but I took it really hard. I struggled all through my teens. I tried to hide it, and Mum didn’t really understand depression anyway, so I didn’t have any medication, or see a counsellor.”
She took a big mouthful of brandy and let it sear down to her stomach. “I was late going to university, but when I eventually went, I felt better, because I was busy, I suppose, doing something I loved. I took my MA, and I was doing really well. Then I met Eoin, at Exeter University. My family is from Chepstow, but when I finished my MA, he convinced me to stay in the West Country with him.”
She paused for a moment. We Three Kings was spilling from the speakers, filling the air with the haunting memory of Christmas past. “I was madly in love with him,” she said, staring into the fire. “I was completely consumed. I would have followed him anywhere. We rented an apartment, but we wanted our own house, and we needed a deposit to put down. I’d applied for the few archaeological jobs that were around, without any luck, and in the end, I thought I might as well do some secretarial work while I was waiting for something better, just to bring in some money.”
Hal nodded. “That makes sense.”
“But days turned into months, and months into years, and suddenly I was thirty and working at a lubrication firm. Where had all my dreams gone? There was no chance to look for a proper career. So I gave up on the idea, and decided I’d concentrate on my partner and having a family.”
She swallowed hard—this was the difficult part to discuss. “We began trying to get pregnant, but nothing happened. After a few years, we had some tests and discovered that the problem was with me. In the end we turned to IVF. We went through several cycles, but none of them worked. I began suffering from depression again, but although I went to the doctor, I was worried about taking medication, because you hear such horror stories about pregnancy and pills.”
Hal was watching her, his face serious. “That must have been hard.”
“Oh, it gets worse. After four rounds of IVF, our doctor started talking about other options like ovum donation or adoption. I didn’t cope with the news well—I spiraled down. It was hard on Eoin. Christmas is always difficult for me anyway, and he knew that; I suppose he could only see more misery ahead of us both. I got worse, and our relationship suffered. And then, last Christmas, he told me it was over. On Christmas Eve.”
“The anniversary of your father’s death?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, that’s harsh.”
She blinked away sudden tears at the way his expression hardened. “Yes. As you can imagine, it wasn’t a good Christmas. My mother and sister couldn’t cope, and my friends were pulling away. I’m not criticizing them, by the way—I fully understand how hard I must have been to be around back then. I’m not sure if you know a lot about depression, but it’s like cancer of the soul. It eats away at your personality, and it changes you, taking away all the nice things about you. It attacks your self-esteem and erodes it. It’s like there’s someone sitting on your shoulder, telling you that you’re useless, and that you’ll never amount to anything. It kept telling me I’d fucked everything up, including my relationship. I withdrew from everyone and everything. Nobody noticed or cared—or that’s how it felt, which only made things worse. January went, and then suddenly it was Valentine’s Day, and I...” She stopped, took a swig of brandy, swallowed hard, and blew out a breath. “I took an overdose.”
“Oh, Angel...” He sat up and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and for a long time they just studied each other, the silence saying more than words could ever have done.
“Lesa found me,” she said. “My older sister. She saved my life. Seems to be a common occurrence.” Her lips twisted.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
“She thinks it was a cry for help, so does my mum. It wasn’t, not in the sense they mean, anyway. I didn’t know Lesa was coming home early. I meant to take my own life. I was past considering the effect it would have on other people. I didn’t leave a note. I just wanted out.”
She finished off her brandy and sat up to put the glass
on the table. “I stayed in hospital for a while. I met my therapist there. She was the first person I’d spoken to who seemed to understand what I was going through. I saw her every day for a while, then every other day, then twice a week for a few months. Now I just see her once a week. And I’m on medication. I’m very religious with taking it, and haven’t missed a dose since.”
“Why?” he asked.
Angel’s eyebrows rose. His gaze was direct, which surprised her. When she did tell people what had happened, which was rare, most people backed away at the speed of light. It was an interesting question, something that Jackie herself might have asked.
“Because... over the last six months, I’ve begun to feel different from how I felt before. My life isn’t perfect, but I feel more... responsible for it than I did. At the beginning of the year, I felt out of control. Life was something that happened to me. My relationship had ended, I was in a dull job, and I felt like I’d let myself down. We only get one chance at life, probably, and I felt like I’d blown it. And trying to put it right felt too difficult. Relationships are hard, and I couldn’t bear the thought of starting again. I tried to get another job but there’s so little around, as you know, and I’d been out of the field for a while. It was all too hard, and I felt worthless.”
“But you feel different now?” he asked.
She nodded. “I suppose the medication is helping, and the counselling, of course. My therapist has helped me rebuild my sense of self-worth, and she taught me that I don’t always have to ask for help—that I can cope. She’s taught me that I don’t need saving, not all the time, anyway.” Her lips twisted. “Only when I get caught by the tide.”
“Aw,” he said. “You’d already saved yourself. I just stepped in with the final evacuation.”
She smiled. “It’s given me a better sense of control over my own life. I take things a step at a time now.”
“Hence the wish list.”
“Hence the wish list,” she said, and smiled. “The latter part of this year, I’ve been working hard on taking steps to get my life in order. I’ve applied for jobs, and although I haven’t had much luck yet, I’ll get something eventually. I’ve been going to the gym, and walking a lot. I do a Yoga evening class. I’ve been listening to music, and being creative—painting and writing. I feel a lot better. But Christmas was always going to be a problem.”
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